Timeless Season 2 Episode 4 Review: The Salem Witch Hunt
Dale McGarrigle
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Well, didn't things get messy in a hurry?
Wyatt went AWOL and the team got rearranged as a result on Timeless Season 2 Episode 4.
Like history itself, this episode had a lot of moving parts.
On the plus side, I heard the word "Rittenhouse" less than a dozen times over 43 minutes and change. The writers are substituting the word "Mothership," with the concept of Rittenhouse lurking in the background.
Yes, Jessica is alive again. A quick trip on the Mothership and she was never murdered, a Rittenhouse tactic to distract Wyatt and diminish the team's efficiency.
Related: Timeless Season 2 Episode 3 Review: Hollywoodland
I felt horribly for Lucy, who had to let Wyatt go so he could attempt to reconnect with his one true love. That had to hurt.
We found out that, while Wyatt was mourning Jessica and remembering their marriage through rose-colored glasses, newly alive Jessica saw Wyatt as a husband with many shortcomings, which was why they were in counseling.
She was pissed because he hadn't answered her texts for months. If I were Wyatt, I'd get a different carrier.
Jessica's description of Wyatt's actions sounded a lot more like him during his misspent youth than the Wyatt who has been often the rock of the Lifeboat crew.
After getting served with divorce papers, Wyatt went for the Hail Mary: taking Jessica to the bunker of his current, top-secret mission.
And what most impressed Jessica? "You know Connor Mason?" I bet those awed tones fed Connor's already-healthy ego.
Related: Watch Timeless Online: Season 2 Episode 3
I have to wonder if Jessica is a Rittenhouse pawn, however unwittingly. Maybe they implanted a tracker into her, so they could find the Lifeboat's headquarters.
Why Jessica was brought back by Rittenhouse will determine whether the couple can get back together, or whether Wyatt and Lucy can go back to being more than teammates.
Because Wyatt was busy trying to reconnect with Jessica, the Lifeboat crew found themselves shorthanded.
This meant the inevitable happened: Garcia Flynn got sent back out into the field. We all knew it was just a matter of time. After all, he has been saying right along that he and Lucy had worked together against Rittenhouse in the future.
Lucy treated Flynn as a necessary evil. With Wyatt emotionally tied up, they needed muscle in the form of a violent white man to visit Colonial New England. Yup, Flynn definitely fit that bill, although everyone else had their doubts.
How did he do? About like you'd expect. Flynn made Wyatt look positively restrained in comparison.
When you need chaos or a distraction, Flynn's your man, whether It's a brawl in a tavern or a firefight at a gallows.
Flynn seemed lost when he couldn't just shoot his way out of a problem, at least until he found a rifle that he could use.
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Surprisingly, he did actually follow Lucy's lead. Then again, he's been following her journal right along, so how much difference should that have been?
Complicating matters was Lucy's mother accusing her of being a witch, and getting her fitted for a noose. Anything to get Lucy back in the fold.
But Lucy has changed, has lost her innocence. Her sister has been wiped from history, and her mother is more concerned with Rittenhouse than with her.
As Flynn points out, Lucy has been hardened by her experiences. She is now more concerned with saving people than saving history. For example, women who were fated to be hung as witches escaped. So what is the fallout in the future? I'm sure that's something that will have to be addressed.
Finally, there was Jiya's gift of foresight and its effect on the team.
She admitted to Rufus that she is having premonitions about his future and that her latest one had him shooting a man in Salem.
The net effect of this was the team thinking that this man, Justice Samuel Sewall, was a Rittenhouse sleeper agent. So they confronted him. Later on, Sewall pulls a pistol on Rufus, with Rufus holding a rifle on him. Rufus lowered his weapon, letting Sewall leave. The problem was he got run over by a carriage.
While Jiya told Rufus so that he could avoid that potential future, the net result is that the trio interacting with Sewall changed history and still led to his death.
This has resulted in tension between the two after Rufus asked Jiya to keep her visions to herself. There's got to be a better solution than him sticking his head in the sand.
Thanks to her great-grandfather's proclamation, Lucy is now a Rittenhouse target, with bounty hunter Emma on her tail. Will Carolyn put Lucy before Rittenhouse?
And what to do with Flynn, the wild card? Four people and a three-person Lifeboat does offer some dramatic possibilities.
For instance, Lucy came back injured. Do they let her heal and send out the three men, assuming Wyatt is back? Or would they kill each other and history at the same time?
To catch up on the show's new direction, watch Timeless online.
What happens with Wyatt and Jessica? How did Flynn do? What's going to happen with Jiya and Rufus? Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on X.
