There is a Lost System Failure in My Head! A Four-Year-Old Theory! And a couple of New Ones by Robert Lee

I watched “Live together Die Alone,” the finale to Season 2, last night, because I wanted to watch the implementation of the fail-safe key again. I saw it, and had a whole slew of other thoughts including a few theories about what we’ll see in the episode on Sunday May 23rd.

1. The boat “The Elizabeth” is discovered adrift off the coast of the island with an extremely intoxicated Desmond within. Desmond wearily returns to the beach camp to declare “We are stuck inside a bloody snow globe!” What an interesting metaphor. A Snow globe is what? It is a keepsake from a journey. They sell them in gift shops at tourist attractions. Is the island a keepsake of a higher being?

2. I found another reason why I sympathize with Desmond: Desmond is being released from his court martial jail sentence. Revealed as he retrieves his personal belongings are the picture of himself with Penny in better times, as well as a copy of Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, which he brilliantly has saved for a poetic and dismal reason. He states that he has “read every wonderful word written by Mr. Charles Dickens,” and he wants this book to be the last book he reads before he dies.

I can really appreciate this sentiment. I recently bought the Antoine Doinel Box set of DVDs by Francois Truffaut. Five films made over the course of a lifetime and career about one character living life, falling in love, failing at love, succeeding in business, and basically being a flawed human being. I watched the first four, and could not bring myself to watch the fifth for fear of reaching the end. Truffaut is dead, and unfortunately in our world, dead really is dead. There will be no more Doinel. I waited until a perfect Sunday afternoon and with a good glass of red wine I watched it, and I can never do that again for the first time. I appreciate Desmond’s calculated patience.

3. Jacob’s Influence and The grouping of characters – Jacob gave a list to Richard, who in turn gave it to Benjamin, who then gave it to Michael. What was on this list? Four names. Jack Shepherd, Kate Austin, John Ford, and Hugo Reyes. Jacob knew it would come down to them. Jacob wanted Ben to take them so he could test them. Further, the other grouping of candidates in this episode, that fails in their task, mirroring the final season, is Sun, Jin, and Sayid. Taking Desmond’s boat around the island in a effort to obtain the upper hand against the Others, turns out to be a wild goose chase.

4. The philosophical conflict - of whether or not to push the button in the swan station between John, Desmond, Mr. Eko, and Charlie, is mirrored in whether or not to let Smokey/ MIB leave the island. The castaways are divided. John and Mr. Eko face fundamental differences over what to do in the hatch. Faith versus Science versus faith in science versus man in the hatch. John has switched modes of thinking, not because of any sudden transformation into a realist, but because he is having a crisis of faith. He doubts himself and that terrifies them. The all around lack of focus and determination leads to a stalemate that ultimately costs them their precious hatch. The only thing that saves all of their lives and the entire world is Desmond turning his fail-safe key. OR did it just blow them all up, so they could all start over again?

"What is that?" - Desmond

"This is the only other way out partner… It’s the fail-safe." - Kelvin

5. The fail-safe key. Kelvin, when explaining underneath the Swan Station, asks Desmond if he would have the courage to take his finger out of the dam and blow the whole thing up instead? The panel over the fail-safe lock reads: CAUTION SYSTEM TERMINATION

What is the system? The Computer System? The Swan Station System? The entire Island System? The Entire Solar System? The Entire Dimensional/Universal System that skewed off because of the ‘The Incident?’ A Pocket Universe growing off our own like a bubble?

In the sideways universe, Desmond is enacting a FINAL fail-safe. Being unique in the entire world with his immunity to electromagnetic energies makes him perfect in his singular ability to enact this plan. He subconsciously retained all his memories of the former existence/ universe. All he needed was the right jolt, in the form of a deja-vu like experience almost drowning with Charlie, to bring them to the surface. The plan that he foresaw when Charles Widmore trapped him in the EM chamber and bathed him in deadly levels of electromagnetic energy is at his disposal once more.

So, one could say, that in the Sideways universe Desmond himself is the Fail-safe key, but is Locke the lock that needs opening. He did say that He was ‘trying to free’ Mr. Locke as he beat Ben in the School parking lot. Does Desmond need Locke? Does John hold some necessary element to the Fail-safe Protocol in the Sideways Universe? Will it take the two of them together to set the world right? Can they work together?

As I predicted very early on this season (Link) it seems that the island story is going to play to the end, and the Sideways story will begin from that end. So it would benefit any true Lostie worth his or her weight in Dharma Beer to go back and watch all of the sideways stuff again…

But, what is the plan in the Sideways universe?

I have an idea… I think Jack, on the island, is going to fail spectacularly. I think it is all going to go sooooo unbelievably wrong, that the island is going to be utterly destroyed, and Smokey is going to get away into the world. In this second and final incident (in the original Lost universe at least), brought on by the destruction of the source, so much energy is going to be released that it will create the sideways universe, a mirror universe in which things happen slightly differently than in the original universe. (In a past entry, http://ialwayshaveaplan.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/what-is-the-island-the-evil-justice-league-of-america/ I go into the concepts of brilliant Physicist Michio Kaku and how much energy it would take to create a parallel or tangent universe. You could read that, or go watch the youtube link below) A new universe will be good for some, because they are alive now, but not for everyone, because Smokey is loose, and will have tainted the entire universe. A bit of him is in everything in the sideways universe. I know. Eww Gross.

So, that said, I think the new fail-safe plan is quite simply how to get the djini (or smoke monster) back in the bottle in the Sideways Universe.

Another (probably not last…) theory – Desmond Can’t die because of his love for Penny. The Source (as I think I understood it) is the parent of all life. A bit of it is in every living thing. To give a piece of itself to us all is a sacrifice of love. When it comes in contact with Desmond turning the fail-safe key, it says to itself “You are so Awesomely in Love!!! You are not going to die! I am going to put it all back together again, and I’m just going to place you a few hundred feet away from where you were when the hatch imploded…. And TaDa!!! But it neglected to give him clothes…

Thanks for reading! I have some amusing pics accompanying these theories if you want a chuckle at my blog.
www.ialwayshaveaplan.wordpress.com

May you all enjoy the finale On May 23rd. Namaste.