What I’m Watching: Timeless (Season Finale)

Timeless: Season 1, Episode 16 “The Red Scare” (B-)

I’m feeling very mixed about this finale. I think that, since it started, this show has been defined by a certain adventurous silliness tied to the excitement of traveling back to time periods in which they could meet famed characters from the past. Despite the impending danger of a changed timeline after every single trip Flynn made, nothing substantial actually happened after that fateful first episode which still didn’t make all that much sense since they’ve done much more impactful things that should have had huge reverberations. We saw one glimpse of what could have been when Gia went into a trance and there was a shelled-out bridge in the distance indicating a darker, dystopian present, but this show hasn’t given us anything more than that. Instead, we get Rufus, who should be bleeding to death, instead still pacing around and gripping his stomach every few minutes for dramatic effect, somehow still totally functional, while Gia, who went through space training but hasn’t adjusted to the new gravity, if you’ll allow the metaphor, nearly died on her first trip back to the past in an overcrowded lifeboat. It also doesn’t make sense to me that, all of a sudden, they decided to help Flynn, something that I think they should have done a while ago, and then Agent Christopher went and betrayed Lucy to arrest him rather than let him carry out one last mission. And I suppose Mason was always on the right side of things, if still insanely egotistical? The biggest surprise of all was Lucy’s mother revealing that she’s known about Rittenhouse all along, and that she’s definitely a bad guy. I’d like to think that Lucy going back to change the past is precisely what made her mother this way and that the mother she grew up with had no connection to the organization, but unfortunately I think that’s too high-level thinking for a time-travel show that isn’t relying too much on any real science (well, maybe fake science) or logic to back it up. This show has yet to be renewed for a second season, which isn’t a good sign, and while I’d hope we’d see more of what I want in year two, I’m not convinced that either will happen.

Season grade: B
Season MVP: Abigail Spencer as Lucy