First off I'll start off by saying I truly believe this show to be a case of "the plot doesn't matter", it serves rather, as an engine that fuels exploration into bigger picture stuff -- commentary on capitalism, a mirror to examine our own emotion as shown through character's reactions to events. So if I'm way off base here it doesn't matter and if i'm spot on it doesn't matter.
Nonetheless, I'm going to attempt and present what may serve as a means of "understanding" the why of the season finale.
The cosmic error we were informed of this season, twins, is also seen in computers, these technically are called soft errors, but they are sometimes caused by cosmic rays. Essentially, cosmic rays have a statistically significant chance to change a piece of data stored in memory. This change in data has the power to change the way a system runs if not checked and corrected but does not imply it has affected it or will whether or not it is caught or if that data can not be recovered.
Twins present a "cosmic error" because where one sperm enters, two babies leave. The race condition of millions of sperm trying to fertilize an egg is solved by simply allowing only one sperm to do so (most of the time, maybe it happens, idk). But that doesn't stop a random split from happening that can potentially put the mom's life at greater risk of failing to give birth by doubling the load.
Concurrency in computer programming is where two processes are able to run simultaneously. A race condition is made when those two processes enter a critical part of their execution at the same time, that is to say try to access the same piece of data from memory at the same time. Put simply, if you and friend each opened a cupboard, checked how many apples were stored, add a number of apples, each exclusively, and mark down how many should now be in the cupboard you both should know how many are in the cupboard right? Nope. If there's one in the cupboard and you add two, you've marked down that there are 3 apples in the cupboard. However, your friend has decided to put one and did it before you put yours back. Now you and your friend both don't know how many apples are in the cupboard, as he thinks there are two when both of you are wrong -- there's four. So the next time you both go back to check your data is completely unreliable and subsequent calculations will compound how incorrect you are. Even if you both end up with the correct number at the end, it's a fluke and more still missing the error. This only makes sense if you take a literal blind approach in which is you only can see what was stored once when opening it and cannot double check what was written down, you have to trust what was stored after opening as it should match what's written down. The answer in programming can't always be store it twice in memory (here memory means random access, not disk stored).
One way of solving this is through the implementation of mutual exclusion, also called a mutex. The simplest example of a mutex, both actually and in our example is putting a lock on the cupboard with a single key you must use to unlock when checking, lock while adding apples, and then give up so your friend might access the cupboard. This ensures that you both have the right data each time you check. I'm skipping over some stuff because the piece that's important is that only one can be inside at any given time.
Semaphores are another way of achieving this, but instead of using a key a system of counting is put into place. this is done by knowing how many of a given resource are available at any given time and recording it. Currency, often believed to be rooted in a gold standard, uses this system to account for inflation or whatever. Funny enough bitcoin actually IS founded on a gold standard. One that so far can not be manipulated. Alchemy presents a logical problem for this, since gold cannot be created through chemistry and thus there is a finite amount of it. Same way there is a finite amount of bitcoin that will ever enter circulation.
Today, gold is still thought of as valuable. It's brought up early on in the series by Dud that the more gold that exists the less special it is, and thus would lose its value. One of the most historically valuable properties of gold is its malleability, and prettyness which allowed for more ornate objects of beauty to be crafted without the need for advanced smelting and casting. Today that is of much less concern.
Silver, on the other hand, in today's modern age, has the advantage of being the most electrically conductive metal we know about. Second comes copper and in third is gold. Guess which one we use most often in circuitry and in wiring buildings. Conductivity is literally based on the Silver standard.
While in many ways Dud may be seen as inferior to Liz, intelligence wise, money wise -- double down on a bad interest loan by paying it off with a worse interest loan vs. paying it off slowly and painfully, etc. He is often seen to be coming out ahead in terms of sheer happiness and fortitude where Liz cannot. If one sperm in a race produced two non identical babies, neither inherently came in first from the get go. As I said above, neither metal, gold or silver, wins in terms of actual utility in the conductivity battle. However, Dud enters the lodge first, and gets struck by lightning.
Given the information we are given in the first season we are not made privy to a lot of things that become important. Primarily, that the scrolls might be the solution to cracking bitcoin and thus disrupting its backed worth based on the gold standard. So, here, the "cosmic error" of twins and the challenge it presents in this concurrent system is brought into the main stage. Liz and Dud are both on a quest but neither really knows what or why. Both survive extreme conditions they are put in both voluntarily and involuntarily respectively.
This all changes when Liz enters the Lodge. Up until this point Liz has not entered the lodge out of her own "choice", free will arguments here be damned. She doesn't go in because she doesn't care. It takes Dud not answering her texts for her to enter and when she does so the Lodge corrects for it.
If detected, a soft error may be totally recovered from, but if the system has crashed, the computer needs to be "rebooted" before any data correction can occur. If they were both in the Lodge at the same time due to a cosmic error which, in terms of my example above, changes the number of apples in the cupboard while it's locked or changes the total number of apples available. If they weren't physically in the Lodge at the same time holds no bearing, it's that they were a part of the lodge. As long as Liz is accessing the Lodge Dud cannot. While humans allegedly built the Lodge, it is impossibly complex to the point where it has literal doors it can throw you backwards out of, possibly as a way of rebirth and possibly as a way of creating a "plant". Liz just as easily could have not been kept on her feet had her friends not been there the same way Duds was from his near death experiences, however they were there.
For a door that opens out, and that no one knows how to access, it sure as shit is not protected from the obvious safety-precaution; securing it from being opened from the outside. Maybe it has been attempted but it just always fell down. But when the light next to the door is being repaired for safety reasons it's not like anyone says hey if we don't know where this door leads and idk, maybe we have some voluntarily blind girl living and running around fixing her seizure problems like, let's maybe just take care of fix this other hazard.
Brute force is used to open doors all over the place in the show, even as far as being used as a "lockpick" (axe), but is never used to unlock THAT door, at least successfully or on screen. Maybe it can't be bruteforced the same way brute force can't be used to cheat bitcoin (it can't, at least today). Quantum computing poses a very real threat to this, and actually every "lock" we think is secure. Like, won't get into it too much and it's not this simple but imagine just asking the computer what your neighbors wifi password is and it just gives you the answer without having to try an approaching infinite number of possible solutions. A very real threat to bitcoin and as a matter of fact all modern encryption, however to scare you less if we're smart enough to pull it off we're at least smart enough to solve the problem before we get there (i've been assured by our friends at google that their contingency plans can't fail, they also told me the titanic never sank)
This at least approaches an explanation to the apparent deus ex machina that is Dud's death. The Lodge is not a joke, and has real control of things. While running it exposes powerful implications into the lives of its members and those around them. I think it's clear here that the duty of the knights of the lodge, to protect it, has greater meaning than we know.
To this same affect, we see another parallel for modern networked computing to work reliably -- redundancy. One man cannot keep the Lodge alive himself, nor can dwindling numbers of protectors. So make more of them, and why not spread them out so if an entire area is affected by say 10 hurricanes at once, it doesn't take down the whole lodge and working knowledge of things. Redundancy in computing means basically the same thing, keep servers in more than one place and have the data they serve backed up and available in more than one place. This also mitigates the probability of data loss, though not entirely. As the lodge in London had no idea the scrolls were removed and the xeroxes made may have gone the way of Orbis, and potentially only one copy of until they were recovered in Mexico.
So far, my only intention has been to make parallels that may have not been made so excuse me while I hurl myself over the side of the boat and bring this to my conclusion on what to make of all this. Skip ahead 2 paragraphs to ignore it.
Simulation Theory. As the always headstrong @L_Marvin_Metz says so poignantly says "the earth is hollow". While, maybe meant to be taken at face value, it probably isn't. But figuratively speaking, definitely. So many of life's pursuits are hollow and we often see characters in the show being punished for these impure pursuits. What else could allow for impossible tunnels, resurrection, portals and magic? A lot of things but nonetheless, Simulation theory would also give a lot for credence to all the talk about "getting out", a reason why Liz and Dud can't be in the Lodge at the same time beyond some deus ex machina. Liz needs a reason to figure out the system and for her it's finding her brother. Whether or not she can (probably can't, if he is rebooted/born again why would that be up to us). Or that's what I'm going to postulate for season 3.
Either way the scrolls are there because of reasons no one intended, and all that talk about destiny and painting the future but not getting to actually make it up begin to make sense. The lodge will fulfill its purpose because it already has. The absurdity of simulation theory requires the possibility of multiple layers of simulation, as above and so too is below, also begins to make sense in this context. This could literally go anywhere so I'm gonna stop at this point. Dud is dead, for now in a sense. However, that's if him crashing out of that door covered in dirt wasn't just him falling out in the same sequence we observer it.
There may have been for a way less complex reason than I am making - that being actor availability and the inability to pay the highly in-demand Wyatt Russell both for opportunity cost on a show with a future unknown and for his actual need to have a minimum price that the show may not be able to pay.
However limited his role is has yet to be seen, and hopefully for the sake of everything will be seen next year, but we saw him get an emmy nomination in the finale -- at least I truly believe that (specifically when he denied the knighthood). But it could be from any episode this season probably. If he takes home the gold who knows what that extra prestige will do to any budgetary restraints on AMC's wallet in the future. Clearly he likes being in this show, so I see know reason why he wouldn't return as a lead if i'm at all correct about any of this.
Point of this being that we have no idea if any of this is intentional, if it was written in due to the unknown future of the show even after being renewed last year, always the plan, or not even touching on the plan. That's why deus ex machina can be both brilliant and convenient (Adaptation). If you execute it well, we, as an audience, can't say for certain how it entered the arena. I mean, specifically as a season finale. Plenty of other examples of it in the show, obviously. almost like it's part of a greater theme?
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