henripootel

I guess, but that is some damn hard long-term planning. And that for a guy who once upon a time, met a girl who said she was his granddaughter and apparently showed him a disappearing time ship. Once. That's a lifetime of not only lying to your own son, but (presumably) indoctrinating him into the glories of a group you know to be evil. And why didn't Lucy's mom bring her into the fold? What's the good of having a multigenerational organization if not to breed the next generation of solid members? Neither of these make much sense.

That one at least was probably a 'self-cleaner'. Flynn killing the guy in the past meant that he wasn't there to be killed again in 2017, so that 'never happened', so to speak. This one could almost be explained away, although it doesn't make much sense. It could be that, in Lucy's timeline, Lucy already went back, met her grandpa, and got him to flip on Rittenhouse. Lucy never knew this nor did anyone else, but going back into the past might not have changed the timeline at all, only revealed to Lucy herself that grandpa's stash of evidence would one day be waiting. Why this makes no sense: why would turncoat grandpa still raise his own son to be a Rittenhouse shitbag? Are we not pretty sure that Lucy's dad is a true believer? Why would a guy who'd turned against Rittenhouse do that?

Well, it's not that bad, depending on how big Rittenhouse is and if they sufficiently refresh the gene pool. Which they probably do considering rapey-old original 1780s Rittenhouse was raw-doggin' everything that came his way. Even if they encouraged first-cousin level marriages, a large enough group should prevent too many lethals coming to the fore. Again brings up just how big Rittenhouse really is, and I'm far from alone here ... I was underwhelmed at how few people this exposed. I mean I know that they probably weren't through rounding folks up but 140? I was thinking Rittenhouse would have to be in the thousands, more likely tens of thousands by now. They're pretty much a poor-man's illuminati, right? I figured the top brass alone would be a few dozen. If they're that big and that evil, I'd say let Flynn go ahead with his bomb back in the 50s. No way even a half-assed organization wouldn't have taken steps to protect themselves from being exposed entirely.

Lately, maybe, but this episode really sucked. Happy to see that they mostly remember who the characters are (although Adalind and Nick is still bizarre to me), but the writers seem like they're just running out the clock.

Oh, I rolled right along with you on that one. Not for nothing, but I knew an actual, real-life room with a view. Back in the day before they tore it down, the best view of Temple Square in Salt Lake was from ... a Border's Bookstore cafe. It was simply perfect - huge window that perfectly framed everything, like a living postcard. Don't know what's there now - probably an office building. About time too - Wyatt got his ass kicked more than Worf. Really liked when he took out McCarthy's guards quickly and elegantly - finally the Wyatt I've been waiting for. Also, knocking somebody out - not without risk. I know it's tv so it's like a super-safe off switch but in reality, he could easily have ended McCarthy right there and then.

I like the actress but I really don't think they know what to do with her character. For me, she's just been one source of many for my primary gripe about Rittenhouse: why would they ever let anyone except of their own hold such a position? What if she figures out that Rittenhouse is evil and resists, as indeed happened. I would have expected the Time Team and everyone in it to be old-school Rittenhouse, top to bottom. Of course this'd mean we don't have a show, but it'd at least make a bit of sense to me.

I'm also curious - isn't this how everyone should want this handled? Agent Christopher has a wife, so do I, it doesn't define me and there's more to me than just that fact. I actually thought it was kinda refreshing that they mentioned this fact and declined to elaborate like it's just ... normal. It is normal. I genuinely see this as progress. I enjoyed this episode but yet again I think the writers are having it both ways on Ritttenhouse. Seemed a bit pat that all they had to do was get the documented goods on Rittenhouse, turn it over to the 'proper authorities' and they'd ferret the rascals out. Seems more likely they'd be turning over their documents to Rittenhouse (who run everything) who'd thank them and quietly round up the Time Team and anyone associated with them. So is Rittenhouse a multigenerational army of baddies who control everyone and everything, or are they a smallish group of infiltrators who can fit into what looked like a fairly modest-sized mansion? Also thought the whole 'Lucy's mom isn't at all who Lucy thought she was' was a bit of a cop-out. Nobody expects these 'huge plot twists' because they make no farking sense. Thirty-odd years and Lucy never got a whiff that she's actually super-rich domestic terrorist royalty? Gee, ma, where was Rittenhouse when Lucy was dancing at the Iguana to pay for grad school?

If I had to use a sports analogy, it seems to me like they trying not to lose rather than to score more points. Instead of sticking their necks out, they're trying to stick to a formula they think people will like, such as introducing the 'luminaries' of any particular time period. More often than not, what they mean by this is 'historic figures most people have heard of', even if they weren't real key points in history, like Lindbergh or Hemingway. They also have conflicted heroes (whose conflicts I don't really care about), a shadowy villain organization (about which I care less), and romantic interests that don't really interest me either. These all seem like familiar elements they put in because they're ... familiar. And should appeal to everyone. But kinda don't. Oh the other hand, there are novel elements I actually enjoy. The team aren't all gung-ho professionals - they're just as wide-eyed and gob-smacked as I think I'd be if I got a chance to time travel. And they have Malcolm Barrett, and I notice a precipitous drop in quality for any scene that doesn't have him in it. I really wish these guys would get another season to see if the writers could find their footing but I kinda doubt this is gonna happen.

That's the kind of clever writing I was really hoping for, but I'm guessing we'll never see. Say they went to Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and ... nobody was there. That's because when they went back in time (say to the 30s but they can't be sure), the timeline re-set and this time JFK got a cold and decided to skip Dallas. And everything changed. But JFK was assassinated anyway by someone else in Pittsburg, meaning it had to be Rittenhouse (who just found another shooter). Supernatural managed some pretty complicated plots so there's no reason Kripke couldn't have put some in this show, yet we get a time-travel show about people trying to change history where history barely changes.

The counterpoint being - Lucy has those Wikipedia pages in her head. Her version of history includes her having a sister, Booth being the assassin of Lincoln, and a million other 'facts' that are no longer true. Let's call them 'alternative facts' (because that phrase never got anyone in trouble), but Lucy's version of history is no longer the version of history in the current timeline. Well, she's probably spot on for periods older than anyone has time-travelled to, but anything after that are suspect, even for events nobody tried to change. People going back in time re-runs the 'tape' of history so-to-speak so the least likely thing by far is that everything is exactly the same as it was in our version. Big things probably remain largely the same, so Pearl Harbor likely still happened, but exactly who died might change a little and the effects downstream may be significant. The best thing for them to do is have the Eyeball download wikipedia so they can check it if they need to. Might even be fun, if Lucy checks it and finds out that the history she remembers keeps changing on her. Lucy'd still be useful because she knows what questions to type in but she of all people should know her recollection is not to be relied on.

Actually, I think that, with the exception of the last one, all of that information could be derived from a quick printout of various Wikipedia pages at the least. Worth noting too that most all of these 'solutions' required a heavy dose of contrivance by the writers. I mean who knew that the Lone Ranger guy could induced to help, or would be capable of tracking James in timely fashion. What were the odds that Capone's brother could be inveigled to act, that Lucy was right that Flynn would see it necessary to attack the others besides Lincoln, that the letter was absolutely necessary to properly frame the Alamo incident (rather than simply the thing that did so in our timeline), or that Houdini would actually turn out to be pretty helpful (to say nothing of willing to help). Lucy may be a font of (suspiciously) broad and accurate historical info, but it's the writers who're doing most of the heavy lifting here.

Ding ding ding. There was (as far as I know) no reason for them to discontinue blowing the crap out of Rogers' ship. So Rogers' plan was to let them do this to their heart's content then hope to surprise whomever boarded the ship? And rather than opening fire again and very possibly killing Teach and Anne (although jumping overboard was an option for them), he surrendered the ship, absolutely condemning Teach and Anne. Also can't believe Teach would allow himself to be taken alive, unless hopelessly, grievously injured. He knows what's coming - better to die fighting.

I'm not sure 'infiltrated' is even the right word - sounds like they kinda are the government. They just encouraged their kids to go into professions useful to Rittenhouse - we're not talking The Americans here. But I agree, the treatment of them has been soooooo sloppy. Rittenhouse is playing the seriously long game here, centuries in the making, and the best they can do to get Rufus on board is to threaten his family and get him to record himself? Why not read him into Rittenhouse? Or train one of their own to pilot the craft? Or just convince Rufus that Rittenhouse is on the side of the angels, the only bulwark between America and chaos? He'd buy that. Nope, instead they're half multi-generational genius planners, half incompetent mustache-twirlers. These guys have been at this longer than our country has existed and now they have a time machine - they're seriously in no rush, and you don't survive this long half-assing things.

They could matter greatly and I can prove it to you. This experiment is done all the time - think of your siblings and how different they are from each other. Assuming you have some, but if you don't, let me tell you about mine. Two of my sibs are girls, including my own twin, and we couldn't be more dissimilar. I'm surprisingly unlike my brothers, who are placid and overweight, not given to going full-on Flynn no matter the provocation. From the same extremely limited genetic source came me, and I'm entirely capable of doing what Flynn has done. I'd like to think I'd be a bit less murderous and more careful and clever about it, but stealing the ship and messing with history - I'm your guy. None of my sibs is, I think, capable of doing this, and we sprung from the same parents and grew up in the same household, virtually identical nature and nurture (for lack of a better term). Rebooting 'Flynn' might very well change everything - who he grew up to be, who he married, what he ended up doing, putting himself in the path of Rittenhouse, and taking action against them. When you think of all the events that made Flynn do what he did, it's mind-bogglingly unlikely that you'd get so precise a replay of history even if you changed nothing at all, and just let chance again affect Flynn's life. Change 'Flynn' to a girl and you'd definitely change where 'he' ends up.

No need to even be that drastic. Why not just time-travel Ms. Flynn a couple of days around the time Flynn was conceived? A version of Flynn may still be born but what're the odds he'll have the exact same life as our Garcia Flynn? Nobody dies and Mama Flynn becomes one of the many folks who swears she was abducted by aliens and lost time. Heck, if they want to go with 'there's only 3 seats in the Eye', have Lucy take the slow path and catch up the old-fashioned way, by hanging out in 1962 for a few days.

And what to do when things go wrong. Indeed. As a comparison, I know folks who've been certified as scuba divers in a day, and true, you can get the basics pretty fast. But if something goes wrong, you want to know how to deal with it. My diver certification took two semesters, most of which we spent practicing not to panic. Heck, we spent 4 classes just diving down, removing our gear, swimming to the next pile of gear and putting it on. Diving is dangerous, as are flying and time travel - not a time to skimp. I too am a bit tired of Rittenhouse. They're super-evil but they're not super-evil, they're almighty and woven into the fabric of American aristocracy but they're letting some not-Rittenhouse yahoos use their time machine, they control everything but they don't control anything ... I'm lost. And I don't care. Nice to see Jim Beaver getting work but I'm not sure he adds much to the proceedings. Also thought it odd that Flynn put all this stock in getting Lindbergh out of the way. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Lindy ended up on the wrong side of history with brush with Nazism. Here was a huge American hero who ended up regretting saying nice things about Hitler, and didn't have much of an impact other than tarnishing his own name. If Rittenhouse had huge plans for Lindbergh swaying public opinion, they didn't work out, and while Rittenhouse didn't know that in the '30s, Flynn certainly does so why bother getting rid of Lindy? I know, it's our entryway into this Midnight in Paris episode, but it's not like this show needs to be any more crepuscular. Oh, and if anyone wants to see how Hemingway should have been done in this show, I suggest watching the aforementioned Midnight in Paris. In that, Hemingway talks exactly like you'd expect Hemingway to talk, if he'd been written by Ernest Hemingway. This show's Papa was okay, that guy was perfect.

Man that sucked. They are really pushing that quirky button hard, and it ain't workin'. Pilots are often rough so I'm gonna give them another shot, but they'd better pick it up quick.

The danger of knowing things. I have to close an eye whenever people fight with swords on screen, and I know a couple of birders who're driven to distraction whenever they show a bird close up because they don't even try to get the call right. One imagines how actual ER guys roll their eyes when somebody shouts 'We're losing him!'. Be interesting to hear a historian weigh in on how accurate these guys recreate the past although I think I can speak for them about how accurately they depict the knowledge base of a working historian (mmm, not so much).

I presume that Flynn and Lucy worked together for a bit, and changed a lot of timelines. The journal must contain some information about what they did and how the timelines changed, and include information that hasn't been uncovered in the current timeline (like the name of the guy who killed Wyatt's wife). I'm assuming much of this, as this is one of the many things the show brought up but then let lie fallow. That's my take too. There doesn't have to be any special explanation for why her sister is gone, could be just random chance. Randomness is a thing, and is the bane of time travelers.

Agree that we know way too little about Rittenhouse but I always assumed that Rittenhouse was pretty much in charge, but that they're so secret that few realize they actually work for Rittenhouse. I mean Mason seemed to convey as much when Rufus said he wouldn't record their voyages anymore and 'fuck you, Rittenhouse'. I thus assumed that Rittenhouse has plans for the time travel tech, likely to consolidate their own power or at least protect their own hegemony. Which leads to other questions like - Why would Rittenhouse make such a half-ass plan? Why not make Rufus' traveling companions dyed-in-the-wool Rittenhouse agents (unbeknownst to him) who will literally put a gun to his head if he deviates from the plan? They could report back themselves on what happened, they wouldn't have to rely on stupid thumb drive. It seems pretty clear here that everything is at stake for Rittenhouse, as time travel may be the only credible threat to a group so ruthless and entrenched. They have over two centuries of experience at long-term planning and staving off threats, and the best they can come up with is to bully Rufus and make him keep an audio diary? How have they stayed in the evil empire business this long? I thought the only thing we knew pretty much for sure about Flynn was that he was fighting Rittenhouse and posed a genuine threat to them. If things are otherwise, I'm gonna feel like they've been majorly yanking our chain.

Also a bit troublesome that we've seen no real notions of how to bring people back, other than killing certain folks aaand ... it doesn't work. I mean Flynn's been thinking about this for a while and he seems to have no plan beyond throwing darts and hoping for a hit. Just one more of way-too-many things we don't know diddly about - Rittenhouse, their connection to the time traveling, is Fake Elon Musk with Rittenhouse or just their pawn, why is Rittenhouse not applying more pressure to Rufus given that everything is at stake, why isn't Lucy putting her juicy historian brain to work figuring out what changes from timeline to timeline ...

More to the point of this episode, if he did know when and where she was, why didn't he just land the eyeball outside? He only needed a hired gun because he decided to traverse hostile territory to get to Renee Walker (who ... lives in hostile indian territory? Alone? Huh). Not sure why he needed Jesse James himself particularly, except for this show's Forrest Gump view of history. I mean it's cute and all but I'm not entirely convinced it makes the show better. I dunno about this show. I actually enjoy it and look forward to watching it, and I think it's a biscuit away from being pretty great, but not there yet. Am enjoying the guest stars - I'd honestly watch a show of nothing but Colman Domingo reading soup ingredients. I also enjoy the fact that the Time Team isn't entirely prepared for the rigors of temporal travel but I'm also miffed that they're not that great at much of anything. I mean Rufus I can see, he's a programmer and has made strides in his adaptive skills, but Lucy and particularly Wyatt remain a bit worthless. And honestly, if they just downloaded wikipedia on a handheld, they could largely dispense with Lucy, much as I like the actress. I'll give Flynn this - he seems to have purpose and he's not half bad at his job, such as it is. Also starting to wonder why Rittenhouse would attempt to thwart Flynn, a *huge* threat to them, with ... these guys. Seriously, nobody more effective was available? Because they may already exist there, and the rule is supposed to be that you can't be in a place twice. Maybe you could go 100 years into the future (by when you're likely dead) but hard to know if you'll be able to operate there. They seem to be a bit so-so on this 'rule' anyway. The trip back to the moon-landing kinda glossed over the fact that Max Headroom was almost certainly alive (if young) back then, and by the previews for next week,

Nope, unless I'm not getting it. Double entendres usually have a second meaning which is risqué, and hence hinted at. I'm willing to be corrected but this seems more like strightforward word-play. Holmes was famously non-trusting, which is probably why he got away with so many killings. He went so far as to have his murder castle built by many different contractors, so that none would ever piece together just what the hell he was building. When he was eventually exposed, he fled. I can only imagine Holmes' thinking if Flynn approached him but I suspect it'd be something like this: 'hmm, somebody wants me to kill someone for hi - OMG OMG OMG OMG SOMEBODY KNOWS'. For a successful serial killer, if secrecy isn't Job One, it doesn't matter what Job Two is. I actually think it'd be super easy, provided you can convince your goons that you actually have a time machine. Travel into the past practically guarantees you'll outgun your opponents (with modern firearms), you'll never ever get caught (cuz you'll just leave), and knowledge of the future will give you a practically unbeatable tactical advantage (if you're careful with your research). Plus if you do need it, modern medicine is just a hop away, provided that Flynn doesn't just strand you in the past. That is a concern, so I'd be ever-ready to point a gun at Flynn and demand immediate evacuation. Beyond that, this would be a far better gig than your usual goonery. Did the Vegas caper have anything to do with Rittenhouse? I thought it was just for Flynn to score a nuclear core to power his ship. I presume he's self-funding by stealing or making investments in the past, but that's just fan-wanking on my part.

Pretty sure Holmes mentioned that Flynn put him up to it. I mean you can't expect Holmes to kill every person he came into contact with - that's a lot of people.

They could easily explain this away, heck make it an interesting part of the process. "Looks like Flynn's ship is powering up - better put up our time shields" or some such mumbo-jumbo. The guys in the base would be protected from timeline shifts and would share the horrors of suddenly finding themselves in an altered world. Without such a contrivance, we really have to wonder why the Time Team keeps coming back to find their own base largely unchanged, with a base crew who always knows who they are and what their mission is. Flynn could easily screw things up enough that the Team might try to go back to base and find out the program never existed. They should take steps to prevent this. On another note, did anyone else think it weird that Flynn was so easily able to get Holmes to do him a solid? How'd that conversation go? "Hi, look, I know you're a serial killer, and I sure would appreciate it if you greased a couple of folks for me." Something tells me serial killers aren't the trusting type, given to doing favors for folks who somehow know what they're up to. More likely is that Holmes would do what he actually did do when he knew he was exposed - flee.