S02.E08: The Day Reagan Was Shot

[mythoughtis]

I’m confused. If Lucy was too old last season to travel to 1983, how can she travel to 1981? Was she born in 1982? Wyatt went to 1983- so he’s younger than Lucy? And so is Rufus? 

I’m really tired of the Jessica story. However I did like the fact that Wyatt considered  Jessica might be a sleeper agent under duress.  

[tennisgurl]

Karen David! I love her so much, she just makes everything better! She was great as a young Agent Christopher, and I like that they changed up the format and made the guest of the week a younger version of someone they know, and not a historical figure. Also, they managed to Back to the Future her life a little bit, and make it better! I admit, I was concerned, as seeing a character with their family is usually the kiss of death on TV if you haven't seen them yet, but she made it out. She even seemed happier in the new timeline.

I appreciate that they're fleshing out the supporting cast more. The show took awhile to find its groove,and its not perfect (Rittenhouse is still a pretty generic Big Bad), but its gotten so much better, I hope it manages to stick around. I guess we were lucky to get this season, but it sucks that the show seems to struggle with finding an audience. 

So, Jess is totally Rittenhouse, right? She probably wasn't in the original timeline, but now? Oh yeah, and now they'll have to keep her alive, because she and Wyatt are having a baby. Or maybe she made it up to keep him off her trail? But, it seems like they figured out last week that Jess was sketchy, so you would think they would be more concerned about her hanging around the Bunker? 

Cagney and Lacey! Lucy and Jiya were fun together, with their wardrobe they apparently stole off the set of The Americans. I especially loved when they had to pretend to be a couple, and started to awkwardly cuddle. 

[KaveDweller]

10 minutes ago, mythoughtis said:

I’m confused. If Lucy was too old last season to travel to 1983, how can she travel to 1981? Was she born in 1982? Wyatt went to 1983- so he’s younger than Lucy? And so is Rufus? 

I’m really tired of the Jessica story. However I did like the fact that Wyatt considered  Jessica might be a sleeper agent under duress.  

She wasn't too old last season, Wyatt asked her to stay in the present to cover for him and Rufus.

[Moose135]

4 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Was that an AMC Pacer that the second sleeper drove to Christopher's house?  If so, Rittenhouse may be evil, but they have a great sense of humor.

Yes, it was!

[ketose]

2 hours ago, dr pepper said:

In the 60s and early 70s there was a time travel trope about a thing, or occasionally a person, that exists in a closed timeloop and so has no origin.

In this case it's the thumbdrive. Denise gave it to Lucy, but she'd gotten from her years ago. Where did it come from?

There's a really crazy story of predestination paradox written by Robert A. Heinlein in 1959.

[legaleagle53]

10 hours ago, Notwisconsin said:

The "You have to become a Lesbian" plotline was interesting, to say the least..."

Not "You have to become a lesbian." Lucy and Jiya's point was  "You have to stay true to who and what you are by owning it and not letting anyone else try to make you be something that you know you are not, never were, and never will be!"

[Cthulhudrew]

42 minutes ago, ketose said:

There's a really crazy story of predestination paradox written by Robert A. Heinlein in 1959.

What's even crazier about that story is that his great-grandson is going to write it in 2042. 

[dr pepper]

1 hour ago, ketose said:

There's a really crazy story of predestination paradox written by Robert A. Heinlein in 1959.

"All You Zombies". Yes, that's one of the ones i was thinking of. But by the time it was written, the concept was already a familiar one.

[bros402]

20 hours ago, BooBear said:

Me too. Really bought her as a young agent Christopher.

Ok I had to burst into laughter at Lucy hitting on Agent Christopher and her and Jiya as lovers.  When Rufus and Wyatt discovered the rittenhouse guy hanged... why did they think it suicide? I immediately thought it was Rittenhouse either via time travel or another sleeper.  

I liked the reveal that at some point it is possible for them to go back to where they already exist. Since we now have four seats in the pod it seems possible that time travel will continue to improve. 

Flynn is growing on me. But I did have to agree with Agent Christopher... if she died it would have been pointless. 

Rittenhouse is kind of stupid... instead of killing Christopher they could have turned her to Rittenhouse's side. That would have really changed things. 

So did Christopher pick Wyatt and Lucy specifically now because she knew them? 

Help me figure out Jessica... don't get it.. even if she is rittenhouse she should know about her brother in this time line?  Did perhaps Rittenhouse pay for the treatment to cure him and that is why she is lying about it? I don't believe she is pregnant but wouldn't be surprised if Lucy had that revelation soon. 

I wonder if they brought Jessica's brother to the future? Since Jessica doesn't know much about it - maybe she was just told he was in a hospital and couldn't visit - and he was actually in a hospital in the future.

13 hours ago, saber5055 said:

This show keeps getting better. While I can't follow all the back-and-forth-in-time rules, I still enjoy it without thinking about the facts (since time travel has different rules in different shows) too much. I liked Agent Christopher's story. I guess I don't pay too much attention but I didn't know she was married or had kids or is lesbian. My bigger question is, why does she get to go home whenever she wants while no one else can leave the bunker?

She should bring back some nice Rustoleum in bright colors so people could paint those depressing bunker walls.

As soon as Lucy said "Cagney and Lacey," I looked up its premiere date. It was about seven months later, whew, although the show is so good with history I couldn't imagine they would let a mistake like that get by. Plus too funny Christopher called them that when they came back.

Loved Jiya getting all 80s with the stuff she swiped from the store. Will she show up later wearing that "awesome" blue eye shadow?

Rittenhouse could have taken Jessica's brother to the future to be healed. Can these guys go forward in time? At least they could have brought him back to 2018. You know, when time travel is possible. Although why not cure Lucy's mom that way? Or did something in the past cure Lucy's mom since she's not dying any more? In any case, I'm glad we got no Grandpa Rittenhouse this week. He was NOT missed.

If Wyatt and Rufus left the Rittenhouse agent tied to that pillar, how did he hang himself? Not that it matters I guess.

Hooray for Wyatt finally saving someone, and it turned out to be Agent Christopher. That was a great twist to a great episode overall.

I think she has to conduct her life because it seems like the work with the time team is a bit off-the-books - and her daughter asked which work she was going to - the regular one or the one that is further away. I imagine Agent Christopher drives around a bit longer than she needs to avoid being followed.

Also, I am surprised the flash drive was working - it must be on its last legs. Well, maybe Agent Christopher bought a new one to put her "In case of emergency" flash drive on, since the big thing with flash drives is the read-write cycles - and she wouldn't have encountered a computer with a USB port for like 15-20 years, but I imagine once she did, she would have looked at the stuff a lot.

I wonder if Agent Christopher made sure every single one of the photos on the flash drive was taken? Like, had her wife take the exact same photos. Well, with her mother in her life, there were would different photos, so hm.

[Mrs. DuRona]

16 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

Are those her or her wife's bio kids? If they were adopted, then her line about them never being born was odd.

I assumed they did IVF with a sperm donor.  Most likely carried by her wife, since Denise's job appears to be more demanding.

Solid episode.  It was bound to happen that they met someone they knew when they were younger.  

I thought the sleeper would kill Denise's mom from the blocking of that scene, did not see Wyatt and Rufus running him down in the car!  I'm really glad they didn't go that route, and that now she and her mom have a better relationship.  Now her mom gets to spend time with her grandchildren! :)

Loved, loved, loved Jiya's 1981 look.  And I loved that she took all the things.  Like I said after the Hollywood episode - I would totally be grabbing all the clothes to build the perfect vintage wardrobe. ;)

I joked with my husband that the twist in the elevator was that the little old lady was the sleeper.  That would have been AMAZING.  

I really hope this gets renewed!  It is such a fun show.

[Notwisconsin]

4 hours ago, bros402 said:

I wonder if Agent Christopher made sure every single one of the photos on the flash drive was taken? Like, had her wife take the exact same photos. Well, with her mother in her life, there were would different photos, so hm.

It would be really interesting is the final episode shows her at home with a completely different family.....

[Notwisconsin]

17 hours ago, Maximum Taco said:

Asexual.

Don't ask me what kind of rights the asexuals are looking for, you'd think they'd be fairly self sufficient. I guess they just don't want to be discriminated against if they choose to proudly declare their asexuality.

Apparently they call themselves "Incels" and everyone hates them...the guys at any rate. I don't think the official Gay rights lobby would have anything to do with them.

[vibeology]

1 hour ago, Notwisconsin said:

Apparently they call themselves "Incels" and everyone hates them...the guys at any rate. I don't think the official Gay rights lobby would have anything to do with them.

Asexuals and Incels are not the same thing. Asexuals don't feel a sexual desire. Incels want sex but are celibate because they are unsuccessful at finding a willing sexual partner. Incel stands for involuntary celibate.

9 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Not "You have to become a lesbian." Lucy and Jiya's point was  "You have to stay true to who and what you are by owning it and not letting anyone else try to make you be something that you know you are not, never were, and never will be!"

This. Denise wasn't "becoming" a lesbian. She always was one and knew it but because of family pressure was going to deny that to try to make her mom happy. I'm glad for once that mucking about in someone's past led to a better present. Denise still has her family and gained a relationship with her mom.

[possibilities]

3 hours ago, Mrs. DuRona said:

I joked with my husband that the twist in the elevator was that the little old lady was the sleeper.  That would have been AMAZING.  

Ha! Wyatt beating up the man while the woman who was actually the sleeper got away would have been another twist on his incompetence as the team's muscle.

[shapeshifter]

19 hours ago, iMonrey said:

That's my read on it as well. I think it might have been interesting to learn that Denise has known this day would come for the last 37 years, but the way it was played, she was clearly worried about the outcome of this trip. If she already knew how it would turn out, she wouldn't have had a care in the world. Plus, they made a point of telling/showing us she was estranged from her mother, more or less, before the trip back in time, and that afterwards her relationship with her mother was much better. So they did change history by making that trip and reaching out to her. 

This and many more posts on this episode are giving me flashbacks to the Stargate SG1 episode, "1969," in which, young, not-yet-General George Hammond reads a note from his future self saying, “George — Help them” (https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s2/1969/).

Ahhg. And now I'm thinking about Future Max from Roswell telling Liz to break up with his younger self to save the world--which was a little hilarious because the actor playing the teenage Max was really close in age to that of Future Max. But I digress.
Back to work in the present...

[mythoughtis]

I would have liked Lucy to ask Denise if she noticed any mental confusion.   Denise went home to spend time with her family knowing either she or they might disappear. She came back to work with 37 years of new memories and a flash drive.   Does the changed Denise remember what the original Denise went home for? 

[iMonrey]

Quote

The entire sleeper project seems very inefficient to me.  Why rely on just one (in this case two) sleepers to get a job done?  Insert sleepers all along a lifeline and kill your target at the next opportunity.

It was especially inefficient in this instance - the agent admitted to Wyatt and Rufus he had no idea what his mission was until that very morning!! Tell me: what, exactly, is the point of embedding a sleeper agent into a particular historical era if they have no freaking idea what they're supposed to be doing there? They're no better prepared than someone who arrives on the day in question. Dumb!

Quote

Denise went home to spend time with her family knowing either she or they might disappear. She came back to work with 37 years of new memories and a flash drive.   Does the changed Denise remember what the original Denise went home for? 

I'm guessing no. Nobody remembered JFK was originally shot in Dallas, nobody remembered Lincoln was originally shot by John Wilkes Booth. So nobody in this new timeline would remember Denise used to be estranged from her mother, and I'm assuming, this Denise didn't even bother to go home to be with her family since she had no reason to worry they'd be wiped out.

Still, it was a risk for Lucy to give the thumb drive to Young Denise because there's still no guarantee some other factor wouldn't change the course of her life.

[TexasGal]

7 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

It was especially inefficient in this instance - the agent admitted to Wyatt and Rufus he had no idea what his mission was until that very morning!! Tell me: what, exactly, is the point of embedding a sleeper agent into a particular historical era if they have no freaking idea what they're supposed to be doing there? They're no better prepared than someone who arrives on the day in question. Dumb!

 

Well, he was able to get a job in the secret service so he ended up with proximity.  Like the Hollywood guy who ended up a studio honcho.  So they get dropped off and are told what careers to pursue, I guess?

 

11 hours ago, bros402 said:

I wonder if they brought Jessica's brother to the future? Since Jessica doesn't know much about it - maybe she was just told he was in a hospital and couldn't visit - and he was actually in a hospital in the future.

I know you are just speculating but then it got me wondering - have they set any "rules" regarding forward time travel?  I don't remember hearing any but I'm not always paying full attention.

[mythoughtis]

We know you can bring someone from the past to our present (JFK for example) so Jessica’s brother could have been brought to our present and then returned after treatment.  There is not currently a way to our future from the present in this storyline. We know you cannot supposedly travel to a past that is after  you were born. We know that a few years from now Lucy will somehow get around that to travel back to when Flynn’s family dies to give him the journal. We know you can only safely take as many people as there are seats. That’s pretty much all we know. 

Edited May 9, 2018 by mythoughtis

[vibeology]

8 minutes ago, TexasGal said:

Well, he was able to get a job in the secret service so he ended up with proximity.  Like the Hollywood guy who ended up a studio honcho.  So they get dropped off and are told what careers to pursue, I guess?

That makes sense to me. Tell someone to get a specific job and have them leverage knowledge of the future to become successful at it. Imagine if you're in law enforcement and you know when crimes are going to happen so you can stop them and be a hero. Pretty easy to move up the ranks. The same with the Hollywood guy who ripped off future movies to make it seem like he was a genius producer.

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, vibeology said:

Asexuals and Incels are not the same thing. Asexuals don't feel a sexual desire. Incels want sex but are celibate because they are unsuccessful at finding a willing sexual partner. Incel stands for involuntary celibate.

This. Denise wasn't "becoming" a lesbian. She always was one and knew it but because of family pressure was going to deny that to try to make her mom happy. I'm glad for once that mucking about in someone's past led to a better present. Denise still has her family and gained a relationship with her mom.

I guess within the structure of a 40-something minute episode there's only so much they can explore, but if this were a book I would have expected some back to the future/2018 conversation between Jiya, Lucy, and Christopher about how Jiya and Lucy are not really lesbians. Like, maybe Christopher had recruited Jiya in part with that in mind. Or maybe Christopher was a tiny bit miffed that they were pretending. IDK. Maybe it didn't make it into the script because there's just no there there.

 At least, in my mind, Christopher's mind was blown when she (hopefully) saw her first Cagney and Lacey episode less than a year later. Although, I didn't own a TV when that show was on, so Chistopher might not even know the reference. Maybe Jiya and Lucy are streaming it for her now, and they're having some moments of levity in the bunker.

Anyway, good clarifications, @vibeology.

 

About Christopher being able to leave the bunker to see her family: I think that was supposed to be an outside-of-protocol excursion since it could be her last time to see them if the time stream altered. <-- See @mythoughtis correction below

Edited May 8, 2018 by shapeshifter

[mythoughtis]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

About Christopher being able to leave the bunker to see her family: I think that was supposed to be an outside-of-protocol excursion since it could be her last time to see them if the time stream altered.

No- we saw her at home at the beginning of the episode.  We also saw her outside the bunker in the episode where Rittenhouse kidnapped her. She is the agent and their boss. She just set the rule where the team couldn’t leave the bunker because Rittenhouse would go after them. It’s not physically impossible for them to leave. We saw Lucy travel to the federal prison with Denise  to see Flynn.  We saw Wyatt go get Jessica. Now why Rittenhouse leaves their families alone hadn’t been explored. 

Edited May 8, 2018 by mythoughtis
Spelling

[Stuffy]

24 minutes ago, mythoughtis said:

No- we saw her at home at the beginning of the episode.  We also saw her outside the bunker in the episode where Rittenhouse kisnapped her. She is the agent and their boss. She just set the rule where the team couldnt leave the bunker because Rittenhouse would go after them. It’s not physically impossible for them to leave. We saw Lucy travel to the federal prison with Denise  to see Flynn.  We saw Wyatt go get Jessica. Now why Rittenhouse leaves their families alone hadn’t been explored. 

Well the only ones with family are Christopher and Rufus.  Everyone else's families are dead or bad guys like Lucy's.  I have no idea about Mason.

[KaveDweller]

9 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

This and many more posts on this episode are giving me flashbacks to the Stargate SG1 episode, "1969," in which, young, not-yet-General George Hammond reads a note from his future self saying, “George — Help them” (https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s2/1969/).

Ahhg. And now I'm thinking about Future Max from Roswell telling Liz to break up with his younger self to save the world--which was a little hilarious because the actor playing the teenage Max was really close in age to that of Future Max. But I digress.
Back to work in the present...

Wasn't future Max the same actor with older makeup?

9 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

I would have liked Lucy to ask Denise if she noticed any mental confusion.   Denise went home to spend time with her family knowing either she or they might disappear. She came back to work with 37 years of new memories and a flash drive.   Does the changed Denise remember what the original Denise went home for? 

Changed Denise wouldn't have gone home, since she knew the outcome. That's why Denise was there when the Lifeboat arrived back at the warehouse. If she had still gone home, she wouldn't have been back.

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It was especially inefficient in this instance - the agent admitted to Wyatt and Rufus he had no idea what his mission was until that very morning!! Tell me: what, exactly, is the point of embedding a sleeper agent into a particular historical era if they have no freaking idea what they're supposed to be doing there? They're no better prepared than someone who arrives on the day in question. Dumb!

The point is to get in a position of power. Become a secret service agent so you will be there during the shooting. Become a Hollywood executive so you control what movies are released. Become a suffragette so you stop the womens' rights movement. The only one that didn't make sense was the guy who shot the rock and roll guy, since anyone could have walked into that hotel. 

[shapeshifter]

33 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

10 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Ahhg. And now I'm thinking about Future Max from Roswell telling Liz to break up with his younger self to save the world--which was a little hilarious because the actor playing the teenage Max was really close in age to that of Future Max. 

Wasn't future Max the same actor with older makeup?

Yes he was! Except to play Future Max, he just had a wig with a few gray flecks since the actor was finally playing his real age (late 20s).

As great as the casting of young Denise Christopher was, I can't help but think that we are not more than a year away from being able to cheaply use CGI to age actors up or down for flash forwards and flashbacks and time travel. It also seems they should be able to take the data from any show and make new episodes in which stand-ins are used to make lifelike animations of the original actors.

[MisterGlass]

7 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Although, I didn't own a TV when that show was on, so Chistopher might not even know the reference.

I think she knows it.  The way that she called them Cagney and Lacey when they stepped out of the Lifeboat sounded like she was fully in on the joke.

[macncheese]

Can someone remind me about the rules of time travel in this show? I don’t remember them ever saying you couldn’t travel to a time when you were alive. Why? I could have sworn Flynn went back in time and actually saw himself as a child. 

[Maverick]

 Flynn went back in time and saved his half-brother.  That's who he saw as a child, not himself.  It's been stated since the beginning that you can't travel to a time where you already exist.  There's no reason as I recall; it's just one of the 'rules' that Mason discovered at some point while testing the machine.

[legaleagle53]

18 minutes ago, macncheese said:

Can someone remind me about the rules of time travel in this show? I don’t remember them ever saying you couldn’t travel to a time when you were alive. Why? I could have sworn Flynn went back in time and actually saw himself as a child. 

No, that was his older half-brother whom he saw and whose life he saved in 1969.  Flynn himself wouldn't be born for another six years.  And as for the rule, that was established in the pilot and repeated frequently throughout Season 1 -- no traveling back to an era in which you already exist.  Clearly, at some point somebody DOES crack that code, though.

2 minutes ago, Maverick said:

 Flynn went back in time and saved his half-brother.  That's who he saw as a child, not himself.  It's been stated since the beginning that you can't travel to a time where you already exist.  There's no reason as I recall; it's just one of the 'rules' that Mason discovered at some point while testing the machine.

The reason is that the only guy who ever tried it never survived the return trip -- or at least, not all of him did.  Rufus never went into detail about that.

Edited May 9, 2018 by legaleagle53

[reggiejax]

On 5/7/2018 at 12:33 PM, AV8n said:

I know that the sleeper agent had to go after Agent Christopher in 1981 so the show could tie it to a historical event, but wouldn’t it have made more sense tactically to kill her when her father was killed?

If I can channel Scott Evil for a moment, but honestly, why didn't they just shoot Agent Christopher, or Officer Christopher, when she was sitting on the crapper? As far as I can tell, the mission was always to kill Christopher, what possible reason would there have been to do it during the Reagan assassination attempt?

Of course I know that it was done for the historical part of the show, but honestly, Rittenhouse makes things so damn needlessly complicated. 

Speaking of the Reagan attempt, they kind of forget about old Ronnie pretty quickly, but I was wondering, did James Brady still get shot this time around? Because if not, I think that would have some sort of effect on the timeline. 

[legaleagle53]

51 minutes ago, reggiejax said:

If I can channel Scott Evil for a moment, but honestly, why didn't they just shoot Agent Christopher, or Officer Christopher, when she was sitting on the crapper? As far as I can tell, the mission was always to kill Christopher, what possible reason would there have been to do it during the Reagan assassination attempt?

Of course I know that it was done for the historical part of the show, but honestly, Rittenhouse makes things so damn needlessly complicated. 

Speaking of the Reagan attempt, they kind of forget about old Ronnie pretty quickly, but I was wondering, did James Brady still get shot this time around? Because if not, I think that would have some sort of effect on the timeline. 

The only thing that changed regarding the assassination attempt was that Hinckley was apprehended later at the hospital rather than immediately at the scene of the crime.  Everything else went as it originally did in the timeline.

[bros402]

1 hour ago, reggiejax said:

If I can channel Scott Evil for a moment, but honestly, why didn't they just shoot Agent Christopher, or Officer Christopher, when she was sitting on the crapper? As far as I can tell, the mission was always to kill Christopher, what possible reason would there have been to do it during the Reagan assassination attempt?

The agent would've had an excuse to fire in Denise's direction - because the assassin was there. Could've had a little bit of "accidental" friendly fire.

[Emma9]

20 hours ago, iMonrey said:

the agent admitted to Wyatt and Rufus he had no idea what his mission was until that very morning!! Tell me: what, exactly, is the point of embedding a sleeper agent into a particular historical era if they have no freaking idea what they're supposed to be doing there? They're no better prepared than someone who arrives on the day in question. Dumb!

I was thinking the same, and have ever since the whole 'activations' thing - all it does is tip off the Time Team to follow and foil their plans every time so far, making it a really poor choice on Rittenhouse's part. However, when they talked further to this particular sleeper, it actually made some sense to me for the first time - give somebody years to live with the awareness that they're going to have to commit a murder, and they're more likely to try and find a way to get out of it. Although many other aspects of the entire 'sleepers' plan still don't make sense. As posters here have said, it would've been wiser to have the sleepers make smaller, less violent butterfly-effect changes from the moment of their arrival - the Time Team would never have known to stop them, because they'd already be living in the world in which those changes were made.

~

I still don't like that Agent Christopher's mom staying in her life, not to mention her knowledge that time-travel would be a thing within her lifetime, not to mention any changes in her career trajectory due to having helped uncover an attempted presidential assassin, didn't affect anything. But this is also the show that had Flynn still be born and have apparently the exact same life despite his older brother's survival, so.

Also that nobody pays much attention to the bittersweetness of whole versions of people they've known phoofing into nothingness. There was a Wyatt who this Agent Christopher stared at like he was a ghost when they met, a Lucy and Jia who she had to resist hugging from the first like they were her long-lost sisters, and who she no doubt treated much more warmly in the show's early times than 'our' Agent Christopher did - and who know her mother and 'know what a pain in the ass she is'. Those people are now gone. And yep, the Flynn who reacted with levity to her being in peril at first, but then had a change of heart when Mason mentioned her children, leading to a conversation that would have a big impact on both of them - he's gone too.

They care about the big effects like people not existing entirely, but not about how changing your memories and experiences makes you in a very real sense somebody different.

 

On 5/7/2018 at 7:27 AM, shapeshifter said:

I can't think of a way for 2018 Christopher to mention the moment when she realized Jiya and Lucy were not a couple, and I guess the writers figured it would be too awkward to do in just a few lines.

Not to mention that I think we're still running in the timeline wherein Lucy had a male fiancé when she joined the team. I wonder if there were incidents where she tried to give Lucy the same 'you don't have to marry him, it's okay to be who you really are' talk that Lucy gave her!

Edited May 9, 2018 by Emma9

[iMonrey]

Quote

The point is to get in a position of power. Become a secret service agent so you will be there during the shooting. Become a Hollywood executive so you control what movies are released. Become a suffragette so you stop the womens' rights movement.

Given that John Hinkley Jr. was able to get close enough to shoot Reagan it doesn't seem at all necessary to embed an agent into the Secret Service to accomplish the same goal (nor was it necessary to kill Christopher at the same moment unless they intended to frame Hinkley for it). There's also the problem of the embedded agent getting caught and then not being able to provide proper identification and account for their lives since they're from another time. Since the Mothership seems to be visiting these agents to "activate" them when they are finally needed to fulfill their missions, wouldn't it be simpler so just send along an assassin to do the deed? As pointed out above, this is all needlessly complicated.

Quote

As great as the casting of young Denise Christopher was, I can't help but think that we are not more than a year away from being able to cheaply use CGI to age actors up or down for flash forwards and flashbacks and time travel. 

We do have the technology but it is prohibitively expensive for a regular network show like this. 

[OldWiseOne]

On 5/7/2018 at 4:47 PM, Dowel Jones said:

Does Rittenhouse train its sleepers in martial arts before their assignments?  Because the first sleeper sure kicked ass, for a while at least in that elevator, even if one of his opponents was Wyatt.

I assume the Secret Service trained him, or he spent time getting trained during the 12 years there before he was activated.

[Shanna Marie]

19 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

As great as the casting of young Denise Christopher was, I can't help but think that we are not more than a year away from being able to cheaply use CGI to age actors up or down for flash forwards and flashbacks and time travel.

They've done that on NCIS, with so-so results. I thought it ended up looking like the actor with a bad face lift, not so much a younger version of the actor. When there's more than a decade or so difference, they may as well use a different actor.

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Since the Mothership seems to be visiting these agents to "activate" them when they are finally needed to fulfill their missions, wouldn't it be simpler so just send along an assassin to do the deed?

That assumes that the sleepers were put in place with a particular mission in mind. They may have just planted people in various times and places where things were likely to happen. I'd bet there are agents in DC in every era, maybe even with some of them overlapping. Then when they come up with a mission in the present, they activate the agent best positioned for it. That agent may have been put in place before the time they kidnapped Agent Christopher and tried to lean on her, and they only decided to deal with her in that way when that didn't work, so they looked at her history, looked at what agent they might have in place, and activated him.

[iMonrey]

Quote

That assumes that the sleepers were put in place with a particular mission in mind. They may have just planted people in various times and places where things were likely to happen. I'd bet there are agents in DC in every era, maybe even with some of them overlapping. Then when they come up with a mission in the present, they activate the agent best positioned for it. That agent may have been put in place before the time they kidnapped Agent Christopher and tried to lean on her, and they only decided to deal with her in that way when that didn't work, so they looked at her history, looked at what agent they might have in place, and activated him.

We were told there were a specific number of sleeper agents planted throughout history in specific locations - either 10 or 12. That suggests each one was given a specific assignment, whether they knew the totality of it or not. They wouldn't have assigned one agent a Hollywood studio job in the 1940s and another as a Secret Service agent in the 1980s without specific events and assassinations in mind. They're not just planted randomly, in other words, in case they think of something for them to do somewhere down the line.

[KaveDweller]

18 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

The only thing that changed regarding the assassination attempt was that Hinckley was apprehended later at the hospital rather than immediately at the scene of the crime.  Everything else went as it originally did in the timeline.

I wasn't totally clear that was the case. It seemed Reagan wasn't as seriously injured. Someone in the background was talking about how the president wasn't hurt, which almost made me think he hadn't gotten shot at all. 

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Given that John Hinkley Jr. was able to get close enough to shoot Reagan it doesn't seem at all necessary to embed an agent into the Secret Service to accomplish the same goal (nor was it necessary to kill Christopher at the same moment unless they intended to frame Hinkley for it).

No it wasn't necessary to kill Christopher, but I think they did want to frame Hinkley for it. If a cop dies in the cross fire of an assassination attempt, there would be no investigation opened.  I do think they could have found a better way to kill her while still not causing suspicion. What would have made more sense is to just send back someone to shoot her and then leave, because they can't get arrested once they leave the timeline. 

But most of the other sleepers had gotten into a position that was needed to do their task.

[bros402]

7 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

I wasn't totally clear that was the case. It seemed Reagan wasn't as seriously injured. Someone in the background was talking about how the president wasn't hurt, which almost made me think he hadn't gotten shot at all. 

No it wasn't necessary to kill Christopher, but I think they did want to frame Hinkley for it. If a cop dies in the cross fire of an assassination attempt, there would be no investigation opened.  I do think they could have found a better way to kill her while still not causing suspicion. What would have made more sense is to just send back someone to shoot her and then leave, because they can't get arrested once they leave the timeline. 

But most of the other sleepers had gotten into a position that was needed to do their task.

From what I understood, Reagan wasn't injured in this timeline.

[tennisgurl]

Being a Rittenhouse sleeper seems like a really crappy job. You get stuck in some random time period, have to work some random job, and when someone snaps their fingers, you have to kill some random (to you) person or something, and then...go back to 2018? Just go about your life? Die? Go to jail? It’s amazing they don’t have even more sleepers who don’t wanna do this. Especially considering Rittenhouses whole philosophy seems to be mostly “control for rich people is good” or something. 

[thuganomics85]

Whelp, any episode of any show that gets Karen David to show up automatically bumps it up a couple of points!  Still pissed over how Once Upon A Time bungled a surefire casting of her as Jasmine.  Loved that she was playing a young Christopher and she ended up being the team's mission instead of Reagan.  I just hope that someone eventually wises up and casts her as a regular again.  Hey, maybe she can reteam with her Galavant costar Mallory Jansen, who was freaking amazing on last season's Agents of SHIELD.

I don't think it will ever not amaze me that Hinkley's motivation was to impress a young Jodie Foster.  Sometimes history really is more crazy then any made-up story or fantasy.

Jiya getting to go on a mission was awesome, and I loved her teaming up with Lucy.  Both of them were rocking the 80s looks to say the least (not just the outfits either as they apparently had time to do their hair as well, which is nice, heh.)  I hope she gets to do it again, although I guess it's really Christopher's time to get a shot at the fourth chair now, dammit!

So, they seem to be hinting that more Rittenhouse agents are actually here against their will.  Hmm...

I love you, Rufus, but you really aren't handling this well.  Last week, you snap at Jiya, and this week you attempt to push her away?  I get finding out you might be dying in the future sucks, but you really need to assess your behavior.

Flynn's little chat with Christopher about her family was both creepy and endearing somehow.  But definitely sincere.

Jessica is so a Rittenhouse agent.  Poor Wyatt.

Really enjoyed this episode.

[possibilities]

On 5/8/2018 at 1:55 PM, iMonrey said:

it was a risk for Lucy to give the thumb drive to Young Denise because there's still no guarantee some other factor wouldn't change the course of her life.

They should have made copies and kept them all in the lifeboat but this team never really has back ups or failsafes.

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Being a Rittenhouse sleeper seems like a really crappy job. You get stuck in some random time period, have to work some random job, and when someone snaps their fingers, you have to kill some random (to you) person or something, and then...go back to 2018? Just go about your life? Die? Go to jail? It’s amazing they don’t have even more sleepers who don’t wanna do this. Especially considering Rittenhouses whole philosophy seems to be mostly “control for rich people is good” or something. 

I think they set this up from the beginning of the series, when they had Rufus spying on the team because he thought it was the only way to protect his family from being killed. The Rittenhouse agents seem to be in the situation that Rittenhouse chooses people who need help, and promise to help their families in exchange for them becoming sleeper agents. They don't know what they are going to be asked to do, but it sounds like a great deal! Time travel and family support! It's an adventure. Then they are suddenly told to commit a crime or their family will be hurt. We saw in the car racing episode that the sleeper agent didn't want to do it, but felt he had no choice. He didn't even want to go back to 2018, he had a new family where he was. And R threatened him if he didn't comply with orders.

I think the actual Rittenhouse family is the only group that is actually in control of the conspiracy, and they are planning the whole thing to personally become powerful and benefit themselves. Everyone else seems to just be extorted and used as a disposable pawn.

[shapeshifter]

5 hours ago, possibilities said:

They should have made copies and kept them all in the lifeboat but this team never really has back ups or failsafes.

Seriously! If a file is only saved in one place, it's not saved.
And now I'm wondering if, in the show's universe, you email something (like maybe a copy of the file) to an email address that is still a valid email in a changed timeline, do you still get the email?

[Emma9]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

And now I'm wondering if, in the show's universe, you email something (like maybe a copy of the file) to an email address that is still a valid email in a changed timeline, do you still get the email?

If the 'you' who existed in the new timeline wouldn't have had any reason to send said email, I don't think you would; the same way that a physical object like a letter would change if it were left behind, it would be the letter that new-timeline-you would have written, not the one lifeboat-you wrote originally.

So in the context of this episode, pre-episode Agent Christopher emails Lucy a copy of the file. After the trip to the past, despite her having the USB stick, some change in her life leads to her not working with the time team (or possibly the time team not even existing). Lucy would return to the future to find that new-timeline-Christopher never had any reason to send new-timeline-her said email, so it's gone. (Unless she gave past-Christopher her email address and told her to send a copy of the USB files if they hadn't 'met' by the correct date.)

In an earlier episode this season, Lucy's mom was boggling at Rittenhouse Mastermind Guy printing out 'all' of Wikipedia; it was a funny moment, but I've wondered before why they don't take electronic copies of at least some historic resources with them on the Lifeboat, because it's the only way there'll ever be a record of the time before they changed it.

Easy example: in the Lincoln episode, they mentioned that Lucy had written a book about the day leading up to his assassination. Unless she brought a copy on the lifeboat, she'll only ever have access to the book that's out there now, which is a different book written about a different series of events by functionally a different person. That'd drive me crazy, personally.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Emma9

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Emma9 said:

 So in the context of this episode, pre-episode Agent Christopher emails Lucy a copy of the file. After the trip to the past, despite her having the USB stick, some change in her life leads to her not working with the time team (or possibly the time team not even existing). Lucy would return to the future to find that new-timeline-Christopher never had any reason to send new-timeline-her said email, so it's gone. (Unless she gave past-Christopher her email address and told her to send a copy of the USB files if they hadn't 'met' by the correct date.)

Or, if in the altered timeline all Gmail addresses ended with .org instead of .com, right?

[ketose]

20 hours ago, bros402 said:

From what I understood, Reagan wasn't injured in this timeline.

That might not change the timeline much, because people didn't know how seriously Reagan was shot until some time later. He probably still wouldn't have made it to the White House Correspondents' Dinner that year.

 

20 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Being a Rittenhouse sleeper seems like a really crappy job. You get stuck in some random time period, have to work some random job, and when someone snaps their fingers, you have to kill some random (to you) person or something, and then...go back to 2018? Just go about your life? Die? Go to jail? It’s amazing they don’t have even more sleepers who don’t wanna do this. Especially considering Rittenhouses whole philosophy seems to be mostly “control for rich people is good” or something. 

Being a Hollywood producer in the 30's is probably a pretty sweet assignment. A Secret Service Agent probably isn't as good, especially when your family is in 2018.

Rittenhouse continues to make no sense. They still exist because somehow there was a secret RIttenhouse that most of RIttenhouse didn't know about with Carol Preston. Plus, her grandfather from a century ago supposedly knows exactly where to change history up to the present to make things come out Rittenhouse. Even if you leave all that aside, they seem to be motivated solely to do evil deeds, as most of their plans don't advance human society and yet also hardly help Rittenhouse because more and more of their members get killed off every week.

[legaleagle53]

30 minutes ago, ketose said:

Rittenhouse continues to make no sense. They still exist because somehow there was a secret RIttenhouse that most of RIttenhouse didn't know about with Carol Preston. Plus, her grandfather from a century ago supposedly knows exactly where to change history up to the present to make things come out Rittenhouse. Even if you leave all that aside, they seem to be motivated solely to do evil deeds, as most of their plans don't advance human society and yet also hardly help Rittenhouse because more and more of their members get killed off every week.

Whoever said that Rittenhouse was a humanitarian organization?  Its aim isn't to make a better world for mankind by altering key points in history -- its aim is to make a better world for Rittenhouse and only for Rittenhouse.  A dictatorship by any other name is still a dictatorship.

[maczero]

On 5/9/2018 at 10:03 AM, Emma9 said:

Also that nobody pays much attention to the bittersweetness of whole versions of people they've known phoofing into nothingness. There was a Wyatt who this Agent Christopher stared at like he was a ghost when they met, a Lucy and Jia who she had to resist hugging from the first like they were her long-lost sisters, and who she no doubt treated much more warmly in the show's early times than 'our' Agent Christopher did - and who know her mother and 'know what a pain in the ass she is'. Those people are now gone. And yep, the Flynn who reacted with levity to her being in peril at first, but then had a change of heart when Mason mentioned her children, leading to a conversation that would have a big impact on both of them - he's gone too.

They care about the big effects like people not existing entirely, but not about how changing your memories and experiences makes you in a very real sense somebody different.

This has always bugged me when it comes to time travel stories.  Changing someone's past seems like you're essentially killing the version you know of them in the present.   

[Wordsworth]

I agree, maczero.  They messed with Agent Christopher's memory when they went back and hassled her about how she has to come out as a lesbian in 1981 (oh, yeah, and also go to Quantico).  She's not the same person she was before, even if their meddling was, in their minds, an improvement.

They try so hard to prevent major historical events from changing, but have no problem affecting the lives of ordinary people when it suits their sense of The Way Things Ought to Be.  In this, they are no better than Rittenhouse.  

[possibilities]

They were doing what Denise asked Lucy to do-- to make sure her family was not wiped out. They were trying to reverse the change that Rittenhouse had made when R tinkered with the timeline and tried to kill her. In the original timeline, she DID come out, go to Quantico, etc. They weren't trying to change her life, they were trying to undo the changes Rittenhouse had provoked. This wasn't an agenda Lucy and Jiya had, it was fulfilling a promise Lucy had made to Denise earlier this season. Also, if Denise had truly wanted to stay in the closet and marry the dude and end her career, she could have done so. They told her what happened in the original timeline and she chose to do it because it was really what she wanted.