Totally "Lost": The ultimate season finale primer

  Gearing up for Wednesday’s season finale of “Lost”:
  Titles: “The Incident, Parts I and II”
  Significance: Ever since we met Dr. Marvin Candle on the Swan Station orientation film (copyright, 1980) in Season 2 we’ve heard about an “incident” that caused the DHARMA Initiative to create the button-pushing protocol to “save the world,” the duty that Desmond eventually inherited and neglected, bringing down Flight 815. So the question is: Is this incident that incident? Or will Jack be able to create a new incident, a new timeline and a whole, new world?
  Centricity: In finale fashion, the episode will be multi-centric with some of the flashbacks returning to the Losties’ childhoods or to pivotal moments in their lives.
  Plotline: Jack's decision to put a plan in action in order to set things right on the island is met with some strong resistance by those close to him, and Locke assigns Ben a difficult task.
  Sneak peeks: All include MAJOR spoilers, proceed with caution.
  Peek 1
  Peek 2
  Peek 3
  Peek 4

Observations:
  Observation #1: We noticed it when it happened and forgot to mention when we deconstructed: When Jack emerged after swimming into the cavern where Jughead is stashed, he found Richard Alpert, who swam in about 10 seconds ahead of him, holding a lit torch. Either Richard is an expert at lighting a torch while soaking wet or he’s some kind of sorcerer or someone was in the cavern very recently.
Observation #2: Both Jack and Miles have been showing a definitely noticeable and possibly somehow significant amount of gray hair in their temples over the past few episodes. It seems to have come on at an almost unnatural pace.

Questions, we got questions:
  We’d like answers to these in “The Incident.” We’re sure we won’t get them all.

  What lies in the shadow of the statue?
  Odds of getting an answer: 5-1
  Best guess: No idea, but we think it will somehow be linked to whatever is in the metal box

  What's in the box?
  Odds of getting an answer: Even
  Best guess: A popular online theory contents that Charles Widmore is in the box, but he can't be, can he? Ben attacked Desmond just before Flight 316 took off and we saw Widmore outside the hospital where Desmond is being treated so we're pretty sure that means he can't be on the plane in the box. We’re going to something Ark of the Covenant-y.

  Who’s on the front side of that statue?
  Odds of getting an answer: Even
  Best guess: The Powers That Be have promised we’ll see the entire statue before the season ends. We’re still betting on the Egyptian man/jackal/god Anubis, the guardian of the underworld.

  Why is Desmond uniquely and miraculously special?
  Odds of getting an answer: 10-1
  Best guess: We think it has something to do with his parents and his birthplace.

  Who are Desmond’s parents?
  Odds of getting an answer: 20-1
  Best guess: We think both Desmond and Jack are sons of the same man and we’re not entirely sure it’s Christian Shephard.

  How do Sawyer, Kate and Juliet get back to the island?
  Odds of getting an answer: 3-1
  Best guess: We’ll get some kind of answer, but we’re hoping to get the whole answer which involves a revelation about why sub riders have to be sedated before the trip.

  What’s in the guitar case?
  Odds of getting an answer: Even
  Best guess: Charlie’s guitar.

  What does DHARMA stand for?
  Odds of getting an answer: 30-1
  Best guess: The DHARMA back story contends it’s short for Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications, but as regular readers know, we don’t think DHARMA is what it portends to be and that means the acronym has another, much more telling meaning.

The best laid plans
  The second half of Season 5 has featured the evolution of Jack, once the show’s ultimate man of science, into a man of faith. And now the finale is likely to turn on Jack’s plan to follow through on Daniel Faraday’s plan to use the Jughead hydrogen bomb to neutralize an electromagnetic anomaly on the island, ensuring Flight 815 never crashes and the future is forever changed. So how’s that going to work out for Jack?

  The Dr. Strangelove Scenario
  Jack executes the plan but it fails miserably and the final image of Season 5 is the island being destroyed by a mushroom cloud.

  The Whatever Happened Happened Scenario
  Jack's plan fails and causes the very incident he was trying to avoid.

  The Easy Button Scenario
  Jack's plan succeeds and our final image of Season 5 is Flight 815 arriving in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2004. Jack’s mother is there to hug him. A black and white is waiting for Kate. Aaron’s new parents are waiting for Claire. You get the picture

  The Be Careful What You Wish For Scenario
  Jack's plan succeeds -- sort of. The detonation of Jughead does seem to neutralize the island’s electromagnetic pulse and change the future, but by altering the timeline, Jack creates a paradox that results in one final flash for all the island’s inhabitants, past, present and future.

Guys, when are we?
  Those Powers That Be have promised that the time tripping ends with the Season 5 finale. So Season 6 will likely find all our Losties together again in one place and one time. But where? And, more importantly, when?

  2004
  With Flight 815 landing safely in Los Angeles, Season 6 becomes a sadly beautiful elegy where we see how the lives of our Losties, and the people themselves, are forever changed and different than the paths they were on in the universe of the crash.

  2008
  If Jack’s plan fails, it’s likely everyone winds up back in the island “present” with a war looming.

  1977
  Instead of reuniting in the present, what if the Losties all wind up in 1977 for good, likely in the original timeline and now facing the question of whether they should travel into the outside world and try to influence the lives of their 1977 selves.

  ????
  It seems unlikely, but considering we spent most of this season in 1977, it’s conceivable that the Losties flash back to ancient times when the statue still stood on the island's shore.

The Big J
  Well, we’ve gotten this far without mentioning the man (or myth) who might play the biggest role in the finale: the shifty, shadowy, heretofore unseen (mostly) Jacob. We know his name has been invoked numerous times in tense situation. We know God loves us as he loved Jacob. We know Locke says he’s on his way to kill Jacob. We’ve heard the role of Jacob has been cast and the character will appear in the finale. But we’re still not sure Jacob even exists. Is he the great and powerful Oz? Is he a transmogrification of one of our existing characters (Jack and Locke are popular theories)? Or is he exactly what he’s been portrayed as, the somewhat supernatural leader of The Others? For some reason, we think it’s none of the above.

The lineup
  At 8 p.m., ABC is giving us yet another clips show to set up the two one-hour finale episodes from 9 to 11 p.m.

   That’s all we got. We’ll see you here Thursday morning to deconstruct.