S01.E16: The Red Scare

[ketose]

6 hours ago, Driad said:

Is there a trope name for the structure of this episode? They tied up a batch of loose ends, then the last act generated a veritable pompom of loose ends. Sounded like "We need another season!"

I don't know, but it was a routine on Buffy.

[cigar95]

What I found satisfying about the ending is that it was open-ended without being a full-on cliffhanger. If the show doesn't come back, it allows the viewer to fill in the rest of the story with his own imagination. For that matter, we can speculate and debate here on what might have happened going forward.

[Sandman]

On 2017-02-22 at 6:14 PM, ketose said:

So, there's a SECRET Rittenhouse inside regular super-secret Rittenhouse.

This reminds me of the endlessly tangled and re-imagined mytharc on The X-Files. Inside every "real truth" there was another layer of secrecy, betrayal and, well, wankery -- like a Matryoshka doll of paranoia-flavoured retcon. (I'm sorry -- that metaphor kind of kicked over the traces, but it's not my fault! Chris Carter always made me nutso.)

Edited April 12, 2017 by Sandman

[ketose]

On 4/11/2017 at 5:25 PM, Sandman said:

This reminds me of the endlessly tangled and re-imagined mytharc on The X-Files. Inside every "real truth" there was another layer of secrecy, betrayal and, well, wankery -- like a Matryoshka doll of paranoia-flavoured retcon. (I'm sorry -- that metaphor kind of kicked over the traces, but it's not my fault! Chris Carter always made me nutso.)

Oddly enough, this is the second time in a week I've seen the phrase Matryoshka doll after not seeing it, maybe ever.

[Chas411]

After that finale especially the last scene I'll be really really disappointed if this show doesn't get renewed.

[John.G]

The “Emma as Rittenhouse” reveal is ridiculous, I don’t buy it at all.  I get it that a Rittenhouse agent in hiding wouldn’t act in a way that overtly helps them, but she should at least act in a way that puts her in position to help at some point.  Early on she was perfectly placed, the ultimate insider, and was trained to pilot the machine.  Maybe she was the only one trained?  How does hiding out in the Old West help Rittenhouse?  What possible benefit to the organization would there be, not merely taking their pilot out of the loop, but taking her SO FAR out of the loop that it will require stealing a time machine to go get her?  Suppose there is some good reason.  Once Flynn and Anthony find her, what possible benefit to the Rittenhouse organization is gained by her telling them even worse stories of “you have no idea what Rittenhouse is planning” than what they already suspected?  If she’s so bad-ass that she single handedly takes out the heavily armed team that goes to recapture the machine for the good guys, why didn’t she just take out Flynn and take the machine for Rittenhouse at that point, before anybody but Flynn and Anthony know she’s not dead?  Flynn was wreaking all manner of havoc (or trying to) surely it is in Rittenhouse’s interest for her to take him out?

[IWantCandy71]

Quote

Did Flynn actually make things worse by changing history so that Amy was never born?

I thought it was already clear that the little girl under the Hindeburg that LUCY yells at Rufus to save, turned out to be the woman (or mother of the woman?) Lucy's supposed original father hooked up with instead of Lucy's mother, which was why Amy was never born-because Lucy's mom and the man that would have been Amy's dad, never met. But I could be remembering wrongly.

 

Yes, Flynn has done horrible things and the show messed up by having him doing all the killing. Part of that I can excuse because Flynn has a very good defense of not being completely mentally competent. The man's a little crazy. Doesn't excuse his actions but it does help me understand them. Problem is that as Lucy said, "what WE'VE DONE". No, they aren't killing as many people as Flynn, but at least Flynn thinks he's righteous in what he's doing(again, not exactly mentally sound).  Wyatt started out killing people left and right also-are we just supposed to excuse it because it may have been "necessary"? I can tell you, most of the killing wasn't. Knocking someone out and tying them up in a lot of the scenes where Wyatt blows someone away would have more than sufficed. Rufus killed someone also, and Lucy did as well. So they all technically belong in jail. Flynn of course would be on Death Row if this were RL.  The show did mess up a bit by having him so off the rails early on. He's not completely irredeemable, but I hope they have him stop and THINK in season 2 before just offing people. TBH the show is waaay more violent overall than it needs to be, and it kind of puts me off. If all the dead bodies keep piling up in season 2, I may have to rethink my support of the show.

But I do like watching Flynn. I just don't agree with his actions.

And I think as I just posted, that the journal itself has been nothing but a long con trap for him and he fell right in to it.

Edited February 7, 2018 by IWantCandy71

[shapeshifter]

19 hours ago, IWantCandy71 said:

…No, they aren't killing as many people as Flynn, but at least Flynn thinks he's righteous in what he's doing…
they all technically belong in jail. Flynn of course would be on Death Row if this were RL…

I can't recall: Have they ruled out the possibility that Flynn believes or even possibly knows that the people he kills will come back to life in another time reset, or maybe live on in an alternate universe?

[sjohnson]

21 hours ago, IWantCandy71 said:

I can tell you, most of the killing wasn't. Knocking someone out and tying them up in a lot of the scenes where Wyatt blows someone away would have more than sufficed. Rufus killed someone also, and Lucy did as well. So they all technically belong in jail. Flynn of course would be on Death Row if this were RL. 

Rufus and Lucy as I recall were pretty straightforwardly justifiable homicides (killing in self defense, to save another...there is the gray area where a person committing a crime refuses to surrender, is not fleeing and is armed, constituting a potential threat [for police, potential threats are capital crimes in themselves].) Wyatt, despite the common insistence he has no weight to his presence, is pretty ruthless but he no doubt considers it either combat, or, when he tries to kill Flynn, orders. The superior officers who ordered Wyatt to kill Flynn are entitled by precedent to kill anyone designated a target  without it being deemed murder, even if it is a US citizen, even a child, no charges necessary, much less trial.

[KaveDweller]

10 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I can't recall: Have they ruled out the possibility that Flynn believes or even possibly knows that the people he kills will come back to life in another time reset, or maybe live on in an alternate universe?

They haven't had Flynn say he doesn't believe that the people he kills will come back to life in a reset, so they could certainly have him reveal such a belief down the line. But I don't think they've done anything to suggest he thinks that.  He seems to just not care.

[IWantCandy71]

On ‎2‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 10:03 AM, sjohnson said:

Rufus and Lucy as I recall were pretty straightforwardly justifiable homicides (killing in self defense, to save another...there is the gray area where a person committing a crime refuses to surrender, is not fleeing and is armed, constituting a potential threat [for police, potential threats are capital crimes in themselves].) Wyatt, despite the common insistence he has no weight to his presence, is pretty ruthless but he no doubt considers it either combat, or, when he tries to kill Flynn, orders. The superior officers who ordered Wyatt to kill Flynn are entitled by precedent to kill anyone designated a target  without it being deemed murder, even if it is a US citizen, even a child, no charges necessary, much less trial.

Lucy killing Jesse James wasn't anything other than cold blooded murder. Both Bass Reeves and Wyatt had guns on JJ when Lucy blew him away. One of my least favorite moments of the show, not because I don't think she's capable of it. Because it was a thrill kill-because I believe she did it just because she could, just because she wanted to.  A stupid moment, and I hated it.

Flynn, in his defense, has more than once called what he is doing "war".  He considers it combat. He's a little crazy, but if Rittenhouse can control what it seems they can control, he isn't exactly wrong. It just isn't an "official" war, and he isn't officially authorized to kill anyone.

Wyatt is too boring to continue to comment on.

17 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

They haven't had Flynn say he doesn't believe that the people he kills will come back to life in a reset, so they could certainly have him reveal such a belief down the line. But I don't think they've done anything to suggest he thinks that.  He seems to just not care.

I don't agree he doesn't care. I just think he is able to put aside the care, for the most part, because he deems it "necessary". He is a very "ends justify the means" kind of character. They would not have him make comments about not being able to sleep, and not being able to go back to his family, not "wanting" to kill people, but "having" to, and being a monster, etc if he didn't care about any of it. It's just that he feels he had no other choice. Obviously, he did, but his grief drove him to homicidal nuttiness. And I fully agree with what he said-Lucy or Wyatt would have done the same, had they been in his shoes. And no, Wyatt and Flynn are NOT the same. Wyatt's wife was murdered by a serial killer. If Wyatt's wife and child were both murdered by Rittenhouse, I fully believe he'd be doing everything Flynn is doing, and then some.

Edited February 9, 2018 by IWantCandy71

[IWantCandy71]

On ‎2‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 7:58 AM, shapeshifter said:

I can't recall: Have they ruled out the possibility that Flynn believes or even possibly knows that the people he kills will come back to life in another time reset, or maybe live on in an alternate universe?

No, they've never addressed this. There are obviously alternate realities in any time travel show and this one as well, so of course in those alternate realities those people probably still exist. And if they do, that could be part of Flynn's justification-he didn't eliminate them-he just erased them from this version of reality.

[legaleagle53]

19 hours ago, IWantCandy71 said:

No, they've never addressed this. There are obviously alternate realities in any time travel show and this one as well, so of course in those alternate realities those people probably still exist. And if they do, that could be part of Flynn's justification-he didn't eliminate them-he just erased them from this version of reality.

Except that the showrunners have made it pretty clear that there are no alternate timelines.  The current one just keeps getting overwritten as a result of changes to the past.

And Lucy killed Jesse James because it was the only way to preserve history. Does anyone seriously think that Jesse would have stayed locked up and wouldn't simply have resumed his killing spree the moment he broke out of jail?  Lucy knew better than that.  It's better for one man like Jesse to die (as history says he did) than for potentially hundreds of innocent victims to die who would otherwise not have died.  There's simply no telling what permanent damage would have been done to the timeline if Lucy hadn't killed Jesse when she did.

Edited February 10, 2018 by legaleagle53

[shapeshifter]

9 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Except that the showrunners have made it pretty clear that there are no alternate timelines.  The current one just keeps getting overwritten as a result of changes to the past.

And Lucy killed Jesse James because it was the only way to preserve history. Does anyone seriously think that Jesse would have stayed locked up and wouldn't simply have resumed his killing spree the moment he broke out of jail?  Lucy knew better than that.  It's better for one man like Jesse to die (as history says he did) than for potential hundreds of innocent victims to die who would otherwise not have died.  There's simply no telling what permanent damage would have been done to the timeline if Lucy hadn't killed Jesse when she did.

Thanks for this. I didn't remember that premise or the details, so this example fills in my memory gaps. But is there anything in the canon to prevent the showrunners from deciding to reveal that there are other versions of existence that heretofore only Flynn knew about? I realize this would raise the question of why doesn't Flynn just go live in a universe where his loved ones still exist, so maybe this universe is the only one where that is even a possibility.

[sjohnson]

Rewriting the timeline isn't necessarily paradoxical. It is only paradoxical when it prevents the creation of a time machine, and the time traveler(s) who caused the change. Unless...

If an artifact or person appears without an origin, or has two or more origins, then that is a paradox. Obviously the question arises in regard to the journal. Any timeline change that would undo the Lucy who wrote the journal is a paradox. 

[IWantCandy71]

On ‎2‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 9:54 PM, legaleagle53 said:

Except that the showrunners have made it pretty clear that there are no alternate timelines.  The current one just keeps getting overwritten as a result of changes to the past.

And Lucy killed Jesse James because it was the only way to preserve history. Does anyone seriously think that Jesse would have stayed locked up and wouldn't simply have resumed his killing spree the moment he broke out of jail?  Lucy knew better than that.  It's better for one man like Jesse to die (as history says he did) than for potentially hundreds of innocent victims to die who would otherwise not have died.  There's simply no telling what permanent damage would have been done to the timeline if Lucy hadn't killed Jesse when she did.

 

How have they made it clear?  I guess I missed the explanation in the show.

It doesn't matter to me why Lucy killed Jesse James.. She shot an unarmed man in the back-my point was, she murdered him in cold blood.  The reason doesn't matter. If we say that Lucy murdering him is okay because he was a bad man, then Flynn can justify every killing he's done by saying that if that person is part of Rittenhouse(including Lincoln), then they are evil and need to be stopped.  Killing isn't the only solution. Flynn thinks the ends justifies the means, and so did Lucy, in that moment. But that's problematic reasoning-because by killing a murderer or other bad person to stop them, you BECOME them. Or at least, no better than them in your actions. It becomes a vicious circle.

 Bass Reeves was going to take Jesse back to await trail and probably to be hanged. Sure, *maybe* he would have escaped, but maybe he wouldn't have. Bass Reeves had a point-Lucy took the law into her own hands. Just like Flynn has been doing. Which goes back to my original point, that if Flynn must go to jail, then Wyatt and Lucy should too-perhaps Rufus can be excused, I'd have to go back and rewatch the episode where he killed to be sure.

Edited February 12, 2018 by IWantCandy71

[legaleagle53]

4 hours ago, IWantCandy71 said:

How have they made it clear?  I guess I missed the explanation in the show.

It doesn't matter to me why Lucy killed Jesse James.. She shot an unarmed man in the back-my point was, she murdered him in cold blood.  The reason doesn't matter. If we say that Lucy murdering him is okay because he was a bad man, then Flynn can justify every killing he's done by saying that if that person is part of Rittenhouse(including Lincoln), then they are evil and need to be stopped.  Killing isn't the only solution. Flynn thinks the ends justifies the means, and so did Lucy, in that moment. But that's problematic reasoning-because by killing a murderer or other bad person to stop them, you BECOME them. Or at least, no better than them in your actions. It becomes a vicious circle.

 Bass Reeves was going to take Jesse back to await trail and probably to be hanged. Sure, *maybe* he would have escaped, but maybe he wouldn't have. Bass Reeves had a point-Lucy took the law into her own hands. Just like Flynn has been doing. Which goes back to my original point, that if Flynn must go to jail, then Wyatt and Lucy should too-perhaps Rufus can be excused, I'd have to go back and rewatch the episode where he killed to be sure.

 

It was never stated in the show that there are no alternate timelines.  The showrunners, however, have made it clear in interviews that there are none.

And it's just a bit naive to think that Jesse James wouldn't have escaped and continued his killing spree, especially once he got his hands on Flynn's advanced weaponry (if you recall, Flynn forbade him even to touch it, and Jesse wasn't about to take "NO!" for an answer). As I said, it's better for one man like Jesse to die as history says he did -- and even in exactly the same manner that his victims did (being shot in the back) -- than it is to risk who knows how many additional lives he would have taken had he lived.  Sometimes killing isn't just the correct solution -- it's often the ONLY solution. But some people would probably have been opposed even to Jesse being hanged -- that whole icky death-penalty thing, after all.

Edited February 12, 2018 by legaleagle53

[IWantCandy71]

1 hour ago, legaleagle53 said:

And you're really naïve

Nice. Name calling over a Television show.

LOL okay, backing away now. THANKS !