S02.E05: The Kennedy Curse

[Notwisconsin]

11 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

If he had saved Joe Jr, wouldn't he have been the one the family ended up pushing to be president?

According to everything I've read, Joe Jr. was a real creep, who loved beating the crap out of Jack, whom he apparently hated, and decided to go on his fatal mission to get back at him as revenge for the post-PT109 kudos jack got. While he may have been elected to congress (or Lt. Governor of Massachusetts), he may have not gotten any further due to his unpleasantness.

As to Nixon, how do we know if JFK didn't run for president in 1960, Nixon would have been elected or assassinated at around the same time? I know that Nixon has an unmistakable profile that everyone still knows, but still...

it might be cool for someone to mention that Rittenhouse tried to stop Gravillo Princip and his merry band of terrorists at the Bosnian border to prevent WWI, or make sure Woodrow Wilson stayed dead after his massive stroke in 1919, or SAVED Zachery Taylor's life by spilling the tainted Cherry milk that killed him in 1850, bringing the Civil war up 11 years and that nothing really changed. The question of whether time self-corrects is an interesting one to explore.

[AngelKitty]

I grew up hearing Boston accents, and that sir, is no Boston accent! Also, the kid just looked too much like Doogie Howser for me. But here's the thing: it's a show and they're telling me this character is JFK, so I have to believe he's JFK. (I'm old enough to remember the funeral on TV and was young enough to be annoyed my regular shows weren't on.)

My thoughts regarding Jessica are that she doesn't have to die because she was killed by Rittenhouse so her death is not fixed. She wouldn't have died if Rittenhouse hadn't killed her. I think.

The thing I've learned about time travel shows, is that you can't think about any of it too carefully. You just have to hope the writers establish rules and then stick by them. :-)

[legaleagle53]

40 minutes ago, AngelKitty said:

My thoughts regarding Jessica are that she doesn't have to die because she was killed by Rittenhouse so her death is not fixed. She wouldn't have died if Rittenhouse hadn't killed her. I think.

But then that begs the question of why Rittenhouse killed her in the first place if they deliberately went back and did something with the specific intent of undoing her murder.  Since when has Rittenhouse ever in its own mind made a mistake?

[RemoteControlFreak]

Why did JFK have a southern accent?  If actors can't do a passable regional accent, they shouldn't even try.

Boston native here, so I know what a Boston accent, and JFK's particular version of a Boston accent, sounds like.

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, Notwisconsin said:

As to Nixon, how do we know if JFK didn't run for president in 1960, Nixon would have been elected or assassinated at around the same time? I know that Nixon has an unmistakable profile that everyone still knows, but still...

As for elected - primarily because he was the VP of a fairly beloved President, running against Kennedy, and the election was extremely close (with some accusations of voter fraud or at least influence). Without someone as charismatic as Jack to run against, he probably would have won. As for the assassination - I don't know. Except that Nixon was strongly anti-communist and as such would probably still have approved the botched the Bay of Pigs attempt to get rid of Castro, and therefor would have been on Oswald's radar.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Clanstarling

[Notwisconsin]

12 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

Except that Nixon was strongly anti-communist and as such would probably still have approved the botched the Bay of Pigs attempt to get rid of Castro, and therefor would have been on Oswald's radar.

JFK's conduct was partly to blame for it being botched. BUT that's neither here nor there....A JFK who knew that WW2 was going to happen in a few years might have been significant, as his evil old man was a bit of a Nazi himself....appeasement and all that....

[Dowel Jones]

5 hours ago, Notwisconsin said:

it might be cool for someone to mention that Rittenhouse tried to stop Gravillo Princip and his merry band of terrorists at the Bosnian border to prevent WWI,...

Why stop there?  Set the dial to the year 01, find the Garden, and sidle up to Adam.  Whisper in his ear, "Dude, no matter what she says, don't eat the apple.  Trust me, you'll thank me later."  How about that for changing a timeline?

[Shanna Marie]

20 hours ago, Emma9 said:

Every single individual person in the world is nothing but a conglomeration of their memories; memories of people they've known, events they've experienced or heard/read about, books they've read and movies they've watched, etc etc etc. You can't just change piece after piece of that and expect the rest to stay the same.

More than a decade ago, I happened to spot a flyer posted in a lobby. That split-second glance triggered a cascade of events, relationships, and personal decisions that had a bigger effect on my life going forward than probably anything else. I'm sure everyone can name a similarly random occurrence that changed them fundamentally, a change meeting or offhand remark that had a disproportionate effect, or if not, can at least hypothesize that something of the kind could have happened, and there's no way to tell how narrowly they avoided it.

Though there may be a difference between the macro level and the micro level. It may drastically change your life if you see a flyer, catch a train, take a job, talk to a person, etc., but the greater scope of history may be harder to change. If Hitler gets into art school, then he doesn't end up becoming the dictator of Germany who started a world war, so his life changes drastically, but given the political environment of Germany at that time, there's a strong chance that someone else might have arisen to become a dictator of Germany who started a very similar world war. After all, there were enough people with similar enough views to support his rise to power and his actions, so one of them might have stepped up and done pretty much the same things he did. Some individual lives end up being very different, but the world as a whole ends up being more or less the same. Rittenhouse seems to be banking on the idea that there are pivotal figures who are critical actors in history, and changing their lives (or killing them) will change history, but no one exists in a vacuum. People are products of their times, so there's always a chance that in the absence of one person, another person steps up to do the same thing. The names of the people involved may change, but history doesn't.

In the case of this episode, it may be that JFK heeded the warning and didn't plan a trip to Dallas, but contrary to popular opinion at the time, it wasn't Dallas and the hatred of Kennedy there that killed him. It was Oswald, a Soviet sympathizer/wannabe. Oswald might merely have traveled to Austin to carry out his plan. Though there was recently an interesting essay in the Dallas newspaper about how the assassination in a way "saved" Dallas because the city was going down a pretty dark path at that time, and the sense of guilt led to some soul searching that sent the city in a different direction. So Dallas might have ended up being a different place. Austin might have changed a lot, too. I know of some individual lives that might have been different (I used to work with the doctors who worked on JFK in the ER). But the big picture of history remains more or less the same.

Of course, it's all purely hypothetical, as we don't have time travel and have no idea how it would really work. Connie Willis has written some interesting time travel novels that get into the idea of chaos theory, where the influence of people traveling in time is minimized by chaos theory within the self-correcting timeline, with lots of little events coming into play to nudge things back in the right direction. Though in her world, it's nearly impossible for time travelers to end up at a pivotal event because the timeline won't let them arrive there.

[iMonrey]

Quote

That's when you get into the whole time travel paradox. If they change something that stops Mason from being born, the time machine should disappear

Not if the lifeboat is in the past when it happens, because it's from the timeline where Mason was alive. In other words, it would return to an altered present day where Mason was never born but since they are from the original timeline they, and their machine, still exist.

This applies to Wyatt and Jessica as well. Since Emma brought Jessica back to life, that should have "erased" Wyatt from the revised timeline as well, since he would never have become a part of that team if Jessica was still alive and he was still married to her. He must have been on a trip in the past when that part of the timeline changed. He and Jessica are obviously from 2 different timelines, since they each remember a different past.

This is the first time they have ever left someone behind in the past (Flynn, in 1934) and then returned later to retrieve them. It seems to demonstrate that they can pinpoint an exact time in the past to "land" on - otherwise they risk returning to a time where they already visited (which they told us was a big no-no in Season 1). That being the case, it seems to me every time they go chasing Rittenhouse through time they should land a few weeks before Rittenhouse gets there in the mothership. They stand a much better chance of taking them out that way.

[misstwpherecool]

Besides the time travel paradoxes we have one of my favorities-fight scenes played out in high heeled shoes boots with women matching strength with men(women can fight but...) I thought Emma was scientist or historian, not master assassin.

Also how did Emma know to go to the party or did she follow or trace them with a cell phone or something. Perhaps show Rittenhouse's tech support team in action as well.

[misstwpherecool]

5 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

But then that begs the question of why Rittenhouse killed her in the first place if they deliberately went back and did something with the specific intent of undoing her murder.  Since when has Rittenhouse ever in its own mind made a mistake?

Perhaps this is the first time Rittenhouse killed her(including going back in time to do it) after seeing how important she was to Wyatt. A sudden loss makes Wyatt in effective.

[KaveDweller]

9 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

But then that begs the question of why Rittenhouse killed her in the first place if they deliberately went back and did something with the specific intent of undoing her murder.  Since when has Rittenhouse ever in its own mind made a mistake?

Maybe there was another timeline where Jessica didn't die? And we just don't know that was the "original" timeline because we came into the show after they had already changed something.

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Not if the lifeboat is in the past when it happens, because it's from the timeline where Mason was alive. In other words, it would return to an altered present day where Mason was never born but since they are from the original timeline they, and their machine, still exist.

This applies to Wyatt and Jessica as well. Since Emma brought Jessica back to life, that should have "erased" Wyatt from the revised timeline as well, since he would never have become a part of that team if Jessica was still alive and he was still married to her. He must have been on a trip in the past when that part of the timeline changed. He and Jessica are obviously from 2 different timelines, since they each remember a different past.

This is the first time they have ever left someone behind in the past (Flynn, in 1934) and then returned later to retrieve them. It seems to demonstrate that they can pinpoint an exact time in the past to "land" on - otherwise they risk returning to a time where they already visited (which they told us was a big no-no in Season 1). That being the case, it seems to me every time they go chasing Rittenhouse through time they should land a few weeks before Rittenhouse gets there in the mothership. They stand a much better chance of taking them out that way.

Wyatt said he only took the job because Jessica had died, but we know that's not true because in the alternate timeline that Jessica is from, Wyatt has still been part of the time team.  If he hadn't, when they got back everyone in the present would wonder who he was and where the dude who did join the team was.

Going to before Rittenhouse got there would make a ton of sense. If they did that, they could also take multiple trips to the past, with Rufus dropping off two people each time. If you do that enough times, they could have a whole army there to take on Rittenhouse. In the beginning I get that they were trying to keep the circle small, but considering they've been failing miserably at their goal they may need to consider changing strategies.

[Halting Hex]

5 hours ago, misstwpherecool said:

I thought Emma was scientist or historian, not master assassin.

Emma's a pilot.  She was trained to be a Rufus, not a Lucy.

That said, if Rittenhouse also wanted her to be killing people, it makes sense they've given her fight training.  Heck, even the real Rufus and Lucy are being relatively badass nowadays, and their exposure to all of this is purely accidental, rather than planned.

(And she did have 10 years back in the past with precious little to do but train.)

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

I, also, think that that time & traveling could "correct" Jessica's situation, but I think there is a stronger possibility that she's killed out on a 'mission' in present time, if she keeps going out with the team like in this episode.  Actually, I bet it comes down to Wyatt needing to make a choice on who to save;  her or Lucy.  What I'm most interested in is why did Emma/Keynes/Rittenhouse make sure she was alive again?  Just to split up Lyatt seems too easy & cliche to be the only reason.

Its been said a lot already, but echoing the positive comments on the actor portraying the young displaced JFK.  The horrified shock of learning his future and about the "Kennedy Curse" felt genuine and real.

Man, Rufus can't catch a break.  Tells JFK to avoid the historical time & date of his assassination, but it occurs anyway only in a (sorta)neighboring city.

There are some small warning bells going off in my head about the possibility of Lucy/Garcia and I am not here for that kind of subplot.  A forced triangle is bad enough, but making it worse by adding in another line to make it rectangular??  I'm here to watch a show based on sci-fi principles & antics, not a GD'd soap opera.  Keep that s* where it belongs, in the daytime on weekdays.

[Clanstarling]

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Emma's a pilot.  She was trained to be a Rufus, not a Lucy.

Rufus, if I recall correctly, is an engineer who is also the pilot. I think he was Mason's protege and helped build the time machine, which is how he's able to continue working on it to keep it limping along. Emma, though, may "just" be a pilot.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Clanstarling

[shapeshifter]

2 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

Emma, though, may "just" be a pilot.

I guess we can refer to Emma as a "fighter pilot." </bad pun>

 

41 minutes ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

A forced triangle is bad enough, but making it worse by adding in another line to make it rectangular??  I'm here to watch a show based on sci-fi principles & antics, not a GD'd soap opera.  Keep that s* where it belongs, in the daytime on weekdays.

I agree, but I'm old enough to know better than to expect the love triangles to stay where they belong (daytime soaps). At least this one has the triangle members behaving with a level of maturity heretofore unseen (at least by me). Just so long as we don't get a Star Child, I'll be happy.

[Shanna Marie]

On 4/18/2018 at 8:16 AM, Clanstarling said:

On 4/17/2018 at 10:04 PM, North of Eden said:

I know people hate Emma but I love her for being what she is supposed to be...a mustache-twirling villain. She gave me the laugh of hte night when she said "With pleasure" at the notion of killing Lucy and her friends...that's how card-carrying evil bad guys are supposed to be played!

 

Me personally, I never was much of a fan of mustache twirling villains. They always feel like lazy writing to me, like "why bother to give them motives or backgrounds?"

I don't think Emma is pure mustache-twirling. She seems to be a true believer who is genuinely on board with the ideals of Rittenhouse. Her eyes were shining with hope and wonder when Evil Grandpa was giving his talk about his plans. But she also seems to have a bit of emotional neediness that makes her really want to please and be the favorite of whoever's in charge. When she was piloting for Flynn, she was super gung-ho and seemed to want to make sure he saw how good she was. Then when she was working with Carol at first, she was competing with Lucy for Carol's favor. Now she's trying to show RittenGrandpa that she's the best operative and competing with Carol to be his favorite. We don't know what backstory explains this, but it's an interesting bit of psychology. It even kind of comes across like she's campaigning to be his next wife, the one who'll continue his line and make Lucy irrelevant.

2 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

Wyatt said he only took the job because Jessica had died, but we know that's not true because in the alternate timeline that Jessica is from, Wyatt has still been part of the time team.  If he hadn't, when they got back everyone in the present would wonder who he was and where the dude who did join the team was.

He can't really know what he would have done if she hadn't died. Weirdly, it seems kind of like Wyatt ended up being a better person due to Jessica's death. He was a bit of a drunk and way too reckless, but the Wyatt she described was a terrible husband and a cheater. He still took the job, but obviously for different reasons.

52 minutes ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

What I'm most interested in is why did Emma/Keynes/Rittenhouse make sure she was alive again?  Just to split up Lyatt seems too easy & cliche to be the only reason.

I wonder if that was their reason for whatever they did or if it was a side effect of something else they did -- like they dropped a sleeper agent off at that time, and the sleeper agent inadvertently did something that had that effect. It could be their way of getting Wyatt off the Time Team -- if his dead wife came back, he might quit. But it's hard to see him as being so vital that their efforts would fall apart without him. It would be funny if it was accidentally caused by one of their sleepers and that backfired horribly because Jessica turned out to be a decent asset to the home base part of the team. Would they have managed to save JFK without her help? I don't know that she was utterly critical, but her input probably saved them a lot of time.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

6 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I wonder if that was their reason for whatever they did or if it was a side effect of something else they did -- like they dropped a sleeper agent off at that time, and the sleeper agent inadvertently did something that had that effect. It could be their way of getting Wyatt off the Time Team -- if his dead wife came back, he might quit. But it's hard to see him as being so vital that their efforts would fall apart without him. It would be funny if it was accidentally caused by one of their sleepers and that backfired horribly because Jessica turned out to be a decent asset to the home base part of the team. Would they have managed to save JFK without her help? I don't know that she was utterly critical, but her input probably saved them a lot of time.

I get what you're saying, but the way Emma goaded Wyatt it was phrased in a way that implied "You're welcome" for bringing Jessica back, as in it was done intentionally & purposefully.  And Emma seemed well aware who the blonde was in the room with them.

[Clanstarling]

10 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I don't think Emma is pure mustache-twirling. She seems to be a true believer who is genuinely on board with the ideals of Rittenhouse. Her eyes were shining with hope and wonder when Evil Grandpa was giving his talk about his plans. But she also seems to have a bit of emotional neediness that makes her really want to please and be the favorite of whoever's in charge. When she was piloting for Flynn, she was super gung-ho and seemed to want to make sure he saw how good she was. Then when she was working with Carol at first, she was competing with Lucy for Carol's favor. Now she's trying to show RittenGrandpa that she's the best operative and competing with Carol to be his favorite. We don't know what backstory explains this, but it's an interesting bit of psychology. It even kind of comes across like she's campaigning to be his next wife, the one who'll continue his line and make Lucy irrelevant.

 

Therein lies the problem for me - what are Rittenhouse's ideals? What does Emma believe they're trying to accomplish? What do we know? They're trying to muck up the past, for what end? What is this Rittenhouse world they're trying to create and how does it differ from ours? For me personally, it's not just Emma that's mustache twirling - it's the whole danged operation. Without understanding their overall motives, it's hard to see them as anything other than the foil of the week/season

[Mrs. DuRona]

On 4/19/2018 at 7:58 AM, Notwisconsin said:

r SAVED Zachery Taylor's life by spilling the tainted Cherry milk that killed him in 1850,

As a descendent of Zachery Taylor, I am all for this. ;)

[ALenore]

Finally got around to watching this last night (had a lot of other shows to catch up on).   I really liked it.   In doing research on JFKs early life I found, to my surprise, that he actually went to school for a year at Canterbury School, which is in the town that I live in.  I also noted that the movie at the end that Lucy and Flynn were watching, "It Happened One Night," was made in 1934, the year they rescued Kennedy from.  I don't know whether that was deliberate or a coincidence.   

[legaleagle53]

I FINALLY just watched this (I had to re-activate my Hulu account) and HOLY HELL, was it worth the wait!  I felt so sorry for young John when he learned about his fate and that of his family.  I wouldn't have blamed Kayla one bit for wanting to hug him and reassure him (and yes, she'd make a fantastic "sleeper" herself for the Time Trio!).

I can also see why the Lyatt shippers went insane during the last 10 minutes or so.  But Lucy did the right thing, in my opinion.  She knows Wyatt better than anyone except perhaps Jessica, and since she's still mourning the loss of a sister she'd do anything to get back herself, I can see why, even though it breaks her heart to do it, she'd encourage Wyatt to take the second chance with Jessica that he's fought and worked so hard to get.  I don't know what's going to happen with Wessica, but I admire Lucy for understanding and getting out of the way.

Bring on Episode 6!

[legaleagle53]

On 4/19/2018 at 6:16 AM, Clanstarling said:

As for elected - primarily because he was the VP of a fairly beloved President, running against Kennedy, and the election was extremely close (with some accusations of voter fraud or at least influence). Without someone as charismatic as Jack to run against, he probably would have won. As for the assassination - I don't know. Except that Nixon was strongly anti-communist and as such would probably still have approved the botched the Bay of Pigs attempt to get rid of Castro, and therefor would have been on Oswald's radar.

And because Rittenhouse WANTED Nixon to win that year.  Nicholas even said that that was his reason for wanting to get rid of JFK.  Nixon was a president whom Rittenhouse could control -- and Nicholas was right.  Witness what nearly happened in 1972 when Rittenhouse tried to strong-arm PRESIDENT Nixon over the Watergate tapes.  Nixon was terrified of Rittenhouse.

[Clanstarling]

3 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

And because Rittenhouse WANTED Nixon to win that year.  Nicholas even said that that was his reason for wanting to get rid of JFK.  Nixon was a president whom Rittenhouse could control -- and Nicholas was right.  Witness what nearly happened in 1972 when Rittenhouse tried to strong-arm PRESIDENT Nixon over the Watergate tapes.  Nixon was terrified of Rittenhouse.

Totally forgot about Rittenhouse's previous (in terms of the show) interaction with Nixon, which of course feeds into their reasoning independent of the real historical record.

[Raja]

11 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Totally forgot about Rittenhouse's previous (in terms of the show) interaction with Nixon, which of course feeds into their reasoning independent of the real historical record.

I forgot also but could Rittenhouse make Nixon beloved enough to be put on a coin? Most Presidents are not so honored.

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I forgot also but could Rittenhouse make Nixon beloved enough to be put on a coin? Most Presidents are not so honored.

Maybe not "beloved," but their aim seems to be more about "powerful." Dictators get put on all the money, beloved or not.

On 4/20/2018 at 8:30 AM, Clanstarling said:

Therein lies the problem for me - what are Rittenhouse's ideals? What does Emma believe they're trying to accomplish? What do we know?

Based on RittenGrandpa's manifesto speech that had Emma's eyes all shiny, it's your basic master race authoritarian stuff -- they're the elite who know what's best, and the world would work much better if they were in charge and had absolute power to carry out their policies. And that usually boils down to the inner circle getting rich because that's how power tends to be used.

[benteen]

I really enjoyed this episode.  It was a nice change of pace to have them bring someone from the past to the future.  The kid playing young JFK was did a terrific job and was very memorable.

I'll say one thing about the actor, he sure as hell did a much better job and was more convincing as JFK than Michael C. Hall was on The Crown.  The Crown is a GREAT show but Hall as JFK and the whole Kennedy subplot was the only time it provided an absolute FAIL in terms of casting and writing.

Wyatt went from being efficient this year to once again being the worst special forces soldier.

I enjoyed the dynamic that Jessica brought to the group but I don't trust her.

[Clanstarling]

10 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Maybe not "beloved," but their aim seems to be more about "powerful." Dictators get put on all the money, beloved or not.

Based on RittenGrandpa's manifesto speech that had Emma's eyes all shiny, it's your basic master race authoritarian stuff -- they're the elite who know what's best, and the world would work much better if they were in charge and had absolute power to carry out their policies. And that usually boils down to the inner circle getting rich because that's how power tends to be used.

Fair point, and I do understand that. I guess what I mean is that I don't understand what sets them apart (sans time machine, since this started well before time machines) from the dime a dozen organizations/corporations/rich people in general that espouse the same beliefs.

I think it might be a little more interesting if the Rittenhouse missions were laid out more clearly, where they discuss the mission in more detail rather than the "Kill Bob" directives, instead of always using Lucy to pin point what she thinks is going on. It would be interesting to see them as an effective, thinking, force against our timeline.

[methodwriter85]

On 4/21/2018 at 9:56 PM, Raja said:

I forgot also but could Rittenhouse make Nixon beloved enough to be put on a coin? Most Presidents are not so honored.

Honestly, I think the implication is that Richard Nixon gets assassinated in 1963 instead of JFK. If I were thinking like Rittenhouse, it would make sense to have a prop president like Nixon, use him for a few years, and then get rid of him so he can be a martyr used to push your agenda.

I liked JFK and his connection with Kayla. Aww.

[Wordsworth]

Rittenhouse's plan was overly complicated.  They could have just released a bunch of information about Kennedy's scandalous behavior and health problems to push the election over to Nixon.  They didn't have to pull some risky Terminator-style assassination.  Destroying Kennedy politically would have been easy.  He didn't win by a landslide and Nixon was hardly as controllable as Rittenhouse claims he was.  Nixon worked a lot on civil rights issues during the '50s, including with Kennedy at one point.  LBJ just used the momentum of JFK's death to push through civil rights legislation (think "It would have been what President Kennedy would have wanted") as part of a cynical ploy to get African Americans to vote for the Democrats for the next 100 years.

This was just a typical Hollywood love letter to JFK and hate mail for Nixon.  

And these guys have to stop trying to change history.  This is why Lucy's sister doesn't exist anymore.  Who knows how many lives were changed for the worse because Rufus wanted Hedy Lamarr to get credit for her work?   Who died in Austin that wouldn't have died in Dallas because he tried to save JFK  from an assassin that would have been shooting from a different vantage point?  Was Governor Connolly injured?  What lives in Dallas changed because nothing happened there?

There are consequences for real people when these amateurs decide to play SJW.    Maybe they'll learn how great their responsibility is before Agent Christopher's children disappear or Wyatt ends up never being born.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Wordsworth

[magicdog]

On 4/24/2018 at 5:46 PM, Wordsworth said:

Rittenhouse's plan was overly complicated.  They could have just released a bunch of information about Kennedy's scandalous behavior and health problems to push the election over to Nixon. 

I think this is possible but my dad used to tell me that Kennedy's behavior was known in various circles and even many working class folk were aware of it.  According to him, Joe, Sr. paid off the media to suppress a lot of negative stories.  As someone who also works in the media biz, I see stories spiked all the time because a certain influential party might get upset and threaten to retaliate.

Quote

According to everything I've read, Joe Jr. was a real creep, who loved beating the crap out of Jack, whom he apparently hated, and decided to go on his fatal mission to get back at him as revenge for the post-PT109 kudos jack got. While he may have been elected to congress (or Lt. Governor of Massachusetts), he may have not gotten any further due to his unpleasantness.

I never heard this but I wouldn't doubt it.   I do remember chatting with a man who claimed his uncle ran a nightclub in the 30s/40s.  He said Joe, Sr., Joe, Jr., Bobby & Jack came in one night.  He said Joe was rather polite and could tell his dad was grooming him for bigger and better things (perhaps training him to improve his attitude with the public?).  He said Bobby & Jack acted like entitled jerks.  

[Camera One]

I'm still catching up, but I liked how they mixed it up and had a mission in the present-day.  As many said, it was fun to see someone from the past seeing the future and the scene where JFK found out about his own fate was moving.  

If Rittenhouse was insistent on killing JFK, I don't see why they wouldn't just try again and again and again.  Killing him at a hospital would have made more sense than having a teacher shoot him.  

I hated the prospect of the triangle, but I was impressed with how Lucy and Jessica both tried to make way for the other, and how they were still able to work with one another.  I hope they don't go the quadrangle route with Flynn, though.