-The Capture Of Benedict Arnold was the mid-season finale of Timeless. So naturally George Washington stopped by, the stakes got driven up a lot and we ended on a big cliffhanger.
-So David Rittenhouse was an actual person who was a member (and eventually President) of the American Philisophical Society and first director of the United States mint. He was a clockmaker, though he probably didn't found any kind of nefarious shadow government. Reading up about him though, you can kind of see why Timeless chose him to be the founder of their sinister conspiracy group. His interest in things like astronomy and invention, plus his history with people like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams makes him the perfect candidate for a Historical Sci-Fi show like this.
-Midway through the season and I'm honestly still not that interested in Rittenhouse. We know more or less what they are now (A shadow government who has manipulated history to their interest and wants control) and understand the threat we pose, but it's still hard to be very interested in them, Shadow group wants to control the world isn't exactly the most original or compelling thing out there, though the whole "tyranny disguised as democracy" thing has a lot of potential if they start digging into that philosophy. Hopefully the second half of the season will dig more into modern day Rittenhouse and what they're actually trying to achieve with all the time machines they're so interested in. The best villains are those where you can understand what they want and where they're coming from and Rittenhouse is lacking that right now.
-Garcia Flynn meanwhile has become a much more compelling antagonist then he initially seemed. Forcing our heroes into a team-up with him is a great way to show the ultimate reason why Flynn is different from our team and needs to be stopped. Yes our team knows Rittenhouse is a threat and yes they want to stop them but our team believes in helping and protecting innocent people and Flynn doesn't. His confession to Lucy that he plans to leave his family after he saves them because of how much he's changed in his quest to destroy Rittenhouse is powerful and provides some key shading to his actions. He knows what he's doing is wrong on some level but he decided a long time ago that the ends justified the means so if he has to shoot a child so be it.
-The scene with John Rittenhouse was a solid "creepy kid says creepy things" scene but the character really becomes interesting now that Lucy has stopped Flynn from killing him. If Timeless is about anything beyond romping through time, it seems to be about the choice and free will. Lucy won't let John die even if his survival does mean Rittenhouse continues because he's still an innocent kid who could very well make a different choice. Flynn doesn't have to alienate himself from his family but he makes that choice every time he relies on extreme methods to carry out his mission. Connor Mason had good intentions but chose to get in bed with Rittenhouse and is now forced to threaten someone he greatly admires for them. I'm hoping we return to John Rittenhouse at some point down the road because I'd like to see Lucy's instinct to protect him pay off, but even if he does follow in his fathers footsteps, it'd still be interesting.
-Also it's a shame that David Rittenhouse got killed so soon because he made a massive impression with his short amount of screentime. The idea that Rittenhouse was the brainchild of one man becomes much more plausible after you meet David and see his sinister charisma in action. The way he marvels at the modern-day gun and quietly decides to reverse engineer it hints at an incredibly fascinating character that we'll probably never get to explore further. Even though I knew he was probably going to die, he oozed such menace that at various points I thought maybe he would kill Flynn.
-Flynn knows the identity of Jessica's killer. This is a smart storytelling decision because it makes Flynn's survival valuable for Wyatt. They've also built up Wyatt's pain over his wife's death so well that it's believable that he would agree to team up with Flynn if it meant figuring out who killed her.
-Rittenhouse knows Rufus has been messing with the recordings, which is good because it was straining both credibility and the narrative purpose of the tape recorder for him to just turn it on and off whenever. It also creates a handy dilemma for the mission this episode, which looks pretty terrible for Rufus whether or not he messes with the recording.
-The scene where Wyatt gets Lucy to go along with the plan to team up with Flynn was mostly good but the math seemed off when Wyatt predicted they'd save hundreds of people. Wiping out a nefarious group that's been manipulating history for over 200 years would save more like thousands, right? Eh, small quibble.
-Bigger quibble: Are they really going to handwave away Flynn randomly murdering Cornwallis like that?! I hope not.
-Kudos to Timeless for immediately revealing what was in the letter the Rittenhouse Key opened. Got to love quick pay-offs.
-The Benedict Arnold stuff was fine. I enjoyed how they just let him be a casual asshole about everything, but also did try to humanize him a little and dig a bit into why he'd ally with Rittenhouse. I'm sure his death was cathartic to anyone who was bugged that the real Benedict Arnold basically got away consequence-free as the show points out. Also it'd be a shame if we never got to see George Washington again. He made a strong impression in his three minutes of screentime.
-Agent Christopher survived the mid-season finale, but I'm still concerned for her long-term survival, especially now that we've been introduced to her wife (LGBT characters, especially women don't exactly have the best survival rate on TV dramas.) and have more reason to care about her as a person. I loved that dinner scene with her, her wife and Lucy though which did more for Denise as a character than the previous nine episodes combined. The scene where we learn Agent Christopher is terrified that she could lose the people she loves without even knowing it like Amy's mom was also great and is a nice way to show that someone besides Lucy is worried about the smaller scale potential ramifications to history that these missions seem to cause.
-Flynn kidnapping Lucy is something I assume will be resolved by the end of next episode but it does make for a good cliffhanger. Flynn has spent most of this season convinced that Lucy was going to come around to his side at some point and now it looks like that definitely isn't happening. So that should complicate their dynamic a ton. Also we might finally get to see things like the inside of the Mothership and where Flynn gets his endless supply of goons.
-Solid episode from a show that's been a pleasant surprise this season. Can't wait to see where we're going when we come back in January.
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