First things first. I’m pretty sure I know Hurley’s purpose for coming back to the Island…. to get funny as hell!

Seriously, in my opinion that dude is at the top of his game in ’77. I’ve never been one to even chuckle at the Hugo-humor, but since he’s been back on the Island, I’ve found myself bursting out loud almost every episode. And I think his chemistry with Miles is far better than with anyone else… Charlie included.

I didn’t really buy the Hurley/Charlie chemistry, to be honest… or the tears when he died. Maybe because I wasn’t sure who Charlie was supposed to be most connected to on the show. But man, if Miles bites it?! I’ll be mess.

Whoa… you think they’ll kill Miles?

Haha! Kidding…….. or….. maybe not.

There was plenty of cool stuff in this episode, no doubt. We had more archaic stuff in the underground tunnels; more hieroglyphics . If you’ve had a chance to read my two part post on deciphering the Lost hieroglyphs, you know that all the pillars down there have the same 4 sets of glyphs. There was one pillar side that we didn’t see in the episode “Dead is Dead.”, and in this episode, I believe we did. If I can convince @edrafalko to give us just one more for the road, there may be a Part 3 coming your way.

But for me, this episode was really only about one thing. And I believe it’s the most important item of “Time Bearing” information we’ve gotten so far: The Compass.

At some point in the 90s (I can’t remember specifically), Locke is shot in the leg by Ethan… moments later he “flashes” or “blips” to 2007 where, “bleeding to death”, he’s given a compass. Moments later he blips again, and the next time we see him it’s 1954.

It’s interesting to note that despite the short passage of time, he’s in fairly good shape in ’54. No longer bleeding to death, once again throwing knives like a pro. So… blip to the future: “still bleeding to death”… blip to the past: “no longer bleeding to death”.

It seems the past on this show is special. It seems the past on this show has the ability to heal… a leg(s)… cancer… sterility… even the effects of metal oxidation (stay with me!).

You see, it’s not so much healing as it is “reverting”; reverting the degraded state of an object… animate or inanimate. In a sense, rewinding the wear on that object. Making a wounded leg not wounded… making a rusty compass shiny again.

Why, you may ask?

So that it can properly fit into its current time & space… so that it won’t create a paradox, a hole, something missing from the natural “course” of things. If I’m losing anyone, maybe this will help:

Let’s run through the events we’ve seen, only say this “healing” effect doesn’t exist:

  1. In 1954, Locke gives Richard the compass.
  2. Richard keeps it until 2007 before finally giving it back to Locke saying, “a little rusty but she can still find north”.
  3. Locke (through Richard) passes this rusty compass back to his “bleeding to death” self before he blips to 1954 again.
  4. That still “bleeding to death” Locke gives the compass to Richard again.
  5. That new Richard once again holds onto it until 2007. But this time he says, “rusty as hell, dude. Not sure if it even works anymore”.

And this series of events would loop several dozen more times before that thing wouldn’t even resemble a compass anymore. Several hundred loops… thousand… million… the compass would be dust.

“Time” (or The Island if you prefer) can’t have that kind of harsh paradox. So it “course corrects”… jams Michael’s gun, fixes objects and people, kills them or revives them if it has to.

And why do I find this so important to the story?

Well, if I was a writer on a show like this… a show that loves to play with metaphor, I’d probably be aware of a compass’ symbolic significance; an object that helps us find our direction. And since we have a bunch of characters in this story who help guide us through the dense science, ethics, mysticism… “advisors” like Richard, Locke, Faraday, Ben, Jack, Sawyer, even Hurley for certain fans… I might use an object like this compass to symbolize one of them.

And with so many of these same characters blipping through time like the compass, I might even use its odd looping dilemma… to explain someone else’s similar time looping dilemma.

So… if I’m right… who’s the Compass?

Oh, and @kelseroo… it told me I’m Locke… I guess Faraday’s not on the roster yet.

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