Ok, so the latest episode of Lost featured the death Eko. Now at first I was irked that the show had gotten rid of yet another Black character. But the more I thought about it the more it seems like the writers are drawing things out. And the notion that I was being toyed with by the writers really, really irked me.
I mean think about it; a large part of last season was devoted to the survivors from the tail end of the plane. But apart from the characters themselves, what did the those storylines offer in terms of the overall mythology of the show? We already knew the Others were sinister characters, so that contribution was nil. All they really did was bulk up the cast and provide for a means to kill a character that needed to be killed off (it really makes no sense for Shannon to be on the show, when Boone, a character who she was tied to in terms of flashbacks, was already dead.) Shannon had to die, and the tail enders made that possible.
From there the character arcs were pointless. What did Libby really contribute to the show other than a love interest for Hurley? Her death didn’t even really resonate with his character into this season, as he’s returned to being the same happy go lucky Hurley he’s always been.
Ana-Lucia provided a new dynamic to the whole Jack/Sawyer/Kate triangle, but all she really did was kill Shannon and provide Michael with the gun that killed both her and Libby. Wow, two cast members who hadn’t been on the show for a full season, yet are killed off. Were they really any different than the red shirts on Star Trek?
Just this week we lost Eko. What was his contribution to the dynamic of the show? He was a counterpoint to Locke, who had a shift in character once the button was introduced. However once Locked admitted that he was wrong in the finale for season two, Eko’s character became instantly moot.
As a result of Eko surviving the finale we’ve had a storyline drawn out for the “fall season” of Lost. Work with me on this; if Eko dies in the finale we don’t need Locke going after him (which was a pointless episode in my eyes), and we’ve got Locke stepping into the leader role on the beach an episode early. We’d still have Locke and company exploring the hatch and we’d only have missed out on the malevolent smoke monster.
My point is that if you subtract the tail end survivors you don’t really have a dramatically different show. They proved largely inconsequential to the scheme of things as evidenced by their ability to drop like flies.
They were introduced to be killed off. They were fleshed out enough to give the appearance that they actually mattered but they didn’t. They’re as one dimensional as Arzt and just as functional.
I’m annoyed that the writers think they get away with trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes like that. It’s as transparent was when the killer on a mystery program is clearly the most high profile guest star. It’s a shame that people will probably applaud the writers for having the courage to kill off a “main character” when in reality the writers were playing it uber safe.
