We've seen some interesting things on Lost so far this season., but nothing that has come as out of left field. Which is why that this episode has the most shocking finale that we've seen so far, arguably one of the better ones in this series history. Like all of the episode centered around Eko, there is a strong religious and ethical feel to it, which makes the ending seem biblical.
Eko is still recovering from the injuries that he suffered in 'Further Instruction', when he begins to see visions of his brother, Yemi, saying that he has waiting for him. He should not have the strength to carry himself out his tent, much less march through the jungle. This is suggestive of something, but right now let's ignore and focus on the drama, which is enthralling.
The flashback takes place not long after the action that we saw in 'The 23rd Psalm'. Eko returns to his brother's church, still numb, with the idea of resuming his responsibilities. He's there little more than a day before militiamen come and tell him that they have come for vaccine that his brother had negotiated for the village. Perhaps trying to demonstrate that he was worthy of being a new man, he tried to prevent this. When he failed, he reverted to his old ways, and slaughtered the militiamen in his brother's own church. Rather than expressing gratitude, the villagers responded by boarding up Yemi's church (thus explaining why Eko was so determined to build one on the island) This is a symbol of religion's seeing as things as purely good or purely evil. As we see in the teaser, Eko once stole from the church to feed his brother when he was hungry. The priest said he was wrong, but would it have been wrong for Yemi to starve rather than help his brother?. In 'the 23rd Psalm', Eko damned himself to save his brothers life, and then became a bad man. But there was good in him, even if his methods were wrong. Does this make him a bad man?
We'll get to that in a minute. On the other side of the island, Jack is let out to attend the funeral of Colleen, who has now figured out that the x-rays he saw belonged to Ben. Ben tries to deny it , but the urgency behind Jack's urging are enough for him to realize that he can't toy with him any longer. Of course, it's possible that this is part of a larger plan to try and make him do the surgery anyway, but it's hard to figure, even now.. Then there's his little bit in which, when asked if he believes in God, he replies: "Two days after I learn I have a fatal tumor on my spine, a spinal surgeon falls out of the sky. And if that's not proof of God, I don't know what is." As with everything Ben says, it's impossible to tell if he was lying or not. He was surprised to see the plane crash, but his faith, even now, seems more based in the island than any higher power. Hopefully, we'll learn more about this as we near the end.
And then there's Juliet. By now it seems that Jack is beginning to trust her more implicitly, and it's not just because she went to a lot of trouble to make him a cheeseburger (we're still not sure how she pulled that off). Then she goes through a little exercise in which Jack supposedly is watches a movie while Juliet is begging him to save Ben's life. In actually, she is showing him cards with writing telling him that Ben can die during the course of the surgery, by accident. All the evidence we gather seems that she was acting alone on this. We'll later see that she, among the Others, had a particular reason to loathe him, but it's hard , even now, to see her as being this cold-blooded or merciless.
Meanwhile, back on the other island, Locke is trying to find a way to help Jack and co. by investigating another one of the stations --- the Pearl. When Desmond tells him it's a hell of coincidence, he repeats Eko's old line "Don't mistake coincidence for fate." Difference is, now he believes in the latter than the former. At the Pearl, which des lead him to intercept Eko, he finds another camera which leads to another station. We don't know where it is, but there's a creepy man with an eye patch looking back at him. We're going to run into him again, too.
Meanwhile, Eko has returned to the plane, and in a reenactment of Jesus in the new testament finds his brother's body gone, and his brother standing in a garden. When asked to confess his sins, Eko says he has none--- that he did the best that he could with the life he was given. To the end, he is embracing the gray area of the world--- and it is the end. The smoke monster appears again, and for the first time, we see onscreen an attack. Before Eko stared the monster down, and it ran away. But this time, he showed fear, and as if making him pay for that indecision, the monster kills Eko.
Even now, the death of Eko is probably the most shocking of all the characters who have died on the series (Not painful, we'll get to that, believe me. Perhaps the reason, it baffled me most was why--- after surviving the plane crash, the hatch exploding, and the attack by a polar bear--- would the island decided now that he is unworthy of it, especially considering that he stares the monster down in this episode too. (Yes, his injuries were serious, but given what we learn on this island, there's an excellent chance he would have recovered.)Why have Locke go through the effort of saving him only to kill him two days later? The best explanation I can come up with was that saving Eko was Locke's test to regain communion with the island. Eko's test was whether he could face up to his sins. He refused, which made him unworthy of living.
(It therefore came as a surprise to learn a little later, that Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje was convinced by the end of 'The 23rd Psalm' that his story was so tightly written that he had no reason to stay more than a season and asked for his character to be killed. Talk about counter-intuitive) The last scene also has it's own repercussion. His last words to Locke were construed as being "We're next', meaning the group as a whole. I am more convinced that Eko was speaking to Locke alone, and meant You're next. Perhaps Locke's fate has not yet been written, but it does seem more accurate foreshadowing of what happened in later seasons.
Even the possibility with that last shot of Eko and Yemi happily playing together, indicating that maybe something on this island showed Eko some mercy is questionable. Considering what we will later learn, it is possible that even in death Eko has found no rest.
Whatever you believe about Eko's life or fate, 'The Cost of Living' offers a rarity of so many characters on Lost. A complete story has been told about a man, and his fate and history were revealing purely by his actions on the island. He faced his destiny on the island, and even if he came up wanting, at least, unlike so many other characters currently on the island--- he didn't deny who he was.
My score:9.5