The Cost of Living (305)

[GateWorld]

LOST SEASON THREE THE COST OF LIVING EPISODE NUMBER - 305 Eko is driven into the jungle by a vision of his brother, who tells him he must seek forgiveness. Locke leads a group to the Pearl station in the hopes of using the surveillance system to find Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. VISIT THE EPISODE GUIDE >

[cindyz]

Really fracking mad they've gone and gotten rid of Mr. Ecko. replaced with some new folks I dont give a rat's hind quarters about. other than that.....I hope Jack does the dirty deed on Ben.

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

I am going to describe this episode in one word-HOLY S**T. What an awesome episode, I can not wait for next weeks finale, it looks awesome. I'm sad Ecko died, I guess the DUI-arrest curse hit again.

[Arative]

I was suprised that Eko died. I wonder if he had been sorry for what he had done and asked forgivness, would he have still been alive? Did the cloud form into his a copy of his brother to test him? What is the curse on the tail people that they all die? I think that is sloppy writing personally. Introduce new characters only to kill them off immediately. Just doesn't make sense to me.

I thought that Juliette was testing Jack with the flash cards. They want to see if he will stoop to murdering someone. I'll be interested in seeing what happens.
Since I believe that the next episode is the last one until Feburary, I'm predicting that the last scene will be with Ben on the operating table and then we hear the heart monitor go flat line. That is how this 7 episode mini arc will end, so as to keep us in suspense until the shows start again.

[KatG]

Wow! Didn't expect Eko to die. At least he died at peace with himself apparently. And we finally got to see "the monster" attack. Really, really freaky huh? So Eko told Locke that they're next huh? Eeek!

Will Jack cure or kill Ben? As much as he despises him, will his ethics prevent him from going to the point of killing him or has the island and his experiences changed him.

From the previews, next week looks to be interesting for Kate and Sawyer. I'm thinking that we'll get Kate flashbacks next week, since we've already had Sawyer's and Jack's. I can't wait.

And is next week the last one of the mini-arc until February or do we get one more after? I can't remember if it's supposed to be 6 or 7.

[FoolishPleasure]

Wow, when "smokey" gets mad, watch out! Poor Eko, I really liked him and think there was more he could have done. That whole scene talking to his "brother" was sure creepy. Can smokey change shape? Was smokey also Hurley's "Dave"? Or Jack's dad? Or Kate's horse?

Who the heck is Eye-Patch Dude?

I also think Juliette was testing Jack. I know the actress who plays Juliette signed a contract for the entire season, but I'm not sure how many episodes Ben is signed for.

[jds1982]

So So mad that Eko died, and who the hell were those two other people who went to the hatch with Locke? I could give a rat's ass about them, you can't just drop new people in without a decent introduction. I wonder how long it will be before Bernard bites it and all the tailies are dead.

[memnarch]

It does seem to be an alarming trend that the Lost producers killed off everyone from the tailsection. So much for shifting focus to new characters as others get killed off! So sad to see Mr. Eko go! He was one of the most fascinating characters out there! I thought this seemed to come out of no where though, since it appeared that he had become more priestlike the last time we saw him, before the hatch imploded.

Smokey was Yemi all along! Does that mean it's appeared as Boone and Yemi to Locke as well? Are all the hallucinations "the monster?" And how about Locke seeing a bright light? I thought it was a bit clicheed to have the white guy see the light, while the black guy sees darkness, but what are you gonna do? Perhaps that's why Locke was surprised to see it in smoke form in Exodus.

It'll be interesting to see if Jack goes through with it. I doubt it, since the hypocratic oath states he must do no harm. I think if Juliet is really serious about it, she'll have to kill Ben herself. Ben's scheme was also interesting. Further proof that he's a very manipulating person. Nikki and Paulo seemed to be thoroughly unnecessary in going to the Pearl. The others could easily have figured out about the computer feeds. Locke saw the video before and he would have caught it. If they don't develop those two soon, I won't care about them. At least the tailies were all interesting (why did they kill them all???)

Overall, I give it ***

[FoolishPleasure]

It does seem to be an alarming trend that the Lost producers killed off everyone from the tailsection.

I think Bernard is the only Tailie left, except for that girl who disappeard when the group was carrying the wounded Sawyer last year.

[hobbitsrule]

I felt bad for Ben. He seemes to be genuinely scared about the tumor he has.
I also think that Ben believes what he is doing is right. He said that he grew up on the island, so he doesn't really know any other life. He has been raised to be the way he is, IMO.

We'll see what Jack decides to do, I still can't decide if Juliet is good or not. It will be interesting to see how TBTB decide to work that out. I kind of hope Ben doesn't die though.


Ugh...why do they have to have a break until February??? WHY do my favorite shows like to do that? First Stargate...and now Lost? geez...As of next week I will have nothing to watch...

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

Heart stopping episode. Poor Eko. And "we're next?" OMG!

About black guy/black cloud, white guy/white light, I don't think the writers were thinking about that. I think that they wanted to show that Eko's past, his fearlessness before evil, because he looks upon it as an equal, made him react to the (what I suspect is a) hallucinogen, seeing it as a dark cloud. Whereas Locke, who is always being manipulated by people because he tends to see the good in folks, would have reacted to the (supposed, by me) hallucinogen in the naive, cliche, fundamentalist manner.

I'm glad the writers are finally bringing in other survivors. It fits with what Locke was saying; that Jack kept things to himself, but the new, improved leadership of the survivors will have a more open policy. The teacher that got blowed up commented to Hurley on how left out the other survivors felt way back in early season two, so it's consistent.

Locke would not have noticed the detail about there being other stations that they might have looked into because he was totally distracted by his feeling of helpless bitterness at discovering that he'd once again been played for the fool. I didn't notice the detail when he and Eko had first listened to the tapes, did you?

About Eye-Patch guy; well, now we know who the glass eye belongs to.... I wonder why it turned up in that chest in the otherwise cleaned out hatch the Tailies found?

As for the Jack/Julliette/Ben triangle, I don't know who to believe. But the teaser for next week makes it look like Jack has his own way of dealing with both of them.

Gawd, I love this show!

[Vyse]

What was the point in developing the new "Tailie" characters if they kill all them off anyway!! Mr. Ecko was a great character he grew alot in a short time, too bad he died. Can't they kill some of the annoying characters for once? I wouldn't be surprised if they kill Bernard next.

[rarocks24]

I think Bernard is the only Tailie left, except for that girl who disappeard when the group was carrying the wounded Sawyer last year.

Isn't there an hispanic guy that survived from the tail section as well?

[KatG]

About black guy/black cloud, white guy/white light, I don't think the writers were thinking about that. I think that they wanted to show that Eko's past, his fearlessness before evil, because he looks upon it as an equal, made him react to the (what I suspect is a) hallucinogen, seeing it as a dark cloud. Whereas Locke, who is always being manipulated by people because he tends to see the good in folks, would have reacted to the (supposed, by me) hallucinogen in the naive, cliche, fundamentalist manner.

I don't think they were thinking about the black guy/black cloud, white guy/white light either. What you're saying seems more logical.

My original thought was that Eko saw a black cloud because of the things he had done in the past, bad things by most people's standards, even if he did feel he had no choice. Locke on the other hand is an innocent for the most part, he has a certain naivete and tends to look at the world through rose colored glasses, even given the bad experiences he's had in life.

Also remember, the island healed Locke, so in his mind it was good. Eko has had nothing but bad experiences with the island so in his mind it's bad. So maybe people see what they expect to see.

[sgeureka]

Darn! I had accidently read on last week's Ask Aussiello that someone would die in this episode, so that majorly spoiled it for me. I'm just glad it's Eko and not one of more important players. Before S3 began I had figured Eko, Sayid and Jin were probably among the next to die, so I can live with the death in this ep.

The episode itself wasn't that interesting. This wasn't the first Eko episode where the flashbacks just bored the heck out of me. What I didn't expect though was that Smokey would be the culprit, and also that TPTB would make it so obvious what Smokey was. I've been thinking Smokey would work that way; I just didn't expect that I was right. (When are we ever?)

But what I'm wondering now is how many Smokeys exist. We knew Smokey could be a good creature(?) or deadly violent. Maybe it's not because of its mood or the person it is checking out, but because there are several smoke entities. If Lost is really going for some more seasons, I guess that's one possibility to keep the stories interesting for a little while longer.

Nikki and Paolo - nuff said. I am surprised that I find the Others now much more appealing than them; at this moment I'd care more about Ben, Juliet or Pickett dying than those two. I hope N&P will be given something other to do than supply potty humor and pointing out the obvious.

I would love to trust Juliet since I know Ben is great liar. I know Juliet will

Spoiler:

have her flashback soon (in the 7th ep),

so there's hope that we'll finally know what to think of the whole situation. I'll give her two thirds of my trust; Ben will have the rest. (He was surprisingly straight forward in this episode, don't you think?)

Also, since TPTB love to use indicative names, I wondered this morning whether they are going for Jack:=Romeo. A tale of two cities and two families after all... Jack and Juliet seem to have a pretty good chemistry also, so I'm fine with that. Let's see what Ben will say to that, if he survives, that is.



Edit (doublepost):
I hope Charlie is going to finish Eko's church. That would finish that chapter of Eko's past and would also give Charlie some kind of arc in faith.