{"id":27927,"date":"2015-01-25T09:17:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T14:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=27927"},"modified":"2015-01-25T09:17:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T14:17:10","slug":"lost-rewatch-the-cost-of-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/01\/lost-rewatch-the-cost-of-living.html","title":{"rendered":"LOST Rewatch: The Cost of Living"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The episide begins with a flashback of Eko\u2019s childhood. He breaks into a locked storeroom. Eko is told by a nun that he is a sinner, but Eko protests that Yemi was hungry. Then, on the island, Eko sees Yemi, who tells him that it is time to confess, to be judged. In flashbacks, we also see other details we had seen before, and then Eko being returned to the church after Yemi was shot and the plane took off. In the church, he finds Yemi\u2019s Bible, and a photo of them when they were young in it. A woman comes in, and asks if Eko will be taking Yemi\u2019s place. Yemi had been supposed to go to London to continue his studies, and Eko says he will take his place there too. Then on the island, Eko sees people from his past, including an altar boy. In another flashback, we learn that the church has to give 80% of vaccine shipments from the Red Cross to a local militia for \u201cprotection.\u201d The warlord is much the same kind of figure that Eko used to be, but now Eko is serving, or posing, as a priest. When the warlord comes to Eko to punish him for trying to sell vaccines behind his back, Eko kills him and his men. The altar boy asks Eko if he is a bad man, and Eko says \u201cOnly God knows.\u201d The woman from the clinic says that one day he will be judged for what he did, and adds that if he really believes this is Yemi\u2019s, then he owed him one church, because this one is no longer sacred.<\/p>\n

\"TheCostofLiving_Eko_Yemi\"Jack is doing pull-ups in his cell. Ben asks him to come for a walk. Jack asks Ben if his neck hurts or if he has other symptoms from the tumor. He tells Ben that if those x-rays aren\u2019t very recent, then he won\u2019t be taking walks much longer. Again, Jack is manipulating Ben the same sort of way Ben manipulated him. Ben takes him, dressed in white, to Coleen\u2019s funeral. They place her on a raft and set it alight. Later, Ben talks about the plans he had to \u201cbreak\u201d Jack\u00a0and to get him to want to save Ben\u2019s life. Now, he says, all he can do is ask him to think about it. Ben asks Jack if he believes in God, and Jack asks Ben if he does. Ben says that two days after he was diagnosed with a tumor, a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky. Ben says, if that isn\u2019t proof of God, he doesn\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n

Desmond suggests that they can use a computer in another hatch to communicate with the Others. Locke auotes Eko to Desmond, saying \u201cDon\u2019t mistake coincidence for fate.\u201d Nikki suggests that they can use the other TVs in the Pearl station to see what is happening in other hatches around the island. We see a man with an eye patch.<\/p>\n

Eko finds that Yemi\u2019s body is gone from the plane. Locke suggests that it might have been burned when they set the plane in fire, or animals might have gotten to it. Locke returns to Eko the cross that he found when he was out looking for him. When he is alone, Yemi appears to him and leads him into the jungle and then amidst some flowers. Eko says he asks for no forgiveness, for he has not sinner, he has only done what he needed to do to survive. Eko says that if he could answer the young boy who asked him if he was a bad man, he would say that he is not sorry but proud that he did his best with the life he was given. Yemi responds, \u201cYou speak to me as if I were your brother\u201d and walks away. Eko keeps asking, \u201cWho are you?\u201d And then the smoke monster confronts him. Eko recites Psalm 23 but the smoke grabs him and pounds him against trees and then into the ground. Eko whispers to Locke with his dying breath, \u201cYou\u2019re next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juliette apologizes to Jack. She says that she will put on To Kill A Mockingbird<\/em>. Juliette says some things to Jack, but on the screen at the same time is a recording of her holding cards with writing on them, indicating that Ben is a liar, and that some people want a change, and so Jack could use the surgery as an opportunity to kill Ben and make it look like an accident. It is a complicated surgery and so no one would know.<\/p>\n

\"305-smokey-eko-02\"It is interesting to consider this episode in relation to Ben\u2019s later statement that he must be judged, and then he too interacts with the smoke monster. Also, how did Eko\u2019s fit into the plan of Jacob\u2019s brother? We know that the actor who played Eko wanted to leave and the writes had not wanted him to, and so Eko\u2019s death may still have served the interests of the storyline poorly. But it is certainly plausible that Eko\u2019s unwillingness to be manipulated into confessing things he did not consider sins indicated that he could not be used\u00a0for Jacob\u2019s brother\u2019s purposes, and might even interfere with them. Indeed, perhaps Jacob\u2019s brother had wanted Locke to lose faith and stop pushing the button, as an initial plan for how to destroy the island\u00a0and set himself free.<\/p>\n

The episode, taken in conjunction with earlier ones, raises the question of the existence of God very directly. And yet it does so in terms of\u00a0proof<\/em> of God, and that leads us back to the question of when we may be mistaking coincidence for fate, and when events working together for a particular end is part of the natural working of the universe, or the will of a personal being, human or divine.<\/p>\n

\"The_Cost_of_Living_-_Eko\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The episide begins with a flashback of Eko\u2019s childhood. He breaks into a locked storeroom. Eko is told by a nun that he is a sinner, but Eko protests that Yemi was hungry. Then, on the island, Eko sees Yemi, who tells him that it is time to confess, to be judged. In flashbacks, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":28244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[1406,1996,2120,2993,3369,5501,5843,6719,8136,9214,9507,9681,11329,11452,13970],"class_list":["post-27927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lost","tag-brother","tag-coincidence","tag-confession","tag-eko","tag-fate","tag-jacob","tag-john-locke","tag-lost","tag-nigeria","tag-plan","tag-priest","tag-providence","tag-sin","tag-smoke-monster","tag-yemi"],"yoast_head":"\nLOST Rewatch: The Cost of Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The episide begins with a flashback of Eko's childhood. He breaks into a locked storeroom. 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