S02.E08: The Day Reagan Was Shot

[Emma9]

6 hours ago, possibilities said:

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.

I agree; in this this episode, the damage was already done, and Lucy didn't resort to the USB stick until there was no other hope of giving her back her 2018 family. Same goes for most of the first-season episodes before they decided to say fuck it and 'improve' the past with impunity.

What weirds me out is how nobody seems to care. If I were on the bunker team, I'd be an existential mess every time the away team left. 'When you get back, I may be here...but will I be here?'

[possibilities]

1 hour ago, Emma9 said:

What weirds me out is how nobody seems to care. If I were on the bunker team, I'd be an existential mess every time the away team left. 'When you get back, I may be here...but will I be here?'

I agree. That's really upsetting, and I don't think I'd handle it at all well. Rufus is freaking out about dying, but everyone on the team should be freaking out about "what if something really big is different and/or if we don't really recognize each other when this mission is over?"

I think they just handwave it because all time travel stories are basically impossible to handle without massive inconsistencies and pitfalls no one could ever come back from intact.

[KaveDweller]

On 5/10/2018 at 2:39 PM, shapeshifter said:

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?

I think it depends on  when in time you send the email.

In terms of the flash drive, I think it would have stayed as it was. Lucy gave it to her in 1981. If something changed after 1981, that flash drive would still exist. We haven't seen things change while they are in the past, that is why Lucy still had a locket with her sister's picture in it. So even if Denise's kids disappeared from existence, that flash drive would still always exist. Like if Lucy never writes her journal, Flynn would still have the original one she gave him.

Time travel is so confusing.

[Clanstarling]

On 5/2/2018 at 4:13 AM, shapeshifter said:

It's the big glasses. Hillary Clinton and I had them too.

Me too.

On 5/7/2018 at 10:01 AM, Notwisconsin said:

What's with the last letter there? I know the "Q" was added for esthetic effect, but the last "A?"

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

"Q" is not in there for aesthetic effect. The LGBTQA acronym is about identification. Queer may be an umbrella term but it is used by those who feel they don't identify neatly within the Lesbian, Gay, Bi, or Asexual identifications.

On 5/7/2018 at 10:33 AM, AV8n said:

Was it just me, or did Agent Christopher have a more discernible Indian accent when the team returned to 2018?

As a child of an immigrant I noticed it right away, her accent came in when she was talking about her mother's food. I do the same thing, my natural American accent gets replaced with German when I talk about my mother's dishes. Because that's how I learned to say them.

On 5/8/2018 at 3:10 AM, Mrs. DuRona said:

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

From the looks of the children, I'd guess that each of them carried a child, the boy looks more like Denise, the girl more like her wife.

On 5/8/2018 at 5:54 AM, 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.

Thank you. I get too incensed about the Incels mindset (as reflected in the news, in any case) to be able to objectively write about it.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Clanstarling

[MisterGlass]

If they really want to keep a cache of history as it is/was they need to go back to a time before any previous time travel and bury a time capsule.  There was one episode where they got stranded and Rufus tried to communicate with the future by time capsule.  If they have sturdier versions and durable storage media, they could go back to, say, 1100 A.D. and bury it near the current location of the bunker.  Every jump they could go back and bury another one with history as it stands at that point.  That way, they could chart the influence of Rittenhouse over time.

[ketose]

On 5/11/2018 at 12:01 AM, legaleagle53 said:

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.

I don't consider that much of a difference. If they're okay with being Kim Jung Un and ruling over a technologically backwards and crappy society, then they're a bunch of morons.

[possibilities]

They're supposed to be evil. I don't know if we're supposed to think they's stupid.

[Camera One]

I'm almost caught up and this season is so much better than last season.  I like how they're changing up the format slightly every week.  It was fun having Jiya on this mission.  The 80s look and teamwork of Lucy and Jiya was hilarious.  They're also writing interesting conversations for different combinations of characters, like Flynn and Agent Christopher in this one.  I'm pleasantly surprised the show is focusing on the characters as well as the plot, especially because Rittenhouse's methods are definitely questionably nonsensical, but since I like the characters, it's easier to raise my eyebrows and move on.

After fleshing out Mason a bit in the last two episodes, in this one, they do the same with Denise, which was much appreciated.  Wyatt's reaction to seeing her nametag was amusing.  They need to tone down Rufus getting angry at Jiya but I like that the sleeper agent's suicide really affected him.

[Raja]

On 5/9/2018 at 4:01 PM, 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.

I think you got it twisted, especially post JFK a killing at an attempted Presidential assasination was sure to be investigated more heavily then if a "psycho" just walked up to her and put a bullet in her brain at a coffee shop. Especially if the assassin could jump in the mother ship and disappear  long before CSI and Major Crimes detectives  started working the case of an officer being down.

[KaveDweller]

On 5/27/2018 at 6:01 PM, Raja said:

I think you got it twisted, especially post JFK a killing at an attempted Presidential assasination was sure to be investigated more heavily then if a "psycho" just walked up to her and put a bullet in her brain at a coffee shop.

Not if it looks like she was killed accidentally in the crossfire and they have the assassin in custody, with a confession that he acted alone. 

But like I said, there were definitely easier ways to get rid of Christopher.

[Raja]

17 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

Not if it looks like she was killed accidentally in the crossfire and they have the assassin in custody, with a confession that he acted alone. 

But like I said, there were definitely easier ways to get rid of Christopher.

In my opinion, Post JFK conspiracy theories Everything will be checked and double documented. Much more so than the random murder of a rookie cop.

[KaveDweller]

On 5/28/2018 at 11:15 PM, Raja said:

In my opinion, Post JFK conspiracy theories Everything will be checked and double documented. Much more so than the random murder of a rookie cop.

Everything will be checked and they'll see that she was killed by stray gunfire of a secret service agent trying to take down a presidential assassin. No matter what kind of conspiracy theorist you are, you aren't going to guess that the secret service agent was actually a plant intentionally trying to kill the cop. They might fire the secret service agent for being reckless, but he'll be going back to his own time anyway. No one would guess that the secret service agent knew about the assassination and was using it to their advantage because that's rather insane (if you don't believe in time travel).

Again, I totally think they could have accomplished their goal without tying it to Reagan. There would be suspicion about a cop's murder, but if they escape with the time machine it wouldn't matter.

Edited May 31, 2018 by KaveDweller

[Hanahope]

Ok, catching up on episodes as a friend convinced me the show got better this seasons and is hopeful for renewal.  I agree that in general, things are better.  However, there's still these big time-travel problems.

So a future Lucy went back in time (and Flynn was really able to pinpoint that it was a Lucy five years older than currently - which already stretches reality), and gave a journal of her travels to stop Flynn to Flynn, so that now he could "try again" or for some reason start the whole shebang over?  And this is the same journal that caused Flynn in the first place to change history that lost Lucy's sister, and made her Rittenhouse mother well enough to go back in time to get her evil Rittenhouse grandfather and the evil Emma.  Why would she do that???  Or at least, why would she write about the Hiddenburg event?  Just let Flynn skip that event, keep her sister, keep her mother sick.

I sure as hell hope the writers have a good idea of the whole story to make sense of this apparently incredulous act.

As to this episode, did James Brady get hit this time? Absolutely nothing was said about that.

And of course Jessica is a Rittenhouse agent, when her brother was mysteriously cured of cancer.  And yet Wyatt does nothing.

[legaleagle53]

9 hours ago, Hanahope said:

As to this episode, did James Brady get hit this time? Absolutely nothing was said about that.

Because the episode was never really about the attempted assassination of President Reagan or the resulting collateral damage that eventually killed James Brady.  It was about an attempt to murder Agent Christopher as a young woman to prevent her from ever forming the Time Team, using the assassination attempt as a cover because it would simply be assumed that she had died in the crossfire.

[Clanstarling]

10 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Because the episode was never really about the attempted assassination of President Reagan or the resulting collateral damage that eventually killed James Brady.  It was about an attempt to murder Agent Christopher as a young woman to prevent her from ever forming the Time Team, using the assassination attempt as a cover because it would simply be assumed that she had died in the crossfire.

True, but they did show some news coverage, and I did expect to see Brady at least mentioned, as well as (iirc) the Secret Service guy who took a bullet.

[KaveDweller]

On 6/13/2018 at 1:12 PM, Hanahope said:

So a future Lucy went back in time (and Flynn was really able to pinpoint that it was a Lucy five years older than currently - which already stretches reality), and gave a journal of her travels to stop Flynn to Flynn, so that now he could "try again" or for some reason start the whole shebang over?  And this is the same journal that caused Flynn in the first place to change history that lost Lucy's sister, and made her Rittenhouse mother well enough to go back in time to get her evil Rittenhouse grandfather and the evil Emma.  Why would she do that???  Or at least, why would she write about the Hiddenburg event?  Just let Flynn skip that event, keep her sister, keep her mother sick.

It's possible in the original timeline where Lucy wrote the journal, her sister didn't disappear. And maybe she didn't know about her mom? Because Flynn seemed honest in the episode where he said he didn't mean for that to happen. And all last season he never warned her not to trust the mother, even when they sort of worked together.

On 6/13/2018 at 10:53 PM, legaleagle53 said:

Because the episode was never really about the attempted assassination of President Reagan or the resulting collateral damage that eventually killed James Brady.  It was about an attempt to murder Agent Christopher as a young woman to prevent her from ever forming the Time Team, using the assassination attempt as a cover because it would simply be assumed that she had died in the crossfire.

It wasn't about the attempted assassination, but it's still an important historical event that got changed.

But this show has never been good at establishing fallout from what they change, aside from Jessica returning to life and Amy disappearing. Or things they can turn into a joke, like Jiya not knowing what a witch hunt was.

[STOPSHOUTING]

Flynn said he was in “first grade” in 1981...Since he was 10 then he must have been held back A LOT. (My 10-year-old just finished 5th grade.)

And more magic/nonsense timeline with Jessica. Pregnant? So, they resumed boning, sans protection, the day he discovered she was alive which, notably, was the same day he’d banged Lucy (and when Jessica was planning to divorce him)? Even if that was the case, she’s been in the bunker for, what, two weeks? Three? MAYBE four? Negating how, exactly, she popped out to the Rite Aid with no one noticing for a home test, if you weren’t actively trying to conceive that’s still pretty early to be confident you’re knocked up, especially given the easily-period-delaying stress discovering time travel would certainly induce. 

Also, from the minute Jessica turned up alive it was beyond obvious she was a Rittenhouse ploy. How else do they do away with her, in the inevitable endgame, for Lucy and Wyatt? I mean, I, personally, can’t imagine a timeline where someone has their pick of Visnjic or Wyatt and chooses “that guy” but, sure.  For super secret agents well aware of a worldwide conspiracy that spans hundreds, if not, thousands of years and infiltrates every level of government and business, these folks are awfully trusting.

But, even as I nitpick, I admit I got teary when they showed young Agent Christopher photos of her future family, and again in the present where she talked about her mother loving her kids.

The saddest thing about this now-for-sure cancelled series is that it had soooo much potential. The entire Rittenhouse mumbo-jumbo was so un-needed. Adventure-of-the-Week fix history is all you needed. That’s what works. Imagine having time travel as your show’s central premise and then being like, ‘Yeah, but what keeps ‘em coming back?’ and deciding it’s definitely a complicated, nonsensical, poorly explained shadow conspiracy theory.

Not to mention, the heroine’s entire plot premise purpose is to do something that would be better served via a Google search.

Edited June 23, 2018 by STOPSHOUTING

[ketose]

I can believe they started going at it right away. "Let me show you my time machine" is a world class pick-up line.

This whole season has been implausible in ways that completely eclipse the first season. Jessica was part of Rittenhouse, yet somehow all her and Wyatt's memories of their marriage line up exactly. She is the best sleeper agent in all of history in that case.

[statsgirl]

8 hours ago, STOPSHOUTING said:

 How else do they do away with her, in the inevitable endgame, for Lucy and Wyatt? I mean, I, personally, can’t imagine a timeline where someone has their pick of Visnjic or Wyatt and chooses “that guy” but, sure.

Same here.  They lost me when they tried to sell that Wyatt was Lucy's OTP. Then they made it worse by having Wyatt side with Jessica every time while Flynn supported Lucy and showing Flynn's pain when Lucy would turn to Wyatt.

Was Jessica not allowed out of the bunker at all?  Pregnancy tests can tell you within a couple of days if you're pregnant, if she could have picked one up on a trip outside.

[legaleagle53]

10 hours ago, STOPSHOUTING said:

Flynn said he was in “first grade” in 1981...Since he was 10 then he must have been held back A LOT. (My 10-year-old just finished 5th grade.)

Where did you get the idea that he was ten in 1981?  He was born in 1975, not 1971 (he was in 1972 Washington, DC, remember?).  That wold have made him only six in 1981 -- thus, first grade.