Date of airing: December 5, 2016 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 5.075 million viewers, 3.2/6 in Households, 1.16/4 with Adults 18-49, 0.6/3 with Adults 18-34, 1.6/5 with Adults 25-54
written by: Anslem Richardson
directed by: John Terlesky
The episode would have been alright and fine if it had not ended the way it did. Of course TIMELESS needed to be another one of those seemingly mythology-heavy shows that was not able to deliver any answers quickly when questions were asked, because the mystery of it all needed to live and exist for multiple episodes and seasons to keep viewers engaged, even though the mythology is not even that heavy after nine episodes and could easily be concluded within one or two dialogue scenes in the next episode. I accepted the fact that no one knew what the key around Bonnie’s neck was for, but when Flynn opened up an ancient clock with the key that brought out sound effects that reminded me of the grandfather clock before the opening credit sequence of the 1998 techno thriller LOLA RENNT, and what came out of that clock was just one random page which was probably written in the distant past (could have been the distant future as well, who knows?), I needed to roll my eyes for the time it needed the closing credits to finish and the episode to properly end with the studio credits. I hate these kinds of scenes. The mystery is not necessary, the neglect to get into it further is almost suicidal for a show that wants itself to be seen as mythology-heavy. Why do you think shows like THE EVENT and REVOLUTION and FLASHFORWARD were canceled after a single season? And what I realized during this episode is that I do not give a damn about the overarching story arc any longer when writers were kidding me with these kinds of endings.
If it had not been for the final scene, the episode was actually okay. I loved the energy between Bonnie and Clyde, compared to Lucy and Wyatt, and I liked that it was not just all about putting a murderous duo at the side of a time-traveling duo and wreaking havoc, but instead, it was used to advance the characters. Wyatt dove deeper into his almost forgotten past, and he needed every reason to be allowed to remember his time with Jessica, still giving me hope that Wyatt trying to save Jessica is one of his goals that may or may not be standing in the way of the writers’ goals to bring Wyatt and Lucy together as a couple. Meanwhile, Lucy continues to understand Wyatt and connects to him on a deeper level from here on, helping the love story of Wyatt and Lucy, and essentially putting an end to Lucy’s engagement with a random man from an alternate timeline, which the writers have not at all utilized so far in the series. With her mission to save her sister, and his mission to save his wife, the two already have an understanding about their missions, but as it is standard for television dramas with a central romantic couple, obstacle courses have to be laid in their ways.
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| To be a romantically involved couple in front of Bonnie and Clyde. |
In addition to all that, I liked that the kiss (oh, the inevitable first kiss...) did not just happen because the writers needed a romantic storyline in this episode (which was already present via Bonnie and Clyde), it happened because it was essentially a mission parameter and it was Wyatt’s attempt at staying undercover with one of the most infamous couples of America’s twentieth century. With that in mind, I have to say I liked seeing Wyatt and Lucy together, though I do not necessarily have the hots for seeing them as an actual couple. They can work together and save their loved ones at the end of the season or series, but a romance is not at all necessary to make their individual stories count.
Using Bonnie and Clyde in this episode was solid, although the two are part of American history I was never really interested in. The 1960s movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway was okay, but not one of the most memorable films in my collection, and I still have not seen the (revisionist) A&E two-part miniseries from 2013 that was essentially the latest adaptation of the couple’s story. I simply do not care about a bank-robbing murderous couple in love when their road trip through America, defying their families and generic life in the process, was far more interesting than their “day job.”
In this episode, I liked Rufus’ involvement in the mission more than I did Bonnie and Clyde, because for once it might have helped Rufus that he was black. I laughed when his driver’s license said “Wesley Snipes,” while Flynn tried to tell Hamer that Rufus’ name was definitely not Wesley Snipes (as if Flynn had to laugh in his mind, because his opponent’s sense of irony was simply too good to not chuckle for a moment). I was amused that Rufus actually managed to get out of the police precinct without the writers going into the cliche of a black man in a white police precinct, because it managed to defy the stereotypes that come with the idea of Rufus, a black man, being in a time when Americans weren’t friendly to anyone who was black.
But while the writers were able to ship around the cliches of storytelling every once in a while, they did not manage to do it when it came to the inevitable shootout between the police and the couple(s). Bullets were flying left and right, with Bonnie and Clyde running away out in the open (which was kind of a stupid decision), and the only bullet that hits either of them was when Clyde was jumping a fence. Television and shootouts... Never a good thing, since you can essentially tell yourself that everyone is shooting like stormtroopers. By the way: Were the writers discussing whether to keep Bonnie alive at the end of the episode? For a second I thought that might be the case and history has been changed in the narrative of TIMELESS, but it looked like the show never wanted to go that far, never wanted to be drastic with its rewriting of real-life history.
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| One last breath for Bonnie. |
Meanwhile, I was surprised that Agent Christopher was starting to get utilized more as a character. In the previous episode, I already saw that she had a better connection with the team than Connor Mason did, and that she was able to share information with them than with him, and this episode continued that plot. However, I still do not think that Connor might be a hidden villain in the story, although at this moment he is, and Agent Christopher was about to see what it was like to go against Connor. The scene with her and Rufus in the bar was great, though now I am wondering if Agent Christopher might see Rufus as part of Rittenhouse, creating an additional, entirely needless conflict. Confusing Rufus as an antagonist might be a great story for a few episodes, but the scene was also there to stop her in her tracks, so that the writers can fill another six episodes with non-Rittenhouse episodes before the season finale will blow things up story-wise.
