I read that some people didn’t like the latest two episodes, while I think they were great and finally moving toward a conclusion instead of introducing redundant elements.

My current speculation: they are all going to die.

Why?

Well, things are now so complicate that it’s impossible to deal with them on their own level. So I’ll simplify a lot. The current time travel theory, proven by the fact that Locke sees himself and Daniel exists at the same time as adult himself and in the belly of his mother, is that copies are made of those who travel. Ben turning the wheel caused the island to “skip” (with Sawyer and friends). When Jack and friends go back to the island they join the same “jump” of Sawyer and go back in the past. This means that there are two Sawyers and two Jacks.

Their goal is now to blow up the island, so that everything there changes and the event that leads to the plane crashing won’t happen. This also means that the plane, with their “copies” aboard, won’t crash and they’ll go on with a “normal” life.

This logic explains the time paradox that happens to Locke (the compass). In the same way copies are made when you jump in the past, copies are made even if you jump in the future. So Locke can basically give himself the compass.

But what happens if one Sawyer leaves with the submarine with Juliet and the other Sawyer does not crash with the plane? That we have two Sawyer around. I don’t think this is going to work, so there’s a possibility that if the plan works, then their copies need to die, so that their copies in the future can go on. There’s some toll that probably needs to be paid as things are never easy.

If this is what happens then Sawyer will never meet Juliet as they’ve never met in the standard timeline (Sawyer never crashed, Juliet never needed to go to the island as the island blew up). This brings the whole theme led by Kate who actually doesn’t want this reset, while Jack and Sayid consider what happen miserable enough to be worth of cancellation:

“It was not all misery.”
“Enough of it was.”

Along this, there’s the theme of destiny. Here destiny is moved by the island. It’s the island who moved them exactly at that time before the “incident” that are trying to prevent. It’s also the island that hand picked Locke, Ben and others without sending them in the past. What’s the purpose? My guess is self-destruction but motivations are obscure and impossible to figure out at this point.

But if you look at the bigger picture, you can definitely see a common theme. Locke “knows” now. He’s the only reliable one. Locke also says that Sun is going to be again with Jin. Why? Because it all still belong to the main timeline: the plane doesn’t crash and Sun and Jin were together on that plane.

So this is starting to look a lot like Donnie Darko:

In fact, the time travel stuff is more of a smokescreen. At heart, this is the story of a young man who is doomed — and a merciful God who gives him twenty-eight days of a life that never existed, in which to become a hero and a rebel, and to find love.

With the difference that in this case they aren’t doomed, and will be able to go on with their previous life. It wasn’t just a dream, but close.

But before they save themselves, they all have to die. Those in the past in order to complete the plan and let their copies live. Those in the future because they are orphans of a timeline (the island blew up, so Locke and Ben can’t be on it, timeline-wise those scenes happen BEFORE what we’re seeing in the past).

There’s a problem, though. Sun has a picture of them in the Dharma initiative, and there’s also a sixth season to fill. So this hints that, if the future is their future as that picture hints, they won’t succeed in blowing up the island.

Or maybe the picture itself is a fake the island produced.