“Stranded” just happens to be one of my two favorite episodes from season 1. Not just because I grew up an hour away from Pittsburgh where the episode’s based, but because they come together and work out their differences as a team to get home.
Spoilers ahead!
Tensions are high between Lucy, Rufus, and Wyatt as their secrets have come to light in The Watergate Tape episode. Wyatt and Rufus had learned that Lucy lied to them about all the times she’s talked to Flynn and never mentioned the journal he has written by her. Rufus later comes clean with Lucy that he’s been forced to record and spy on them for Rittenhouse.
As this episode starts, Rufus’ fire has caught the attention of the French troops and the three are captured and accused of being British spies. While they sit with their hands tied together, Lucy tell Rufus and Wyatt “I think that’s Lieutenant Louis Coulon. He’s the only man George Washington has ever surrendered to.” Wyatt tells Lucy to stop, he doesn’t want any history lessons right now. Rufus starts complaining about how awful the past three days have been which leads Wyatt to complain of listening to Rufus’ whining. Lucy jumps in and mentions how Flynn is still out here and that they need to work together to find him. “Work together? Really? Cause Rufus is over there recording us for Rittenhouse” Wyatt says leaning closer to Rufus.
Wyatt gets the idea to offend the soldier who’s observing his modern gun. “How do I say ‘I have sex with your mother’ in French?” Wyatt asks Lucy. When he explained he’s trying to do his job, she reluctantly tells him. The soldier walks over after Wyatt asks him the question and Wyatt uses the bayonet on the end of the sword to cut the rope from his wrists. He fights them off and kills the son of Lieutenant Coulon.
As they make their escape, Wyatt throws the recorder in a lake and tells them they can say whatever the hell they want now. Rufus has no idea how he’s going to explain this to Mason. They still have no idea why Flynn came back to the French and Indian War. A 22-year-old George Washington is fighting for the British against the French and Indians. “Maybe Flynn wants to change the outcome of the war?” Lucy thinks out loud. “So what, we become the United States of France?” Rufus asked.
As they head back to the Lifeboat, two of Flynn’s guys are putting C-4 on the Lifeboat. Wyatt kills the man with the remote before he can set it off. The other guy shoots an explosive with his gun, making a hole on the outside. Rufus starts chasing him down, because the Mothership is their last chance to get back to the 21st century. The door closes before they can get in and the Mothership disappears.
Lucy tries explaining herself to Wyatt as he searches the dead guy’s body for anything relating to Flynn’s trip there. She apologizes for not telling him about the journal, but Wyatt is more upset about the deal she made with Agent Christopher. “You said to figure out what you’re fighting for. Well, I’m fighting for Amy” she tells him.
There’s serious damage to the circuitry. Lucy asks Rufus to name the items needed to fix the capacitor because they’re less than twenty miles from Fort Duquesne. “Fort Duquesne? The fort that the French soldiers came from, including the one I killed?” Wyatt asked. They have no other option. Rufus suddenly remembers the Protocol. He has Wyatt and Lucy follow specific instructions to leave Mason a message in a non-biodegradable polyethylene capsule. “Connor will fly to this spot with a team of archeologists and dig this up” Rufus explains. Lucy points out that they’re standing in what’s going to be a suburb of Pittsburgh. “I mean, who knows what could happen to this patch of land over 260 years?” she wonders. Rufus also doesn’t know if it will actually work, as it has never been done before.
When Connor Mason and Jiya tell Agent Christopher it’s been three hours since Flynn has returned to present time, they immediately think something has happened to the Lifeboat or the team. Mason then tells Jiya to stop moping around and get her head in the game. “Why do you think we have the protocol?” he reminds her.
Mason gets a call from the Rittenhouse guy (who we found out is Benjamin Cahill, Lucy’s biological father in episode 6). He’s upset that the Mothership and Lifeboat are missing, along with singling out Lucy. “We’ve lost our whole team, but you only mention Lucy” Connor muses, deducing that strings were pulled to include Lucy on these missions. Cahill reminds him of the nature of their relationship, but Connor cuts him off, “This machine is our relationship. Without it, and without all my team back, we don’t have a relationship.” Walking up, Agent Christopher asks who he was speaking to, but Mason plays it off, which makes her all the more suspicious of him.
As the three are walking through the woods, Lucy explains how this all will be downtown Pittsburgh one day, taking in all the beauty that’s still around. Rufus starts on another hissy fit then tries eating berries from a bush. Wyatt stops him from eating the poisonous berries and the two argue, leading to one of the episode’s key team building moments:
They walk through the water so the French can’t follow their tracks. Rufus finds a dead French soldier once they get back on land. Wyatt starts taking the uniform off, to have better luck entering a French fort dressed as a French soldier, until he notices the body is warm and only recently killed. Suddenly they’re surrounded by Indians. They are tied to posts and hear battle cries after being taken prisoner. Lucy hopes that Wyatt had a plan to get them out of this, but there is no way to escape.
Meanwhile Agent Christopher is able to get Homeland Security to evacuate the street where the capsule has been buried. Jiya asks how, and Agent Christopher tells her that they told the residents that they were CDC and found Zika mosquitoes in the neighborhood. Mason approaches Jiya and mentions that he has noticed that she and Rufus are close. “I think it would mean a lot to him to know how worried you are” Mason tells her. When the capsule is found they discover that it has been cracked. When they pulled the note out the message is blank.
Considering the possibility that they will never get home, Rufus, Lucy, and Wyatt start opening up to each other about their regrets and what they wish they had time to fix. Rufus wants one last chocodile, but wishes he had told Jiya how he feels about her. Lucy remembers the books her mom read to her as a kid and regrets never having had time to have kids. Wyatt regrets telling his wife “Relax, we have all the time in the world” when she wanted a baby before she died. Lucy apologizes to Wyatt for saying Jessica’s death was meant to be. “What’s the point of having a time machine if you can’t fix your regrets?” Rufus ponders.
The Shawnee tribe members come back with their chief. Wyatt is surprised to see she is a woman. The Chieftess introduces herself as Nonhelema, and Lucy introduces herself as Dr. Quinn, a medicine woman, telling her that Wyatt is her brother. Nonhelema knows she is lying right away. She orders them to be killed but to spare Rufus, as she assumes that he was forced to be involved. Rufus sticks up for Lucy and Wyatt, admitting that they haven’t been telling the truth, but that they only want to go home. She lets them go with a stern warning. Lucy thanks Rufus for his bravery and they formulate a plan for Lucy and Wyatt to stall the French troops while Rufus finds the supplies needed to fix the Lifeboat in the fort.
Lucy pretends to be a nurse caring for Wyatt, who can’t speak due to an injury in battle. They ask if their servant (Rufus) can get the supplies they need and their plan works. Rufus finds supplies throughout the fort, then has the opportunity to do some blacksmith work. A doctor arrives and to address Wyatt’s “injury”. When Lucy learns that the doctor wants to inject mercury anally, she tells Wyatt to knock him out. Rufus meets up with them and they learn that Lieutenant Coulon, whose son they have killed, is at the gate. They quickly jump over the wall to escape. Back at the Lifeboat, Wyatt gets the hole patched up and Rufus hopes that Jiya and Mason have received their message.
Meanwhile, Mason’s team have run three tests on the “blank” letter from the capsule and all they can recover are the words “death” and “millennium”. Mason pours Jiya a drink and they discuss how they each met Rufus. Mason had taken him under his wing because he had perceived his talents. Jiya is a Star Trek fan and Rufus is a Star Wars fan and Rufus had joked with her that they could never be friends. As she’s trying to remain positive, she knows he’ll come back any moment acting heroic like Han Solo.. when suddenly she realizes what he was trying to say. “He made an analogy to the Star Wars movie, it’s like what the Death Star did to the Millenium Falcon” she tells Mason. Their nav system is down and Jiya has to catch them mid-jump, take over the controls, and guide them home.
Back in 1754, the French are starting to close in on the team. They jump inside the Lifeboat as the soldiers started shooting at it. Rufus gets it started but in its damaged state, its not working correctly. The French are in disbelief as it vanishes, but inside the team aren’t sure if they’re going to survive the trip. The trio hold hands and hope the Lifeboat can make the jump and that Jiya will be able to help them from the present.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvQnMIlp0BM?rel=0
Surprise – Jiya is successful and they land a bit roughly in Mason Industries. After Rufus gets back into his normal clothes, Jiya approaches him and says they know each other better than they thought. Rufus starts talking about work to avoid an awkward silence when Jiya suddenly kisses him “for making it back”.
As things settle back to normal, Agent Christopher asks her boss, Deputy Director Patrick Ramsey, for his authorization for a surveillance operation on Connor Mason. When asked why, she tells him “I think he’s hiding something and I want to know what it is.”
The team’s trip to September 1754 made a lasting impression on the French troops. The “Pennsylvania Orb” incident became one of the earliest UFO sightings in Colonial North America as the group of French soldiers claimed to have seen a giant metal orb with spinning rings disappear before their eyes.
The team go out for a drink to unwind and surprise Rufus with a box of chocodiles. Alll three are just glad to be back in the present day. Lucy again tells Wyatt she knows how angry he was with her about the journal, but wishes he would’ve asked why she didn’t tell him about it. She’s trying to be honest with herself but doesn’t know if it really is her handwriting or not. Her whole life she has thought everything happens for a reason. “If this is my job now, protecting history, preserving the past, saving the things that are meant to be, how can I believe in fate and not believe in my own fate?” she asks them. Rufus knows they’re in uncharted water and doesn’t have an explanation for this. Wyatt gives her the example of taking a drink and asks her if it was meant to be. “You made the choice, Lucy. And that’s what history is, right? It’s choices. Some small and stupid, some monumental. But we make them. So if you’re not happy with the history that Flynn has predicted for you, then rewrite it.”
This trip has built trust among them and they are more open with each other. Their characters really start building with each other from this mission and now the journal is in the control of Lucy. Will she start making a history for herself?
R.A. Blackburn
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