Home Featured TV Shows All TV Shows Movie Reviews Book Reviews Articles Frequently Asked Questions About Us

Lost: The Cost of Living

Altar boy: "Are you a bad man? My mom says you're a bad man."
Eko: "Only God knows."

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

This episode left a bad taste in my mouth, in a great big way. Yes, it was moving and well written, but I was still majorly pissed that Eko, one of my favorite characters, died that way. That he didn't finish the church he was building for Yemi. That he and Locke didn't figure out the mystic mysteries of the Island together.

Okay, they did complete Eko's story, to some extent. The flashbacks took place between the action in "The 23rd Psalm" and "?". I rather liked that Eko didn't just immediately change after donning his priestly robes. I also liked that in the end, he didn't feel he had to confess. (Although his refusal to do so was probably what killed him.)

So now we have Yemi walking around, just like Jack's father, Christian. Both of their physical bodies have disappeared. I'm starting to believe that the walking dead aren't hallucinations, after all. But what are they? 'Yemi' and the Monster appeared to be connected. "Are you ready, Eko?" Yemi asked him. When Eko refused to confess and ask forgiveness, the Monster took him. Yemi was the judge, and the Monster the executioner.

Eko and Locke were our two mystics, two sides of the same coin. Locke is a good soul, an innocent, while Eko overcame tremendous darkness to reach the same place as Locke. When Locke saw the Monster, he saw a beautiful white light. Eko saw a black cloud of smoke. Why did they see the Monster as two different things? And more importantly, how could the Monster be two things at once? This must have something to do with why the Others recruit "good" people but not bad. After Ben told Jack that his presence was proof that there was a God, I thought, oh, no, don't tell me they're bringing religion into this. If the Island is an experiment being carried out by God, then I'm out of here.


Meanwhile, back in the Hydra Hatch, the music video message boards instead of To Kill a Mockingbird were just bizarre. Juliet didn't actually tell Jack to murder Ben; she said it had to look like an accident. I absolutely do not trust Juliet as far as I can throw her. Why did they kidnap Jack, really? Was Juliet just playing mind games with him? If she knew Jack at all, she would have known that Jack is extremely protective of his patients. I can't see Jack deliberately killing anyone on his table, for any reason.

Doesn't the Island heal people? What if there was nothing wrong with Ben? Was Juliet the one who diagnosed his tumor? Jack asked Ben about symptoms, and there were none. Desmond believed that he caused the crash of Flight 815, but there have also been numerous hints that it happened for a reason. What if Juliet knew that Jack would be on the plane, and this was a giant ploy on her part to take Ben out? Could she be that devious?

Character bits:

I was unhappy that Eko died. But then again, I was unhappy with Boone's and Shannon's deaths, as well. All of the Tailies, with the exception of Bernard, are now gone. Doesn't seem right.


I thought that Eko with a gun in one hand, bloody machete in the other, wearing the clothes of a priest but with a bloodstained collar, was probably the most accurate representation of him. He wanted to be good, but was constantly forced in another direction. As Eko said, "I did not ask for the life that I was given. But it was given, nonetheless. And with it, I did my best."

Locke invited everyone to go explore the Pearl Hatch with him. Jack would have gone alone, or with a selected few.

Desmond appeared to join Sayid and Locke as part of the Island Leadership Committee.

That brief glimpse on camera of the guy with the huge eye-patch was startling. Where was he?

Nikki and Paulo seemed to be a couple. I'm not sure I care. But then again, I felt that way about most of the characters before they got their own backstories.

The Others wore white to Colleen's funeral. Are they Buddhists? Hindus? And what was with setting her body on fire, and adrift? Are they Vikings, too?

Ben was very threatened by Juliet spending time with Jack. They scream ex.

Ben said they chose Juliet because she looked like Sarah. (Yeah, she's blonde, but I didn't think there was that much of a resemblance.) So they do have current files on Jack, then, with photos.

Bits and pieces:

— Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was the third cast member who had problems with the law in Hawaii, and whose character was killed off not long after. Coincidence?

— Yemi's and Christian's bodies were both above ground. Does burying them keep them from walking around? If not, are Boone, Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby and the Marshall going to show up, too? (I guess Boone already did, for that matter.)

— How did the hut catch fire? Was it Yemi?

— In one of those final scenes, Eko appeared to be in a garden of big red flowers. Flowers don't grow that way naturally. Whose garden was it? Was it an hallucination? A biblical reference to Gethsemane?


— Where did the Others get a hamburger and a bun? Seriously.

— At least we now know how Greg Grunberg got up in the top of that tree, way back in the very first episode.

Quotes:

Desmond: "That's quite a coincidence."
Locke: "Don't mistake coincidence for fate."
This was what Eko told Locke in "What Kate Did."

Ben: "Do you believe in God, Jack?"
Jack: "Do you?"
Ben: "Two days after I found out I had a fatal tumor on my spine, a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky. And if that's not proof of God, I don't know what is."

Yemi: "You speak to me as if I were your brother."
Eko: "Who are you?"
Some sort of embodiment of the Island?

Sayid: "What did he say, John?"
Locke: "He said, we're next."
Next to be judged and possibly executed, like Eko?

Lost is always complex, well-written, and well-acted, but I like some episodes less than others. Two stars,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

3 comments:

  1. I love this episode, and I think it's very important that Locke saw a "white light" where Eko saw the pillar of black smoke.

    "The Others wore white to Colleen's funeral. Are they Buddhists? Hindus? And what was with setting her body on fire, and adrift? Are they Vikings, too?"

    They are Clinians. They worship at the altar of Patsy Cline, and base their worship on the immortal words of her hymns.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Although I didn´t like Eko, I wonder what would have happend with his character as the show moved on. What did the writers originally plan for this character?

    ReplyDelete
  3. A piece of crap spammer is repeatedly hitting this review, so I have to close down the comments. Sorry about that.

    ReplyDelete