S01.E12: The Murder of Jesse James

[LadyArcadia]

11 hours ago, rose711 said:

I found there was a short lived tv show about time travel in the 1960s so I wasn't far off!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Tunnel

it sounds like they got to go to the future(!) as well as the past. And they went all over the world not just the US! Also they went back to the ancient past like Ancient Greece.

Does this sound familiar: "Most episodes involved the capture or detention of Doug, Tony, or both, their escape, their recapture, and their escape again, before their move to the next episode."

It was cancelled despite being very popular because some ABC executive thought another show would be better. I guess tv programming has changed since then! 

Why don't our heroes go to the future?!  Figure out what happens in the future and why and don't do that.

[henripootel]

On 1/24/2017 at 2:50 PM, blackwing said:

And how did Flynn know where and when she was?  If Rittenhouse couldn't find her, how did he?

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?  

9 minutes ago, LadyArcadia said:

Why don't our heroes go to the future?!  Figure out what happens in the future and why and don't do that.

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,

Spoiler

I'm guessing they're throwing this out the window if they're going back to anything except the very early 80s.)  Which now makes me wonder what'd happen if you travelled back to before you were born and got marooned.  Would the world end the day 'you' were born?  Hmmm.

Edited January 25, 2017 by henripootel

[green]

8 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

She was moping all episode about her sister, and I don't think killing Jesse James overrode that.

Between her now and Wyatt for like forever they should rename the show "The Mopers" or "The Mope People."   And their mopes are so over the top that I just roll my eyes when they do their mopes or even just laugh.  If you used mopes in a drinking game with this show no one would end up sober.

At least Flynn doesn't mope around after his loved ones.  He just becomes a mass murderer instead.

52 minutes ago, henripootel said:

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?

 

I assume that Lucy's journal didn't come with GPS co-ordinates attached and just mentioned the general area and the sketch of the cabin. 

Of course that brings up the sore points of (1) Lucy's journal being key to everything Flynn does and (2) how/why did she write it and (3) how did Flynn get it.  Pretty much the Rosetta Stone for the whole series and we effectively still don't know anything more about it than we did in episode one.

[Trooper York]

The Time Tunnel is a great fun series.

I have been watching it on Hulu.

The best part is that it is not limited to American History. Plus many of the character actors  you remember from the original Star Trek play bit parts in the show.. Big name actors like Robert Duvall show up as they were just starting out. They also use clips from old movies for the battle scenes.

It really is a lot of fun.

[shapeshifter]

On January 24, 2017 at 11:53 AM, Sandman said:

Not for nothing, but if the Lone Gunmen had access to a time machine? Hoo boy! (Pretty sure you meant to type "Lone Ranger," above, CooperTV.)

I would watch the heck out of that show!

 

8 HOURS AGO, SANDMAN SAID:

I wouldn't swear to it, but I can imagine that "dick" has been a slang term for male genitalia for more than two hundred years; whether it has been used for all that time as a term for an obnoxious person I couldn't say. But I don't think it's the worst verbal anachronism / misuse of the modern vernacular we've seen. (What if Rufus changed the time stream by accelerating the introduction of slang?!)

Maybe it's because we're in an alternate universe than the show's, but I just checked the OED Online, and there is no definition for "dick" that fits Rufus's/ours.

Edited January 26, 2017 by shapeshifter

[ketose]

12 hours ago, Ripley68 said:

A thing I like about this show is that they don't spoon feed us every....single....plot....point.  They seem to be believing their audience has a brain and can make some leaps on their own.  We don't need to see what happened to the big gun...we've seen in the past the team grab anamolistic things, so we can assume they grabbed the gun.  We don't need Flynn to explain how he found Emma, because he's already explained about the diary, and they showed him looking at it at the cabin.

What I don't like is that Rittenhouse is written as all-powerful and nearly all-knowing. We're also supposed to believe that they're evil and even presidents are afraid of them. However, except for killing Flynn's family, what bad things have they done? Plus, we don't know what they've done to shape American history. The gun thing doesn't bother me as much as teasing this Rittenhouse thing well past the point at which the show is cancelled.

 

7 hours ago, Sandman said:

I wouldn't swear to it, but I can imagine that "dick" has been a slang term for male genitalia for more than two hundred years; whether it has been used for all that time as a term for an obnoxious person I couldn't say. But I don't think it's the worst verbal anachronism / misuse of the modern vernacular we've seen. (What if Rufus changed the time stream by accelerating the introduction of slang?!)

I was glad that at least Jesse James used "grow a pair of low-hanging fruit" instead of just "grow a pair," which would have been really anachronistic.

So, I don't understand the issue with the Hunger Games book. Emma would have has a copy in 2014 or so when she and Anthony went back to 1872. By 1882, Emma would have been there for 10 years.

[Camera One]

This episode had a bunch of new plot points which should have been interesting (lost time traveller, training a new pilot, etc.), but I thought it was bland and the episode didn't engage me.

Jesse James seems forced into the episode rather than the other way 'round.  I'm not sure why Flynn even needed him, and I'm surprised he didn't just kill James off with the machine gun outside the cabin (or with some convenient pharmaceuticals).  

I'm not sure what is the significance or point of having Lucy kill Jesse James.  It felt like some clunky debate about when it's justified to kill bad guys.

I'm not excited about Wyatt's plan to steal the time machine.  It's obvious it will backfire.

As someone else suggested above, I thought maybe Mason was trying to discourage her from learning to become a pilot, so he could give lip-service to what Rittenhouse was demanding.  

I did like seeing Lucy's sister again in dream-form, but it's too little, too late.  The dad story is on backburner?  Not that I cared for it.

I'm also not too intrigued by Emma, with the typical cryptic "I know things but it's too dangerous to tell you anything" and oops, I'm dying so here is one nonsensical line that you may or may not figure out the meaning to (I'm assuming that part's happening next week).

[henripootel]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I did like seeing Lucy's sister again in dream-form, but it's too little, too late.

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 ...

[Camera One]

Yeah, the sister problem really has no solution, which is why it feels like pointless hand wringing.  What Wyatt wants is a much more concrete goal, but it's not a good idea in any universe, so we're sitting and waiting for an utter fail, which is not entertaining.

[possibilities]

I still don't know why Flynn knows who killed Wyatt's wife. Or why the team doesn't try to sabotage his time machine, so he can't keep traveling around on his missions.

[green]

1 hour ago, possibilities said:

I still don't know why Flynn knows who killed Wyatt's wife. Or why the team doesn't try to sabotage his time machine, so he can't keep traveling around on his missions.

Point #1.  The information is probably in Lucy's damn journal.  Everything conveniently is after all.

Point#2: You are being too logical and showing way too much common sense.  You are hereby banned from ever writing network fluff-dramas. :-)

Edited January 26, 2017 by green

[legaleagle53]

4 hours ago, possibilities said:

I still don't know why Flynn knows who killed Wyatt's wife. Or why the team doesn't try to sabotage his time machine, so he can't keep traveling around on his missions.

And exactly how are they supposed to do that, when they have no idea where it is either in the present or in one of his excursions to the past (they only know its general location within a 50-mile radius of its actual physical location, remember)?  Lucy probably doesn't even know where the new Flynncave is -- and she's been there!

[Driad]

The Lone Ranger and "Tonto" were fictional characters. A quick search does not find any real people on whom they were based. If the show characters (OK, they are fictional too) can meet fictional characters, maybe they could meet some who could really help with their quests? They might start with some Jules Verne stories.

[Sandman]

11 hours ago, ketose said:

I was glad that at least Jesse James used "grow a pair of low-hanging fruit" instead of just "grow a pair," which would have been really anachronistic.

This one kind of stuck out for me, but in a different way, since a "low-hanging fruit" metaphor exists (was it contemporary in late 19th-c. America? No clue.) for a prize or advantage easily gained. I also wondered if fruit tree metaphors existed as euphemisms for lynching at that time.

Bass Reeves and Grant Johnson were historical figures. Whether they were the inspiration for the characters appears to be somewhat in dispute, but there appears to be some connection there -- maybe it's only on the level of popular misconception. That's fair game for inspiring fiction, it seems to me.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Sandman

[iMonrey]

Quote

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?  

We don't know that Rittenhouse chose Wyatt. They most likely had a hand in recommending Lucy but it's the US government - not Rittenhouse - who put together a team to take down Flynn. Specifically, Christopher did not know about Rittenhouse until Rufus told her about them, and she's the one who chose Wyatt for the team. We also don't know whether it was Mason acting alone, or Mason on behalf of Rittenhouse, who contacted the government when Flynn stole the time machine. As you recall from the pilot, it was a point of contention that Mason Industries had built a time machine without telling the government until Flynn stole it. Basically  . . . we know next to nothing about Rittenhouse except that they wanted Rufus to record all the trips so they could monitor them. Whether or not they even want to stop Flynn is in question. 

Quote

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.  

The show has wasted opportunity after opportunity to establish whether important historical facts can be changed or not. Time and again, Lucy & Co. return to the present day and seemingly nothing has changed, no matter how much they have interfered in important historical events, except perhaps the footnotes to the details. This is where it would be helpful to establish you can't really change the past.  That if they stopped Booth from assassinating Lincoln, for example, someone else would assassinate him. This seems to be the case; after the way they really messed with history in the Benedict Arnold episode you'd expect some massive change to their history, but no. Nothing really changed. Events unfolded just the same with different players.

But instead of making a point of it the show just glosses over it, because apparently they don't have the balls or the interest in establishing these things. They're only interested in playing dress up and interacting with famous people from the past. That's about it.

Quote

Yeah, the sister problem really has no solution, which is why it feels like pointless hand wringing.

There's a solution, but again the show doesn't seem interested in explaining how that would go down. The reason her sister disappeared is because Lucy saved somebody's life in the past, and her mother ended up marrying that person's son instead of her father. Lucy can try to fix this by going back in time and a.) preventing her mother from meeting that person and b.) insuring that her mother meets her father instead. From there, nature should take its course.

Again, I don't think they're ever going to get around to attempting something like that and establishing how easy or difficult (or impossible, maybe) it might be to alter history because the show isn't interested in those concepts.

[psychoticstate]

I love the show.  Is it perfect?  Nope.  But I love the history and enjoy the alternate history, even if it makes me stabby sometimes.

I think the three leads do well together although as other posters have pointed out, Lucy and Wyatt at least are clearly not the best candidates for the job.  I also wonder too why they get ants in their pants about leaving as quickly as possible when they have a time machine.  It doesn't matter what time Flynn got where or how long he'd been there - - they could just zip back to before he arrived or did whatever to change history.  Although our trio is doing a piss poor job of keeping original history intact.

Regardless, my biggest gripe (at least so far) is that we really aren't seeing what this alternate history is doing to the present day.  Even if Rufus, Wyatt and Lucy's existences haven't been changed, surely there have been other changes that a historian like Lucy might recognize.  It might be interesting to have one of those become an issue. 

Anyhow, I enjoy the show even with its flaw and its apparently gray area about when and where the trio can travel.  I hope it's picked up for another season.

[henripootel]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

We don't know that Rittenhouse chose Wyatt. They most likely had a hand in recommending Lucy but it's the US government - not Rittenhouse - who put together a team to take down Flynn.

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 -

Quote

Basically  . . . we know next to nothing about Rittenhouse except that they wanted Rufus to record all the trips so they could monitor them. Whether or not they even want to stop Flynn is in question. 

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. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

It doesn't matter what time Flynn got where or how long he'd been there - - they could just zip back to before he arrived or did whatever to change history. 

Clearly they cannot go back in time and arrive minutes before Flynn does, or else they would have done it by now and killed him. That's their mission after all. There must be some mechanics in place that keep them the same time/distance behind the mothership in any timeline. I mean . . . I hope they're not that stupid, since they can apparently pinpoint what day and year Flynn has traveled to. Why not travel back to one day earlier, or one week earlier, and set a trap for him? Another issue the show hasn't addressed.

Edited January 27, 2017 by iMonrey

[KaveDweller]

15 hours ago, possibilities said:

I still don't know why Flynn knows who killed Wyatt's wife. 

Because Rittenhouse did it?

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

There's a solution, but again the show doesn't seem interested in explaining how that would go down. The reason her sister disappeared is because Lucy saved somebody's life in the past, and her mother ended up marrying that person's son instead of her father. Lucy can try to fix this by going back in time and a.) preventing her mother from meeting that person and b.) insuring that her mother meets her father instead. From there, nature should take its course.

It was the father who met someone else and married the daughter. But Lucy also has to make sure she doesn't stop her mother from meeting her biological father, because she still has to exist. I guess her mother met her husband/the sister's father before or soon after Lucy was born, since Lucy always thought he was her real father.  She'd have to do this while her mother is pregnant, and I'm not sure if existing as a fetus breaks the time travel rule about going to a place you exist.

[possibilities]

15 hours ago, green said:

The information is probably in Lucy's damn journal. 

But how did Lucy know? And will we ever find out how Flynn got her journal? And what happened to change the timeline so she doesn't even remember writing it?

15 hours ago, green said:

You are being too logical and showing way too much common sense.  You are hereby banned from ever writing network fluff-dramas. :-)

Ah! That explains it! :-)

12 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

And exactly how are they supposed to do that, when they have no idea where it is either in the present or in one of his excursions to the past (they only know its general location within a 50-mile radius of its actual physical location, remember)?  Lucy probably doesn't even know where the new Flynncave is -- and she's been there!

I don't know, but if they tried, it might be possible. Off the top of my head, maybe they could cultivate Flynn, make him think they're on his side, get taken aboard, and then plant an explosive device or in some way disable the machine (or kill him at close range, I suppose). They could also follow him back there, instead of jumping home immediately after they fail to kill him on the first attempt. Back at base, they could somehow program additional tracking info into the software that's telling them where the ship is going. But green is right: the show's premise depends on failure, so there's no point in trying to think it through.

If the show wanted to deviate from the format of "chase Flynn and fail" they could do it any number of ways, but they don't want to, so I'm out of a job as backseat show writer, and I need to just enjoy the ride as offered.

[Camera One]

7 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The reason her sister disappeared is because Lucy saved somebody's life in the past, and her mother ended up marrying that person's son instead of her father. Lucy can try to fix this by going back in time and a.) preventing her mother from meeting that person and b.) insuring that her mother meets her father instead. From there, nature should take its course.

Even if she gets her mother and her father together, there are more than a billion different combinations of children they could have, so she shouldn't be able to get the genetically same sister back.

[henripootel]

30 minutes ago, possibilities said:

But how did Lucy know? And will we ever find out how Flynn got her journal? And what happened to change the timeline so she doesn't even remember writing it?

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. 

Quote

Even if she gets her mother and her father together, there are more than a billion different combinations of children they could have, so she shouldn't be able to get the genetically same sister back.

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.  

[wanderingstar]

Just caught up on this week's show. Solid ep. I'm not big on Westerns, but the guest stars (particularly Colman Domingo and Daniel Lissing) made that story work. 

Also glad to see the mythology side of things moving along. And I liked seeing more of Gia, though I hope that doesn't mean she's doomed. I like her and Rufus together.

The Rufus/Mason relationship intrigues me. Sometimes, it feels like a father/son or big brother/little brother relationship. Then Mason gets all scary, and that all goes out the window. I'd love to know more about their history.

Still don't care about Wyatt's wife.

[Dowel Jones]

I have been reduced to pondering whether the actress gets paid if her character never existed.

[Randomosity]

On 1/25/2017 at 4:42 PM, henripootel said:

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.
 

I'm still fuzzy on the time vs. place issue. I think the original wording on the show was that you can't risk running into yourself. So if you took a separate group of time travelers, say from halfway around the world (Asia, Australia, etc), who were never anywhere near* Wyatt and Jessica and her killer when she was killed, could they stop the killing and proceed as normal? Or, could they simply grab Jessica and bring her to 2017? Then, as far as Wyatt knows, she just disappeared 5 years ago. Then, kaboom, it's 2017 and she's popping out of a time machine. Jessica herself would never run into herself, she'd just be fastforwarding 5 years with the help of a B-team who never was in the vicinity of themselves halfway around the world.

*Do we know where the modern portion of this show takes place? I thought I heard Wyatt mention Palo Alto (or similar) at some point, but I could be wrong. Are they meant to be in the Bay Area?

[legaleagle53]

The rule is that you can't go back to any time in which you have already existed, as has been stated over and over again in the show (most recently by Flynn just last week during his phone call to Wyatt).  That's why they can't just keep going back to the day of the Hindenburg disaster to stop Flynn in his tracks until they finally do it, and it's also why Wyatt can't just go back to 2011 to prevent Jessica's murder directly but has to use a more indirect method by going back further into the past (hence the trip to the early 80s next week, to a point in the 80s to which Lucy can't go, since she was born in 1983). Flynn's second trip to 1780 is no exception to this rule, as he probably went back to a point several months after he and Lucy left that year in order to search for David Rittenhouse's son. 

And at present, they only have Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus as crew, with Jiya ostensibly in training as a back-up for Rufus only -- there ARE no other back-ups from "halfway around the world."  

[Randomosity]

4 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

The rule is that you can't go back to any time in which you have already existed, as has been stated over and over again in the show (most recently by Flynn just last week during his phone call to Wyatt).  That's why they can't just keep going back to the day of the Hindenburg disaster to stop Flynn in his tracks until they finally do it, and it's also why Wyatt can't just go back to 2011 to prevent Jessica's murder directly but has to use a more indirect method by going back further into the past (hence the trip to the early 80s next week, to a point in the 80s to which Lucy can't go, since she was born in 1983). Flynn's second trip to 1780 is no exception to this rule, as he probably went back to a point several months after he and Lucy left that year in order to search for David Rittenhouse's son. 

And at present, they only have Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus as crew, with Jiya ostensibly in training as a back-up for Rufus only -- there ARE no other back-ups from "halfway around the world."  

Well, yes, I realize there are no current backups. I'm not talking for the next episode. Thinking hypothetically.

I just thought I recalled (upon re-watch last week) that the initial rationale was that "you can't risk running into yourself". Someone who lived in ...India, say, from 1980-present would never run into themselves in California during those years.

[Raja]

22 hours ago, Driad said:

The Lone Ranger and "Tonto" were fictional characters. A quick search does not find any real people on whom they were based. If the show characters (OK, they are fictional too) can meet fictional characters, maybe they could meet some who could really help with their quests? They might start with some Jules Verne stories.

Perhaps not but on the historical western series on the American Heroes Channel (even if they still show Hitler's Bodyguard and other stuff from their old Military Channel name) they make the case that stories about Bass Reeves and the other Deputies serving warrants in the Indian Territories who by law had a Native American deputy ride with them, matches up nicely with the Lone Ranger stories that got passed down and made into TV and books. It may be political like with states like California forcing diversity in history, both racial and sexual orientation. So if you need to check a box using Marshal Reeves to stand in for all of that circuits deputies. The episode was even promoted as the real Lone Ranger. You had to love "you tried to hide calling me a fool behind Spanish"

On 1/24/2017 at 1:52 PM, Shanna Marie said:

I think that's a requirement in the TV Armed Services. I'm trying to think of a TV military/ex military character who doesn't have a dead wife. There's Gibbs on NCIS (ex marine) whose first wife and at least one ex were murdered, the wife of the Gary Sinise character (ex marine) on CSI NY who died in 9/11, the wife of Riggs (some kind of special forces) on Lethal Weapon, and didn't Reese (some kind of special forces) on Person of Interest have a serious significant other who was killed? When you join the military on TV, you're issued a uniform, a weapon, and a dead wife.

I remember there was a book about our killer heroes, like Master Sergeant Wyatt is supposed to unattached when assigned by Homeland Security. Back then it was the mercenary culture, the Mack Bolan dime novels and such. The killer being devoid of family ties was a universal point. It also used to allow for girlfriend of the week for the cop/PI but with shows serializing I guess only Lucifer can get away with booty call of the week these days otherwise you don't like the killer angel. Right now there is Bob Lee Swagger on The Shooter, now in the first season he did not choose to go back into killing mode, come the second with a new reason to kill the wife and child will still be there if they are not killed to move him back into the shit.

[Mrs. DuRona]

20 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The reason her sister disappeared is because Lucy saved somebody's life in the past, and her mother ended up marrying that person's son instead of her father.

If memory serves, it was that her sister's father married someone else.  Lucy and her sister never had the same father.

Was the pilot holed up in the cabin the same one they talked about deteriorating/dying in the pilot episode?  If so, does that blow the whole "You can't revisit a time you've been to" rule out of the water?

[MV007]

This episode illustrates my biggest issue with the show.  Something as heavy as the erasing of one's sister from the world should be an all encompassing weight on Lucy's shoulders.  It should not be addressed once every couple episodes with a cheap narrative trick like the hallucination.  The real changes in these peoples lives should be a central part of the show in my opinion.  Instead we get glossy flashbacks to major points in history with an occasional nod to what should be the very real repercussions of changing said history.

I mean, what the hell is going on with the new fiance?  Ultimately I don't care but I wasn't the idiot who thought that was a neat twist.  If I did think it up, I would try and think of a way to resolve it and not just leave it out there.

Edited January 27, 2017 by MV007

[iMonrey]

Quote

It was the father who met someone else and married the daughter. 

Well, same difference. Lucy's mother didn't marry him - so he didn't get her addicted to cigarettes, which is why she isn't dying of cancer. So Lucy's sister may not exist, but her mother is better off. If Lucy manages to "correct" the timeline her mother will be on her deathbed again. It would be interesting if Lucy tracked down (the man she thought was) her father to see if he had a daughter with his other wife and whether she resembles the sister Lucy knows.

On another note, since Flynn now knows who Rittenhouse was, why doesn't he simply go further back one or two generations and kill his father or grandfather so he's never born?

[Raja]

59 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Well, same difference. Lucy's mother didn't marry him - so he didn't get her addicted to cigarettes, which is why she isn't dying of cancer. So Lucy's sister may not exist, but her mother is better off. If Lucy manages to "correct" the timeline her mother will be on her deathbed again. It would be interesting if Lucy tracked down (the man she thought was) her father to see if he had a daughter with his other wife and whether she resembles the sister Lucy knows.

On another note, since Flynn now knows who Rittenhouse was, why doesn't he simply go further back one or two generations and kill his father or grandfather so he's never born?

My guess is that nobody knew to keep records if the first Rittenhouse was a self made man.

[legaleagle53]

12 hours ago, Mrs. DuRona said:

Was the pilot holed up in the cabin the same one they talked about deteriorating/dying in the pilot episode?  If so, does that blow the whole "You can't revisit a time you've been to" rule out of the water?

No.  That pilot was male.  Emma faked her own death to get away from Rittenhouse.

Edited January 28, 2017 by legaleagle53

[KaveDweller]

7 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Well, same difference. Lucy's mother didn't marry him - so he didn't get her addicted to cigarettes, which is why she isn't dying of cancer. So Lucy's sister may not exist, but her mother is better off. If Lucy manages to "correct" the timeline her mother will be on her deathbed again. It would be interesting if Lucy tracked down (the man she thought was) her father to see if he had a daughter with his other wife and whether she resembles the sister Lucy knows.

Right, same difference and it is a risk. But I would think if you could travel back and get her parents to remarry and have a kid at just the right time she could convince a younger version of her mom to never start smoking. And she does have to make sure the sister is born at the same time, because if her sister is 5 years younger, that would impact how Lucy and her mom interact with her as a kid and therefore her relationship with the sister and probably the sister's personality. That's not even factoring in the issue of being conceived at a different time would result in a different DNA combination.

12 hours ago, Mrs. DuRona said:

Was the pilot holed up in the cabin the same one they talked about deteriorating/dying in the pilot episode?  If so, does that blow the whole "You can't revisit a time you've been to" rule out of the water?

When Rufus made that reference, he said the pilot came back, but "not all of him." So it wouldn't be Emma since she's a her, and didn't come back at all.

[Cranberry]

Here's the original wording:

"Okay, just one thing that I don't get. Apparently, this time machine works. So why don't we just go back five minutes before Flynn stormed in and then shoot him in the face?"

"You can't go back to any time where you already exist, where you might meet a double of yourself. It is bad for the fabric of reality."

"Define 'bad.'"

"We tried it once. The pilot came back, but not all of him."

[CaptainE]

On 1/26/2017 at 0:14 AM, Camera One said:

Yeah, the sister problem really has no solution, which is why it feels like pointless hand wringing.  What Wyatt wants is a much more concrete goal, but it's not a good idea in any universe, so we're sitting and waiting for an utter fail, which is not entertaining.

I don't think it will be a fail, as this show involves fairly simplistic writing, and that usually means a Hollywood happy ending.

 

Along the lines of poor writing, it annoyed the hell out of me when Rufus asked Bass "why he was in the white man's law enforcement ," or words to that effect.   As if only white people can govern, police, or run towns.  A major reason there are so many problems in that area today.  Then at the end of the episode, Rufus wants Bass to take credit for what he did.

 

Irksome writing.  

[Cthulhudrew]

On 1/24/2017 at 9:32 AM, iMonrey said:

The big question this episode failed to answer is why Flynn couldn't simply land his time machine right outside Emma's house. Why did he need to first collect Jesse James, show him a map and travel on foot several miles to reach Emma's house? Apparently they can "land" the time machine anywhere they want, otherwise they risk landing in the ocean or on a lake or something. What we needed was a scene where Anthony techno-splains why they can only land in certain areas, but apparently Matt Frewer was only available for a limited number of episodes - or, the show could only pay Frewer for a limited number of episodes. In any case, his absence is rather glaring. 

Yes, this was the biggest ??? of the episode for me. I enjoyed Bass Reeves, but I don't think we necessarily needed Jesse James shoehorned in in order to get that character and his moral compass. The only apparent function James filled near as I can tell, was to serve to provide them some kind of focus for where and what Flynn might have been doing in that time period. There didn't seem to be any reason he needed James (James didn't track down Whitmore; Flynn already knew where she was. He didn't really need James' firepower- he's got any number of rent-a-thugs whenever he needs them). The only other purpose he served was to play amateur psychologist with Flynn, but we've already gotten the Flynn is a monster story over the last several episodes.

I think they could have very easily have gotten the story they wanted, and maybe weaved together the "missing pilot"/pilot in training plots, by ditching James and just having Mason put the pieces together for them when they tried to figure out where and what Flynn was doing at that time. (Mason reluctantly volunteers the information that that was the approximate location Whitmore was thought to have died, they realize he's looking for her; meanwhile Jia wants to see the video files for training, and some of the other details come out, etc. Instead of James, Wyatt has to be talked down from killing one of Flynn's thugs, etc.)

On a related note- why exactly did Flynn choose to find Whitmore 10 years later? If he knew where she had disappeared to, why not travel to right after she faked her death? (I mean, I can think of reasons why myself, but I feel the show might have been a little lazy here with their rationale.)

2 hours ago, Cranberry said:

Here's the original wording:

"Okay, just one thing that I don't get. Apparently, this time machine works. So why don't we just go back five minutes before Flynn stormed in and then shoot him in the face?"

"You can't go back to any time where you already exist, where you might meet a double of yourself. It is bad for the fabric of reality."

"Define 'bad.'"

"We tried it once. The pilot came back, but not all of him."

Which, in and of itself, isn't necessarily an argument against it. If the only downside is that something bad might happen on the return home, you find someone who is fine with it being a one-way trip. Like Wyatt, who (at least early on) appeared to have something of a death wish anyway.

[bros402]

18 hours ago, Randomosity said:

I'm still fuzzy on the time vs. place issue. I think the original wording on the show was that you can't risk running into yourself. So if you took a separate group of time travelers, say from halfway around the world (Asia, Australia, etc), who were never anywhere near* Wyatt and Jessica and her killer when she was killed, could they stop the killing and proceed as normal? Or, could they simply grab Jessica and bring her to 2017? Then, as far as Wyatt knows, she just disappeared 5 years ago. Then, kaboom, it's 2017 and she's popping out of a time machine. Jessica herself would never run into herself, she'd just be fastforwarding 5 years with the help of a B-team who never was in the vicinity of themselves halfway around the world.

*Do we know where the modern portion of this show takes place? I thought I heard Wyatt mention Palo Alto (or similar) at some point, but I could be wrong. Are they meant to be in the Bay Area?

I took the show as taking place on the East Coast - it seemed like they got to Pittsburgh pretty quickly in the episode where they were stuck in the 1750s

[shapeshifter]

Given the odds of the exact same sperm and egg with the exact same DNA uniting to produce Lucy's sister (plus all the events that formed her personality and assured her survival up to the point when she disappeared), the only way I see for Lucy to get her sister back is for someone to at least prevent the altered Hindenburg incident, but even better, destroy the time machines before the Hindenburg trip. It could make a good-ish season or series finale if followed by a shot of Rufus and Max Headroom rebuilding a time machine — or would that last part just make the audience groan? Anyway, I think Lucy should be as focused on preventing that one event as much as Wyatt is focused on preventing his wife's death.

Edited January 28, 2017 by shapeshifter

[legaleagle53]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Given the odds of the exact same sperm and egg with the exact same DNA uniting to produce Lucy's sister (plus all the events that formed her personality and assured her survival up to the point when she disappeared), the only way I see for Lucy to get her sister back is for someone to at least prevent the altered Hindenburg incident, but even better, destroy the time machines before the Hindenburg trip. It could make a good-ish season or series finale if followed by a shot of Rufus and Max Headroom rebuilding a time machine — or would that last part just make the audience groan? Anyway, I think Lucy should be as focused on preventing that one event as much as Wyatt is focused on preventing his wife's death.

And who's going to destroy the time machines before Flynn makes the Hindenburg trip, since that would involve sending the crew back to a time when they already exist?  It's the same reason they can't simply show up five minutes before Flynn arrives to hijack the mother ship and take him out right then.

[ketose]

The thing that's making the show worse is that Flynn (and/or Team Lifeboat) is doing more to alter history and we know less about how much it has changed. First, Lucy's whole life had changed because a couple dozen people three generations ago didn't die. Now, dozens more people are dead in multiple points in history and the repercussions are either ignored or nonexistent. It's the opposite of the butterfly effect.

The most ridiculous and totally unbelievable thing is that Flynn saved his half brother before Flynn was even born. His life didn't change in any significant way? I would think there's at least a 50% chance his wife is alive and never met Flynn and their daughter never existed.

[Randomosity]

21 hours ago, Cranberry said:

Here's the original wording:

"Okay, just one thing that I don't get. Apparently, this time machine works. So why don't we just go back five minutes before Flynn stormed in and then shoot him in the face?"

"You can't go back to any time where you already exist, where you might meet a double of yourself. It is bad for the fabric of reality."

"Define 'bad.'"

"We tried it once. The pilot came back, but not all of him."

See, there's the issue. Time should be when. Not where. So it still doesn't explicitly clear up if it's a time thing or a place thing. Maybe they meant to leave it ambiguous?

18 hours ago, bros402 said:

I took the show as taking place on the East Coast - it seemed like they got to Pittsburgh pretty quickly in the episode where they were stuck in the 1750s

I thought that too, especially considering Jiya randomly showed up. But I swear I heard Wyatt say Palo Alto or something otherwise California-esque. I suppose he might have been referring to when he lived elsewhere with Jessica. And Lucy's university in the pilot did look more Yale/Brown/etc. than one might expect out west. I was just hoping I'd managed to miss something and someone else knew for sure. Maybe that's something else the show just never made clear.

[legaleagle53]

55 minutes ago, Randomosity said:

See, there's the issue. Time should be when. Not where. So it still doesn't explicitly clear up if it's a time thing or a place thing. Maybe they meant to leave it ambiguous?

There's no real ambiguity here.  When and where are often used interchangeably with reference to time, especially in informal speech and writing, with the idea of referring to a particular era as a "place" in the timestream, not a literal geographical location in it.  It is in this sense that Rufus was using the word -- he was not referring to a literal geographic place, but to a spot in the timestream.

That said, you are correct that when would be the better word here and would, in fact, be the preferred word in formal speech and writing.

[Randomosity]

26 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

There's no real ambiguity here.  When and where are often used interchangeably with reference to time, especially in informal speech and writing, with the idea of referring to a particular era as a "place" in the timestream, not a literal geographical location in it.  It is in this sense that Rufus was using the word -- he was not referring to a literal geographic place, but to a spot in the timestream.

That said, you are correct that when would be the better word here and would, in fact, be the preferred word in formal speech and writing.

Agree to disagree. We don't know if Rufus was made to say it that way intentionally or not. I don't think it's as clear cut as you seem to think it is, especially given Anthony being present for the moon landing.

[Raja]

20 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

 

On a related note- why exactly did Flynn choose to find Whitmore 10 years later? If he knew where she had disappeared to, why not travel to right after she faked her death? (I mean, I can think of reasons why myself, but I feel the show might have been a little lazy here with their rationale.)

 

My head canon is that it took a while for a single White woman in the Indian Territories to do something worthy of being noticed and recorded so Flynn's historians could locate her. Second choice, he figured that ten years would convince her that just surviving and  being a hermit was not worth it and fighting instead of hiding and surviving would be her option if given to her.

[piperkat]

 So, the scene with Jessie and the modern rifle really annoyed me.

For one thing, the firing went on way too long. That was a short 20 round magazine, which on full automatic will last literally less than 2 seconds.

Second, Jesse had zero experience with that kind of weapon, so he wouldn't have known to compensate for the repeated kick. 80% of his bullets would've gone into the sky.

 Finally, he had never even seen a magazine fed weapon before, or anything close to it. How the hell did he know how to reload it?  Or even chamber the first round? 

[Driad]

The sheriff compared it to a Gatling gun. They were used during the U.S. Civil War, so Jesse James might at least have heard about them.

[Raja]

Some people are just freakishly natural at certain acts. You can see the bullets in the magazine and there is only one place to slap it in. The charging handle would be child's play for someone who probably started with a musket's manual of arms. However Rambo couldn't keep that rifle on target firing automatically from the hip with one hand either 

[KaveDweller]

On 1/28/2017 at 2:36 AM, bros402 said:

I took the show as taking place on the East Coast - it seemed like they got to Pittsburgh pretty quickly in the episode where they were stuck in the 1750s

For some reason I thought it took place in Washington DC. I don't remember if that's from something they said/showed, or I just totally made it up.

19 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

There's no real ambiguity here.  When and where are often used interchangeably with reference to time, especially in informal speech and writing, with the idea of referring to a particular era as a "place" in the timestream, not a literal geographical location in it.  It is in this sense that Rufus was using the word -- he was not referring to a literal geographic place, but to a spot in the timestream.

That said, you are correct that when would be the better word here and would, in fact, be the preferred word in formal speech and writing.

What made it ambiguous was Rufus saying you can't go back to a time where you might meet a double of yourself. Because they all exist in the year 2000, but if they know they weren't in Canada that year (for example), going back to Canada in the year 2000 wouldn't risk them meeting a double of themselves. It's weird/confusing to reference meeting a double of yourself if meeting a double isn't part of the problem.

But in more recent episodes, they have been leaving off that part of the explanation, which suggests to me that the writers weren't sure what they wanted the rule to be early on, and then settled it later and started clarifying how they stated the rule.

[legaleagle53]

17 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

For some reason I thought it took place in Washington DC. I don't remember if that's from something they said/showed, or I just totally made it up.

What made it ambiguous was Rufus saying you can't go back to a time where you might meet a double of yourself. Because they all exist in the year 2000, but if they know they weren't in Canada that year (for example), going back to Canada in the year 2000 wouldn't risk them meeting a double of themselves. It's weird/confusing to reference meeting a double of yourself if meeting a double isn't part of the problem.

But in more recent episodes, they have been leaving off that part of the explanation, which suggests to me that the writers weren't sure what they wanted the rule to be early on, and then settled it later and started clarifying how they stated the rule.

"Time where," not "place where."  There's the difference.  "Time" and "place," as you noted, are two entirely separate and distinct concepts.   Rufus chose his words very carefully.  If he had meant "time where" to mean "time and place where," he would have said so expressly.