It’s getting weird!
(This review contains
spoilers!)
My biggest criticism since the pilot
for Timeless was that it wasn’t really concerned in moving the plot along…at
all. For the past four episodes, nothing of any significance has happened, and
we’ve really only been watching the characters make their way through episodic
adventures that don’t really matter in the long run.
While The Watergate Tape wasn’t a huge
departure from Timeless’s depressing norm, it was certainly a step in the right
direction, and for the first time since the Abraham Lincoln episode I find
myself excited for the next one.
The crew follow Flynn back to Nixon’s
Washington, where they are promptly captured by him. He sends Lucy and Rufus
out to find a secret document for him in exchange for Wyatt’s life. On their
way, the truth about Rufus recording the missions is revealed, everyone starts
to doubt Lucy after Flynn reveals her journal, and even more crazy twists come
into play.
Flynn continues to be the most
interesting part of Timeless, although this week his acting seemed a bit off to
me. It seemed less like Wyatt was being held hostage by the calm and in control
villain Flynn seemed to be and more like he was the prisoner of Cosmo Kramer. Maybe
they’re trying to show that this is what Flynn is really like here, but it
ultimately felt like more of a departure from what the character usually is.
Despite that, Flynn was once again the
highlight this week, as he finally revealed his past. After discovering
Writtenhouse (who seems more and more like they’re going to be the true big bad
in this series) making some illegal financial transactions, Writtenhouse had
his wife and daughter killed, prompting him to steal the time machine and begin
this whole mess. With how the show has been hinting (pounding it into our
heads, more like) that Flynn is actually the good guy in all of this, it’s nice
to finally get some context for him and why he’s doing this. At this point in
the show it’s near certain that Lucy will join up with him in the near future,
as predicted by the journal.
Unfortunately, that leads me to my
first issue, and it’s a big one. From this point, I can clearly see where
Timeless is going to end. I’d recommend skipping to the next paragraph if you
don’t want yourself accidentally spoiled should I get it correct, but it’s
really kind of obvious. Lucy and Flynn take the time machine back to when
Writtenhouse first started up, kill everyone integral to the organization, and
as a result, Flynn’s family never gets killed, he never steals the time
machine, Lucy’s sister is back, and so on and so forth. Maybe the writers will
surprise me, but at this point that seems like the most obvious story going
forth.
Onto the rest of the episode, I cannot
stress enough how nice it is to finally have conflict between our characters
again. The trio of Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus worked together surprisingly well
considering how different their motives were in episode 1, and the show has
done bugger-all to show any progression in their relationships. Having them say
“oh but since they’ve all gone on these missions together that makes them have
a bond” isn’t enough. Despite how good it is that none of them trust each other
anymore, adding a new conflict we really haven’t seen yet, it’s kind of hard to
grasp when we’ve never seen a believable partnership between the three. I am
glad that a monkey wrench has finally been thrown in the gears, though, because
I don’t think I could handle another episode of “go back in time, switch stuff
around, and return home with no consequences”.
The best part of the episode was
easily the ending, as things are finally starting
to get interesting. Rufus is challenging Writtenhouse by working as a double
agent for Wyatt, keeping them updated on what the organization is doing. But
even more interesting than that is that Lucy’s biological father seems to be the
member of Writtenhouse that keeps speaking to Lucy, and while she doesn’t know
who he really is, he knows her. While this is an easily predictable twist
(imagine how boring it would be if her father was some random guy), it’s a good
one, and one I hope to see developed more.
While far from perfect, The Watergate
Tape proves to me that Timeless can still be taken seriously. I still say it
was an awful idea to have the sixth episode be only the second one that
ultimately matters in the long run, because the impact of those worthless
episodes likely caused a lot of viewers to drop the show due to losing
interest. But this week we saw Timeless succeed, and I hope this is the start
of a long string of good episodes.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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