‘Timeless’ Season 1 twists and theories

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE SEASON FINALE OF ‘TIMELESS.’ MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Last warning: SPOILERS ahead…

Our jaws hit the floor and our hearts ached for Lucy this season. When she returned home from her first trip into the past, she found herself in a catch-22: her dying mother was well, but Amy, the sister she so dearly loves, is gone. Lucy made it her mission to bring back her sister. Agent Christopher even made a deal with Lucy and kept her promise until the end. The Time Team delayed Operation Save Amy and followed Flynn into the past in hopes of thwarting Rittenhouse for good.

To Lucy’s credit, she came up with one helluva plan. She had her grandfather, Ethan Cahill, act as a double-agent within Rittenhouse for decades. He filled an entire apartment with evidence against the shady organization. Even Connor Mason offered Agent Christopher some assistance. As it turns out, he has a soft spot for Rufus and has been spying on Rittenhouse all along. Well, it’s about time! Everything seems to be turning around for Lucy and Flynn…

Lucy ties up loose-ends with Flynn and gives him the info about his wife and daughter, as she promised. He teases her about the journal and says she ages well. We all knew Lucy writes the journal in the future. We grew suspicious when Carol gave it to her as a gift in the present. But we are still perplexed by all of this stuff with the journal.

Throughout the season I thought Flynn might have come from the future. Some thought that Flynn traveled to the future, retrieved the journal and returned back to his time. Now it seems like Lucy came from the future to enlist Flynn’s help in our present/her future-past (???). Show-runners Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan teased in an interview with TVLine that Rittenhouse figures out a way to break time travel rules so that Lucy can travel back to a time in which she already exists. (Take a second to collect yourself, I don’t want you to get a time travel theory headache.) Clearly, there’s plenty more material to explore in Season 2, including changes in time travel.

Unbeknownst to Lucy, the feds followed her and they arrest him. Unfortunately, Flynn still killed people and committed major crimes, which he has to pay for. The last we see of Flynn, he’s cursing Lucy out for her bitter betrayal. Ugh! That sucks. Poor Lucy. It isn’t her fault!

Rufus warned the team that taking an extra person along for a ride in the Lifeboat could have dire consequences. External physical symptoms aside, it seems that Jiya has developed a psychological/metaphysical ability. As she looks out the window, she sees the Golden Gate Bridge as it is today. Suddenly, she gets a vision of the bridge when it was still being built. What?!? Will she continue getting flashes of the past? What effect will this have on her health? How much of the past can she see?

We’re left with a major cliffhanger here and it is hard to come up with a theory for it. I enjoy my fair share of time travel narratives, but I don’t know what to make of this one. Is it kind of like the mysterious moment in the series premiere of ‘Outlander‘ where Frank suddenly gets a glimpse of Jamie’s ghost? Is her vision some sort of supernatural remnant or echo of the past? I’m all ears for your theories!

Before the Time Team embarks on a final mission to rescue her sister, Lucy decides to tell her mom the truth. Again, our hearts break for Lucy because it feels like she is choosing between her mother’s well-being and Amy’s existence. It feels like a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ decision. You can’t blame Lucy for wanting to give her mom a proper goodbye. This could be the last time they even see each other. As Lucy apologizes, her mom drops a bombshell. Carol Preston is Rittenhouse royalty!

Lucy is the product of another arranged Rittenhouse marriage between her mother, a Rittenhouse princess of sorts, and her father, Ben Cahill, who seems lower in status but still very powerful (I guess we can think of him as a Rittenhouse knight). After this mind-blowing reveal, we have a whole new outlook on the season.

In CW’s ‘The Flash‘ Barry Allen goes back in time to save his parents and whole bunch of terrible things happen, changing life as he knows it. He called that alternative timeline “Flashpoint.” Similarly, in CW’s ‘Legend of Tomorrow,’ a group of time travelers try to prevent huge changes in history, which they refer to as “aberrations.” Going along with this train of thought, here’s my new theory on the season…

We’ve been seeing things from Lucy and Flynn’s perspectives, but maybe it is time to look through Rittenhouse-colored glasses. They manipulate history to their desires and I’m sure having a member of Rittenhouse royalty on her deathbed is not part of their plan. Lucy, when we meet her, is living life as she’s knows it. But what if that isn’t how her life began? What if Rittenhouse made a mistake that caused Carol to have another daughter and become ill? Maybe it took Rittenhouse years to find a way to set things “straight.”

One thing has been very clear: Everyone is a pawn in Rittenhouse’s game. For all we know, Flynn’s family could have been murdered as a means of forcing him to eventually reach out to Lucy. If Flynn never kidnapped the Mothership, then Mason Industries would not have needed Lucy to join the Time Team and chase after him.

On the other hand, what was happening in Future Lucy’s life that she felt like the only way to fix he past is by enlisting Flynn’s help? Sigh, you can’t discuss time travel with thinking yourself into confusing circles. Does this make sense to you? Do you have any ideas or theories? Please help me make more sense of this.

Now I’m skeptical about everything and everyone we’ve encountered throughout the season.

 

Going along with that line of thought, I think it is highly likely that Lucy’s fiance, Noah, is also part of Rittenhouse. Perhaps her first trip into the past was supposed to reset her life to the way Rittenhouse had planned it to be. Carol kept pushing Lucy to be with Noah; meanwhile, he kept trying to gain her trust and asked for an explanation. He could have been acting as a mole. When Lucy didn’t trust him, Carol played along and tried to offer her daughter some comfort at home.

We certainly have a lot to mull over and look-out for as we re-watch Season 1 on #TimelessDays (Mondays at 10 pm). Let’s see if we notice any other clues along the way. Maybe we can piece together some new theories in the coming weeks!

On a fun note: Kripke and Ryan offer some more insights on a few of these crucial moments, thank fans for their unyielding support, and share their hopes for Season 2 in their interview with Entertainment Weekly. Ryan also says he wants Leslie Jones to play Harriet Tubman in Season 2, which would be awesome!

Keep up the great work, Time Team! We can do this 🙂

ICYMI

Details on the #RenewTimeless campaign HERE

Season 1 spoiler-free review and retrospective HERE.