Lost Season 3 Episode 5 Clues - A High Price to Stay Alive

As I said in the spoilers blog for this episode, “The Cost of Living” does not refer to economics!

It refers to what people have to do to survive in extreme circumstances, whether on the island or in the circumstances that brought them there. This is the case, whether for an Other like Ben, or for Eko. For Eko as we now know, the cost of living always high.

In the confrontation in the woods, the little boy says it is time to confess. In the end, Eko has come to spiritual grips with his life or so we think.

But why? Lost characters die when they achieve self-realization. If you want to survive and keep collecting the fat paycheck, remain totally and completely clueless :).

Here, Eko's self-realization was that he made all the right choices, but that is not what we expected. We expected that like Locke he would admit he was wrong - in killing all the bad people and drug smuggling. However, he could not do that.

The cost? The pain of stealing and the consequences imposed by the church. Eko also kills to survive. He was a bad-a__.

Smokey was portrayed as an avenging hand of divine power, almost literally hand-like tossing Eko from tree to ground. This has left me confused ... until the end of this blog entry. In the flashback the woman told Eko that he owes Yenni a church. Aha, now we know why Eko was building and island church. However he never finished it. His death was premature. He died before fully coming to grips with his life and completing the church.

Probably a result of his driving arrest in Hawaii and not the show. An intersection of real-life with the Lost world. The clue here is, don't drink and drive. Click here to see what that might refer to.

Talking about remaining thoroughly clueless, back to the beach Losties. Hurley observes that Locke’s leadership style is different from Jack’s. Huh, imagine that! Someone with a plan! Jack would just go off pig-headedly on his “mission” without planning or backup. Locke is different, or is he? He asks for volunteers among the herd. Hurley is like a Shakespearean chorus with his comment (ok not that eloquent). But his point is well taken and has bothered me about Jack, and Hurley too. Jack was a bad leader, never with a good plan. Finally someone points that out! I hope this was an intentional clue by the writers that we will see good field operations by the Losties’ in the future (hint hint hint hint! A real clue).

What about the lovable Others? Their funeral clothes were like a uniform. All wearing the white cloaks or shirts. Yep a cult. Ben claims that the Others are now off plan and that the kidnapping was all about turning Jack so he will operate on Ben. For some reason I have trouble believing Ben. How do we know he isn’t on plan in telling Jack they are off-plan? Hmmm. That's it!

Ben is a liar, and ran a con game on Sawyer last week, and probably needs Sawyer for another con. It was ironic that Juliet comes in and plays a movie saying just that, namely Ben is a liar. Now everyone is saying it … So maybe in the it really isn’t true. However, I bet it is.

Maybe Ben really is the good guy like he was saying all along… NOT. Are we to believe there are two factions of Others so pitted against each other that they will resort to civil war? That is what Juliet is suggesting. We have seen lots of clues of conflict between Ben and Juliet. But the conflict was over what book to read at the book club, not death. After all, Ben seemed willing to allow Juliet to die when Jack flooded the fish tank hatch. However, Juliet must have known there was not enough water to fill it, so her life really was not at risk.

In conclusion, this merry Clues Blogger is skeptical about Juliet’s pitch until we get more clues.

Lost Clues from Fist Episode of Season 3

This is where it all began with the Clues Blog. My first episode blog in Season 3 (Episode 1). This blog contains a modified version of what I posted originally on LostExposed.com.

The title for this episode was A Tale of Two Cities.

The episode begins in the classic Lost way, with an opening eye. Well what's revealed, an open book as we will see.

A cult on an isolated island unknown to the outside world. That's what the others seem like, and they like it that way.

Fenry is the leader, and orders others to spy. Get lists - lists are important. Here names of passengers. Following cult theory, why kill them, here are potential members or slaves.

Just like the Borg - assimilate, don't necessarily kill.

Kate’s jailer Zeke, aka Mr. Friendly, says “you’re not my type”. A gender preference clue? Or just a put down. Hmmmmm. The first gay character?

Is this a retraining experiment? The three prisoners being made to do things that their instincts tell them not to do. Jack is stubborn & needs to stop. Kate, given a nice dress, Sawyer, Pavlov experimentation.

Working on Jack, since he sat in corner, but it was a set up but then he was punished with the water, so making progress..

Sawyer, completely independent and being trained to depend on others. Training worked on Sawyer b/c he followed escapee.

Kate's wrist marks: clues to her struggles. We do not know how much time elapsed between when she has breakfast with Fenry-Ben and her return to Sawyer.

New “Hydra” hatch station of the Dharma Initiative, or the Hanso Foundation.

Juliette implies the Others have outside contact. With whom?

Back to the beginning, the book shown was Stephen King's Carrie. However, each person actually was holding what appeared to be different versions of the book or more likely different books. This is no normal book group! Carrie is the one shown to us. Someone who is in the publishing industry has told me that the version shown is a hardcover edition, that likely is a vintage edition, no longer in print. Perhaps it was used to date stamp the time when the Others came to the island. My theory is that it shows the closeness of the production to Stephen King himself. Perhaps the edition shown was not only a vintage edition, but was provided as a prop by the author. They love him on Lost. Notice several other Stephen King references.

The CD disk? Interestingly, the song played was Petula Clark's Downtown, but the actual disk that Juliette puts in the CD player was Talking Heads Speaking In Tongues.