Date of airing: December 12, 2016 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 4.812 million viewers, 3.1/6 in Households, 1.04/4 with Adults 18-49, 0.5/2 with Adults 18-34, 1.5/5 with Adults 25-54
written by: Tom Smuts
directed by: John F. Showalter
This is when TIMELESS turned into a frustrating adventure series, because the writers continued to expand the Rittenhouse story, even though they killed off the founding member of the society that has not even been properly developed yet. Except maybe you planned from the beginning that Rittenhouse was the evil party in the background, bent to destroy the world by reshaping history to its own needs, and while this episode was the answer to the question of when Rittenhouse started existing and who was the founding member, it did not help much to explain what the group is, who their people are, and what they actually want.
But did we care about that? Did we care that Principal Snyder was the OG Rittenhouse, and that he intended to use Lucy as his sex slave? Did we care when Flynn put a bullet in this asshole’s body, just to realize a few seconds later that his son John Rittenhouse may be the OG Rittenhouse, because his father happened to be a radicalizing idiot? I never thought about it extensively, but even I figured early that Rittenhouse is more an idea than a group of people, and that you cannot just kill the original members of Rittenhouse. The idea of the group is already out there, it may have existed way before the time it was formed into an active lifestyle, which means if you cut off one head, another one will take its place. It’s perfectly fine if TIMELESS wanted to create Rittenhouse and make a non-Marvel Hydra version out of it, but at least make the characters aware that Rittenhouse cannot just be killed. Hitler was not the only one thinking that it was a grand idea to eradicate the Jews – if Flynn would have killed him in the 1920s, it would not have meant that the Holocaust did not happen, simply because the idea of killing all Jews was not born with Hitler. As Flynn said, someone else is going to take the place of the recently deceased and continue with the idea.
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| Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for: The pride of Mount Vernon. |
That makes the characters incredibly stupid, although it was a neat
idea to follow the history of Rittenhouse to one of its original
members. But the fact that Flynn’s only thought was to kill Quark was
good enough to change his life, then he was certainly mistaken, and I
already expected him to be mistaken before he delivered the idea of
killing Rittenhouse in its infancy. By the way, I never expected David
Rittenhouse to be a point in real-life American history. Although TIMELESS
fictionalized Rittenhouse in this episode, consider me shocked when I
discovered David Rittenhouse’s Wikipedia page, especially after
historian wunderkind Lucy did not even react when Rittenhouse came into
the room or was identified by Benedict Arnold. Usually, she was always
excited when meeting a famous person from the past, but in this
particular case, Lucy’s “OMG, he is a really famous person in history”
was absent. Most likely because this version of Rittenhouse was wholly
fictionalized and possibly did not even bear any of the real-life
Rittenhouse’s historic achievements and characteristics. Anyway, what are his descendants about the portrayal of David Rittenhouse in this episode?
Anyway, I was glad to see that the tenth episode of the show managed to bring Flynn into a better focus, and have him actively fight against Rittenhouse and not just tease around about it. Considering that Flynn needed the help of his time-traveling pursuers would also mean that the trio might see some of the truth in his words, and that the pursuit of Flynn might be difficult for some of the characters very shortly, as they start to believe his stories. Just let Wyatt find out what Rittenhouse is, and that they might even be involved in Jessica’s murder somehow (I trust the writers to ruin that backstory just for the heck of it), and he will be Flynn’s best friend. Just let Lucy find out that her entire family is involved in Rittenhouse (maybe even her non-existing sister, but most definitely her fiance?), and she will start fighting alongside Flynn. And just wait until Rittenhouse kills Jiya because that is what villains like to do to push the protagonists (in this case, Rufus). TIMELESS is not a good enough show to not bring these kinds of twists into the story, and with a somewhat unimaginative Rittenhouse story like this, it is only a question of time when all those twists will pop up.
The story of George Washington and Benedict Arnold and David Rittenhouse was not my cup of hot chocolate though. I was surprised to realize that Your Excellency was handled as a minor character in this episode, and even had quite a minor status within the story, while Benedict Arnold just became a plot device for the characters to quickly get to Rittenhouse. This episode was not about Arnold at all at the end, and you could see that by Rittenhouse’s execution of him and by the lovely delight he had on his face shooting this ingenious pistol. That means the entire story was just there to get to Rittenhouse, and have Flynn go mad crazy and sad about killing him and his son. While I adored the confrontational scene in the middle of the darkness when Lucy tried her best to save John from Flynn’s emotional wrath, I cannot imagine that Flynn was ever this evil, just to kill a Rittenhouse kid and save his family in the process. If Flynn considered himself a good guy here, he would have found ways to keep John alive, and maybe bring him away from his father’s ideologies. Flynn sees himself as the father he could never be to his own children, so why not prove the opposite to himself and show John that the Rittenhouse ideology is false and dumb?
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| Principal Snyder likes them ingenious pistols. |
And finally, a few more words to Agent Christopher, who slowly grows as a character. Now I am suddenly interested in her backstory and private life, and I might even have had thought tragic thoughts when she gave Lucy the USB stick of her memories and life, just in case Agent Christopher unknowingly goes through the same thing Lucy does (or dies as a character). It was a touching scene, and one that should advance Agent Christopher as a character, maybe even as a friend among enemies. It is especially helpful when you compare it to Connor Mason’s story and how he continues to threaten Rufus about Rittenhouse. One team member gets scared by the actions of one of his superiors, and the other gets hope that they will have help, in case the fight against Rittenhouse lands in the present timeline.
But yeah, TIMELESS was starting to become a boring show again. It started in an uninteresting fashion, it got better when the story focused on the characters, but now it’s drinking from the Rittenhouse fountain, which started to resemble the Rambaldi fountain in the third season of ALIAS. And I do not want that to happen to any other show.
