S01.E15: Public Enemy No. 1

[Granny58]

14 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I really doubt they will off Rufus, but this looks pretty dire.  Even if Lucy and Wyatt are able to wake him up or they figure out how to send themselves back to the present, how are they going to get him medical attention with the entire government (and Rittenhouse) out for blood.

go to a different but modern time?  Perhaps the original 1962 they were aiming for?

[Shanna Marie]

50 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

The decision to go back to 1962 and take out Flynn's mother is what they should have done on Day 2, or at least after the first few failed attempts to take out Flynn himself. They don't really need Lucy, they obviously need a better marksman/assassin than Wyatt, and if they'd come up with this plan a lot earlier, Rufus would not have developed any particular feelings for, or loyalty to, any team and probably wouldn't have cared about said mission.

Rufus's queasiness about the mission to kill the mother had nothing to do with his feelings for or loyalty to his team. He didn't agree with the idea of killing an innocent woman just because she would later give birth to their enemy. I don't think any of them would have been on board with that plan at any point in time. If that had been their first mission, it would have turned into a team-building exercise that would have cemented the loyalty of the team to each other and against their bosses a lot sooner, because I suspect that all three of them would have compared notes once they got there and agreed that they weren't going to do it. They'd have had to send military guy #3 just with Rufus, with Rufus not being in on the plan, just being there as a pilot who didn't leave the ship, for that mission to have happened.

It seems like Wyatt came out of his snap/breakdown with some kind of clarity because he was the one keeping his head throughout. He was the one who quickly came up with a story and names when talking with Ness, who got them out of the apartment and away from there. There was almost a sense of detachment about him in all the crisis while the other two were freaking out (though the story he told about that first Delta Force mission gave me chills -- one of the people killed in that botched mission was the son of one of our neighbors when it happened, but no one could really talk about it because the whole thing was top secret and we were on a military base, so I only picked up on a general vibe and didn't learn what was going on until much later). It's too bad Wyatt's reflexes weren't a tiny bit better to have pushed Rufus completely out of danger.

The new boss calling them by their last names makes all the Bill & Ted references more obvious, so even as the scenes are supposed to be more tense and serious, they're also funnier.

[TobinAlbers]

Mason throwing shade at the team saying that they were crappy at stopping Flynn was harsh but so true. And while he is a dick, the actor plays him extremely well where I can laugh at his digs and sometimes have a wee bit of sympathy at how he initially wanted to be a tool for good and not evil. But now that he's thrown in his Samaritan AI at them, he's making his play for full fledged evil middle management.

Ness just cold decking that reporter was hilarious. Ness dying so abruptly was a little comical.

Wyatt being zen and drawing from Dave's 'One Problem at a Time' was great.

Yeah, his brother was a dick, but Joe having to shoot and kill your own brother that you raised as a kid?  That's rough.

3 hours ago, Mabel said:

I initially started watching Timeless for Goran Višnjić - really liked him in ER (and yes, in this episode, there were glimpses of his ER performance). but it seems that either his acting capabilities have greatly deterioritated since ER or the writers don't really know what to do with Flynn - he appears more of a plot device than a fleshed out character.

Random prediction for the finale:  When the team comes back to the present, Flynn's history has been reworked so that he's done none of the crap he's done this season (someone else did since History demands it) and is a good guy but the team can't believe it.  He gets a character reboot and someone else takes over as the time traveling asshole. Either Emma or Lucy's mother. You don't bring Susannah Thompson in for a bit role.

If this gets a S2 I'd love for Kripke to somehow work in Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. They just need to take a sick week from SN.

[shapeshifter]

On February 7, 2017 at 7:30 AM, dubbel zout said:

The names they choose are amusing, and Rufus's reaction to being Robert DeNiro was adorable. Why is Malcolm Barrett so underused?!

It looked like MB did a brief facial impersonation of DeNiro when he was introduced by that name.

I haven't caught Wyatt fastening Lucy's time travel seat belt, but I'm glad I read about it here on an earlier thread, because it made it amusing when Lucy started to ask the new guy for help and then thought better of it.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Rufus's queasiness about the mission to kill the mother had nothing to do with his feelings for or loyalty to his team. He didn't agree with the idea of killing an innocent woman just because she would later give birth to their enemy.

True, but my point is that if this had been the plan on Day 2, I don't know if Rufus would have really cared one way or another. He's only gotten "the feels" for what's right and wrong as a result of all his time traveling experience, as far as I can tell. For that matter, if his job was restricted to driving them there and driving them back home, and nothing else (as it probably should be) he wouldn't even have to know what the details of the mission were.

Quote

Ness just cold decking that reporter was hilarious. 

Ironically, it reminded me of that scene in Airplane! with Robert Stack walking thru security and punching people right and left.

[Sandman]

One could make the argument that throughout history, women have been paying a higher cost for the manipulations, schemes and wars of men, and the show is reflecting that. At the same time, though, even in periods where the roles of women were highly circumscribed, the show has made some effort to show women in terms other than delicate flower requiring rescue: Judith Exner, Bonnie Parker, Josephine Baker and Katherine Johnson made some of the biggest impressions of any of the historical figures shown so far; these women were shown to be movers of history in their own right, and not merely moved by history. Flynn's mother and Emma are both distinctly drawn characters doing cool stuff. (And I remain convinced that Lucy's mother (Carol?) is not going to be a sideline character for much longer -- although if the show isn't renewed I might be eating my words on that.)

Agent Christopher is doing more than passively worrying about her wife and daughter, and Jiya is a secondary character, but not just a girlfriend, I'd say. She's had a few Moments of Awesome of her own. (I'd love her just for her getting in Mason's face.)

4 hours ago, TobinAlbers said:

Either Emma or Lucy's mother. You don't bring Susannah Thompson in for a bit role.

I'm sayin'...

Edited February 15, 2017 by Sandman
Or maybe this whole post is just too mansplain-y?

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

True, but my point is that if this had been the plan on Day 2, I don't know if Rufus would have really cared one way or another. He's only gotten "the feels" for what's right and wrong as a result of all his time traveling experience, as far as I can tell.

I think he's actually more willing to be ruthless now, when it's warranted, than he would have been at the beginning of the series. Current Rufus has killed. I think the "feels" would have been even worse at the beginning, before he'd seen so many things, done things like kill out of necessity, and had experience with what Flynn was like. If he was queasy about killing the mother as a teenager now, when he knows what Flynn has done and what he's capable of and when Rufus already has blood on his hands, what would he have been like when he was just a scientist who hadn't had any adventures? There's no way episode 1 Rufus would have been even remotely capable of killing an innocent teenager or would have sanctioned it.

[dubbel zout]

18 hours ago, Goldmoon said:

I was disappointed that  Ness was killed so early.

I know! I couldn't believe Misha Collins didn't make it past the halfway point.

17 hours ago, phalange said:

I was laughing so hard at Mason getting trolled with Rufus' computer virus,

Same here, and I loved Mason's expression every time it came up. He was so exasperated. Hee.

I don't care about Lucy's sister, and Lucy's selfishness about it is annoying.

[Goldmoon]

Quote

Quote

If this gets a S2 I'd love for Kripke to somehow work in Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. They just need to take a sick week from SN.

 

Actually, let's get him to bring in the Js, and Mark and Misha.  They can play four different characters.

If they want to stop Flynn from being born, why don't they send Rufus with a doctor and an assistant to give the teenage Flynn-Dad a vasectomy?

[dargosmydaddy]

17 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

I kind of feel like their pseudonyms are a wink to Supernatural.

I felt like an even bigger wink was having Neville (Jim Beaver's character here) call for someone named "Singer" (the name of his character on Supernatural) when he was barking orders at one point.

Loved Jiya this episode... I'm wondering if our team manages to spring her and use her as their pilot with Rufus (presumably) out of commission next episode. Not sure how that would work at all...

I thought this was a strong Wyatt episode, too. I also thought it was him that got shot for a second there at first. Interesting that Flynn said to just kill Rufus... I realize that his death effectively strands the others, and I think Flynn has a bit of a soft spot for Lucy, but you'd think he might also suggest taking care of the muscle of the group first. Maybe his opinion of Wyatt's competency is as low as most of ours... (I was going to say he should have thought it would be not-Wyatt, but Flynn wasn't there when Bam Bam got killed last week, was he?)

[ketose]

I really can't imagine a finale that answers anything. I can believe one that messes with history. What's funny to me is that there is no scenario where Amy exists and Lucy's mother isn't dying. She's trading a younger life for an older one. When I can start pointing to the Ashton Kutcher "Butterfly Effect" movie's superior handling of the effects of time travel, Timeless has made a serious error. I think they would have been better off with a time machine that traveled back, but where changes to history didn't happen. Then it could be Flynn trying to get enough information about Rittenhouse to stop them in the present.

[BooBear]

16 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Locking Jiya in that room with the computer parts reminded me of every episode of the A-Team where the bad guys would lock the team up in a place with everything they needed to build some sort of armored vehicle.

Reminded me of War Games where they locked the hacker away and he used a medical recorder to record to sound of the electronic lock and get out. 

First, um.. what exactly is the problem with killing Flynn's mom (and frankly they could just kill the baby Flynn). Flynn has killed tons of innocent people across history (including Anthony). They idea that this is somehow "shocking" and wrong, annoyed me.  Plus it could correct history but I thought the first rule of time travel was whatever happened happened. So all that Flynn did before they chose to take out mom wouldn't change. 

I couldn't believe they didn't use Elliot Ness but Capone's brother was a great "hidden history" person and the actor was great. Great casting as I thought the Capone brothers looked alike. 

Yet another reason Rufus should have sat one of them down well before this and showed them how to get back in case of emergency. 

I thought it was odd that Flynn had to get the Rittenhouse information the way he did. Couldn't he have just used historical records to pin point powerful people meeting in 1959- I am sure there is algorithm or something. 

Ok episode and Wyatt wasn't totally incompetent!!

[ketose]

That's one thing I don't get. If you have to be a physicist / computer genius to pilot the eyeball, it can't be as simple as punching 3 buttons.

[iMonrey]

The problem is that even when the stakes are at their highest, nothing changes on this show. At this point, Agent Christopher, Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus are fugitives from the government and have stolen a time machine. They're on the verge of fulfilling their promise to get Lucy's sister back when all of a sudden the machine goes "beep beep beep" and it's all "Oh no, we have to chase after Flynn, again, some more." Because this show has to get their weekly famous historical character in there somehow, even now when everyone's lives are on the line. Who cares about Flynn at this point? Why did they even steal the time machine if they're just going to keep chasing after Flynn? This is ridiculous. No matter what happens, they have to work in some dumb reason to go meet famous people while wearing period costumes. The show can't seem to break out of its comfort zone.

[Sandman]

41 minutes ago, BooBear said:

First, um.. what exactly is the problem with killing Flynn's mom (and frankly they could just kill the baby Flynn). Flynn has killed tons of innocent people across history (including Anthony). They idea that this is somehow "shocking" and wrong, annoyed me. 

I think Team Eyeball's distinction between innocents and enemy combatants is (mostly) a workable one. Flynn has killed many innocents, true; but that doesn't mean our heroes have the right to. (I have no idea if the Geneva Conventions would apply to cross-time warfare, but there is morality implicit in human action, even in war.)

[KaveDweller]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

True, but my point is that if this had been the plan on Day 2, I don't know if Rufus would have really cared one way or another. He's only gotten "the feels" for what's right and wrong as a result of all his time traveling experience, as far as I can tell. For that matter, if his job was restricted to driving them there and driving them back home, and nothing else (as it probably should be) he wouldn't even have to know what the details of the mission were.

What about Rufus in the first couple of episodes makes you think he would have been willing to kill Flynn's mother? And what happened since then that would make him lean more towards saving her? I thought early Rufus seemed like an average guy. I like to think most people would be horrified at the idea of killing an innocent girl, unless they had seen some really bad shit go down to convince them it was needed. Rufus wasn't as upset with Lucy at the idea of killing Flynn in the pilot, but he didn't even seem happy to find out that was what Wyatt was planning to do then.

2 hours ago, Goldmoon said:

If they want to stop Flynn from being born, why don't they send Rufus with a doctor and an assistant to give the teenage Flynn-Dad a vasectomy?

Or why not kill Flynn's father? Why should the woman be the one who has to pay for having a psycho son?

[BooBear]

21 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

Or why not kill Flynn's father? Why should the woman be the one who has to pay for having a psycho son?

I don't know why we had to kill anyone. Kidnap Ms. Flynn at 18 and bring her to 2017 in the pod. Done! Or kidnapp baby Flynn and bring him back to 2017 for Wucy to raise. 

[KaveDweller]

29 minutes ago, BooBear said:

I don't know why we had to kill anyone. Kidnap Ms. Flynn at 18 and bring her to 2017 in the pod. Done! Or kidnapp baby Flynn and bring him back to 2017 for Wucy to raise. 

Well, yes, the best thing would be to not kill anyone. Either kidnap one of them or stop them from having sex like Wyatt tried to do with his wife's killer.

But if they are going to decide to kill someone, it seems a bit sexist to pick the mother. Killing his father would have the same impact.

[Shanna Marie]

31 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

But if they are going to decide to kill someone, it seems a bit sexist to pick the mother. Killing his father would have the same impact.

I guess there is the issue that, as we learned with Lucy, there's no guarantee that the person you think is the father is the father, but you're pretty sure the mother is the mother (aside from the cases of adoptions that are kept secret or those cases where the big "sister" is actually the mother to keep the out-of-wedlock pregnancy hidden). For instance, if someone wanted to prevent Lucy from being born and killed the person everyone thought was her father, it wouldn't have done any good. She didn't learn until Amy disappeared and she didn't that Amy was actually her half-sister. So if you want to be absolutely certain of preventing someone's birth, the only safe way is to deal with the mother. Killing the father only works if you have a DNA test and know for certain that he really is the biological father.

[Goldmoon]

Then I amend my earlier suggestion to de-testicle Flynn's dad, insofar as reproduction goes, and give Mom a hysterectomy.  Todays' doctors know how to do that with laparoscopic surgery.  Then she could be left alive and in her own time period.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The decision to go back to 1962 and take out Flynn's mother is what they should have done on Day 2, or at least after the first few failed attempts to take out Flynn himself. They don't really need Lucy, they obviously need a better marksman/assassin than Wyatt, and if they'd come up with this plan a lot earlier, Rufus would not have developed any particular feelings for, or loyalty to, any team and probably wouldn't have cared about said mission.

Well, to be fair..... unlike BamBam, he put down two guys with one shot in this episode and also realized that taking cover while/before attempting a 'kill shot' was a good idea.

[legaleagle53]

14 hours ago, jcin617 said:

If they were so adverse to killing Flynn's mother, all they had to do is abduct her and bring her into the present. 

She's still alive in the present.

[legaleagle53]

12 hours ago, Eneya said:

Because they can't go to time in which they already exists and apparently they are really close age to Flynn? IDK...

Nope.  Flynn's about ten years older than they are.  But they wouldn't kill him as a child for the same reason they wouldn't gun down his mother at age 17 or John Rittenhouse at age 10.  They don't murder children.

Edited February 15, 2017 by legaleagle53

[legaleagle53]

2 hours ago, BooBear said:

I don't know why we had to kill anyone. Kidnap Ms. Flynn at 18 and bring her to 2017 in the pod. Done! Or kidnapp baby Flynn and bring him back to 2017 for Wucy to raise. 

And what about the adult Flynn who already exists in 2017?  The rule about not traveling to a era in which you already exist works both ways.

[Netfoot]

Most disturbing thing to surface this episode is Mason's "mining" software which, coupled with the NSA database, can find out anything about anyone, anywhere, at any time, instantly, while playing the accordion.  That's going to make for very many, tedious deus ex machina moments henceforth.  To the degree that I'm not sure I want the show renewed.  Because digital omniscience doesn't usually result in good television.

[KaveDweller]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I guess there is the issue that, as we learned with Lucy, there's no guarantee that the person you think is the father is the father, but you're pretty sure the mother is the mother (aside from the cases of adoptions that are kept secret or those cases where the big "sister" is actually the mother to keep the out-of-wedlock pregnancy hidden). For instance, if someone wanted to prevent Lucy from being born and killed the person everyone thought was her father, it wouldn't have done any good. She didn't learn until Amy disappeared and she didn't that Amy was actually her half-sister. So if you want to be absolutely certain of preventing someone's birth, the only safe way is to deal with the mother. Killing the father only works if you have a DNA test and know for certain that he really is the biological father.

I guess that's true. But really, if you can build a time machine, I'm sure you could do a DNA test. Or sterilize her or something.

1 hour ago, legaleagle53 said:

She's still alive in the present.

Do we know that for sure? If so, they could pull an Emma and drop her 100 years in the past. It seems kind of cruel, but dragging someone from 1962 to 2017 would be an equal culture shock.

[Mabel]

58 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

 Because digital omniscience doesn't usually result in good television.

well, it can, like on  Person of Interest. But unfortunately, Timeless writers don't seem that capable. So yes, it's a disturbing sign. 

[Camera One]

I really like the main leads on this show, and I enjoy the historical moments, but the writing/long-range planning on this show is really weak.  If Rittenhouse is so bad, Jiya wouldn't be sitting in a supply closet free to mess with the baddies' plan.  The "heroes" had no plan after stealing the lifeboat.  What were they going to do once the backup battery ran out?  

I am so done with Rittenhouse and Flynn, but the "Person of Interest"-esque All-Seeing Surveillance idea adds something else that I wouldn't be looking forward to in Season 2.  

Edited February 15, 2017 by Camera One

[phalange]

11 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Do we even know the names of Flynn's wife and daughter? 

They were never spoken aloud, but at the end of the Watergate episode Flynn was shown looking at their gravestone and his wife and daughter were listed as Lorena and Iris, respectively. 

12 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Exactly. Or - take out the father somehow. The pearl clutching over this plan drove me up a wall. It was the simplest and easiest solution to the problem at hand and - as pointed out above - would solve Lucy's problem, too. If Flynn is never born, then he never steals the time machine and they never have to follow him and Amy never gets wiped out. Two birds, one stone.

I mean, I don't think it's really pearl clutching for Lucy and Rufus to oppose being blackmailed into standing by while an innocent teenage girl is assassinated. Lucy risked her own safety to stop Flynn from killing John Rittenhouse, so it's not really surprising that she's going to be against this plan as well.

8 hours ago, Goldmoon said:

If they want to stop Flynn from being born, why don't they send Rufus with a doctor and an assistant to give the teenage Flynn-Dad a vasectomy?

Well, much like assassinating innocent teenagers, kidnapping and sterilizing people without their consent is generally frowned upon...

Controversial opinion time, but maybe the team doesn't participate in murdering or forcibly sterilizing innocent teenagers simply because their parent and/or future child is an asshole? 

2 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

Do we know that for sure? If so, they could pull an Emma and drop her 100 years in the past. It seems kind of cruel, but dragging someone from 1962 to 2017 would be an equal culture shock.

Personally, I think going from the 1960s to the 1860s would be a much bigger culture shock than going from 1962 to 2017. Obviously people in 1962 didn't have smart phones or laptops, but they had TVs, phones, refrigerators, cars, electricity, indoor plumbing, modern medicine... I think iPhones and flat screen TVs are going to be much less traumatizing than a lack of decent medical care. 

[Mabel]

59 minutes ago, Camera One said:

 

I am so done with Rittenhouse and Flynn, but the "Person of Interest"-esque All-Seeing Surveillance idea adds something else that I wouldn't be looking forward to in Season 2.  

Mason is so not Greer ))) The NSA guy,  though, is just about as menacing. Overall, I wish the writers finally got their act together and shaped the Rittenhouse storyline better. 

[henripootel]

7 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

4 hours ago, BooBear said:

I don't know why we had to kill anyone. Kidnap Ms. Flynn at 18 and bring her to 2017 in the pod. Done! Or kidnapp baby Flynn and bring him back to 2017 for Wucy to raise. 

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.

[JackONeill]

As a few people have alluded to, if Rittenhouse is sooooo bad, how come you don't see them killing people left and right like Flynn does? For instance, as someone above pointed out: they allowed Jiya to stay on sight, in a room full of tech stuff. Flynn, because he would have known better, would have had one of his goons take her for a long walk on a short pier.

And Lucy's father seems to be a not unpleasant man. In fact, he seemed concerned (worried) that Lucy was going up against the NSA goon. I mean, is Rittenhouse scared of the NSA? Couldn't Rittenhouse squash the NSA guy like a bug?

which leads me to ask the question I have asked since the very first episode: What is the end game here? Who is controlling/manipulating what?

[MrSmith]

17 minutes ago, JackONeill said:

For instance, as someone above pointed out: they allowed Jiya to stay on sight, in a room full of tech stuff.

This is not proof that they're "nice" or anything of the sort. It's only proof they're stupid and didn't realize the breadth of her knowledge and skills. Most people who aren't into technology in the way she, Mason, and Rufus are would never dream you could cobble something together that would enable you to be so devastatingly effective. So, they didn't leave her in a room full of tech stuff because they were nice and wanted to make sure she had some way to pass the time, rather than sit there bored out of her gourd.

Edited to add: Also, we haven't seen Rittenhouse killing people because they're doing it behind the scenes. That said, it seems everyone forgot that they showed up in force to kill that black lady in the 60's or 70's earlier in the season. And it seems everyone has forgotten they've threatened to kill Rufus and his family, and - according to what Mason has implied - they've threatened to kill Mason in the past. Yep, they seem like a great bunch. I'll be sure to invite them to my next party!

Edited February 15, 2017 by MrSmith

[Netfoot]

6 hours ago, Mabel said:

Quote

Because digital omniscience doesn't usually result in good television.

well, it can, like on  Person of Interest. But unfortunately, Timeless writers don't seem that capable.

There can be only one MacLeod PoI!

[Eneya]

OK, I am really confused by the "it will not be the same baby"... why not?
In order to change something about someone, changing their date of conceiving is not enough... it places too much value of nature when we know that nurture is what affects people quite a lot. Especially since we are not changing the genetic makeup of a person drastically. Preventing the meeting of Flynn parents? Yes. Changing his school/country/hobbies/making it so he doesn't meet his wife? Those would work... Messing around with the date of conceiving the kid.... wouldn't matter.

This is why I don't see how and why Lucy's sister wouldn't be the same if her mother meets again her father and history is again changed.
People are not so simple so something so minute to affect them THAT drastically.

[Randomosity]

5 minutes ago, Eneya said:

OK, I am really confused by the "it will not be the same baby"... why not?
In order to change something about someone, changing their date of conceiving is not enough... it places too much value of nature when we know that nurture is what affects people quite a lot. Especially since we are not changing the genetic makeup of a person drastically. Preventing the meeting of Flynn parents? Yes. Changing his school/country/hobbies/making it so he doesn't meet his wife? Those would work... Messing around with the date of conceiving the kid.... wouldn't matter.

This is why I don't see how and why Lucy's sister wouldn't be the same if her mother meets again her father and history is again changed.
People are not so simple so something so minute to affect them THAT drastically.

It's not that Amy (or Flynn) being conceived on Monday instead of Sunday would make Amy different. It's that the Amy-sperm from Sunday wouldn't be the one hitting the egg on Monday, or even ten minutes later on Sunday. That would change the baby by changing the genetic makeup drastically; hell, Lucy could end up with a brother.

[Eneya]

OK, the brother thing may be fun.
However... not necessarily. If we are serious into genetics, we know that from sperm to sperm or egg to egg the difference is not that incredible. And as I said... the kid will be brought up by the same parents, in the same environment with the same cultural and social fore and background.

[henripootel]

1 hour ago, Eneya said:

Those would work... Messing around with the date of conceiving the kid.... wouldn't matter.

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.  

Edited February 15, 2017 by henripootel

[Randomosity]

38 minutes ago, Eneya said:

OK, the brother thing may be fun.
However... not necessarily. If we are serious into genetics, we know that from sperm to sperm or egg to egg the difference is not that incredible. And as I said... the kid will be brought up by the same parents, in the same environment with the same cultural and social fore and background.

Depends on your frame of reference. Sure, when you compare human sperm to each other versus crocodiles, yeah, the difference between human sperm is not large (though to be fair, we do share WAY more DNA with other animal species than most people would believe, but I digress.)

As henri said above, siblings vary GREATLY despite them both being human from 'not incredibly different' sperm. I (a woman) certainly would never marry my brother's wife, etc., even though we're siblings and 'not incredibly different'.

[dubbel zout]

9 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Most disturbing thing to surface this episode is Mason's "mining" software which, coupled with the NSA database, can find out anything about anyone, anywhere, at any time, instantly, while playing the accordion

I didn't understand the "anytime" part. How can it know what happened in a time before computers? Even if all archives have been digitalized, it only tells what was going on in that document. There's no continuum. Or am I misinterpreting this aspect?

5 hours ago, Mabel said:

I wish the writers finally got their act together and shaped the Rittenhouse storyline better. 

Or shaped it, period. All we really know is that it's infiltrated the highest levels of government and society and is Up to No Good. 

1 hour ago, Randomosity said:

hell, Lucy could end up with a brother.

It would be hilarious if this happened. 

[Eneya]

You are different as people, genetically you are similar. Your choices are based on your as a person, not on you, as a genetic makeup, no?
So you are kind of disproving your own point here, that nature is more important than nurture.
Your family dynamics mattered a lot more than your genetics did and the fact that your brother was the type of person he was affected you, your interests and the type of people you like/enjoy/form relationships with. And also your relations with your family (parents, relatives, etc.)
And I am kind of a loss to explain that the possible differences genetically wouldn't necessarily be THAT great (or not), without going into a very long discussion on genetics, which is kind of... pointless.
This is a tv show about time travel. If they change the gender of the baby... yes, that would be a major change. Outside of it, either we have to be mega technical on genetics (and again, it will be speculation) or we have to make MAJOR changes (like changing gender, sexual orientation/etc).

Edited February 15, 2017 by Eneya

[MrSmith]

Well, it's a fact that our baseline personality is determined by genetics. Even babies who are only a few days old have specific and very different personalities, even if those babies are identical twins. Sure, the rest of our personality is determined by what happens to us as we grow up, but you can't deny that we're born with predispositions.

[henripootel]

2 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Or shaped it, period. All we really know is that it's infiltrated the highest levels of government and society and is Up to No Good. 

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. 

[Sandman]

Well, now I think I'll be a little disappointed if we don't get a "Lucy, what's the matter? It's me, Andy! Don't you recognize your own brother?" scene.

2 hours ago, henripootel said:

 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. 

But they only have board meetings every twenty-five years. Things are bound to slip through the cracks, amiright?

Edited February 15, 2017 by Sandman

[jcin617]

11 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

She's still alive in the present.

Not if you abducted her from the past;  all iterations of herself from 1962 to the present would cease to exist (since she's no longer in the past to live out her life).   In theory.

Edited February 15, 2017 by jcin617

[JackONeill]

38 minutes ago, Sandman said:

Well, now I think I'll be a little disappointed if we don't get a "Lucy, what's matter? It's me, Andy! Don't you recognize your own brother?" scene.

 

Or how 'bout: "Lucy, what's the matter? It's me, Wyatt. Don't you recognize your own brother?"

[Camera One]

Quote

This is not proof that they're "nice" or anything of the sort. It's only proof they're stupid and didn't realize the breadth of her knowledge and skills. Most people who aren't into technology in the way she, Mason, and Rufus are would never dream you could cobble something together that would enable you to be so devastatingly effective. Edited to add: Also, we haven't seen Rittenhouse killing people because they're doing it behind the scenes. That said, it seems everyone forgot that they showed up in force to kill that black lady in the 60's or 70's earlier in the season. And it seems everyone has forgotten they've threatened to kill Rufus and his family, and - according to what Mason has implied - they've threatened to kill Mason in the past. Yep, they seem like a great bunch. I'll be sure to invite them to my next party!

That's the thing.  Their scary behavior shown earlier in the season does not mesh at all with how they have acted in the last few episodes.  You'd think they would have a team searching for Wyatt.  You'd think they would know what Agent Christopher was up to and they would be threatening her.  You'd think they would have put Jiya under uncomfortable interrogation techniques to find out what she truly knows.  You'd think they would have Lucy and Rufus followed 24/7.  Stealing the Lifeboat should have been huge, but the suspense in this episode was severely lacking.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Camera One

[Randomosity]

15 minutes ago, Camera One said:

That's the thing.  Their scary behavior shown earlier in the season does not mesh at all with how they have acted in the last few episodes.  You'd think they would have a team searching for Wyatt.  You'd think they would know what Agent Christopher was up to and they would be threatening her.  You'd think they would have put Jiya under uncomfortable interrogation techniques to find out what she truly knows.  You'd think they would have Lucy and Rufus followed 24/7.  Stealing the Lifeboat should have been huge, but the suspense in this episode was severely lacking.

Definitely. Even Lucy and Rufus probably would have been majorly questions after it was found that Wyatt broke out, not to mention Agent Christopher. And I mean, I think Wyatt changed clothes since last episode. He had some fuzzy-collared jacket instead of the leather. What, did he run home to change? After breaking out of a cell? Like no one would think to look for him there?

(Or maybe that's when he went shopping at Gap...)

[shapeshifter]

I f this is to be a one-season show, I think they really missed the Life boat by not having someone from the past either stowaway or get kidnapped to the present.

[Sandman]

51 minutes ago, JackONeill said:

Or how 'bout: "Lucy, what's the matter? It's me, Wyatt. Don't you recognize your own brother?"

... and the audience emits an enormous collective ::squick::