Goodbye Mr. Eko

The monster in the forest has been in Lost since the pilot but we don't know much about it. When we first saw it, it killed the last survivor of the flight crew. Later it blew trees out of the ground and nearly pulled Locke into a hole. Somewhere along the line we saw it as a tendril of smoke.

We still don't know what it is but we got a much better look at in in the last episode of Lost. Mr. Eko appeared to be delirious, seeing his dead brother and other figures from his past. This has happened before. In the very second episode, Jack followed the ghost of his father to the water supply in the caves. Hurley was visited by an imaginary friend. Kate saw a horse. Locke not only saw the dead Boone as his spirit guide, he also saw Eko's brother in an earlier episode. There are probably more examples I am forgetting (not counting the backwards-speaking Walt).

We have been writing these off as visions or hallucinations but what if there is more to them? What if they are caused by the smoke monster? There are indications that there were more to these apparitions than seemed. Kate's horse was seen by Sawyer. Locke and Eko shared a vision. In Locke's vision, Boone seemed to know more about what was going on than Locke possibly could.

Then there was the fire. How could a vision set Eko's shelter on fire?

Of course the tip-off came when "Yemi" said that he was not Eko's brother. Then the smoke monster appeared and smashed Eko against a tree.

So far we have seen the smoke monster in three forms - a small, quick swirl of black dust, a tendril of thick black smoke, and now a huge, monstrous cloud.

During the first season we assumed that the cloud was related to the others. That no longer seems true.

As for Eko, the episode was about his refusal to confess his sins and his insistence that doing was was needed was no sin. The implication was that the monster killed him for not confessing.  It could as easily be that the monster was planning to kill him regardless and was offering him a chance at last rites.

We know that Eko will confess and do penance when he thinks that he has done wrong. After killing three others, he was silent for 30 days (10 each) as penance and he confessed to Henry Gale (Ben) in the vault.

With Eko dead and Jack on a different island, Locke is now the undisputed leader. He seems to be better at it than Jack was. Jack didn't keep anyone in the loop and everyone was complaining during the second season. Not long after they discovered the bunker, Jack refused to tell Charlie  about it but Locke willingly told him everything.

People seem happy about the changes, at least the new couple does.

Also, Locke has his island mojo going again. He is a man with a purpose.

At the end of the second season Jack worried about a "Locke problem". If he makes it back with the others he will find that it is now a Locke regime.