TIMELESS Has a Regime Change
Season 1, Episode 14 “The Lost Generation”
Written by Kent Rotherham and David Hoffman
Directed by Craig Zisk
Our trio still struggles with where their loyalties lie. As bad as Rittenhouse is, Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic) wreaks havoc across time and hurts people. Lucy (Abigail Spencer) thoroughly rejected her Rittenhouse heritage to her biological father. In the last episode, Wyatt (Matt Lanter) got hauled off for stealing the time machine and attempting to save his wife. In this episode, the status quo is overturned and our Time Team will have to make some serious decisions.
Currently, we have three different factions: Rittenhouse, Flynn and his people, who want to stop Rittenhouse, and our protagonists, who are being used by Rittenhouse to stop Flynn. They will have to decide which side to pick or if they are going to try to stop both Rittenhouse and Flynn.
We start off where we left off, with Lucy talking to her father (John Getz), who is an agent of Rittenhouse. What is interesting about that talk is that he talks about how he took it worse than she did when he was first told he was an heir of Rittenhouse at seventeen years of age.
Wyatt was sent to a black site. That’s something that seems to be common in story lines these days, sending protagonists off to black sites.
Lucy tells Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) and Agent Christopher (Sakina Jaffrey) that Benjamin Cahill is her father and that she went to see him. They don’t take it well, but they don’t have time to deal with it because Flynn jumped, to 1927 on the day that Lindbergh (Jesse Luken) landed in Paris on his transatlantic flight.
They get a new soldier, Dave Baumgardner AKA Bam-Bam (Victor Zinck, Jr), who was going to be Wyatt’s replacement when they weren’t happy with Wyatt’s failure to kill Flynn.
Garcia shoots down Lucky Lindy, ruining his solo transatlantic flight and his shoulder. He didn’t do this to mess up history. He did this because he knows that Lindbergh is a Rittenhouse heir.
Charles Lindbergh, in real life, besides being a pilot that was brave to the point of foolhardiness, was a mixed bag of patriotism, isolationism, and anti-semitism. He believed in eugenics and the survival of the white race. He had a stable marriage with Anne Morrow Lindbergh and six children, but he also tried to single-handedly repopulate Europe, having seven children with three different women overseas. This is why they chose him as a member of Rittenhouse for the purposes of the story.
Our team, with Bam Bam substituting for Wyatt, investigates the site of the crash. They run into Ernest Hemingway (Brandon Barash), who finds a clue that leads them to a club where they meet Josephine Baker (Tiffany Daniels), and see Picasso and the Fitzgeralds from a distance. Josephine Baker had a remarkable life. She’s well worth reading about. Lucy looks great in her flapper getup. It’s a style that suits her well. Poor Wyatt is missing all this.
Meantime, back at the ranch, Jiya (Claudia Doumit) and Agent Christopher have a swarm of people who claim they are in charge now. The head honcho claiming to be in charge is Jake Neville, NSA, played by Jim Beaver! It’s great to see him. He hands Christopher her pink slip.
Wyatt, in his secret cell, tells Agent Christopher that they couldn’t have cleared all those people overnight. This is verified by what happened earlier — Connor Mason (Paterson Joseph) with bios spread out on the table telling Neville they’ve been checked over and over again. Wyatt tells Christopher it’s a coup.
A prostitute at the club tells them about an old mansion where they could be hiding Lindbergh. Also, Emma (Annie Wersching) shows up at the club looking for absinthe for Lindbergh’s shoulder. They chase her out of the club and one of Flynn’s minions starts shooting at them.
Lucy asks Baumgardner (Bam-Bam) where his gun is. The kind Wyatt carries. He says he was told that he wasn’t supposed to bring anything back from 2017, and he brought a period piece. “You’re supposed to ignore that rule!” Lucy tells him.
Lucy is right, and so was I. He immediately gets killed. Always bring the best firepower you can.
RELATED: Seven Things You Need When Time Traveling
Lucy and Rufus replace their soldier with an increasingly drunk Hemingway. They find the mansion and Lucy gets grabbed by Flynn’s man. She tries to convince Lindy to leave Rittenhouse. It helps that she has recently discovered her legacy and can talk to him about it. Flynn is listening and gets a lead on a car manufacturer who’s a Rittenhouse guy. Lindbergh says he wants to live on a farm and get married.
Agent Christopher visits Wyatt again. She brings him up to date, they have a nice talk about Wyatt’s purpose in life, but the main reason she came by was to leave him a paper clip.
Rufus and Hemingway rescue Lindbergh and Lucy while Flynn is questioning the car manufacturer. Lindbergh is to pretend he is dead and get away from Rittenhouse. Wyatt breaks himself out of jail.
When they get back, they see lots of agents they don’t know. Rufus assumes they have changed history too much. Neville tells them about the change in regime, and questions them about their trip.
Lucy is disappointed that Lindbergh came back and led his original life. Her mom gives her the diary — THE diary, the one Garcia Flynn has been following.
Agent Christopher, Wyatt, Lucy and Rufus meet secretly. Wyatt renews his commitment to protecting Lucy and Rufus. He thinks they should fight Rittenhouse. “How?” Lucy asks.
This feels like the beginning of something different. Wyatt and Agent Christopher are now on the outside. Wyatt won’t be going in the life boat unless they sneak him aboard or they steal the ship. Jiya is alone on the inside. Cahill, Lucy’s father, visits the project. Rittenhouse is openly instead of covertly in charge. Of course, that could change the next time they go back in time if they change the right things. The previews for the next episode look like everything’s okay, so I may be totally wrong about the changes.
Lucy received the diary so the possibility of her working with Flynn has raised its ugly head again. He seemed to have forgotten about that lately.
This was a fun episode until they got back home and found out about the change in power that had taken place. Lucy and Rufus were funny together. Rufus kept saying, “Don’t tell Jiya about this” when he went gaga over Josephine Baker and other stuff. Lucy would just make a very noncommittal “Mm-hmm”. Loved it.
It also proves that Wyatt is the best at what he does, since his peer immediately died. Time travel is dangerous. Baumgardner was the sacrificial lamb to prove it. With Anthony’s death last week, they are trying to make us more anxious about our own people.
Hemingway was great. Dashing, drunk, and obnoxious. Too macho, perhaps, but still with boyish charm. Josephine Baker was dignified but sexy. Charles Lindbergh shouldn’t be judged as to whether he was like the real person, because I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t part of a secret organization that rules the world.
I think the conclusion that Lucy and her mom (Susanna Thompson) came to, that Lindbergh did not stay out of sight because he wanted the limelight, was too harsh. Charles Lindbergh did a lot after that flight. He flew fifty missions in World War II and tinkered with planes and invented things. He would not be happy with the quiet life down on the farm.
I am wondering whether Neville is a bad guy or a good guy. He is soft spoken and rules oriented. They’d always just discussed the time trip casually before but Neville sounded like he was asking Rufus and Lucy census questions. Connor Mason was comfortable talking to him. Cahill came to the facility. He HAS to be Rittenhouse, doesn’t he? He can’t just be a clueless NSA guy?
In the next episode, Misha Collins plays Elliott Ness.
Timeless airs on Monday nights at 10pm/9c on NBC.
