What I’m Watching: Timeless

Timeless: Season 1, Episode 7 “Stranded” (B)

This was a fun episode if not the most focused one, starting in media res and then staying in the past with its very stranded characters. They should have figured that this would happen eventually, and luckily they had an extremely technological and smart plan in place to make sure that Rufus could communicate with the present by leaving a literal ship in the bottle for Mason to find centuries later. Rufus had numerous opportunities in this episode to shine, keeping his cool in the situation when Lucy and Wyatt seemed ready to give up and negotiating for their lives due to the color of his skin and his not being seen as an imperialist. I love that Wyatt once again referenced “Back to the Future” as his framework for understanding time travel, earning the ire of Rufus, who said that he needed to build a capacitor since the “flux” was fictional. Wyatt asking Lucy how to tell their French guard that he slept with his mother was entertaining, and he does have a rather brash way of doing things. In the present, we got to see what Rufus would have left behind if he didn’t make it back, and now he may embarking on a relationship, which I think would be nice for him given the terrible luck he has every time they go back in time. Mason obviously regards him highly, and hopefully that will serve to protect Rufus should his noncompliance with his side directive become known.