Discussion Post: 2x01, "The War to End All Wars"

[wendelah1]

Welcome to Timeless season two. This is the discussion post for episode 2x01, "The War to End All Wars." It is meant for folks who are watching the show on the U.S./Canadian schedule, but you should feel free to join in any time after you've seen the episode. Please try to keep comments spoiler-free of anything that comes after season two, episode one. Thank you!

Air Date: March 11, 2018 in the U.S. and Canada
Written by: Arika Lisanne Mittman and Tom Smuts
Directed by: Greg Beeman

There are spoilers for future episodes in the Canadian promo.

Timeless Season 2 "Past Present Future" Promo (Global TV)

If there is a NBC promo apart from the "sneak peeks" and the trailer, I haven't seen it yet.

Timeless Season 2 "New Mission" Trailer

We're just 35 minutes away from air time for viewers on the East Coast so I'm hitting post. I'll come back and edit in links to reviews, recaps, and so on. Please please please leave any links that I've missed in comments. My google-fu isn't what it used to be.

Buckle Up, History Nerds — “Timeless” Is Back and As Usual, Gets the Facts Mostly Right (This is a new series from Smithsonian, which is why I'm highlighting it. History nerds unite!)


Timeless: In Season 2, the Villains Get Their Due (TV Guide)
Review: Timeless Season 2 Episode 1 (Den of Geek)
Timeless Season-Premiere Recap: Good Guys Revolt (Vulture)
Timeless premiere react: 'The War to End All Wars'(EW)
Timeless Season 2 Episode 1 Review: The War to End All Wars (TV Fanatic)
Timeless returns in damn fine form (AV Club)
Timeless Season 2 Review: The Series Returns With A Clearer Idea of Where It’s Going (Screenrant)
Timeless Review: The War To End All Wars-s02e01 (Nerdspan)
'Timeless' Season 2 Premiere Recap: 'The War to End All Wars' (TV Source Magazine)
Timeless Review (Tracking Board)
Timeless - The War to End All Wars - Review (Spoiler TV)
Timeless’ 2×01 Review: You Haven’t Lost Me (fangirlish.com) I love how obsessed this site is with our show.
Timeless 2.1: "Like Mein Kampf, by Philip K. Dick"(Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress)
Timeless Returns (History Professors from the Future) (Patheos)

Remember, if you can, watch in real time, tweet in real time, etc. If you're recording the episode to watch later, try to watch within three days. Those are the numbers that matter to the network because those are the numbers that matter to their advertisers.

Comments

[beradan]

The gang is back together and I for one am DEFINITELY excited for this season!

[wendelah1]

Yes. I am excited, too. The direction they've taken the show is not what I expected but we'll see where it goes from here.

[dariaw]

I loved this!!

lol Rufus calling out Wyatt's obvious feelings. I don't usually go for will they won't they canon pairings, but the sexual tension between Wyatt/Lucy is really good. Jiya/Rufus is sweet brainy love too. (I also ship ot3 and ot4).

The reunion scene hug was lovely.

I'm happy Flynn is there and hope he has interesting interactions.

Marie and Irene Curie are great.

I love how many badass women there are on this show, of different types of strength and different moral sides. Susanna Thompson, it was also discussed on twitter, is great at playing shady morally gray or evil but super smart scary moms - Arrow, Timeless, Kings... She's great.

That said, I thought Emma was pretty badass and scary last season - she came off petty and whiny and short-sighted this time - really, you're going to kill Marie Curie?? That might put a huge wrench in your plans to make precision strikes to the timeline.

I like the costumes and cinematography on the show too. And just in general, the show has a lot of heart.

[wendelah1]

I thought this was a good episode.

I don't think Wyatt and Lucy were ever meant to be a "will they or won't they" type pairing. I think they are more of an inevitability, as telegraphed by the characters' interactions and confirmed by Lucy's diary...at least according to Flynn. I agree, there is a lot of chemistry.

That said, I thought Emma was pretty badass and scary last season - she came off petty and whiny and short-sighted this time - really, you're going to kill Marie Curie?? That might put a huge wrench in your plans to make precision strikes to the timeline.

That was crappy writing for sure. Plus there is nothing stopping Emma from going back and finishing off the job. I thought there should be a scene whereby Lucy explains what's been going on and tells the Curies that they are no longer safe. Or shows us a future where seeing the time machine affected her work in some way. Something.

It does have heart.

[tinny]

as telegraphed by the characters' interactions and confirmed by Lucy's diary...at least according to Flynn.

Can you give me a hint where Flynn says anything about Lucy and Wyatt? I seem to have forgotten that, too. (Unless it's from s2 trailers, I haven't seen those.) The only thing I remember him saying early on is that Lucy will work with him, Flynn.

[wendelah1]

It was in an early episode--I just re-watched the first six last weekend. Let me think about that, and if I recall which episode, I'll let you know?

Here is where having transcripts online would make my life so much easier. TXF fandom has no idea how fortunate they are to still have that resource 20+ years after the series premiere. I cried when the transcripts for Fringe (and its entire Wiki) went down.

[wendelah1]

Last season's "big reveal" was that in this timeline at least, Lucy's mom Carol, like Lucy's father, was part of Rittenhouse. Not only was Carol part of Rittenhouse, she was running the place. Lucy was shocked, the viewers were shocked, and at the end of the episode no one who matters excepting Lucy knows the truth—except possibly Garcia Flynn. Ask TPTB why they really chose her for this mission, Flynn admonished her in the pilot. "And ask them about Rittenhouse." He knew all along because of the diary and whatever future!Lucy told him. That's what I think.

This season, the show-runners decided to take last season's twist one step further and literally blow up the place. Somehow, at the same time that they conspired to have the soldiers who were guarding the mothership murdered, Rittenhouse conceived of a plan to get past the massive amount of security at Mason Industries, plant a bomb, and blow up the building complex housing the lifeboat and its personnel. I only got a glimpse at the headline—I really should watch the episode again but I don't have time right now—but was there something about 20 people missing and presumed dead? I'm a nurse, not a forensic scientist, or a reporter, but something tells me that neither the reading public nor the Timeless viewers were getting the full story about the explosion and its aftermath.

Six weeks later, we find out that the survivors have retreated to what looks like an old government underground bunker, with electricity and running water but not much else in the way of amenities. I don't know what's stopping Special Agent Christopher from sending her minions out shopping for supplies but at the very least, I can't think of a good reason for the Time Team to be sleeping on cots with vintage surplus army blankets six weeks into this crisis. Can you?

None of that came as a huge surprise to me, thanks to spoiler vids on YouTube. I was even spoiled for Rufus yelling that Wyatt was "in love with Lucy." That speech seemed a bit out of character but nearly everything Rufus said seemed a little off to me. I have to surmise that in addition to nearly getting killed again, the uncertainty of their situation, the forced separation from his family is stressing Rufus out big time. Instead of making his trademark wisecracks, he spends most of the episode complaining. Understandably, the changes have taken a toll on everyone: Connor Mason has forgotten his maths, Agent Christopher has turned into an even bigger control freak; Rufus seems scattered; all Wyatt can think about is saving Lucy. Riya at least knows what the stakes are: stopping the apocalypse Rittenhouse is cooking up for the rest of humanity.

What did surprise me? Seeing Lucy make the decision to murder a soldier in cold blood. The reason she gave her mother was that Emma was going to kill him anyway and that she, Lucy, needed to prove her loyalty to Rittenhouse. What a perfect utilitarian argument. The greatest good for the greatest number of people. That shows me that Lucy had thought through the possible consequences ahead of time and had committed to her ultimate goal—bringing down Rittenhouse. Last season, Lucy was already two steps ahead of everyone else on her team in recognizing that Rittenhouse was the real villain, not Garcia Flynn. The unwanted discovery that she was "Rittenhouse royalty" only cemented Lucy's determination to bring them down, regardless of the personal costs, including sacrificing her own life, and her mother's.

In "The War to End All Wars," there are wars being fought on three different fronts: WWI, the covert war Rittenhouse has begun to consolidate their power and remake the world to resemble "a cross between The Hunger Games and A Handmaid's Tale," and the battle the Time Team is preparing to wage to stop them. Lucy wasn't a soldier at the start of the series, but, however reluctantly, she has become one by the beginning of season two.

That's all I've got until I get the chance to watch it again.

[tinny]

Oooh my.

I thought the first half was terribly hamfisted and Wyatt was being a typical unthinking idiot.

Always pushing it to extremes makes no sense. Why would Rittenhouse have to be *evil* to achieve their goals? Ruling the world, in itself, is not an evil thing. Shooting everyone in their way to achieve it? That's not necessary. The whole reason for using a time machine to do it is to avoid bloodshed, no? Oh well, all that extreme black/white got on my nerves. This just could have been written so much better. :(

I hate caricature characters, and every single character in this episode was one. Maybe to the exception of Lucy. And maybe Rufus, but he really didn't do anything he didn't do last season (but he was great and funny so that's something at least).

But "of course" everyone at Rittenhouse is an indiscriminate killer. wtf? It took Lucy's mother two minutes to make up her mind not to kill Lucy and the Curies, really?

It just makes no sense to make every single Rittenhouse member evil, and it annoyed me. Tbh, I usually love season premieres and nothing can harsh my squee about a premiere, but this ep just didn't work for me.

I kinda liked the second half better than the first (the reunion hug was great, they really do have great chemistry, even if the editing on that scene sucked), and Jia and Agent Christopher are always welcome.

I appreciated that Lucy had to kill the soldier - apparently they are not using the typical tv standards for good and evil for her, and that part was interesting and made me think about her motivation. I also think I hated the first part because I really need Lucy to be the main/pov character for the show, and it doesn't work for me when she isn't. Especially with Wyatt being an idiot. Once Lucy was back in the driver's seat, I was interested.

All in all, I think the setup for the season is okay, although I can't say I am overly curious as to what they're going to do next. I am happy that Flynn seems to be coming back (please let him do something!), and I'm hoping they'll do something interesting with Jia's mysterious illness.

[wendelah1]

"Ham-fisted"? You have a point. I liked the episode better than you did, although I like it less, the more time passes. It accomplished what it set out to do, but that's about it. In general, I don't like shows to skip ahead in time, though six weeks isn't that bad--BSG skipped six months or a year, right? I don't like having to fill in the blanks of how they got to the bunker, what Wyatt's injuries were, who else was injured, killed, etc. I don't like the way they handled Lucy's situation either. It all felt very rushed. This must be why I prefer novels to television and movies for storytelling.

I've never seen Wyatt as an unthinking idiot, exactly. Single-minded in his pursuit of Flynn, yes, especially at the beginning, but that was his mission. Lucy was the one who was supposed to preserve the timeline. Still--he shouldn't be in the field--what he needs is psychological counselling, at a minimum. The writers haven't brought up the flashbacks again--remember the Alamo! episode--but that did establish that he's damaged from the mission where he had to leave every member of his team behind. He's still injured from the explosion at Mason Industries and although it wasn't specifically raised, that bomb blast easily could have triggered him again. Plus, he's in love with Lucy! (head desk) After ten seasons of The X-Files, I am used to having to reason this shit out for myself but as with 1013, continuity doesn't seem like a big priority for this bunch.

Why would Rittenhouse have to be *evil* to achieve their goals? Ruling the world, in itself, is not an evil thing.

Isn't it? Can you give me an example of an empire that has tried to rule the world that hasn't devolved into evil? Whose empire, whose ideology, would you want the entire world to be living under right now? The former Soviet Union? Great Britain? Spain? China? Germany? Japan? The United Fucking States of Donald Trump (God help us all)? How about ISIS? The Catholic Church? EXON-Mobil? "Power tends to corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Even if I didn't agree with Lord Acton, Rufus described Lucy's great-grandfather's plans for the time machine as a cross between The Hunger Games and The Handmaid's Tale. Their vision isn't exactly benign. Besides, why should any extra-governmental organization, no matter how well-intentioned, get to make decisions for all of humanity, for all time? That is the definition of despotism. I believe that any organization that holds itself above the law and tries to control billions of people without their consent is wrong. Rittenhouse has to be stopped.

To be fair, the writers haven't made every member of Rittenhouse evil. Lucy's grandfather isn't evil. He was sickened by their ideology. He agreed to be a double-agent and amassed evidence that helped make a case against the organization. What's happening with that investigation is something that logically should be addressed but again, continuity yada yada. Sigh. Let's see. "The Doc" wasn't evil--she went into hiding with her family to get away from Rittenhouse. Was Henry Ford evil? Edison? J.P. Morgan? They probably aren't eligible for the Good Place but on balance, I would say they weren't complete monsters either.

The writers have decided to make Emma extra evil this season, I guess to make up for losing Flynn as the Big Bad. I wasn't thrilled with how they wrote her, especially her interactions with Lucy. Did ten years alone in the wilderness warp her sense of morality, assuming she ever had one to begin with? Why did she have to live alone if she wasn't hiding from Rittenhouse? What sort of person volunteers to work for an organization bent on world domination anyway? You could make a list of unanswered questions for Lucy's mom, too. Fan fiction prompts, anyone?

Shooting everyone in their way to achieve it? That's not necessary.

Regarding the fate of the Curies, the writers kind of wrote themselves into a corner, didn't they? Why was it so easy for them to find the Mother Ship, except as a dumb plot device? Once they have seen it, what are the consequences for history if they are allowed to live? Emma has been given her marching orders and she was willing to carry them out.

The whole reason for using a time machine to do it is to avoid bloodshed, no?

No, I don't agree, at least not in this case. That would have to be a different show altogether because I don't think non-violence is part of the Rittenhouse credo. We know the reason they paid Mason Industries to create the time machine is in order to control the destiny of humanity by changing American and world history. Garcia Flynn threw a monkey wrench into their plans by stealing the Mother Ship. Before Flynn's actions forced them to involve the US government, I assume the project was proceeding apace. Rittenhouse didn't hesitate to bomb Mason Industries to achieve their goals. They threatened to hurt Rufus's family to force him to work for them, and if we're to trust Mason's version of events, they were threatening him, too. They were ready to disappear Agent Christopher. I wouldn't rule out Rittenhouse using anything from political assassination to genocide, frankly. Rittenhouse is not known for subtlety. Their founder was ready to rape Lucy and turn her into breeding stock.

Once they bring Flynn back into the game, the first thing Lucy had better ask him is how he got that diary! I will be so pissed at the writers if she doesn't. Give me a C. Give me an O. Give me an N, a T, an I ... What should it spell? CONTINUITY.

My main objection is how much they've changed the tone. It's gotten far too dark for my taste. Timeless was my happy place, mind-candy, escape-from-reality show. I just want my silly time-travel show back.

[tinny]

I don't like shows to skip ahead in time, though six weeks isn't that bad--BSG skipped six months or a year, right? I don't like having to fill in the blanks of how they got to the bunker, what Wyatt's injuries were, who else was injured, killed, etc

Oh, good point! I can also deal with 6 weeks, but you're right, I'd completely forgotten Wyatt's injuries after that one scene in the beginning. It felt weird and unconnected. Maybe I haven't seen season one in too long. :/

Isn't it? Can you give me an example of an empire that has tried to rule the world that hasn't devolved into evil?

Ah, okay, well, no. :) That's not what I meant. I meant that they don't see themselves as evil. They might think that it's necessary to kill people/make sacrifices to reach their goals, but they don't think that their idea of a society is to be evil.

But you make great points about what terrible things they've already done, and I had forgotten about Lucy's grandfather, too. I loved that arc.

My main objection is how much they've changed the tone. It's gotten far too dark for my taste.

True. I don't mind dark, per se (although letting Lucy kill a man in the first ep was drastic), but not the way they're doing it. They're apparently thinking making people more single-minded and drawing the lines even more strongly between good and evil will up the stakes. It doesn't, it just makes it look like even more of a stupid comic-superhero setup. Really, Lucy was the only human in that whole scenario, and I hope there will be more of that going forward. I guess I'll pin my hopes on that.

[wendelah1]

Ah, okay, well, no. :) That's not what I meant. I meant that they don't see themselves as evil. They might think that it's necessary to kill people/make sacrifices to reach their goals, but they don't think that their idea of a society is to be evil.

True believers never do, quite the opposite. They're purging the church of sinners or burning the witches who are making their children sick. They're making America great again.

It's kind of too bad there are no superheroes available in this scenario. We could use Wonder Woman's lasso of truth or whatever it's called. Also Wonder Woman.

Fanfic prompt: I am ready for someone to write an AU where Lucy destroys the mother ship and gets stuck in the past where she meets up with Wonder Woman. That would be so awesome. (bounces up and down!)

The darkness I'm objecting to isn't about the mytharc, it's about what they're doing (and planning on doing) to the characters. They're going to put them all through an emotional ringer, over and over again. Man, I hate that shit. They started early with Lucy by taking away her sister. Now she's lost her mother, too. She's lost her childhood; her entire life is now colored by the knowledge that her mother has been lying to her—and not just about her father—about everything. You can only imagine what they have lined up for Wyatt. And Rufus. God.

It's about having fewer special effects and more character-driven angst. It's cheaper to film so that's the price we're paying for getting ten more episodes to watch.