Recap: TIMELESS Captures Benedict Arnold

Season 1, Episode 10 “The Capture of Benedict Arnold”
Written by Tom Smuts
Directed by John F. Showalter

Betrayal is the theme of the day as the team travels back to the time of Benedict Arnold (Curtis Caravaggio) and his betrayal of our newly emerging country.

We open as we usually do, with history the way it was. Benedict Arnold escapes capture by George Washington (Damian O’Hare), mostly by the simple expedient of limping away from his house and leaving his wife with a small baby to deal with the irate general.

Back in the present, Lucy (Abigail Spencer) is invited to Agent Christopher’s (Sakina Jaffrey) house to meet her wife and kids. Agent Christopher hands her a flash drive with family photos and memories on it in case her family gets wiped out by a time change.

Connor Mason (Paterson Joseph) warns Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) that he’d better bring back a recording with no gaps or anomalies in it. He does this after he’s been drinking.

Our trio takes a moment to enjoy the sensation of being in the 1780s as our nation was emerging. It’s always better to mix a little wonder in with the adversity, to take a moment for the characters to be awed by the fact that they are traveling in time.

Flynn (Goran Visnjic) rescues them from capture. At some point in this episode he kills General Cornwallis and doesn’t care. They’re all going to be lucky if they aren’t speaking French when they get back.

They meet George Washington. He’s not a lot of fun. He comes to the conclusion that they are famous double agents, mostly because Flynn is playing the part of a famous spy and told him they were double agents. Flynn tries to talk them into going after Benedict Arnold with him because Benedict Arnold was a founding member of Rittenhouse and wrote the letter found in the clock. So, they end up fleeing the patriots and going over to the Redcoat side to find Benedict Arnold. In real life he was never brought to justice and lived in England quite happily.

They talk Benedict Arnold into taking them to Rittenhouse. He rolls over easy. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. Rittenhouse is one man at this point, the founder, and they leap at the chance to nip it in the bud. Well, Wyatt (Matt Lanter) and Rufus do. Lucy is not so sure. All of this discussion takes place while it’s being recorded on the tape that Rufus is supposed to deliver clean.

The one man turns out to be a man with his own army, associates everywhere, and a well indoctrinated child (Jake Brennan). Before they burst in, Arnold warns them that Rittenhouse would want Lucy for his bed and Rufus for his fields, so they keep Rufus outside. They encounter the kid, John Rittenhouse, at first. Lucy has a nice conversation with him, which is how we know what his father’s ideas are. Peasants can’t be expected to take care of themselves, you know. The room is covered with clocks, which shouldn’t be surprising because the scroll that lead them there was found by Garcia Flynn in an old clock. It shows that Rittenhouse is interested in time. None of the clocks are on the same time.

Rittenhouse is rotten all the way through. He’s an old man and does want Lucy for his bed, which explains why he has a young son. He kills Benedict Arnold, who tries to flip back to Rittenhouse’s side. He says if he will betray his best friend in all the world, he would betray him. It proves that he’s a smart man. Most people don’t believe that they will be treated the way that someone treats others. Then Lucy is to be hauled away for breeding purposes and Wyatt and Flynn executed.

But they left Rufus to his own devices and he found a soldier guarding a bunch of slaves and took him down and grabbed his gun. (Why didn’t Wyatt hand him a gun this time?) I was hoping for a slave rebellion but no, it’s just Rufus barreling in through the window and saving the day. Yay, Rufus! Nerd hero! (I still think maybe he should have been the protagonist). A melee ensues and Flynn kills Rittenhouse. Our guys, Rufus, Flynn, Wyatt and Lucy are the only ones left standing. But the kid is missing.

And now they have run straight into the Hitler dilemma. Do you kill Hitler as a baby when he hasn’t committed any atrocities yet? Only in this case, they don’t and can’t know if the kid will follow in his father’s footsteps now that he’s gone. Flynn goes after him right away. Lucy tells Wyatt and Rufus to find Flynn and she will look for the kid. This is a nonsensical piece of direction because if she and Flynn are looking for the kid and have any idea where to look, they will encounter each other first. Which is what happens.

Flynn finds the kid and, for once, hesitates to shoot. He steels himself to do it and Lucy throws herself and her wide skirts in front of the kid. She argues with him, tells him he can’t go back from this, etc. He argues back. By the time he moves her, the kid is gone.

Flynn is infuriated and he grabs Lucy and hauls her to the mother ship, which has a cloaking device that the lifeboat sorely needs. Rufus and Wyatt are left staring as the ship disappears.

It was an exciting midseason finale with a cliffhanger ending. How will they get Lucy back? How will Wyatt and Rufus survive time traveling without her? What’s going to happen when they get back home? No one’s going to be happy that Lucy was kidnapped. Rufus won’t be able to hand over the tape, and if Rittenhouse still exists, they are going to know who killed their founder.

The world may be very changed when they see it again. Or it could be much the same.

This episode proves a few things I’ve been complaining about. Take some time to teach Rufus and Lucy how to fight. If she could fight at all, she might have been able to tear herself away from Flynn. Give Rufus some training instead of making him learn on the job. For crying out loud, let Wyatt go save his wife so he doesn’t lose his mind every time someone mentions that it could be done or that they know who the killer is.

We get to see that Flynn is not entirely heartless in this episode. Not just because he hesitates to kill the boy, but because his plan is to leave his family once he knows that they are alive again and are safe in the timeline. He knows that he has become something evil: someone that it would not be good for them to be around.

The last few episodes have shown improvement. I am looking forward to what’s going to happen in the rest of the season. Because NBC ordered three new episodes, Timeless will be back on January 16th and run through Feb. 20th to complete its freshman 16 hours. Whether it will be picked up after that remains to be seen.

Timeless returns on January 16th at 10 pm/9c on NBC.

[tfp username=’SciFi4Me’]