“Timeless” 2.01 Review – The War to End All Wars

Hi! Welcome! I promised Timeless reviews if they got a second season, and I couldn’t be happier to fit this into my week. Please bear with me, this is my first Timeless review. Not only am I not sure how this is about to go, I want to get to it earlier in the week in the future. Oh, and SPOILERS. MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SPOILERS. IT’S BASICALLY ALL A SPOILER FROM HERE ON. It’ll always be that way.

First, I’ll post the historical date (you’ll see that at the top). The time travel aspect of this show is astoundingly researched and realized and I expect I’ll spend some time talking about the new things I learned during the episode. Or new facets of things I knew but hadn’t considered.

Of course, ideas are what draw me in. Great characters are what keep me. So I foresee a lot of talking about the characters, specifically the A-Team Through Time, and how they develop. Now that we all know what to expect, let’s get going!

And so we catch up with our heroes six weeks after the finale of season 1. Lucy is with Rittenhouse, and Wyatt, Rufus, Jiya, Denise, and Connor have narrowly escaped assassination. Along with the Lifeboat. Thinking Lucy is dead, the team splinters. All dealing with the pain and loss of their friends at Mason Industries and of Lucy in very different, very human ways. Denise does what she can to keep them together, but they’re a mess. Especially poor Wyatt.

But seeing Lucy with her mother, trying to smile and pretend everything is peachy?

AND she thinks Wyatt and Rufus and all her friends are dead. And her sister still doesn’t exist. It was painful to watch her pretend everything was OK and try to bond with the mother who, at the beginning of this show, was her idol. Who was the reason she got into history in the first place. Everything she did was to make her proud. And now, what? How do you erase a lifetime of feelings in six weeks? You don’t. How impossibly complicated for her.

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Lucy fangirling over historical figures, and her reaction to Madam and Irene Curie was no exception. She might have been hollowed out inside by the decimation of her entire life, but her spark is still evident in the way she shines to the Curies. And who wouldn’t? I just desperately wish she’d been able to tell them to wear a lead apron. And not touch the radioactive isotopes. Anything.

And this week’s “I learned something today on Timeless,” is that Marie Curie operated field x-ray machines in World War I. I knew about her work with polonium and radium, and that she handled these things without the safety precautions we take for granted today, but I was not aware of the petites Curies, as they were known. What an amazing woman, to have pioneered x-ray technology and then taken it straight into battle where it could save lives. What a human.

But I’m not going to lie, I’m here for Wyatt and Lucy all day. I’m a huge sap, I make no apologies. When Wyatt and Rufus found out Lucy was alive, Wyatt’s entire demeanor changed. He started popping off with the wry one-liners, looking for Private Ryan, slicing and dicing Rittenhouse sleeper agents with ease. If that wasn’t physical proof of how he feels about her, Rufus went ahead and spelled it out for him. Watching him get lost in his own little world as he let that realization wash over him was probably the most fun part of the whole episode.

The other realization, however, about the sleeper agents, wasn’t entirely unexpected. Based on some of the promotional material (I didn’t watch/read everything. My brain likes to take spoilers and little tidbits and run away with them), I expected it. Also, we knew about the cell phone already. What’s interesting is the implications. The breadth, the absolute depth of Rittenhouse’s plan. It boggles the mind to think how our little intrepid Time Team is going to take care of this. In the end, I think the only answer is erasing everything. Going back to stop Mason from even creating time travel. But, there’s the paradox, isn’t it? Because there always has to be a paradox in time travel.

Before I skip off to wait just a few days for the next episode, I’ve got a few notes at the bottom. And I have to tell you, don’t think I’ve forgotten about our Hero In A Hoodie. I adore Rufus. He’s smart and adaptable and has no idea how amazing he is. What I love about these characters is that each of them are me. They all have something I can relate to. I’m a total nerd, like Rufus. I like to think I’m strong and capable like Lucy, but, and this is certain, I’ve also got a soft side that completely needs the people around me. Like Wyatt, I’ll do anything to protect the people I care about, and throw my own well-being to the wind. They’re the perfect team. They are stronger because of their differences, and special because of their strengths.

I cannot wait to follow them further down the rabbit hole.

-The Clockblocker shout-out was the most spectacular thing I’ve heard on TV since the 200th episode of Supernatural.

-Shoutout to the prop department. That Springfield rifle stood out to me as a wonderful piece of well-researched prop design.

-Connor watching the video of the explosion over and over was about the saddest thing in this whole episode. He’s a completely different guy, now, and I’m digging it.

-I was almost in tears, thinking Emma was going to murder the Curies. It wasn’t quite as bad as thinking Neil and Buzz were going to die on the moon, but it was close.

-Good thing Wyatt didn’t kill Lucy’s great-grandfather. That would have been… unfortunate.

-Nice to have both a villain (Emma) and an antagonist (Lucy’s mom) this season. Good depth on the story front.

-So glad they brought Flynn back as well. I love how complicated he is, and how he’s really not a bad guy. He’s a good guy who was doing bad things. A pretty accurate visualization of chaotic good.

 

Screencaps courtesy of the NBC app. Stream Timeless on the app or on NBC’s website