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.

Ben: You Brought This On Yourself

Yes, I know everyone in the blog-o-sphere is abuzz after so many revelations in "Jughead," and I have discussed a few, but today I would like to turn your attention back to another mystery -- why pregnant women on the island die.

A big clue to this mystery was released in the Pierre Chang video shown at ComicCon 2008. If you haven't seen it, run don't walk, here. In the video, Pierre Chang, whom we have previously seen as Dr. Marvin Candle, is seen with his arm (in some of the orientation films it is missing) and with a baby crying in the background. So the Dharma hippies had no problems making love not war and carrying their babies to term as late as 1979.

Some have speculated that the h-bomb had something to do with women dying during pregnancy. I think not -- because, as I speculated in my last post, the h-bomb is buried in concrete deep under the Swan station, and has been since the 50s.

Why would the Dharma Initiative build a station directly over an h-bomb? I'm guessing they didn't know what it was, and just found a huge block of concrete with "unique electromagnetic fluctuations" and assumed it was one of the island's "mysterious properties" that needed studying. And it's probably this Mr. Magoo "what does this button do?" attitude of Dharma's that ticked off Richard Alpert's original Others and forced them to kill everyone (like they killed the army men who violated the island in '54). Even 24 years later, poor Jacob is so wounded by Dharma's experiments that he begs anyone who'll listen to "help me."

But I digress. Others (not those Others, I mean other bloggers) have speculated that "the incident" is what caused the pregnancy problems to manifest. I don't think so there either. The incident I'm placing at 1979-1980, and I believe it's the cause of Dr. Chang's lost arm (unless the arm just wandered off into the jungle and is living with Jacob, like Claire), and we know it's the reason the numbers had to be entered in the computer. Isn't that enough to follow from one incident. They wouldn't add pregnancy problems on top of all that.

So now for why we're here. The actual cause of the pregnancy problems. We know that things from people's past can manifest on the island -- like Kate's horse. I think not just important things, but also important events can manifest. Ben's mother dying in childbirth affected his life more than any other event. Kate is small time to the island, so her horse only manifests twice and shows itself to her and Sawyer. Ben, however, has spent most of his life on the island and is its leader and protector, so this important event for him manifests in every woman on the island. His big event keeps playing out over and over again.

Ben brought Juliet to the island to solve this problem -- but he was always the cause. To solve the problem, he would have to abdicate as leader. Which he finally did by turning the frozen donkey wheel and leaving forever. My guess is, women can have children again now that he's gone. But with Locke as leader, they will probably all have kidney failure.

H-Bombs Make My Fillings Hurt

This week's episode, "Jughead" really blew my mind hole. Talk about something for everyone! Especially for the Pesmond-shippers (aren't we all?). We may have found out one or more of the following:

• The poured concrete under the Swan station is an h-bomb


• Charles Widmore was an Other


• Faraday's mom is Hawkings, also an Other


• Faraday's father is Widmore


• The Others are the enlightened


• Richard Alpert answers to Jacob and is, in fact, impossibly old


• Richard visited Locke as an infant because Locke told him to


• Locke feels the Others/Hostiles are his "people" (he needs to learn Latin)


• Radiation has no effect on Desmond or his reproductive abilities

So, I'm thinking "the incident," which blew off Marvin Candle's arm, must have to do with the h-bomb buried in the Swan. I hope not, though, because we saw the bomb go off, and it didn't destroy the world -- it just blew off Desmond's clothes. (The shot Desmond took every 9 days must be to avoid radiation sickness.) I still want to believe Desmond was saving the world by entering those numbers!

Now for Widmore. I'm thinking he gets banished by the Others. His banishment means he no longer has eternal life; he will age and die. So he assists scientists in finding the island and creating the Dharma initiative, to exploit the island's restorative powers. Much like the Sona in Star Trek: Insurrection. (Not the first time Star Trek themes have been borrowed. In the commentary for "The Constant" the producers said they used the final episode of TNG as a template for Desmond's time-shifting).

But why do the rules not apply to Desmond, as Faraday says? Maybe he is Jacob's son?