Faraday's Not Going Back to the Future

Last night -- a night not unlike any other night -- I'm lying on my couch asking myself, "Why is Faraday working under the Orchid station in the 1970s?" This is THE question to answer this season, being one of the first mysteries thrown at us in season five. It will probably also be the LAST question the producers will answer.

Thankfully, you have me. And I have answers -- that I received while on said couch last night. To answer this quintessential question about Faraday, I'll start by showing you a very awesome blog post from one year ago today. Read it here. A year ago, this information was quirky. Now it paints a very revealing picture. Here it comes:

Faraday IS Radzinsky!

Sadly, all we've seen of Radzinsky -- the original inhabitant of the Swan station -- is the stain he left on the hatch ceiling. Convenient, because if we had seen him, he would have looked like a 45-year-old Daniel Faraday.

It seems to me like the season opening reveal -- Faraday working with the Dharma Initiative -- was to be Faraday's last jump through time. He could not return to the future because of the "incident" or because he fixed what was wrong with the space-time continuum and was stuck there.

We know "Radzinsky" filmed and cut the Swan station orientation film in 1980. And we've seen Faraday working with Pierre Chang to make a different film (the ComicCon film). The "incident" blows off Chang's arm and Faraday's who-knows-what. Then Faraday locks himself in the Swan and paints "Quarantine" on the inside of the hatch door to protect himself from radiation poisoning. He pushes the button (that he probably wrote the program for) every 108 minutes to save the world. That is up until Kelvin shows up. He shows Kelvin how to fake a lockdown, shows him the invisible map he has painted (from the notes in his journal), and then loses his will to live and offs himself -- if Kelvin was telling Desmond the truth.

Why wouldn't he have told Kelvin his name was Daniel Faraday? Same reason Pierre Chang started using fake names in the orientation films -- maybe to confuse other time travelers, or to hide his identity from those off-island who would search for him. So Faraday became Radzinsky. That's not a real leap for me.

The real puzzle is: Why does his mother, Ellie, have the SAME computer that is in the hatch? Did she help him write the numbers program after the incident? Like the program was installed on two computers and she took one off-island to continue the calculations? Ponder these questions, I will. But one thing is for sure: We will see Faraday descend into the Swan hatch and close the door that says "Quarantine." Then put on a record, open his journal, and start painting with invisible ink.