Changes: The Cost of Living

Revision as of 08:43, 4 November 2006

"The Cost of Living" is the fifth episode of Season 3 of Lost. It focuses on Eko and a group of survivors, who set off to the Pearl station in an attempt to locate Jack, Kate and Sawyer.

A delirious Eko wrestles with demons from his past, while Locke and some of the other castaways head back to The Pearl -- one of the DHARMA Initiative's island stations -- hoping to find a computer that they can use to locate Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Meanwhile, Jack doesn't know whom to trust when two of The Others seem at odds with one another.

Synopsis

The episode begins with a delirious Eko dreaming about his brother. Suddenly, his brother appears to him in a vision, which ultimately ends up with Eko's tent on fire. As the other lostaways charge in to rescue their friend and put out the fire, Eko escapes into the forest, mumbling something about "My brother". (see Yemi)

The next morning, Locke, Desmond, and Sayid discuss how to go about rescuing Jack, Sawyer, and Kate. Desmond informs them that the Dharma Initiative computers are used for communication as well as Pushing The Button. Charlie arrives and informs the group about Eko's ramblings as he disappeared the night before. Locke, remembering the events of ?, realizes that Eko is heading to The Pearl station, as he had before when having visions of his brother. Locke, Sayid, and Desmond pack up to follow him. Nikki joins them against Paulo's advice, stating that she's finally getting a chance to participate in what's going on.

They travel to the Pearl, meeting Eko along the way, and arrive at the Beechcraft where they descend into the Pearl, however Eko stays above. Down below, Desmond and Sayid examine the equipment, and patch in a feed from another station into the monitors. A man with an eyepatch is shown briefly, and then he destroys the camera. The sound of a toilet flushing is followed by Paulo emerging from a previously unnoticed restroom hidden behind a wall panel. Suddenly, the noise of the monster can be heard from above, and the crew rushes upward.

Eko is taunted by more visions of his brother, and in a field that looks like a garden, tells him that he is not sorry for how he has lived his life. Eko states that he only did what he needed to do to survive, and even though he does not like the life he was given, he did the best he could with it. Yemi makes a statement which implies him not to be Eko's real brother, suddenly becomes angry, and disappears. Eko follows, only to be confronted by the monster. Eko begins to recite Psalm 23, but the monster engulfs him, slamming him against trees and the ground with unrestrained fury.

Locke and the others arrive to find a badly beaten Eko. Before Eko dies, he whispers softly into Locke's ear. Sayid asks what his last words were, and Locke replies with "We're next."

The funeral of Colleen is shown; Jack and The Others attend garbed in white shirts. Back in The Hydra, Jack is told by Ben that the spinal tumor xrays are in fact his, and that he wants Jack to help take them out. Juliet, knowing the room is monitored, tells Jack that she brought the movie To Kill a Mockingbird for him to watch. Jack tells her that he isn't interested, but she puts the tape in and moves the television close to the glass wall. The tape consists of Juliet holding flashcards, suggesting that Ben is not a good person, and that some of The Others want change. She wants Jack to operate, and make a fatal 'mistake' to end his life. Juliet is saying the complete opposite of what the video tells Jack, as to not arouse the suspicion of whomever is watching the room on CCTV.

Trivia

After Eko's death, the only surviving member of the Tailies is Bernard, excluding those who went missing and are presumed to be captured by the Others or dead.
Eko is only the second person to be officially killed by the monster. The first being the pilot.
Jack tells Ben that he would be feeling tingling in his fingers as the result of his "L4 tumor". These symptoms, however, would be in his lower extremity, not upper. This is perhaps a writing error.
In the video, Juliet is wearing the same outfit she was wearing in the flashback in A Tale of Two Cities. She is also standing in her house in Otherville. The scenes were possibly filmed at the same time to ease production.

Cultural References

Eko and Locke remove the rocks blocking the plane door only to find that Yemi's body has disappeared. This is reminiscent of the stories of Lazarus' tomb, and/or Jesus Christ's resurrection, from the Christian Bible. In this case, the plane is likened to Yemi's "tomb," and this reference seems appropriate as Yemi was a priest.
The monster acts based on actions of the character which it is stalking. A similar security system in Steven King's Dark Tower series kills intruders by reaching into their worst fear and attacking them with this info.
Before his death, Eko begins to recite Psalm 23.
Juliet offered to show Jack the movie To Kill a Mockingbird.
The funeral followed the traditions of Hindu funeral practices.
The song played at Colleen's funeral is "I Wonder," performed by Brenda Lee.
The Others wear white robes to the funeral. In many Asian cultures, white is the funeral color. Adopting this characteristically Eastern practice would be in keeping with other motifs associated with the Others (e.g., the Dharma project name itself).
The video Juliet plays bears a resemblance to Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues. Phrases are written on the cards, and she removes them as Dylan does in the video.

Theories

Theories may be removed if ...

Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc).
More appropriate for another article.
Illogical or previously disproven.
Proven by canon source, and moved to main article.
Speculative and lacking any evidence to support arguments.
Responding to another theory (use discussion page instead).

This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory.
Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response.

See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

The Church

Amina tells Eko that he owes his brother Yemi a church. This may be the reason Eko was building the church on the island.
Locke or Charlie may continue to build the Church later on in Eko's memory.
- Most likely Charlie considering his religious background and Locke being spiritual, not religious.

The Monster

A dead tree appears in the middle of a whole bunch of lively, green ones while Mr. Eko is looking for Yemi towards the end of the episode. The tree is gargantuan and is somehow standing even though every aspect of it appears dead. The tree looks extremely strange and is too big to be natural. Could this possibly be the monster? What could this tree be?
The 'white light' Locke claims he saw back in Walkabout is appropriate to white/black motif. While Eko sees a dark cloud (The Monster) Locke sees a bright light.
- Locke may have referred to what he saw in the smoke, rather than the smoke itself.
- Maybe Locke is 'good' and so the Monster appeared to him as a white light. This might be a clue to the missing appearence of the Monster in the second part of Season 2 - it could be a bright light appearence.
  - When Eko first discovers the Virgin Mary statue he decides to confront Charlie about it. In the next scene, Charlie is singing He's Evil by The Kinks seconds before Eko accosts him about the statues.
- There are two monsters. This would fit with what Locke said about the backgammon game "There are two players, one light, one dark."
While not answered, it is assumed that Yemi is a manifestation of the Security System since the wisp of smoke is seen before and after Yemi and other people from Eko's past appear. This would also explain the sightings of Christian Shephard, Kate's horse, Walt soaked in water, Dave, and Sawyer's pig in Outlaws.
- The monster/security system seems to have a connection to the physical remains of some of the personae it assumes -- Christian Shepard's body and Yemi's body were both noted by their relatives as missing.
- Walt's image to Shannon was also trying to help her. He told her to be quiet, and if she had done as he said, she would have lived. The question then is, was that really the security system using reverse psychology to get Shannon killed, or was it Walt's special powers?
The monster acts based on actions of the character which it is stalking. When characters such as Jack, who sees his father, make peace with that person, the hallucination of them vanishes and the monster does not attack. However, if the character does not make peace (such as Eko), the monster attacks.
Something must have changed in between Eko's two confrontations with the monster;
- Eko may have allayed his guilt by beginning to build the church as promised.
- Conversely, it's possible he was killed for abandoning his construction of the church to push the button.
Interesting observation: The monster slams eko against a tree wich has 3 marks on the surface, just like the ones that jack has in his face. The marks on the tree where there before Eko collides with it repeatedly.
Maybe the Others ordered the Monster to kill a member of the Losties, as one of them, Colleen, was killed.

Yemi

Before Yemi disappears in the field, he says "You speak to me as if I am your brother" , suggesting that he is not.
- He may have spoken this to infer that Eko is not his brother in priesthood, although Eko may have believed that he was a good enough person during his lifetime.
- Meaning he is not Yemi but the Monster
The body of Yemi is the second corpse to disappear, and then appear on the island (presumably as a manifestation of the monster.) Jack's father's corpse was not in its coffin when Jack found it, and he had seen his father wandering about.
Yemi was almost certainly a manifestation of the Monster.

Juliet

When Juliet plays the video for Jack she is obviously risking her life for Jack, proving she is a "good" other.
Juliet times her arrival with what is essentially a rare delicacy in the Hydra station (a cheeseburger) deliberately; Jack already has the upper hand psychologically when Ben enters.
It could be that anyone monitoring the video cameras can see the reflection of Juliet's video in the glass between the rooms.
Juliet is lying and in fact she is the 'bad' one, trying to take control from the 'good' Ben. Ben and Juliet treat each other as equals when they are not in the presence of Jack. When they are with Jack, Juliet seems Ben's subordinate, giving Jack the idea Ben is in charge. It could be Juliet is using this appearance to convince Jack that Ben is a 'bad' person, while actually, he is just her adversary in a struggle for the power in Otherville.
Juliet's crying in A Tale of Two Cities could be for Ben's tumor.
- If she really does want him dead, this is probably not the case. However, if she does not want him dead, crying would make sense.
It's also possible that playing the video for Jack is just part of a long con against Jack. It seems unlikely Juliet would be able to record such a video without Ben finding out.
- The Others have rarely resorted to use lethal force amongst anyone (tasers are nonlethal, for example; even though they may have guns, they never appear to use them). It's doubtful that Juliet would want to kill in this way.
  - However, Juliet may be trying to exercise a loophole if they are not permitted to kill by getting an outsider, Jack, to do it.
- But if all she cares about is Ben being dead, the tumor will take care of that for her. Why have Jack get involved if nature will kill Ben itself?

Ben

Ben explaining that the plan to convert Jack was ruined, was actually his approach to con Jack.
- It does not really make sense that Ben would try to con Jack into anything. Everything Ben said about the "plan" he had to convert him seems to be true due to the fact that Ben confronted Juliet at the funeral and said "Why did you let him see my X-ray?" That was not meant for Jack to hear. If anyone would be running a con, it would be Juliet against Jack and Ben.
  - The reason Ben was upset that Juliet showed Jack the x-ray was likely because he didn't want Jack to see it before he started to try to convince him they were good and therefore want to help him.
- In Ben's con plan, it was Juliet who would make most of the manipulation, showing she's quite willing and able to con too.
- It's not a particularly compelling argument of Ben's, as if we accept that he believes the plane crash was an accident (of God or otherwise), then a reasonable persons first response would be to help the survivors with food and shelter, etc. Then, once finding out Jack was a surgeon he could ask for his help in return for theirs. Ben needs surgery, but this is a incidental to something much bigger - once (if) he's 'fixed' the plan that caused them to do all the original masquerading during season 2 will continue.
Ben doesn't actually have a tumor, and the X-ray is someone else's, or 'doctored' by another doctor. Seeing if Jack will operate is another test of some sort.

Other Theories

Eko's last words could be intended only for Locke, if he said "you're next".
- Locke could also be using those supposed last words to convey fear into the rest of the group.
Following Juliet's request would mean Jack would have to break a personal oath, which he probably wouldn't be willing to do. His problem of "letting go" and his will to do all he can to save someone's life would interfere.
Juliet's request to Jack could be a DHARMA-esque mind game to see what he would do.
During the funeral for Colleen, The Others play music over the speakers. When Hurley and Sayid picked up "Moonlight Serenade" on the transceiver, they could have been picking it up from the Other's camp.
The eyepatch man is wearing a DHARMA jumpsuit similar to the one worn by Kelvin.
In The Other 48 Days the Tailies find a glass eye in their bunker. This could belong to the eyepatch man.
The area where Eko speaks with Yemi is possibly a graveyard. The flowers are evenly spaced on mounds marking each grave.
If Desmond can see the future then why didn't he know the monster was going to attack Mr. Eko before it happened? Why didn't he try to stop that from happening?
- Perhaps Desmond could only see certain moments into the future instead of everything into the future.
If the Others can leave the island and have communication with the outside world, why didn't Ben leave for treatment? Perhaps the Others also do not have any means to leave the island and lied to Jack to coerce him to do the surgery.
- Maybe the communication with the outside world is unidirectional. They can receive data but not transmit it out the island.
There may be a subtle clue in the resemblance between Juliet's video and Dylan's Subterranean homesick blues. In Dylan's video, the captions do not always match the lyrics; it's possible that similarly, Juliet's message is not quite the truth.

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@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 **Conversely, it's possible he was killed for abandoning his construction of the church to [[push the button]].
 *Interesting observation: The monster slams eko against a tree wich has 3 marks on the surface, just like the ones that jack has in his face. The marks on the tree where there before Eko collides with it repeatedly.
+*Maybe the Others ordered the Monster to kill a member of the Losties, as one of them, Colleen, was killed.
 ===Yemi===