I had the same issue...twice. After the thunderbolt update fails I click restart and end up with a kernel panic...nable to boot. I was able to recover without any other hardware, thankfully, so I tried the update again. Same results and am recovering for the second time. I'm running lion.
Steps follow:
1) Reboot the machine while holding in command-r (this boots to recovery partition and disk utility)
2) I chose reinstall Mac OSX next
3) Enter your apple ID to confirm eligibility.
4) MBP will start a recovery install on the hdd you selected, it will not remove your personal files or account. After this reinstall, I was up and running again as if I skipped the thunderbolt update...until I tried the update again.
Thought I'd offer this while I wait for. One to recover again. Good luck.