Date of airing: October 17, 2016 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 5.861 million viewers, 3.7/7 in Households, 1.49/5 with Adults 18-49, 0.9/4 with Adults 18-34, 1.9/6 with Adults 25-54
Wonderful, the villain has the plutonium core of an atomic bomb now. The final scene of the episode felt like the final moment of a TWENTY-FOUR episode, in which the (generically Middle Eastern) terrorists have proven all along they had the bomb, and that it was about to be used for some heavy damage. So yeah, the final scene can be considered a trope of television, especially the moment of Anthony “presenting” the core to Flynn like it’s a prize or an offering or something. I must say though, I whispered a little ‘oh crap’ when I realized that Flynn and his men have buried the core in 1962, just to safely retrieve it in 2016. It was an ‘oh crap’ moment not needed for the story because it was obvious Flynn had the core (whether he traveled through time with it or not), but maybe I was a little surprised that it was so easy for Flynn to get an atomic bomb. Just get Judy Campbell, have her be your agent for the night, and let that be the way you get the most important part of an atomic bomb because US generals... Well, they also like to think with their penises, just like any other man.
It was an alright-ish episode. The way an episode begins with the mission and ends with the extremely short debrief of the team telling Homebase what happened seemed like the one element TIMELESS needs to do, just so some of the other regular characters who are not part of the time travel action team are allowed to have some screentime. And with a bit of luck, there is even a cliffhanger at the end of the hour, because nothing goes on broadcast television without a cliffhanger at the end. Meanwhile, it was nice to learn something about Judy Campbell, because I have never heard of this woman before, but that was where the educational fun ended. The rest of the mission was quite boring, despite the intriguing and somewhat confusing image of the nuclear cloud in the distance, and the people partying in Las Vegas were celebrating it like it was the drop of the ball at the New Year’s Eve parade.
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| Welcome to the end of the world. |
What I liked about the episode was the continuing development of the time travel team. Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus were truly growing closer, and it was topped with a cherry on top by Rufus mentioning at the end that they were starting to gel as a team, which he saw as a good thing about this mission, and that he considered Lucy and Wyatt as his friends now. Also, the three continued to learn things about one another – Rufus shows the two what it’s like to be a black man in the past, Wyatt shows Lucy what it’s like to be a man without a future (and pretty much without a life, too), and Lucy shows the two men what it’s like to know history while living it and how it can turn into an advantage while on a mission. And with time, the three will become even better friends, which is when the pop culture references between the trio should fly like there’s no tomorrow. This episode clearly had a nod to BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART II, and Wyatt thought it was a good idea to send a message to the future for pop culture and story reasons, but I got the feeling that the writers wanted to bring more comedy into the show to accompany the time travel shenanigans and action beats, especially with the Rittenhouse story in the background, which seems to be leading to death and destruction in the future.
Meanwhile, the writers started to establish a motive for Flynn. Now that he explained that he wants Rittenhouse erased from history, it opens up a few possibilities for the future of the show and the fate of the characters, while it also asks a lot of new questions. The first question would be about the size of Rittenhouse, and how far back into the past it reaches. The second question would be about the group’s intentions: Why does Flynn think that Rittenhouse is destroying America (granted, TIMELESS hasn’t shown a version of America past the year 2016 yet, so who knows what happened in the future where Flynn might have been coming from), and why does he think that making America live through one disaster after another makes it easier for him to eradicate Rittenhouse?
And the character arcs? Well, Rufus was defined by his friendship with Anthony this time around, instead of the missing subplot of him having to record his interactions with Lucy and Wyatt during the missions. That was not only a better choice for his character arc, but now the writers thankfully dropped the recording sessions entirely. Though Rufus is still missing some depth after three hours, because he can’t always act upon the fact that he is the black time traveler who always has to watch out for his own life in the past, even if it will always be an engaging story when he finds himself in a time during which people of his skin color are being seen as less of a human.
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| The woman at the window looks innocent from here. |
Lucy’s engagement might have been interesting to follow up on, but the writers chickened out of that one by having her move out of the house and back to her mother, which means she won’t even need to find a reason to fake her engagement or have her panic about a shirtless guy being in her apartment when it would have been a great and funny storyline for an episode or two. And Wyatt trying to warn his wife from her doom also seemed like an interesting subplot for this episode, because he took the shot to change the future, and for some reason was unable to. There might be a bigger mystery behind that, but the writers decided to say “No” to that story for now and move on. Although it fascinates me to realize that Wyatt took the opportunity to change the future and failed, while one tiny thing that changed in Lucy’s past changed her entire life in the present.
After three episodes, I still can’t gel with the characters though, and the missions feel extremely random. TIMELESS could still be an entertaining history lesson, but the show is what its key art poster promised from the beginning: chaos, and everything all at once. No focus and no depth. I was hoping for a little more at this stage.
