An homage to the missing passengers of Oceanic Flight 815
13124 fans
 Join this Club
Search Club:
 Invite friend 
fanpop > television > lost > articles > opinion

Death for Ratings...

Opinion by monkeypup posted 3 years ago
4.7
 by 13 fans
save Bookmark and Share
***WARNING: SPOILERS FOR NOV 1ST EP. LIE AHEAD***

Lost is known for killing characters that you might not expect to die. I understand this, and have always taken it in stride. Why? Because every death has seemed to be for a reason. They served the story. Other shows kill characters off during sweeps just for the ratings effect, but not Lost.

Not until tonight....

If there was a good reason why Eko died, I'd like to know what it is. If there was a reason other than a ratings grab in the middle of Fall Sweeps, I'd like to know.

Eko was a fascinating character to me, but it wasn't his death alone that upset me. If he had died to further the story, I could accept that.

But, the fact that the episode was promoted as one in which a major character died, coupled with the leaked information from the show's creators along the same lines, makes me think otherwise.

The death of Eko seemed to exist only to make the viewers shocked at his death. The means and manner of his death seemed almost random. His character was more important than that to me, and I thought his character deserved more.

It won't stop me from watching the show, it won't even make me dislike it, but it does make me think that even great writers can resort to cheap tactics. I just hope they don't do it again...
URL:   Bookmark and Share
6 comments
user photo
flutterly said:
They should've at least had him go out fighting. Instead, they brought in the crappy CGI monster.. that was just terrible.
posted 3 years ago.
 
user photo
greedo said:
Yes, I hated this episode b/c of what happened to Eko. His backstory was one of the best.

I did love his repentence scene though.

You must be right Monkeypup b/c I just don't see why else they'd kill him off. He wasn't having any contractual issues with them was he?

I feel like they just kinda introduced the tailies as a season 2 plot device and, having moved on to the "Others", have decided to discard the tailies whole-hog.

These 2 new characters being introduced (the blond girl and blond guy) are doing nothing for me so far.

posted 3 years ago.
 
user photo
monkeypup said:
Good point, Greedster. As I think about it, they've already killed off...hmm..ALL of the main character tailies! The cop, Hurley's girlfriend and Eko were the main ones, and all are dead.
posted 3 years ago.
 
user photo
dave said:
Just watched the episode on TiVo over the weekend and was really upset that they killed off Eko like this. I'm with all of you. He was my favorite character in terms of his inner struggle with good and evil. He committed murder when it was necessary to protect the innocent and was so torn. It's a shame that the writers made this mistake. People are saying that the whole black monster thing was really a cover for him committing suicide. But that wouldn't make sense because Locke saw the big black cloud before as well. Shame on the writers...and shame on you monkeypup for not putting a nice photo of Eko in your Soapbox post. :) JK!
posted 3 years ago.
 
user photo
monkeypup said:
C'mon, Dave! I figured the headline of the article mixed with Eko's picture would have given it away for those than had not seen the episode yet...

So there.
posted 3 years ago.
 
user photo
Eko died because the actor didn't want to be in the show anymore. They weren't intially going to kill Eko, but the actor was causing problems so they "let him go".
posted 2 years ago.
 
related links
popular content
fanpop home - company blog - about us - advertise on fanpop - faq - sitemap - terms of service - privacy policy - contact us
connect with us on
Facebook MySpace bebo hi5 YouTube Twitter