Timeless - Season 1 Wrapup
It's been a while since I've written about the streaming series Timeless (2016-2018). We finished watching it months ago; I've just gotten way backlogged on writing about it. Here I'll catch up on the end of season 1.
S1E16, the season 1 finale, tied up or transitioned 3 plotlines that were very satisfying:
1. The players in the game of "Cat and mouse" become allies.
Season 1 has followed an episodic plot structure with a cat-and-mouse dynamic. Every episode the bad guy, Flynn, travels somewhere back in time and tries changing some major event in US history, generally to the detriment of the US and key people in its history. (Like, in S1E2 Flynn assassinates President Lincoln when John Wilkes Booth fails to.) The good guys chase after him and try to prevent calamity from happening.
A broad arc across the season has been that Flynn keeps telling the heroes they should help him, not fight him. He tells them the real villain is a shadowy organization called Rittenhouse. But is Flynn a misunderstood hero, or is he a villain lying to throw the good guys off? And even if Rittenhouse is malign, Flynn seems not to care if his efforts to thwart Rittenhouse destroy the whole US as well. In S1E16 they find a way to start working together, opposing Rittenhouse without destroying the whole country. Yay, not having to worry if we're going to suddenly find out we lost WWII! 😂
2. Lucy stops whining, "What about my siiiiiiister?!?!?!"
My biggest gripe about the writing of Season 1 is that main-character Lucy keeps whining about wanting to "bring back" her sister. Recall that in S1E1, Lucy's sister, Amy- who we learn is actually Lucy's half sister- disappeared from the present-day timeline after Lucy changed history in 1937. Lucy's mom is like, "Sister? What sister? You've never had a sister."
This is a common element of time-travel stories. Lucy made a seemingly unrelated change in the course of history decades earlier that rippled to the modern day. Amy's father met another woman- the descendant of a survivor of a disaster Lucy prevented- and married her instead of Lucy's mom. Thus Amy was never born. Oh, and BTW, Lucy's mom was no longer dying of cancer in the present day, as she was never hooked on smoking by the man she never married. You'd think Lucy might take the good with the bad as consequence of her actions but, noooo, she harps about wanting Amy back. Every. Dang. Episode.
The reason why Lucy's harping about Amy in every episode is especially annoying is that in genre of time travel, one can't just go back and "save" Amy. Amy was not killed in an event a time-traveler could go back and stop from occurring. The complex series of events that led to her being born was averted by a complex series of events. Elite university Ph.D. educated Lucy should be able to figure this out.
So, what happens in the season finale to shut off this annoying recurring plot-point? Oh, boy.
[S1E16 spoiler (click to open)]In the penultimate scene of S1E16 Lucy opens up to her mom to explain why she's been acting weirdly all season long, disappearing at strange hours of the day for "work emergencies" and being depressed about a sister who never existed. She outright tells her mom she's a time-traveler. And her mom fires back- she knows. She knows everything. Because she's part of Rittenhouse. 😱
3. A new villain for season 2 emerges.
A tag-ending scene in S1E16 introduces a new villain who'll help drive the plot in Season 2. [S1E16 spoiler (click to open)]After Lucy's mom reveals she's been part of Rittenhouse all along she also reveals that a person Lucy & co. just "rescued" is part Rittenhouse, too. She's a deep mole.... And in the final scene we see her murdering a bunch of the good guys' allies and stealing a time machine to pilot for Rittenhouse's nefarious purposes.
S1E16, the season 1 finale, tied up or transitioned 3 plotlines that were very satisfying:
1. The players in the game of "Cat and mouse" become allies.
Season 1 has followed an episodic plot structure with a cat-and-mouse dynamic. Every episode the bad guy, Flynn, travels somewhere back in time and tries changing some major event in US history, generally to the detriment of the US and key people in its history. (Like, in S1E2 Flynn assassinates President Lincoln when John Wilkes Booth fails to.) The good guys chase after him and try to prevent calamity from happening.
A broad arc across the season has been that Flynn keeps telling the heroes they should help him, not fight him. He tells them the real villain is a shadowy organization called Rittenhouse. But is Flynn a misunderstood hero, or is he a villain lying to throw the good guys off? And even if Rittenhouse is malign, Flynn seems not to care if his efforts to thwart Rittenhouse destroy the whole US as well. In S1E16 they find a way to start working together, opposing Rittenhouse without destroying the whole country. Yay, not having to worry if we're going to suddenly find out we lost WWII! 😂
2. Lucy stops whining, "What about my siiiiiiister?!?!?!"
My biggest gripe about the writing of Season 1 is that main-character Lucy keeps whining about wanting to "bring back" her sister. Recall that in S1E1, Lucy's sister, Amy- who we learn is actually Lucy's half sister- disappeared from the present-day timeline after Lucy changed history in 1937. Lucy's mom is like, "Sister? What sister? You've never had a sister."
This is a common element of time-travel stories. Lucy made a seemingly unrelated change in the course of history decades earlier that rippled to the modern day. Amy's father met another woman- the descendant of a survivor of a disaster Lucy prevented- and married her instead of Lucy's mom. Thus Amy was never born. Oh, and BTW, Lucy's mom was no longer dying of cancer in the present day, as she was never hooked on smoking by the man she never married. You'd think Lucy might take the good with the bad as consequence of her actions but, noooo, she harps about wanting Amy back. Every. Dang. Episode.
The reason why Lucy's harping about Amy in every episode is especially annoying is that in genre of time travel, one can't just go back and "save" Amy. Amy was not killed in an event a time-traveler could go back and stop from occurring. The complex series of events that led to her being born was averted by a complex series of events. Elite university Ph.D. educated Lucy should be able to figure this out.
So, what happens in the season finale to shut off this annoying recurring plot-point? Oh, boy.
[S1E16 spoiler (click to open)]In the penultimate scene of S1E16 Lucy opens up to her mom to explain why she's been acting weirdly all season long, disappearing at strange hours of the day for "work emergencies" and being depressed about a sister who never existed. She outright tells her mom she's a time-traveler. And her mom fires back- she knows. She knows everything. Because she's part of Rittenhouse. 😱
3. A new villain for season 2 emerges.
A tag-ending scene in S1E16 introduces a new villain who'll help drive the plot in Season 2. [S1E16 spoiler (click to open)]After Lucy's mom reveals she's been part of Rittenhouse all along she also reveals that a person Lucy & co. just "rescued" is part Rittenhouse, too. She's a deep mole.... And in the final scene we see her murdering a bunch of the good guys' allies and stealing a time machine to pilot for Rittenhouse's nefarious purposes.