[Ed. note: For commentary on third-season episode "The Cost of Living" in which Eko is killed by the Smoke Monster go here. For commentary about other lost episode browse here. The following commentary is about The 23rd Psalm, the second-season episode in which we first learn about Eko's story. From the perspective of the series finale, I think I was wrong in some of the particulars (the survivors are not dead), but correct regarding the general thrust of what the writers were trying to do. For my thoughts on the series finale, see this post.]
This post will make sense only to those of you who have been following the TV series "Lost", which seems to be getting weirder, deeper, and more interesting with each successive episode. I was intrigued by it at first because it struck me as a kind of a stylish, surreal drama along the lines of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks," and it is that, but there's something more going on here that is quite remarkable.
Like "Desperate Housewives" it is a series I avoided when it started to air, so I've missed a lot of it, and there are story strands that I don't know about. So I may be a little slow on the uptake to catch on to what's going on there in a way some of you are not. So I'd be interested to hear any theories you may have about what's going on, but this week's episode bowled me over. This is prime-time TV?
Maybe my expectations are too low, but I have to say I was deeply impressed by the story of how Eko's and his brother's lives intertwined, and of its grasp of the complex and mysterious way in which good and evil are intertwined as well. For me it was a poignant illustration of what the Christian mystic Charles Williams called substitution within the web of exchange. He believed we could and should take on one another's burdens, even their pain and illnesses. Eko first takes on the burden that was given to his little brother; his brother in turn took on the burden that weighed down his brother. It was beautifully told, rich with symbolic allusion, and deeply affecting.
So who are these writers and what are they up to? Here's my preliminary theory. It's a first stab at trying to connect the dots here, so if you think differently let me know why you think I'm wrong. What cannot be explained by this basic framework? Here's my hypothesis:
Although they are not aware of it, everybody on the Island is dead; they all died in the plane crash. The viewing audience sees things from the perspective of the "survivors" who recognize they are living in a non-ordinary place even though in most respects it follows the normal rules of the natural world.
But the weirdness on the Island cannot be explained unless we recognize it as a kind of after-death Purgatorial zone like that inhabited by Bruce Willis in the "Sixth Sense." It's an antechamber for heaven or hell--the world seems normal in most respects, but this is clearly not the normal world. In fact it's a place of purification and ultimately of judgment. The "good" people are presented as those who, from the point of view of those who "survived," have either died in the crash, die later, or like the children, have been taken away by the "Others," who are agents of divine justice. They have been judged worthy and have passed on to become themselves the Others. (Although the "survivors" fear the Others, and the viewers are led to believe that they are the bad guys, they are not. They just appear to be malevolent from the limited point of view of the survivors.)
Those who have 'survived' are people with a lot of bad karma, so to speak. As the series progresses, we learn that these ordinary, often very nice people with whom we've developed a bond are murderers, torturers, drug lords, drug addicts, and are carrying a lot of nasty baggage of one sort or another. What struck me in this week's episode, entitled "The Twenty-Third Psalm, was that the Island is where they are being given the opportunity to put themselves right. Each is being tested, and if he passes, he "dies" or gets taken away, to the dismay of the survivors who fear death and think about it as tragic.
The stories we are watching are mostly stories of redemption. As Locke suspects, there's nothing to fear from the Others. At the end of the first season, he seemed to want very much to be taken away. But apparently he's not ready; he more than any one is caught up in the authority experiment which requires the typing in of the numbers every two hours or whatever. He thinks he's saving the world. I think he's being conned. We'll see how that curious strand plays out.
But if redemption is a possibility, so, it would seem, is damnation. That's what the "monster," the smokey, snakelike thing that shows up from time to time represents. It too is an agent of divine justice, and that's exactly what Eko confronted when he came face to face with it in this week's episode. It was a moment of judgment, and he was judged not ready yet to be taken away, which is a good thing, because the monster does not take you where the Others take you.
Michael's son, Walt, was taken by the Others. We are led to believe that he is with bad guys, but he's not; he's ok. Michael's search for his son is the path of his redemption--his commitment to that task is his test. Walt is now one of the Others. His appearance to Shannon was a sign that it was time for her to go, and now too. She was killed accidentally while frantically trying to find him. It's too bad for Sayyid, but she was ready, and he is not.
Michael will eventually find Walt when he's judged ready. That's when he will leave the show, not when Walt comes back to the show. If we see Walt again it will be as Shannon saw him just before she died, or in the messages Michael sees on the computer monitor in the bunker. That monitor is an interface between the world of the Others and the world of the Lost. The best thing that can happen to those who are still Lost is for them to be found, and it's the Others who do the finding.
I have to wonder--who are these people writing this series? Anybody know?