S01.E11: The World's Columbian Exposition

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

He must shop for them at Goons 'R Us.

Honestly, the show has done a poor job of showing us Flynn's side of things (one of this show's many failings, unfortunately). Where's he getting the money he needs to pay these people and come up with costumes and period money? Is someone financing him or is he independently wealthy? Is he robbing banks? The show isn't really interested in explaining anything beyond "he's trying to take out Rittenhouse." 

They could really use an episode told from Flynn's point of view with maybe a few flashbacks to flesh out his story. 

I agree. If we're supposed to at some point think Lucy, Rufus and Wyatt should join up with him, we need to know more than we've been given. Because so far, he's been responsible for more deaths (on our screen) than Rittenhouse.

40 minutes ago, CooperTV said:

I found it really strange that there was almost no pay-off from that pre-hiatus cliffhanger.

Me too. I really hate seeing the show throw away its interesting ideas time and again.

[wanderingstar]

"Roosevelt's skinny!"

Welcome back, show! 

I thought this was a solid return. The Houdini hijinks and H.H. Holmes stuff made this feel like a thriller/caper. And I LOVED the Rufus/Lucy reunion.

Next week looks good too.

[KaveDweller]

9 hours ago, iMonrey said:

They could really use an episode told from Flynn's point of view with maybe a few flashbacks to flesh out his story. 

I would really love that. Even if it doesn't make us think Flynn is secretly a good guy, it would be nice to see.

But I have a feeling they are saving the explanation of Lucy possibly working with Flynn for a finale or season 5 of something.

[shapeshifter]

On January 20, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Clanstarling said:

I agree. If we're supposed to at some point think Lucy, Rufus and Wyatt should join up with him, we need to know more than we've been given. Because so far, he's been responsible for more deaths (on our screen) than Rittenhouse.

Me too. I really hate seeing the show throw away its interesting ideas time and again.

Unintended double entendre? heh.

[Clanstarling]

Yep. Lol

24 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Unintended double entendre? heh.

[henripootel]

2 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Yep. Lol

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.  

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The guy likes to kill people. Someone offered him up a treat and maybe offered to pay him too. Why wouldn't he just go for it.

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.  

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I have a harder time figuring out how Flynn is convincing all these goons to help him murder people throughout history, risking all manner of ugly death (dysentery, musket ball to the gut, smallpox) or possibly getting stranded in the past.

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.  

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The show isn't really interested in explaining anything beyond "he's trying to take out Rittenhouse." 

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.

Edited January 22, 2017 by henripootel

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, henripootel said:

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. . . .

Definitions do say "usually" or "especially," but do not require the second meaning to be "risqué."

[Clanstarling]

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The show isn't really interested in explaining anything beyond "he's trying to take out Rittenhouse." 

 

7 hours ago, henripootel said:

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.

Well, the nuke was to allow Flynn to move around, without requiring a pit stop, so he could keep ahead of those who were trying to stop him from ending Rittenhouse, so yes, it did have something to do with Rittenhouse, though indirectly.

His funding is another piece of the puzzle they've left by the wayside. He's only had the time machine a short while, from what we've seen it doesn't seem like he's had a lot of time during his pit stops to arrange for money.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Clanstarling

[Clanstarling]

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Definitions do say "usually" or "especially," but do not require the second meaning to be "risqué."

I had to check the dictionary too, this is what I found:

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1 literature :  ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation

2 linguistics :  a word or expression capable of two interpretations with one usually risqué <flirty talk full of double entendres>

Edited January 22, 2017 by Clanstarling

[Sandman]

On 2017-01-17 at 10:31 AM, Miles said:

"The lifeboat will take another 4 hours to charge" everbody makes a "oh no!"-face.

I thought this, too. "But ... the Eyeball is a time machine, you dimwits!" I had to tell myself the "Ruh-roh!" faces were more about managing impatience and dread than an any real timing problem. The team would still have to wait a subjective four hours, which could be nerve-racking.

On 2017-01-17 at 3:22 PM, tennisgurl said:

What they apparently need to do is gather together a rag tag bunch of misfits throughout history (Houdini, Katherine Johnson, Ian Fleming, Bonnie Parker, etc.) and have THEM hunt down Flynn. They would probably catch him in twenty minutes and be done in time for dinner at the Worlds Fair. 

That's brilliant! It'd be like a combination of this show and Legends of Tomorrow, but the titular legends would have, you know, actual personalities and skill sets. I've been thinking that Kripke is using the time conceit to play among different genres within the show -- the Benedict Arnold episode felt a little Sleepy Hollow to me, for example; and this one had a definite American Horror Story kind of vibe (from what I can tell; I can't actually watch the latter).

Edited January 23, 2017 by Sandman

[iMonrey]

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He's only had the time machine a short while, from what we've seen it doesn't seem like he's had a lot of time during his pit stops to arrange for money.

Let's not forget the way Flynn and his men stormed Mason Industries in the pilot and commandeered the time machine in the first place. This would have taken an enormous amount of time to plot and finance. How did Flynn manage to put this whole team together?

Come to think of it . . . how did Flynn even know about the time machine in the first place? It couldn't have been through working with the NSA because the government itself did not know about the time machine until after "the terrorists" stole it.

[dubbel zout]

Didn't Flynn find out about it through Max Headroom?

[Hanahope]

Boy, if it wasn't for Harry Houdini, this last episode would have been a major dud.  I mean, but for the first episode, there's been absolutely no apparent consequences to all these time changes.  Especially after last episode's killing of Cornwallis.  But other people have lived that should have died (particularly Flynn's brother) and died who should have lived.  I thought for sure there'd be some mention of how the female architect they saved went on to do some major building. and really, Flynn's brother living should have made a big difference in Flynn's life.  This show had a good premise, but its been really poorly executed.

[LadyArcadia]

On 1/17/2017 at 5:13 PM, tennisgurl said:

I really feel like this show suffers from a lack of ambition in the writing, which is what holds it back from being the really great show that it could be. It has a cool premise, good actors, a decent of amount of work put into period detail, and its clear a lot of the people working on this show are really trying. But, they seem afraid to break their formula, or do anything interesting with their premise. Look at the deaths of Benedict Arnold and Cornwallis. These should have had some kind of impact on history, even if it didn't completely change everything. It could have been a real game changer to come back to the present and find out some big stuff has changed, and now they have to deal with that, as well as dealing with Flynn. Instead, its just the reset button being pushed over and over, and we just get Our Gang chasing Flynn to yet another historical location, they foil his plan, he escapes, forever and ever. Its already gotten stale, and its still the first season! There should be some real change now, something like now the present has zeppelins as its main form of travel, or everyone still wears hats all the time, or something bigger or smaller or SOMETHING! That is how time travel shows are supposed to work! So many people have been killed or saved by time travelers at this point, and they have screwed around with so many big historical moments, even if the highlights didn't change, something had to have changed that people would notice. But the show seems nervous to leave their format or really explore the possibilities they have set up. 

They set this up so well in the very first episode with Lucy's sister. Then.........nothing.  Has anything changed in all the subsequent episodes?  What a waste!

[KaveDweller]

11 hours ago, Hanahope said:

Boy, if it wasn't for Harry Houdini, this last episode would have been a major dud.  I mean, but for the first episode, there's been absolutely no apparent consequences to all these time changes.  Especially after last episode's killing of Cornwallis.  But other people have lived that should have died (particularly Flynn's brother) and died who should have lived.  I thought for sure there'd be some mention of how the female architect they saved went on to do some major building. and really, Flynn's brother living should have made a big difference in Flynn's life.  This show had a good premise, but its been really poorly executed.

The female architect was a real person who didn't get killed by that serial killer, so I think she was only in danger because of Flynn asking Holmes to try and trap Wyatt and Rufus. 

But I totally agree about Cornwallis. I can't believe they didn't address that at all.

[withanaich]

On 1/23/2017 at 3:16 PM, iMonrey said:

Come to think of it . . . how did Flynn even know about the time machine in the first place? It couldn't have been through working with the NSA because the government itself did not know about the time machine until after "the terrorists" stole it.

I would imagine he learned about it when he stumbled onto Rittenhouse and its various nefarious dealings. "They killed my wife but I know about that time machine they bankrolled, so I guess I'll be stealing that to get her back!"

[Driad]

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