Just a little shy of 13 months ago was the season one finale of Timeless and we waited a long two and a half months for NBC to cancel then renew Timeless. The cancellation only lasted three days before NBC changed their minds. Yet there were still many fans who were surprised to see the season two premiere on Sunday, March 11. The writers and producers knocked the season two premiere out of the ballpark. There’s only ten episodes this season, so storylines are moving fast, and so far they’re executed perfectly. I believe we’re up for a lot of twists, cat and mouse chases between Emma and Lucy, and will make for great challenges as the team is forced to work with Flynn.
*Warning: Spoilers ahead!
The season one finale ended with Lucy stopping at her mom’s house to reveal she’s been time traveling and was going to get her sister, Amy, back. Lucy tells Carol that she was sick in that timeline. Carol stops her by revealing she’s been Rittenhouse all along, calling Lucy Rittenhouse “royalty”. She tells Lucy they’ll never allow her to go back to let Carol get sick. She also reveals there’s a Rittenhouse agent controlling the Mothership – Emma who was with Rittenhouse all along.
Season two starts with Wyatt and Rufus dressed for the 1970s, calling Lucy to find out why she’s late. She’s obsessed with getting her sister back but oddly she’s late. Wyatt sees a flashing light then an explosion goes off in Mason Industries.
We see that six months later, Jiya, Wyatt, Rufus, Agent Christopher, and Connor Mason survived, some with some serious wounds. They have been moved to a government owned, off the grid bunker that was available on short notice. Wyatt feels like a prisoner as he can’t leave to go find Lucy. Agent Christopher informs him that they have drones and satellites searching, checking phone records, and are using all resources they have looking for Lucy. She tells them the only way they’re leaving that bunker is via the time machine. They have no clue how powerful Rittenhouse still is out there. And frankly neither do we! But I love seeing how determined Wyatt is to get Lucy back.
As Rufus attempts the first test run since fixing the Lifeboat, it malfunctions and stops working. He sneaks in a shout out to the fan base when he yells “friggin’ clock blocker!”
Nobody wants to be bothered with Connor Mason who doesn’t seem to have it all together. Agent Christopher can see the grief Mason is going through and tells everybody to respect that. I believe Mason is a misunderstood man, but I’m still a little skeptical about him. I believe there’s still a lot we don’t know about him.
Wyatt tells Agent Christopher he’s not grieving because Lucy’s not dead. He believes Rittenhouse has her, trying to recruit her. However, they still believe it’s her dad’s connections to Rittenhouse who has her. I wonder if we’ll see any repercussions for the arrest of Benjamin Cahill and Agent Neville anytime this season?
Elsewhere, Lucy holds a newspaper with the headline proclaiming 22 dead at Mason Industries. She’s dressed for the 1900s, seems kind of lost looking at herself until her mom walks in, who’s dressed like her. Carol tells Lucy how proud she is of her for how far she’s come along these past few weeks. She reminds her how important this trip is for the both of them. They jump back to France in 1918, with Emma piloting the Mothership. Carol is happy she and Lucy are finally there together, just like she’d always hoped. Meanwhile Lucy is not happy about changing history, yet she’s forced comply with her mother.
They wait at a farmhouse for two days. Emma grows impatient with how long they’ve been waiting. Lucy asks who this important person is. Her mom answers that his name is Nicholas Keynes, but that’s all she needs to know. You can see Lucy’s brain working, trying to recall if he’s some important historical person.
There’s going to be a lot of tension between Emma and Lucy this season. Emma tells Lucy she’s always been loyal to Rittenhouse from the start. Saying some of them aren’t royalty like her. Emma had to work her way up while Lucy ran away from having everything handed to her. Carol reminds Lucy this trip is to prove her loyalty to Rittenhouse. Once she does, all her questions will be answered.
When a soldier finally brings the severely injured Nicholas Keynes, Emma and Carol start helping him. Carol tells the soldier she and Lucy volunteer for the American Committee for Devestated France and Emma is a nurse. Emma tells Lucy to get the soldier out of there.
When she gets the defibrillator out to resuscitate Nicholas, the soldier thinks Emma is trying to kill him. Emma gets annoyed and shoots him in the leg. Carol tells her she’s a better shot then that and Emma agrees, but feels Lucy should take care of it, to protect the mission and to prove she’s either with them or she’s not.
Emma tells Carol that Nicholas’ body is riddled with shrapnel and can’t work on him without an x-ray. Lucy quickly remembers x-ray machines could be brought to them. They head to the nearest field hospital, looking for a Petite Curie, a portable x-ray machine. Lucy ends up meeting Irene Curie when asking if she knows how to run the Petite Curie. Lucy has to control her excitement, not only for meeting her, but also her mother, Marie Curie, the inventor. Once Lucy realizes the potential danger of them going back to the farmhouse, she tries talking them into letting another nurse go to show her instead. But Marie Curie insists that she go and show them herself.
Lucy pretends she needs to get a drink of water before heading back. She finds the weapons tent and steals grenades. As she is leaving the tent, a hand grabbs her shoulder. She turns around anticipating a fight to see it is Wyatt. They are happy to see each other alive and Rufus walks in and they have a warming group hug.
Lucy tells them she’s with her mother, who’s Rittenhouse too, but has no time to explain. She tells them she thinks she’s about to kill a soldier but plans on blowing up the Mothership, which they can now take care of. Rufus asks if she really plans on doing that, to which Lucy replies that she thought they were dead and she didn’t plan on getting back home. After she leaves, Rufus asks Wyatt if he is happy that she’s alive. He sits there with a pondering look, taking in what Lucy has just told them. He plays it off and says they do need their historian. Rufus is totally on to him.
Jiya joins Connor at the table where he’s rewatching the explosion on his phone over and over again. He’s sulking about himself when Jiya starts to have what appears to be a seizure, and apparently a new norm since she made that jump in the Lifeboat to Washington, DC, 1954.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYVYfm0pJMw?rel=0
Rufus and Wyatt are preparing to steal a car but are caught by the Captain who was revealed in the opening scene to have a modern day cell phone. Wyatt thinks quickly of an alibi story that “Captain Phillips asked them to save Private Ryan”. The captain asks Rufus which regiment he’s with and Rufus responds, “the black one.” They enter a tent where the soldier that Carol and Emma brought is waiting for them. We see Rufus get a little fighting action with Rittenhouse and Wyatt has an knife fight with the Captain, which is when Wyatt and Rufus find the cell phone.
Irene Curie and Lucy go out to check on the truck because the images are coming out blurry. Irene and Lucy have a lot in common with their moms’ being strict, but wanting what’s best for them. Marie Curie comes out saying the images are still blurry, but there aren’t any problems with the truck. Marie suggests there’s some type of interference around. Everybody looks at each other with worry. Emma takes the x-rays saying they were good enough and Carol thanks them for their help.
Now that Rufus and Wyatt have a car and are headed to the farmhouse, Rufus is complaining about how his family thinks he’s dead and his girlfriend is sick and they don’t know why. He tells Wyatt he thought he’d understand since he’s also worried about the women he loves. Wyatt is confused and Rufus calls him out for being in love with Lucy, but Wyatt neither confirms nor denies those feelings.
Wyatt finds documents, letters, manuscripts, and notes scanned into the phone of ideas for what Rittenhouse can do with a time machine, written in 1910. To correct past mistakes and make the present more favorable to them. Wyatt tells Rufus Rittenhouse wouldn’t have to take over world, they’d already own it. If that isn’t troubling enough, their car runs out of gas. Rufus tries lightening the mood, “Do you want to ask Siri where the nearest gas station is?”
Emma manages to stablelize Nicholas, then needs to talk to Carol about the next steps. Lucy looks at the recovering Nicholas and is about to suffocate him with a pillow until Carol walks in. Carol apologizes for how hard everything has been for Lucy lately and for the loss of her friends. She tells Lucy she wants to be close again, but Lucy says her whole life has been a lie. Carol tells her she does everything for Lucy, but if she tries anything like this again she won’t be able to protect her. Emma comes back and asks “if he is ready”. Carol informs Lucy that Nicholas is going home with them.
Upon arriving back at the Mothership, they find Irene and Marie Curie inspecting the time machine, as that is what was causing the interference to their x-ray machine. Lucy tells Carol that Emma needs to put the gun down. Emma reminds Carol of the rules, anybody who sees the time machines must be killed. Marie Curie tells them to spare her daughter, as her sister wouldn’t have any other family. “My daughters are the only work that matters” she tells them. Carol orders Emma to put the gun down.
In just a few short seconds, Emma draws her gun again. Lucy jumps in front of the Curie’s to protect them. Emma makes it clear she won’t hesitate to kill Lucy. Carol reminds Emma how hard she’s worked to get where she is. She claims Lucy disrupted the mission and pulls out the grenade Lucy had in her bag. Emma tells Carol they can’t protect Lucy anymore, when Wyatt chimes in, “I can.”
He has a gun pointed at Nicholas’ head, saying he’ll kill him unless they hand Lucy over. After an intense stand off, Emma let’s Lucy go and they give them Nicholas. Lucy tries convincing her mom to be on the right side of history, but Carol tells her this is so much bigger than them. Emma tells Lucy they can follow them, fight them, keep the Lifeboat, but she’s never going to get her sister back. Not after the trips she took on the Mothership to make sure that no matter what Lucy did, no matter where she went, her sister is never coming back. She adds it’s what Carol told her to do. It’s a tough scene to watch, because Lucy desperately wants her mom to be on their side, but she has chosen to be on the side of Rittenhouse.
The three arrive back at the bunker with Connor and Jiya waiting for their arrival. Lucy then is standing alone in a bedroom. She’s beside herself, thinking about how she was almost never coming home. Wyatt walks in and starts to make small talk. She starts to cry when she realizes she’s lost everything. Wyatt puts his arms around her and tells her she’s still got him. Lucy sits back and they stare into each other’s eyes. It appears they are about to kiss until Jiya interrupts by walking in.
She brings the two to Mason who has solved the quantum gravity equation, discovering that the Mothership has visited ten different destinations over the past six weeks. History could have changed and they wouldn’t even know it. Rufus informs them he’s been reading the plans about pressure points, that they want to change key moments in history to change the present. He compares Rittenhouse’s ideal world to somewhere between the Hunger Games and Handmaid’s Tale.
Wyatt can only assume all those trips were because of sleeper cells. Agents are already planted throughout history, living regular lives, waiting to be activated. When Lucy asks if there is anything about Nicholas Keynes in there, Wyatt tells her it was Nicholas who wrote this manifesto. Lucy informs them he is the soldier who Emma and Carol brought back to the present.
Nobody can make sense of the notes they have discovered until Agent Christopher gets an idea. She’s seen walking down down a hallway and enters the jail cell of Garcia Flynn. She tells him something’s happened and they need to talk. He tells her he’ll only talk to Lucy.
I’m happy to see them have Flynn join the team with the fight against Rittenhouse. In the preview into the season we see they go to the Darlington 500, Hollywood, and Salem Witch Trials. I can only imagine what Rittenhouse has in store for the Time Team! I hope Amy is not lost for good.
R.A. Blackburn
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