Lost Recap: The Cost of Living

So get this, next week is the last new episode of Lost before is goes on break until January!  Didn’t this show just start?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to watching Taye Diggs every Wednesday night, but I just started caring about this show again and now it’s going away.  Geesh!!

If you’ve been reading the GMMR Lost recaps, then you know that Michelle is a fantastic recapper.  She’s going to have a little time off while Lost is on hiatus.  I think if you leave her some nice comments we might be able to convince her to stick around and maybe take on the recapping duties for another show.  Whadya say?  Can we show her the love?

As for tonight’s Lost, well I only watched it once, and once is never enough to watch this show.  There were certainly some heavy themes and a MAJOR surprise death.  Can you believe they killed off Sawyer?  I mean, I never saw that coming. Kidding…just kidding.  I thought it was a good episode, but it didn’t do much to push the storyline along.

What did you all think of tonight’s ep?

Title: The Cost of Living
Original Airdate: 11/1/06
Lots of religious imagery – I really do love that about this show – and I’m sure there are even more allusions and images I missed.  I love that this show delves so heavily into the mystery and symbolism of Christianity.  You won’t find that on “According to Jim.”

FLASHBACK: A young Eko – perhaps 12 or 13 – is with his younger brother (young Eko looks startlingly like present-day Eko, which is unusual on TV.  Lots of times, the young actors look nothing like their older alter-egos).  They break into a shed and Eko takes food to give to his brother.  A woman sees him and drags the boys into a church, where she demands Eko confess his sin.

PRESENT: Sayid, Hurley and Charlie are watching over an unconscious Eko, who has been unresponsive for about two days.  Sayid asks for clarification regarding exactly what happened to him.  Charlie has apparently filled the until-now vacant position of island smart-ass, and he answers:

“Before or after we saved him from the polar bear cave?”

Eko hallucinates; he sees the series events surrounding the drug plan taking off from his homeland, his brother being shot, and he himself being tossed from the plane before he takes off.  He also sees his brother, right there in the tent with him, and his brother urges him to confess.  Next thing we know, the tent is in flames, and Charlie, Hurley and Sayid pull Eko to safety under a tree.  Before long, however, he apparently takes off and is gone into the jungle.

Jack is doing pull-ups in his aquarium.  Ben, dressed in Hari Krishna attire, invites him to join him for a walk (he also has an extra Hari Krishna getup for Jack to wear – so, a field trip AND new duds.  Bonus!).  Jack obliges, and as he’s getting dressed, he questions Ben about the spinal x-rays; Ben denies that they’re his.

Turns out, the Others are having a funeral on the beach for Colleen.  They launch her out to sea on a homemade raft while torches burn and a song (forgive me, I don’t recognize it) blares on the PA system (yes, PA system – think “Gilligan’s Island”).  Sometimes, watching “Lost” gives me the creeps, like when I have a really bizarre dream or when I watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  It’s just too other-worldly.  This is one of those times.  Syonara, Colleen.  Meanwhile, Locke decides to go look for the computer he knows is in the Pearl station, and Eko stumbles through the woods on his own.

FLASHBACK: If it looks like a priest and talks like a priest, it must be a priest…and now Eko is a “priest” in his brother’s church, and no one there is any the wiser.  He tells church members that his brother has gone away, and he’s taking his place at the church and will also take his place on his upcoming trip to London.

PRESENT: Big jumbled mess in the woods: the BLACK SMOKE MOMSTER drifts behind Eko, he has hallucinations and sees bloody men, kids and altar boys.

Locke sets out on his quest and invites along anyone who wants to go.  This surprises the other Lostaways, who are used to Jack’s proclamations of “I’ll take Kate/I’ll take Sawyer/I’ll take Sayid and the rest of you stay here.”  Two new Lostaways join Locke, along with Hurley, Sayid, and (yum) Desmond.  Locke has apparently converted back to his Man of Faith mode, because when Desmond tells him it’s a big coincidence that they’re heading for the same hatch as Eko is, but for different reasons, Locke responds with, “Don’t mistake coincidence for fate.”  Wise words.

FLASHBACK: Eko finds out that the Red Cross sometimes drops a vaccine shipment to the village.  Unfortunately, the frightened villagers give away 80% of this shipment to the militia that is “protecting” them, and the militia can sell it for big bucks on the black market.  Eko says he’s not afraid of the militia, but then the leader calmly shoots a woman at random in the crowd outside the church to show Eko exactly why he should be scared.

PRESENT: Juliet brings Jack a cheeseburger and french fries (I have no idea), and they do some pretty heavy flirting until Ben wanders in and says he needs to talk to Jack privately (“doctor/patient confidentiality”).  Ben cops to being the skeleton in the x-rays Jack saw, and he really does have a tumor.  He wants Jack to WANT to operate on him (big order, doncha think?) and their plan was to assimilate him into their group so he’d feel like one of them; Ben also mentions the fact that Juliet looks startlingly like Jack’s ex-wife.  Now that Jack knows about Ben and why he’s really been brought there, though, the friendship gig is up. Ben asks Jack if he believes in God, and Jack turns around and asks Ben the same question.  Ben’s response:

“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.”

I have nothing, sarcastic or otherwise, to add to that.

FLASHBACK: A woman tells Eko that she can tell he’s a good man.  Flash to Eko (in non-priest clothes) trying to make arrangements with another guy to sell part of the vaccine drop.  Maybe not such a good man after all, you might say.  I might agree.

PRESENT: The group reaches the Pearl.  Locke tells Eko that when he was in the woods, he saw a beautiful white light.  Eko tells Locke that this is NOT what he himself saw.  And to make matters even darker, Eko’s brother’s body (dead body, mind you) is no longer in the drug plane, where it was before.  The girl Lostaway (there has to be a better way to say that) wonders aloud why there are several TV monitors in the hatch; she suggests they tap into them and see what’s going on in the other hatches.  They do just that…and see a creepy man with a patch over his eye looking right back at them through the footage on one of the other monitors.  Yikes!  Who is he?  WHERE is he?  Yet more mystery…

FLASHBACK: the militia busts into the church when they find out about Eko’s plans to sell the vaccine and keep it from them.  We do, however, realize that Eko probably had good intentions, and he thought that if the vaccines can fetch so much money on the black market, why not sell them himself and let his village benefit from that money?  The unsympathetic leader is about to cut off Eko’s hands, but Eko beats them all up, and then kills the leader with a big machete knife.  Yep, right there in the church.  He literally has blood on his hands as he leaves the church.

PRESENT: Juliet enters Jack’s aquarium to apologize.  She says she has a movie for him to watch – “To Kill a Mockingbird” – and wheels the TV in front of his cell and pops in the film, despite Jack’s protests.  This is one of my favorite scenes in the series so far…as she’s talking and giving Jack a calm, measured speech about how Ben is a good guy and how Jack should do the surgery to save his life, the action on the TV monitor is telling quite a different story.  Rather than seeing Atticus Finch defend Tom Robinson in the courtroom, Jack is watching a videotape of Juliet holding up cue cards, each with writing that directly contradicts what she’s saying out loud.  Don’t forget, Jack’s cell is monitored and Ben can hear and see everything going on in there – except for what’s on the silent TV monitor that’s facing the cell and NOT the camera.  Her cue cards tell Jack that Ben is a liar and a dangerous man.  Some members want a change, but it would have to look like an accident, so Jack could “mess up” the complicated surgery and kill Ben, but make it look like an accident.  But can our mighty and noble Jack do this?  After all, Jack’s thing is SAVING people, not KILLING people.  We’ll see.

FLASHBACK: Eko’s congregation is upset with him for killing the militia man inside their church.  They are boarding it up.

PRESENT: Eko sees his brother in the jungle on the island.  It’s confession time, and I’m pretty sure this one’s not getting a stamp of approval from the Catholic church:
“I ask for no forgiveness, Father, for I have not sinned.  I have only done what I needed to do to survive.”
(In Eko’s case that’s probably accurate, but can’t we all justify most of the bad things we do using that very logic?  “I had no choice.”  Probably so.)  The apparent hallucination that is Eko’s brother looks unmoved and says, “You speak to me as if I were your brother.”

Well, then, who is he?  If it walks like a priest and talks like a priest…

Just then, the BLACK MONSTER, which has been stalking Eko through the jungle (and which seems to appear whenever Eko has a hallucination or sees his brother…hmmmm….), picks up Eko, and beats him with a ferociousness rarely seen in fictional, imaginary monsters.  The hatch explorers find him, Eko whispers something to Locke, and he dies.  When Sayid asks what was said, Locke responds, “He said we’re next.”
Next week is the “season finale” until “Lost” re-appears again in February with all-new episodes.  Better than skipped weeks and endless repeats, for sure…and it gives us lots of time to contemplate all of the information we’ve been served thus far.