S02.E00: The Miracle of Christmas

[Booklady1017]

18 hours ago, edhopper said:

Thanks NBC, nice send off.

I felt the cast and crew did a great job in answering a lot of questions and tying it up very well but leaving it open if they get another movie or two or a series revival.

17 hours ago, ScorpioSoul said:

They named a girl after Flynn?

I loved that they named their children after Flynn and Amy.

17 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

And the rule about not traveling to an era in which you already exist?  We now know why the rule exists and what the consequences are of breaking it. You CAN do it, but the longer you stay in that era, the more you put yourself at risk for eventual physical breakdown and death.  That's why Future Wyatt and Lucy didn't stick around in 2018, Flynn died in 2012, and the other Future Lucy started suffering physical pain in 2014 and could only stay there long enough to set Flynn on the path to stealing the Mothership so the temporal loop could finally be closed.

I liked how they answered this important question we all had. 

[Booklady1017]

17 hours ago, edhopper said:

Time had changed re Jessica. She was originally strangled, not shot. And this Jessica had Rittenhouse fighting skills.

The time sickness is what killed Flynn,  She was only there for a short time, so just headaches.

I was confused about Jessica. I know she was strangled initially. Does anyone recall exactly when Rittenhouse approached her about helping her brother? I guess that happened in this timeline but I wasn't sure exactly when, because being exposed to Rittenhouse would have changed her. 

Was he also shot when he killed Jessica? I don't recall. And I don't know how far gone Flynn was by the time he completed the deed. He might have known if he gone back, he was already past the point of no return.

14 hours ago, Shorty186 said:

I really wanted Flynn to get a happy ending and his death in the first hour bummed me out for the rest of the episode. I don't understand why he chose to stay in 2012. Because it was the only way to see his family again? Slowly dying of time travel sickness sounds tortuous. 

 

Also I'm not sure how reading the journal helped them get Rufus back. Wyatt figured out that Jessica needed to be removed from the timeline, but Flynn didn't hear that, right? He came up with that on his own?

I don't know where Wyatt figured out that Jessica needed to be removed in the timeline and if it was related to something he saw in the journal. It was never said. Didn't Flynn overhear the conversation and that is why he went on his own to take care of Jessica?

[Booklady1017]

14 hours ago, phalange said:

Oh, I loved it. Lucy and Wyatt got to meet their future selves and finally read the journal. Not surprised that Jessica lied about the baby. Makes sense that Flynn was the one to take her out.

Rufus got the best entrance! “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.” So from his perspective, he’s been traveling with them the whole time and Lucy and Wyatt were together because Jessica never existed. I loved, “I’m still totally shipping team Lyatt.” Rufus is the biggest shipper of us all. Also, “heliclockters.” Ha. Nice shoutout to the fans.

Lucy’s character development was really good here. When they first started going back in time, she didn’t want to make any changes to history, and here she insists on saving a woman she doesn’t know because everybody’s important. “What’s the point of history if we don’t save the people in it” is my favorite line and really sums up the whole show. I’m happy that the woman they saved was able to reunite with her family and they all ended up surviving. Lucy bonding with her over being history teachers was a sweet moment.

Agent Christopher finally got the chance to time travel! And Emma really got her comeuppance, didn’t she? Scheming to become the leader of Rittenhouse only to be taken out by a random soldier in Korea.

Being the unapologetic Lyatt shipper that I am, I adore the scene of Lucy telling Wyatt she’s loved him since the Alamo, and of course the seat belt buckling, Wyatt calling her ma’am, and the kiss under the mistletoe. Also, Lyatt babies! It was nice they named one after Amy (though I wish the one named Flynn was a boy, since that name on a girl is not great). I chuckled when Lucy told the one student that there just wasn't enough time to learn about the men of American history and maybe they'd get to it next semester. Jiya and Rufus naming their company Riya was cute, and them inspiring kids to go into STEM is exactly what I imagine them doing.

I really did think they were going have Lucy get Amy back, so I agree that it was a brave choice on the writers’ part to have Lucy decide not to. If the show ever gets picked up again one day, that could be a plotline to explore, though. Admittedly, I teared up during the montage to Time After Time. When I read about the cast saying that none of them were in the final scene, I was curious about how that would work, and honestly, I really liked it. Seeing a young girl inspired to invent her own time machine felt like the show coming full circle. 

I loved Rufus's entrance with that line and I loved the Lyatt reference, because it was a nod to all us Lyatt worshippers. 

I loved that line that Lucy said about "What's the point of history, if we don't save the people in it."

I'm so happy too Agent Christopher got a chance to time travel too and it was quite fitting the way Emma died. 

That scene with Lucy and Wyatt was fabulous. 

I'm not sure if I like the idea of them not getting Amy back. 

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Some of this was definitely rushed (especially with Flynn being redeemed) but I thought it was a nice wrap up for the series. The rush is understandable, considering they had to fit so much story into one finale movie, so for the time constraints they had, I think they did a good job at getting all of the stories wrapped up. 

The one thing that did bug me was it felt like they really brushed some of Flynn's evil acts under the carpet so he could be the hero, and he even gets a kid named after him! It wasn't too bad, as he did admit to doing awful things, showed some self awareness, and he did go out saving Rufus, but I wish that if they had more time, they would have explored that more. 

"Merry Christmas ya filthy animals" Dang, thats an awesome intro, Rufus! Glad that he made it back, and I am totally fine with Jess being sacrificed to save him. So in this timeline, Jess was always evil? Because I thought in the original timeline, she wasn't at first, and she became evil after Rittenhouse saved her brother in a different timeline? Time travel is confusing. 

The ending was so sweet and happy, I was super worried that everything was about to fall to pieces! Also, nice to know that the 2030s are going through a retro 60s trend! They wrapped everything up really well, but left it open just a bit with the girl making her own time machine just in case they get another 11th hour rescue. I wonder if she is a relative of the woman Lucy saved in Korea, and her being saved allowed her to have more kids, and that changed the timeline? 

For all of the happiness, the show did have some balls in not bringing Amy back. Poor Amy, and poor Lucy, but it did stop the ending from being just a super happy hug fest. That and Flynn dying, and basically being set on the course to die ever since his family died, and Lucy gave him the journal, kicking off the whole plot. 

I think Flynn started to redeem himself last season and I don't think they entirely wiped his evil acts under the carpet and since he redeemed himself in such a sacrificial way, I can understand why they named their kid after him.

I am confused about Jessica too. I wonder how this Jessica was different than the one that Wyatt was married to? I also stated in another post that I couldn't remember when Rittenhouse approached her in the last timeline about her brother.  This Jessica that Flynn saw might have been the one that was related to the one that came back from the dead and they  helped her brother. Maybe that happened before 2012.

[ketose]

8 minutes ago, Booklady1017 said:

I was confused about Jessica. I know she was strangled initially. Does anyone recall exactly when Rittenhouse approached her about helping her brother? I guess that happened in this timeline but I wasn't sure exactly when, because being exposed to Rittenhouse would have changed her. 

It happened at the worst possible time, of course. Jessica reappeared right after Wyatt and Lucy spent the night together. Anyway, Rittenhouse went back to when Jessica was a kid and offered their family future medical technology to save her brother. So, her whole family was recruited into Rittenhouse when Jessica was young and she had good reason to work with them. This brings up questions I mentioned last season.

[Booklady1017]

6 hours ago, nilyank said:

Rittenhouse had already gone back in time to save her brother so Jess grew up a Rittenhouse believer. Flynn didn't change that. He went back to kill Jess when she died in the original timeline.

That's what I was wondering. So Rittenhouse approached Jessica before Wyatt and Jessica's fight in 2012 in the most recent timeline before she was killed?

[Booklady1017]

6 minutes ago, ketose said:

It happened at the worst possible time, of course. Jessica reappeared right after Wyatt and Lucy spent the night together. Anyway, Rittenhouse went back to when Jessica was a kid and offered their family future medical technology to save her brother. So, her whole family was recruited into Rittenhouse when Jessica was young and she had good reason to work with them. This brings up questions I mentioned last season.

Ketose, thanks for clarifying because I couldn't remember when they got Jessica into Rittenhouse by helping her brother. Then that would make sense why she was such a fighter in the timeline in 2012 when Flynn killed her. I was wondering about it. So it's only the Jessica they met before Chinatown that was influenced by Rittenhouse, not the one that was married to Wyatt. I was thinking that but wasn't sure. 

[shapeshifter]

53 minutes ago, saber5055 said:

I was wondering if that girl was either 1. a descendant of the baby born via Wyatt in Korea, or 2. Agent Christopher in another timeline.

Her name is Paulina, as is the name of the little girl who asks for Jiya's autograph. Rather than being descended from the saved Korean family, I prefer to think she grew up hearing about a legend of an orb in which some Westerners escaped while under gunfire in North Korea in 1950. Other than Alice Paul, I don't know if her namesake should have been familiar to us. 

 

 

 

14 hours ago, phalange said:

I chuckled when Lucy told the one student that there just wasn't enough time to learn about the men of American history and maybe they'd get to it next semester.

This reminded me of U.S. History teachers who, as recently as the 1990s, told classes there wasn't enough time to cover Vietnam.

 

 

55 minutes ago, saber5055 said:

I wondered why the 2023 Lucy/Wyatt looked the same as 2018 Lucy/Wyatt

Yeah, rearing twins should've at least earned them some noticeable gray hairs, heh.

[possibilities]

I love that this show had equally badass women as men, and that they mixed and matched the way they paired off the characters in different scenes.

Time travel is always going to be confusing and create inconsistencies. I think that's built into the premise of time travel itself.

I think they boosted the Flynn redemption with the way they handled the "criminal from history" of the week, whose criminality and subsequent redemption was heavily influenced by circumstances. I don't think it's a perfect correspondence, but I think that's why they chose to handle it the way they did.

Why did they keep the less functional ship for preservation? The relatively less advanced nature of the lifeboat was part of what hampered the team from chasing Flynn and then Rittenhouse. If they were going to keep one, they should have kept the one that was better designed.

[possibilities]

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The trip to North Korea in particular seemed pointless. At first Emma told Jessica she was going to Korea to buy a new sleeper agent, but then it all turned out to be a ruse so the Time Team would go there and get shot by . . . Chinese soldiers? What? How did she manage to arrange that when the only person we saw her talking to was an American soldier? 

The plan was to get her new agent to go to NK, where the team would follow. When there, he was supposed to capture, and probably also kill them. He lured them into the helicopter to do that, but Wyatt stopped him while they were in the air, crashing the helicopter in the process. Her plan was to kill the time travel team, which would free her to continue with the Rittenhouse plan. But the team foiled her plan by stopping her agent from killing them. They got shot at later, just because they were in a war zone, not because of anything in Emma's plan.

I thought it was kind of funny that they had the kid ask for an autograph and not a selfie. Maybe the timeline changed and selfies are no longer a thing.

What I liked about Timeless was mostly not the plot, which I often found horrible. I liked the little adventures in other times and places, and the way they featured historical moments or people in a slightly off-beat perspective, and some of the ensemble characters were fun for me (though I thought others were really tedious).

[KaveDweller]

7 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Once Jessica was taken back out of the timeline, Rufus was no longer dead and that version of Lucy and Wyatt didn't exist anymore. It was like an insular little time loop inside the bigger one.

That's a bit inconsistent though, because wasn't the version of Lucy that gave Flynn the journal the same version that went back to warn 2018 Lucy and Wyatt? That version wrote the journal where she talked about kissing Flynn, which never happened to this Lucy.

Also, it seems like the version of Lucy and Wyatt we saw leave at the beginning of this episode should have returned to a world where they were married with twins. Just like when Lucy returned to have a fiance she didn't remember? It doesn't totally make sense when you try and explain everything, but I've never seen a show/movie where everything about a time travel story made sense. I think time travel can't actually exist because it makes no sense, and the only way to make a decent story is to break the rules.

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I also think it's a safe bet that her pregnancy with Wyatt's baby was real until the show got cancelled. I re-watched the final episode to refresh my memory of what was going on, and in the Chinatown episode, Wyatt confronts her and she cops to everything but says she really is pregnant with his baby. There was no reason for her to keep up the lie at that point, but I think for the sake of expediency they decided to jettison the baby plot and facilitate an easier/quicker reunion for Lucy and Wyatt.

Oh yeah, if we had a full season 3 they would have dragged out the Jessica/Wyatt/Lucy triangle all season and amped up the baby angst. But we had two hours, and that was the biggest blocker to reuniting Lyatt, so they axed it as quickly/easily as they could. What I wondered was whether she actually was really pregnant, but future Wyatt told present Wyatt she wasn't, so that he would do what he had to do and take her out.

[kicotan]

22 hours ago, ScorpioSoul said:

They named a girl after Flynn?

I thought that too at first and then I only heard them refer to them as “the twins” after that so maybe Flynn is a boy that likes to have long hair and wear clothes similar to the other twin?  It is 2023 after all...

[nilyank]

Speaking of pregnancies, but for some strange reason I thought that Emma was pregnant with Nicholas' baby. I knew the actress was pregnant, but I can't remember if they wrote it into the show.

[legaleagle53]

49 minutes ago, nilyank said:

Speaking of pregnancies, but for some strange reason I thought that Emma was pregnant with Nicholas' baby. I knew the actress was pregnant, but I can't remember if they wrote it into the show.

Nope.  The writers apparently decided to ignore Annie Wersching's real-life pregnancy rather than write it in (which they couldn't have done without doing a time jump of several months).  That's why she really only appeared in a few scenes,  and she was shot almost always in close-up and always wearing a coat or something to hide the fact that she was really about eight months along.

Edited December 22, 2018 by legaleagle53

[ketose]

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I love that this show had equally badass women as men, and that they mixed and matched the way they paired off the characters in different scenes.

Time travel is always going to be confusing and create inconsistencies. I think that's built into the premise of time travel itself.

I think they boosted the Flynn redemption with the way they handled the "criminal from history" of the week, whose criminality and subsequent redemption was heavily influenced by circumstances. I don't think it's a perfect correspondence, but I think that's why they chose to handle it the way they did.

Why did they keep the less functional ship for preservation? The relatively less advanced nature of the lifeboat was part of what hampered the team from chasing Flynn and then Rittenhouse. If they were going to keep one, they should have kept the one that was better designed.

Time travel shows can be written better than TImeless. This show was always focused on period costumes and lessons of hidden figures in history.

In some ways, I think the mothership was destroyed because it had an aura of evil to it. On a more practical side, the lifeboat had years of upgrades by Jiya and might have been more capable of detecting and homing in on a ship that had already gone back in time. That would be important for a chase vehicle.

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, possibilities said:

What I liked about Timeless was mostly not the plot, which I often found horrible. I liked the little adventures in other times and places, and the way they featured historical moments or people in a slightly off-beat perspective, and some of the ensemble characters were fun for me (though I thought others were really tedious).

I feel the same way.  The worldbuilding with Rittenhouse and the consequences of changing history have always been poorly written and thought out.  Think a little harder and a lot of things don't make much sense.  

Overall, I thought this was a nice series ender.  They got some of the lingering plot complications like Jessica's pregnancy out of the way quickly, which was a relief.  I enjoyed the little adventures in Gold Rush California and 1950s North Korea.  One thing I appreciate about this show is that they set aside time for the protagonists to talk to each other and have character moments.  They gave scenes to different combinations of Lucy/Wyatt/Rufus/Jiya in this episode alone.  This made the characters likeable and rootable, helped by the strong casting and the chemistry among them.  That is what made this show memorable, and not the stock love triangles and nefarious underground secret organization stuff.

They went a tad overboard with making Flynn out to be a saint, but I was moved by his sacrifice and it was a fitting end for a former villain.  

I could have done without the fast-forward segment at the end of the episode, though.  I did like Lucy's dialogue when she gave up on bringing her sister back, but I think it would have been a funner use of the last 10-15 minutes to go to a third time period and save the sister.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Camera One

[willco]

I have to watch the whole thing again because I was somewhat distracted during the show, but my overall feeling is that I like what I saw. It was obvious going into it that they would have to speed up a lot of things & gloss over others, but they did it about as well as could be expected. It's very funny, to me, that Flynn ends up being the hero who's death they are mourning, when I think he threatened to kill every person on the team, at one point or another ! I may be misremembering, but he did hold a gun on most of them at some point, it seems like.

 

I was surprised to see the old guy ( Lucy's grandfather ?) I had forgotten about him and I don't remember him being sent to prison at all. I may have to go back & rewatch some episodes.

 

All in all, a fun show. I'll miss it.

Edited December 22, 2018 by willco
Person, not people

[TV Anonymous]

On 12/20/2018 at 10:34 PM, legaleagle53 said:

And the rule about not traveling to an era in which you already exist?  We now know why the rule exists and what the consequences are of breaking it. You CAN do it, but the longer you stay in that era, the more you put yourself at risk for eventual physical breakdown and death.  That's why Future Wyatt and Lucy didn't stick around in 2018, Flynn died in 2012, and the other Future Lucy started suffering physical pain in 2014 and could only stay there long enough to set Flynn on the path to stealing the Mothership so the temporal loop could finally be closed.

ELI5? I do not really understand the purpose of 2023 scene. Why do they have to go back to 2014 to give Flynn the journal? If giving the journal is important, why must they wait until 2023?

[The Wild Sow]

14 minutes ago, willco said:

I was surprised to see the old guy ( Lucy's grandfather ?) I had forgotten about him and I don't remember him being sent to prison at all. I may have to go back & rewatch some episodes.

 

Lucy's father (but not her Mom's husband.)

Awwwww, that was a nice wrap-up.  I'm going to miss this show.

[bros402]

13 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Honestly, I didn't think this was very good. The ending was emotionally satisfying, but the timey-wimey stuff was way too confusing and the two pasts they went back to were inexplicably boring for a final episode. The California Gold Rush and 1950 Korea? Really? It seems like maybe the writers had a couple of stories left over on the back burner when this show was cancelled and then dusted them off and used them to craft a finale around when they got the green light for the 2-hour special. The trip to North Korea in particular seemed pointless. At first Emma told Jessica she was going to Korea to buy a new sleeper agent, but then it all turned out to be a ruse so the Time Team would go there and get shot by . . . Chinese soldiers? What? How did she manage to arrange that when the only person we saw her talking to was an American soldier? 

Well she bribed the soldier to pick them up in his helicopter - presumably to kill them, along with himself, then his family would be provided for. Instead, Wyatt saved them, and they ended up dying in a massacre that they caused, until Agent Christopher appeared from the future.

10 hours ago, Booklady1017 said:

I was confused about Jessica. I know she was strangled initially. Does anyone recall exactly when Rittenhouse approached her about helping her brother? I guess that happened in this timeline but I wasn't sure exactly when, because being exposed to Rittenhouse would have changed her. 

Was he also shot when he killed Jessica? I don't recall. And I don't know how far gone Flynn was by the time he completed the deed. He might have known if he gone back, he was already past the point of no return.

I don't know where Wyatt figured out that Jessica needed to be removed in the timeline and if it was related to something he saw in the journal. It was never said. Didn't Flynn overhear the conversation and that is why he went on his own to take care of Jessica?

Whenever Jessica was a kid, Rittenhouse went to their family, offered them treatment for her brother's cancer (Presumably from the future) - and Jessica became a Rittenhouse agent.

Wyatt figured it out while reading over the journal for presumably the umpteenth time, around the camp fire.

9 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

This reminded me of U.S. History teachers who, as recently as the 1990s, told classes there wasn't enough time to cover Vietnam.

I went to high school in 2008 and we didn't have enough time to get past WW2! Not even in an AP European History class or an AP US History Class!

[kindredspirit]

3 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

ELI5? I do not really understand the purpose of 2023 scene. Why do they have to go back to 2014 to give Flynn the journal? If giving the journal is important, why must they wait until 2023?

I didn't understand this either.  Shouldn't they have gone on their one last mission to give the journal to Flynn immediately?  What if something happened in the interim that prevented this?

Also, can someone explain how they brought both the Mothership and the Lifeboat back from North Korea?  Weren't they all running into the Mothership and it jumped?

[Female83]

2 hours ago, kindredspirit said:

I didn't understand this either.  Shouldn't they have gone on their one last mission to give the journal to Flynn immediately?  What if something happened in the interim that prevented this?

Also, can someone explain how they brought both the Mothership and the Lifeboat back from North Korea?  Weren't they all running into the Mothership and it jumped?

. They could have set the Mothership to a few days later in order to get the Lifeboat. 

[legaleagle53]

7 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

ELI5? I do not really understand the purpose of 2023 scene. Why do they have to go back to 2014 to give Flynn the journal? If giving the journal is important, why must they wait until 2023?

Because the journal wasn't finished until 2023 and because Flynn had specifically said that Future Lucy gave him the journal on that date in 2014.

Oh, and by the way, that scene should also clear up a controversy concerning the precise meaning of the rule against traveling to a time in which the traveler has already existed.  Some people thought it meant that you couldn't travel to a time and a place where you had already been, because you'd be too likely to run into your past self, so as long as you were in a different geographic location, you'd be fine.  The fact that Lucy started showing symptoms of the side effects in São Paolo -- thousands of miles from where she would have originally been on December 24, 2014 -- proves that geography is irrelevant.  The rule is as Rufus initially stated it was: No traveling back to an era in which you have already existed. Period.

[TV Anonymous]

2 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

Because the journal wasn't finished until 2023 and because Flynn had specifically said that Future Lucy gave him the journal on that date in 2014.

Oh, and by the way, that scene should also clear up a controversy concerning the precise meaning of the rule against traveling to a time in which the traveler has already existed.  Some people thought it meant that you couldn't travel to a time and a place where you had already been, because you'd be too likely to run into your past self, so as long as you were in a different geographic location, you'd be fine.  The fact that Lucy started showing symptoms of the side effects in São Paolo -- thousands of miles from where she would have originally been on December 24, 2014 -- proves that geography is irrelevant.  The rule is as Rufus initially stated it was: No traveling back to an era in which you have already existed. Period.

But that is not closing the loop, that is only perpetuating the loop. And the reason that 2023 is an arbitrary point makes no sense, just to follow future Lucy example?

If that is the case, this is what happened:

• Lucy0 (future Lucy) gave the journal to Flynn1 (our Flynn in the show) in 2014.
• Flynn1 stole the Mothership, met Lucy1 and they did 2+ seasons of Timeless.
• Lucy1 lived until 2023 and went to 2014 to meet Flynn2 and gave the journal.
• Flynn2 did whatever he had done and repeated the show all over again.
• Lucy2 lived until 2023 her time and...

[CooperTV]

55 minutes ago, TV Anonymous said:

But that is not closing the loop, that is only perpetuating the loop. And the reason that 2023 is an arbitrary point makes no sense, just to follow future Lucy example?

If that is the case, this is what happened:

• Lucy0 (future Lucy) gave the journal to Flynn1 (our Flynn in the show) in 2014.
• Flynn1 stole the Mothership, met Lucy1 and they did 2+ seasons of Timeless.
• Lucy1 lived until 2023 and went to 2014 to meet Flynn2 and gave the journal.
• Flynn2 did whatever he had done and repeated the show all over again.
• Lucy2 lived until 2023 her time and...

Don’t try and explain time travel. It never makes sense and it always makes my head hurt (c) Pete Lattimer, Warehouse 13.

[Electruck]

I enjoyed it, though I was bothered the whole time they were in NK by their ridiculous outfits — the lack of preparation for the bitter cold despite knowing just how freezing cold it was going to be and mentioning that they needed to prepare for it! Yes they had to blend in, but argh!

I hadn’t known about that built-for-60, rescued-14,000 event. Wow.

What I didn’t understand with Rufus and Jiya, how they kept mentioning three years. That Rufus was now younger than Jiya, and that he didn’t know the current her, he knew the one from three years prior.

Did she land in SF in 1885 when she piloted it drugged, then they retrieved her in 1888?

[TV Anonymous]

34 minutes ago, CooperTV said:

Don’t try and explain time travel. It never makes sense and it always makes my head hurt (c) Pete Lattimer, Warehouse 13.

No, no. My issue is not with the mechanism of time travel itself but with what the characters do.

[ketose]

The only reason they seemed to wait is that Flynn told Lucy she looked older in São Paolo than when they first met in 2016. 

[CooperTV]

I find the idea that Flynn, the "rival" love interest/AU love interest for Lucy, had to kill Jessica, the "rival" love interest for Wyatt so hilarious, though. All shitty love triangles/quadruples should be resolved in this manner.

[basiltherat]

It all works better if you wave off all the timey-wimey stuff and just concentrate on the historical vignettes of people you knew little or nothing about until these "lessons"  That was the best part of the plots.

And, of course, we had to have happy love matches -- Lucy and Wyatt, Rufus and Jiya, Flynn and his revenge, Agent Christopher and her family, and Mason and his ego.

[Notwisconsin]

Now, the final question is whether or not the Journal given to our heroes by Bearded Wyatt and angry Lucy was the same one as the one that our Lucy gave to Flynn or was it the one our Lucy was making?

The new lifeboat was built by no one at all as soon as Rufus came back to life.

[CooperTV]

27 minutes ago, Notwisconsin said:

The new lifeboat was built by no one at all as soon as Rufus came back to life.

I'm resonantly sure that's called time travel paradox.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I am confused about Jessica too. I wonder how this Jessica was different than the one that Wyatt was married to? I also stated in another post that I couldn't remember when Rittenhouse approached her in the last timeline about her brother. 

Judging by the fight Jessica and Wyatt were having in the car right before he dropped her off, it doesn't seem like they had a good relationship, ever, in any timeline. I think Wyatt was just romanticizing the idea of her out of guilt when she came back to life. 

I don't think the show ever made it clear exactly what Rittenhouse did to recruit her. On the one hand, it seems like they would have gone back in time to infiltrate her life before her brother died, meaning when she's a child. On the other hand, we see them intervene right after Wyatt drops her off to prevent her death by whoever originally strangled her. Why would they need to do both of those thing to recruit her? Wouldn't saving her life be enough?

Quote

Anyway, Rittenhouse went back to when Jessica was a kid and offered their family future medical technology to save her brother. So, her whole family was recruited into Rittenhouse when Jessica was young and she had good reason to work with them.

I just want to point out that this is purely speculation on the part of the viewer because it was never specified in the dialogue. Jessica kept up the ruse until the final episode ("Chinatown") and then had very little to say about it afterwards. On the one hand it would seem like she'd been part of Rittenhouse her whole life since she stupidly mentioned her brother to Wyatt. But wouldn't she have been told that this Wyatt would think her brother died in childhood, and to not mention him so she didn't tip him off that he'd been saved by Rittenhouse?

Quote

I do not really understand the purpose of 2023 scene. Why do they have to go back to 2014 to give Flynn the journal? If giving the journal is important, why must they wait until 2023?

They were just trying to answer all the remaining questions and one of the biggest of this series was when and why Lucy gave Flynn her journal. I suppose we were meant to think they needed to do this in order to close the time loop, but they've never felt the need to do that before. They don't go back and give 2018 Lucy and Wyatt the upgraded lifeboat, for example, since they prevented that future from happening, but wouldn't that mean the lifeboat would never get upgraded? There's really no consistency to this. It was a just a way of answering the remaining question.

[tv echo]

I liked the Timeless series finale overall. I liked that Team Timeless all supported each other and were willing to sacrifice for each other. I've always had a soft spot for these kinds of 'found family' dramas. I never seriously doubted that Lucy & Wyatt would end up together. Flynn's redemption arc was believable. Rufus & Jiya's love story was touching.

However, the story and character arcs were rushed (understandably, since they were trying to tie up loose ends and resolve arcs that would normally be spread out over a season in two hours). I also found the ending a little confusing in terms of what Flynn was doing and the significance of the little girl designing a time ship.

But, as I said, I thought the series finale was good and it gave me some closure on this show.

Plus, I loved the wanted posters (pic courtesy of the below fan):

ETA: Timeless co-creator Shawn Ryan did some post-mortem interviews, which I'll post in the News & Media thread.

Edited December 22, 2018 by tv echo

[Bort]

7 minutes ago, tv echo said:

Plus, I loved the wanted posters (pic courtesy of the below fan):

The best part of those wanted posters is that they describe Wyatt as “clean shaven.”

[tv echo]

Correction: Lauren Greer, who tweeted the wanted posters, isn't just a fan, but a member of the Timeless production staff and a Timeless writer...
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7415894/

She also tweeted this pic:

Edited December 22, 2018 by tv echo

[saber5055]

9 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

The best part of those wanted posters is that they describe Wyatt as “clean shaven.”

I was just coming here to say that. That's the first time ever on this show. All of us nagged about him having a five-o'clock shadow in every time zone so he looked like a vagrant.

Funny the crimes the four have committed. Garcia is wanted dead or alive for pilfering! Lucy is a poacher and rustler!

[Camera One]

54 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

They were just trying to answer all the remaining questions and one of the biggest of this series was when and why Lucy gave Flynn her journal. I suppose we were meant to think they needed to do this in order to close the time loop, but they've never felt the need to do that before. They don't go back and give 2018 Lucy and Wyatt the upgraded lifeboat, for example, since they prevented that future from happening, but wouldn't that mean the lifeboat would never get upgraded? There's really no consistency to this. It was a just a way of answering the remaining question.

This was apparently an idea that showrunner Eric Kripke was "adamant" about.  He was one of the main reasons I had reservations about this show from the start and made it obvious they were really never going to live up to the premise.  I'm just surprise that despite him, the show was still character-driven enough and provided enough closure at the end for me to still care, considering the travesty that was his series "Revolution".

Quote

As for the Time Team’s final trip, Ryan credits co-creator Eric Kripke for the idea to have Lucy close the loop and give Flynn her journal in 2014. “He was always the one that was adamant about how at some point, near the end of the run of this show, we’ve got to go back to Brazil, and we’ve got to see Future Lucy give Flynn this journal,” Ryan says. “That was something that was very important to him. He was always fighting for that.”

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, Electruck said:

I enjoyed it, though I was bothered the whole time they were in NK by their ridiculous outfits — the lack of preparation for the bitter cold despite knowing just how freezing cold it was going to be and mentioning that they needed to prepare for it! Yes they had to blend in, but argh!

The fact that some of them weren't even wearing anything on their heads was ridiculous.

I did find the nun being killed joke a little tasteless, especially when they were trying to put across the message that every life counts, combined with all the grief over Flynn.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Camera One

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, kariyaki said:

The best part of those wanted posters is that they describe Wyatt as “clean shaven.”

Hah! You're right!

[North of Eden]

What made the show for me was that Agent Christopher finally got to time travel AND save the day! After Mason went back in time I was wondering if Denise would ever get the opportunity and then it happened at last.

A lot of good stuff like a wink and a nod to the TITANIC adventure being shown as promo advertising and never materializing....YET.

To me the biggest thing never resolved was Jia having a vision of San Francisco in smoking ruins in the season ONE finale and yet there was never any payoff to what that was all about.

Emma made for a delicous villian and it was nice to see Annie W. play a bad guy.

Things I would have liked to have seen in a full season three would be the actual Flynn/Lucy fling and more of the "Tomb Raider" versions of Wyatt and Lucy from the future.

It is astonishing that no other outlet picked this up but other things like Brooklyn 99 find a lifeline and the corpses of shows like Murphy Brown and now 90210 are being dusted off and resurrected but nobody....not even Syfy....aware of the rabid fanbase don't want this? It just doesn't make sense.

To sum it up when it was over I was....I want more!

[shapeshifter]

26 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

It is astonishing that no other outlet picked this up but other things like Brooklyn 99 find a lifeline and the corpses of shows like Murphy Brown and now 90210 are being dusted off and resurrected but nobody....not even Syfy....aware of the rabid fanbase don't want this? It just doesn't make sense.

To sum it up when it was over I was....I want more!

Maybe in 20 years it will be Timeless's turn to be dusted off with a 30-something Paulina as the lead engineer of a fourth dimensional traveling orb project. And in 20 years it will probably be easy as pie to create realistic CGI'd versions of Lucy and the gang for Paulina to go back and visit for pointers—like, be sure to bring down jackets and hats with earflaps to North Korea at Christmas.

[KaveDweller]

I thought of a nitpick with them saving Rufus. 

Because they re-killed Jessica, Jiya never got kidnapped and never ended up in Chinatown. So, Rufus never went after her and never got shot. But, Chinatown is where Emma killed Lucy's mother and great-grandfather. I believe they went there after Lucy/Wyatt/Rufus. If Rufus reappeared in the timeline, why didn't the others? Are we just supposed to assume Emma just killed them elsewhere?

[Electruck]

5 hours ago, North of Eden said:

To me the biggest thing never resolved was Jia having a vision of San Francisco in smoking ruins in the season ONE finale and yet there was never any payoff to what that was all about.

I had had the *exact* same thought, kept waiting for an ep about it, then an interview comment cleared it up, especially after rewatching that ep.

Her vision wasn’t SF in ruins, it was the bridge being built. Though the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge were both built in the 1930s, so I’m not sure what the vision meant.

 

https://www.tvguide.com/news/timeless-spoilers-jiya-visions-future-past/

[reggiejax]

Quote

Did she land in SF in 1885 when she piloted it drugged, then they retrieved her in 1888?

Pretty much. Same thing happened to Emma. She hid out in the old west for about 10 years before Flynn came to recruit her for his team. So she had aged 10 years, even though she hadn't been gone nearly that long from the present. 

Speaking of Emma, was anyone else hoping she survived being shot, and ended up spending the rest of her life in a North Korean prison? Because that is what she deserved. 

And speaking of North Korea, I can't have been the only person running fictional scenarios involving the MASH 4077th in their mind while those scenes aired. Or maybe thinking that Emma's master plan was to prevent a clumsy private by the name of Whitman from accidentally killing his Lieutenant, thereby preventing an advertising career that peaked with an iconic Coke commercial. And as a result, Pepsi would win the Cola wars, causing untold ripples through the fabric of time. 

Or maybe it was just me. ;) 

Edited December 23, 2018 by reggiejax

[iMonrey]

In hindsight it seems like Rittenhouse was taken down way too easily after all the buildup it was given over two seasons. All Christopher had to do was storm the headquarters and arrest the leader, apparently, with the help of Lucy's father. I would have thought there would be any number of high ranking members ready to step in and fill that leadership. The whole idea of Rittenhouse was always the weakest part of the show so I guess it's not surprising it went out with a whimper instead of a bang. But it still seems like the answer to taking them down would should have been found through time travel rather than in present day.

[Booklady1017]

On 12/22/2018 at 12:28 AM, The Wild Sow said:

Lucy's father (but not her Mom's husband.)

Awwwww, that was a nice wrap-up.  I'm going to miss this show.

I had gotten the impression they were going to have some sort of scene together (her bio father and her half brother) where they would all meet (and meet the brother) but that didn't happen. Did anyone else feel the way they resolved the Rittenhouse issue was super quick and not really clear?

On 12/22/2018 at 2:50 AM, bros402 said:

Well she bribed the soldier to pick them up in his helicopter - presumably to kill them, along with himself, then his family would be provided for. Instead, Wyatt saved them, and they ended up dying in a massacre that they caused, until Agent Christopher appeared from the future.

Whenever Jessica was a kid, Rittenhouse went to their family, offered them treatment for her brother's cancer (Presumably from the future) - and Jessica became a Rittenhouse agent.

Wyatt figured it out while reading over the journal for presumably the umpteenth time, around the camp fire.

I went to high school in 2008 and we didn't have enough time to get past WW2! Not even in an AP European History class or an AP US History Class!

Thanks for explaining about Jessica.

On 12/22/2018 at 9:22 AM, CooperTV said:

Don’t try and explain time travel. It never makes sense and it always makes my head hurt (c) Pete Lattimer, Warehouse 13.

Timey wimey stuff. :)

On 12/22/2018 at 11:49 AM, Notwisconsin said:

Now, the final question is whether or not the Journal given to our heroes by Bearded Wyatt and angry Lucy was the same one as the one that our Lucy gave to Flynn or was it the one our Lucy was making?

The new lifeboat was built by no one at all as soon as Rufus came back to life.

That's a good point about the journal.

[Booklady1017]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

In hindsight it seems like Rittenhouse was taken down way too easily after all the buildup it was given over two seasons. All Christopher had to do was storm the headquarters and arrest the leader, apparently, with the help of Lucy's father. I would have thought there would be any number of high ranking members ready to step in and fill that leadership. The whole idea of Rittenhouse was always the weakest part of the show so I guess it's not surprising it went out with a whimper instead of a bang. But it still seems like the answer to taking them down would should have been found through time travel rather than in present day.

You just said what I have been thinking. They didn't give a good resolution of how they resolved the Rittenhouse problem. It apppeared and was alluded that maybe with Lucy's father's help, they were able to stop any other potential leaders, but it wasn't really explained well. 

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

In hindsight it seems like Rittenhouse was taken down way too easily after all the buildup it was given over two seasons. All Christopher had to do was storm the headquarters and arrest the leader, apparently, with the help of Lucy's father. I would have thought there would be any number of high ranking members ready to step in and fill that leadership. The whole idea of Rittenhouse was always the weakest part of the show so I guess it's not surprising it went out with a whimper instead of a bang. But it still seems like the answer to taking them down would should have been found through time travel rather than in present day.

Near the end of the episode, they were all celebrating and I was thinking "Huh?  What about defeating Rittenhouse?"  It definitely wasn't clear at all and took me out of the moment a little.  So they needed Rufus to defeat Rittenhouse because???  

But as you said, Rittenhouse was the weakest part of the show, and clearly they were just making it up as they went along.  From the interviews, the producer said they didn't know how many seasons which implied they didn't have an overarching plan.   The only thing that seemed important to them was Lucy from the Future going to talk to Flynn.  After everything, I still think Lucy's notebook from the future was a weak plot point and I didn't really need to see a finale revolving around it.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Camera One

[possibilities]

Plotting was never worth shit on this show. I don't think if we think about it hard enough we will get an answer to those questions,  it will just unravel further.

[Bort]

The biggest threat from Rittenhouse was them having the time machine. I’m fine with them considering Rittenhouse all but neutralized. They got a good bit of them last season and now they have no time machine anymore, so any further investigation will be an ordinary one.