Episode Index
3:05 The Cost of Living (Living)

Eko's rescue from the polar bear's cave has left him wounded and very weakened. While suffering in his tent, Eko begins to have visions of his dead brother Yemi who urges EkoEko disappears. Locke assembles a group to go find Eko, while simultaneously going to the Pearl Hatch, to try to communicate with the Others through the computer. Eko, in the meantime, stumbles through the jungle, while having vivid visions of the Nigerian men he killed in self-defense, and the young boy, Daniel, whom he disappointed. Eko meets up with Locke's group, and they all go towards the Pearl Hatch, and the site of the Beechcraft. Eko refuses to go into the safety of the hatch, wanting to wait for his brother instead. While inside the Hatch, Locke, Sayid, Desmond, Nikki and Paulo replay the Pearl Orientation filmstrip, and realize that there must be other hatches and other projects somewhere. Sayid tampers with the wires, and suddenly, on one of the screens, there is a eye-patched man staring back at them for a moment, before he turns the camera off.  Outside of the hatch, Yemi finally appears to Eko, and lures him into a clearing, where he demands that Eko confess his sins. Eko refuses, asserting that he is not ashamed of his life: that the evil he committed was in self-defense, and to protect his baby brother. This is when Yemi reveals that he is not Yemi at all, but Smokey, and before Eko can escape, Smokey lifts him into the air, and slams him into the trees. Before Eko dies, Locke findsEko whispers "You're next."

In the flashbacks, Eko's adoption of his brother's life does not come easily. After the shootout on the tarmac, the soldiers return Eko to Yemi's church, and the villagers, seeing Eko in a priest's collar, assume that he is a priest. An assumption that Eko does not dissuade them of. Soon after arriving, some militia men arrive demanding to see Yemi, and looking for a shipment of vaccines that they were promised. When Eko stands up to the men, they kill an innocent woman to demonstrate their seriousness. Later, a woman from the village, Anima, tells Eko that the village and Yemi had an understanding with the militia--the militia would take 80 percent of the vaccine, and in return, they offered the village and church their "protection." Eko, realizing the value of the vaccines, attempts to sell them on the black market. When the militia discovers this, they return to the church, and threaten to cut off Eko's hands. Eko, however, attacks, killing the men inside the sanctuary of the church. While he has eliminated the village's most immediate threat, Anima is upset with Eko: he has defiled the church and there will only be someone new to take the place of the men that Eko has killed. Eko, she tells him, owes his brother a church.   

 

Also see Transcript for Cost of Living