I’m hoping they answer this minor plot issue, since right now it doesn’t make any sense based on what little we know about his character and motivations.
As far as we know, he was given at least 2 opportunities to leave the island in 1974 (on the sub the next day, and then 2 weeks later – assuming that offer was still on the table after those 2 weeks), and it’s reasonable to expect that unless something happened, he would have continued to have opportunities to leave over the course of the next three years which he apparently passed up.
Who knows how much he knows about the nature of the time travel stuff, but it would seem to me that it would be difficult for a guy like Miles to pass up the opportunity to head back to the mainland and become insanely wealthy by doing things like investing in the stock market with the future knowledge advantage that he would have.
Could it be that something happens before the two weeks are up that cuts off their option to leave? Or perhaps he knows enough about the nature of the timeline (or something else) to know that it just wouldn’t work out for him.
It will also be interesting to see whether he encounters (during that timeline) the people who many people believe to be his parents, or maybe even himself as a baby. If the scene we see with Faraday earlier in the season (in the tunnels under the Orchid) is any indication, it would certainly seem like the group is now present during that time.
Wait, you make it sounds like he can see the future. He can only talk to dead people, so I’m not sure how successful he could be off the island.
My theory: he has been given a good reason to stay. While in the future or past dead people could have told him something that would entice his curiosity enough to make him stay.
In that regard he may know more than any other survivor about the island, including it’s future.
Like I said above, he’s in 1974, so he would have basic “future” knowledge relative to that time period, since it would be the “past” to him. Even someone who paid no specific attention to the stock market growing up could go back to the mid-70s and eventually get very rich by investing in the right tech companies over time, especially if the timeline is pretty stable (as in the Lost time travel paradigm).
I do like the other thoughts, though. I don’t remember if I posted something here before about Miles’ knowledge of the island based on his “special” communication abilities, or whether I just thought about it, but it would definitely be interesting to see them explore that angle.
His dad?