Timeless - Public Enemy No. 1 - Review

Timeless “Public Enemy No. 1” is the second last episode for the season. My fingers are still crossed that it isn’t the second last of the series. It’s a little ironic that this great show is on the bubble when television is suddenly being flooded by time travelling shows. This one is far and away the best of these new offerings. The episode was written by the team of Matt Whitney and Anslem Richardson and was directed by Guy Ferland, whose other credits include Sons of Anarchy and The Walking Dead among many others. Ferland has a Shawn Ryan connection, having directed The Shield and Terriers. The episode also has a strong Kripke connection as Misha Collins (Castiel on Supernatural) guest stars as Elliot Ness, joining long time Supernatural actor Jim Beaver who is playing Agent Neville.

It’s really crunch time for this show. If you’re enjoying the show, watch and tweet live, and encourage everyone you know to do the same.

The episode begins with a terrific scene that gives us some insight into Flynn (Goran Visnjic). He’s having a very dark night of the soul, questioning what he’s doing. It was great getting to see Visnjic get some screen time to really flex his acting muscles. One of the things that I really like about the show it the slow build that’s moved us from seeing Flynn as a villain to seeing him as a three dimensional person. Is he really so different from Wyatt (Matt Lanter)? The show has slowly moved us to Rittenhouse being the real villain.

Flynn goes to a church to find guidance even though his wife was the practicing Catholic – again highlighting that Flynn and Wyatt both just want to save their wives. We also see that like Lucy (Abigail Spencer) and Wyatt, Flynn is also tormented by the tension between fate and free will. He asks the Priest (Charles Rahi Chun) where God is in all of this. If everything isn’t meant to be, if he can change the course of history and God doesn’t stop him, is God there? And then he asks for absolution. It may seem that he’s running through time, killing people willy-nilly, but it’s clearly taking a toll on Flynn too.

Back at the base, Jiya (Claudia Doumit) is not a fan of the new security team. Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) tells her it’s going to be ok and slips a burner phone in her pocket. Lucy arrives and Neville announces that he’s sick of waiting for Flynn to dictate their actions. Neville is going to adopt Flynn’s tactics and send them back to Houston, 1962, to eliminate Flynn’s mother! Lucy and Rufus are both horrified. Neville tells them that they don’t have to pull the trigger – they have a new partner for that – SM Caleb Sullivan (Liviu Rain).

Rufus appeals to Connor (Paterson Joseph), who is totally on board with the plan. He tells Rufus that given the team’s lack of success so far, this is the only way to get it done. Rufus and Lucy both refuse point blank – because it isn’t right. Neville tells them they have no choice. Do the mission or spend 10 to 15 years in jail.

Cahill (John Getz) comes to Lucy in the locker room. He apologizes for Neville’s bedside manner. He also tells her that he knows this isn’t her, that she has a good heart and he’s proud of her. And then he pulls out the big guns. Do this one mission and the next one will be to bring back Amy. Lucy is thoughtful. It really is the one thing she wants more than anything.

I loved the scene with Lucy, Rufus and their “new partner.” Rufus tries to warn Sullivan about getting ill on re-entry and Sullivan tells him, “Don’t worry about me. I’m not your dance partner.” Rufus and Lucy share a look – and I loved Spencer’s gigantic eye roll! Of course, they have no intention of really taking him to 1962. They land and take advantage of Sullivan’s disorientation for Rufus to shoot him with a knock out dart and Lucy to grab his gun! And of course he face plants right in her lap…

Back at the base, things go south for Connor. Just as the lifeboat disappears from the system, it crashes. Rufus has installed a worm, complete with an hysterically funny cartoon of Connor dancing about ridiculously! Connor immediately suspects Jiya and announces to Neville that she can’t be trusted because she’s sleeping with Rufus!

Rufus brings the lifeboat to the warehouse in Oakland and Wyatt and Denise (Sakina Jaffrey) are both there. Rufus and Lucy are adorably proud of themselves, and it’s clear it was a very carefully laid plan – complete with Wyatt training Lucy on how to hold a gun and Rufus on how to shoot!

Lucy points out that they are all now fugitives. Wyatt insists that with Rittenhouse running things, they can’t have the lifeboat. Rufus tells them they only have a few hours, and Wyatt is the calm one! He wants to take things one step at a time. Lucy is thrilled and surprised when Wyatt says step one is getting Amy back – he’s not making her wait for the thing she wants most.

Denise is the voice of reason, insisting that it’s reckless with Flynn still on the loose. But Wyatt points out that they don’t work for the government any more. Rufus says he’ll set up the charge – and Lucy hugs both Rufus and Wyatt. She has a plan all ready to go – 1979 Berkeley to make sure Amy’s parents meet.

But then Flynn jumps, and they can’t turn their backs on that. Flynn has gone back to Chicago 1931 and helps Al Capone (Cameron Gharaee) beat the tax evasion charges that sent him to prison.

Rufus is the first to say that he thinks they’ve been fighting the wrong enemy. It’s clear that Rittenhouse are much worse than Flynn. Denise points out that Rufus was the one who said they couldn’t let Flynn take a wrecking ball to history. I loved Barrett’s passionate speech that ends with “and Jiya was forced to work beside a bunch of homicidal dicks!” Lucy is terrified that this is her last shot to get Amy. Wyatt, however, still doesn’t want to let Flynn murder through history. There’s no one else to stop Flynn but them.

At the base, Rufus calls Jiya on the burner phone – he got the idea from The Wire! He tells her that she’s in a lot of trouble. But he needs her to delay and distract them to keep them off their backs for as long as possible. He never wanted her to become a double agent – and he knows what that’s like! He promises to tell her everything – and they two stop just short of saying I love you.

Neville walks in and wants to know who she was talking to. She ditched the burner, but Neville proves he wasn’t born yesterday and finds it easily. I loved the little Easter egg of Neville calling for “Singer!” (Jag Arneja) Beaver’s character on Supernatural was Bobby Singer – and he was named after Executive Producer Robert Singer (who is still working on the show exec producing and directing). Neville then locks Jiya up.

The team arrives in 1931 dressed in 1962 clothing! Lucy is freaking out that they stand out like sore thumbs and once again Rufus gets the best line – they should just embrace their fashion-forwardness, stop Flynn, and get back! Rufus is surprised at how young Capone is, and Wyatt is surprised at how popular Capone is. They’ve arrived just in time to see Capone walk away from the tax evasion charges.

They see Flynn drive off with Capone, so Lucy suggests they enlist Ness. I loved that Collins first scene is punching out a reporter and asking if there are any more questions. Wow. Seems like a modern press conference, doesn’t it?

Wyatt tells Ness that they are Private Investigators and then he gives him actors’ names – which is a nice riff on the musicians’ names that the Winchester brothers always use. I was really hoping that Wyatt would use Beyonce for one of them – Collins current FBI cover name on Supernatural. Costner and Connery are a nod to Kevin Costner and Sean Connery who were both in The Untouchables. It was equally satisfying that he made Rufus Robert De Niro, one of whose most famous roles is as the psychotic taxi driver in Taxi Driver…

It’s also hilarious that Ness wants to know if Rufus is wearing a woman’s sweater! Another little inside Supernatural joke about a sweater Collins character wore in an episode. The show does a great job faking Chicago in these scenes.

Lucy tells Ness that William Randolph Hurst is their client and hired them to go after Flynn. Ness muses that he knew tax evasion would never work… They go back to Ness’s rat trap of an apartment. He’s had to go into hiding and send his family to safety. Rufus asks how he can live with that, and Ness tells him, he couldn’t look himself in the mirror if he didn’t go after Capone. There’s a nice nod to Collins webisodes of cooking with his son to have him cooking for the team. I have to say that I was shocked when Ness is killed so early in the episode!

Once again, Connor tries to play good cop, and tries to act like he has Jiya’s safety as his first priority. He urges her to “play ball” – this is the NSA after all! Jiya isn’t buying it. She tells Connor how scared she was on her first day and in awe of him, but now she feels like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when the current is pulled back and she sees the Wizard for who he really is. Wizard of Oz reference for the win! And fyi, the wizard is a coward and a fraud. Connor then shows his true colors – help us or be arrested.

Rufus, Wyatt, and Lucy flee Ness’s apartment and once again, Wyatt says one problem at a time. Lucy wants to know why he keeps saying that. Wyatt asks if they know what the very first Delta mission way – and of course Lucy does! Loved her just rolling the information off. Wyatt then goes on to tell them the story of Diamond Dave – one of his instructors – jumping out of an on fire plane with no parachute, which luckily was on the ground.

Lucy finally realizes the one person who is left to help them – Capone’s brother, Richard Hart (Mather Zickel). Hart is dead set against helping them. But he is, as Lucy points out, an honorable cop. At the end of the day, Capone is his brother – family is important. He doesn’t want to be the one to take out his brother. Lucy tells him that Capone puts ads in papers all over the country – he wants to see Hart. Lucy also points out that there has to be a reason that Hart chose to be a cop – to right his brother’s wrongs maybe?

Flynn’s plan is to kill Mayor Thompson (Richard Portnow) who is a member of Rittenhouse, but first he wants answers. We finally get the result of Flynn’s meeting with Chavret – he killed him but told him about the Rittenhouse Summit. Thompson tells him the next Summit is in 1954. Flynn is going to kill the Mayor, but Capone doesn’t want the mess and sends them to the docks. Capone still feels like he owes Flynn a favor, and Flynn has a way for Capone can clear the slate.

Hart agrees to go to Capone. I loved how thrilled Rufus is when he realizes that they “are totally the Untouchables!” The reunion between the brothers starts warmly enough and then increasingly turns tense. Capone laughs when Hart tells him that he wants to bring him in. But Capone is angry that Hart never even showed up to their father and brother’s funeral. And then we find out what the last favor was. He knew Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus were coming, and Flynn told him to kill Rufus. It’s still awful that Flynn ordered Rufus’ murder, but on the plus side, he could have asked for Capone to kill all of them.

At the base, Connor works frantically on the worm while Jiya cobbles together equipment in the room she’s being held in. Connor gets the system up. They can’t tell when/where the lifeboat is, but they’ll be able to track the moment they land. And then the system crashes. Connor knows immediately it’s Jiya, but when they burst in to the room she’s being held in, she’s simply sitting on the table – no equipment in evidence – and still needing to go pee!

Hart and Capone face off, gun to gun, and we return to another of Kripke’s favorite themes. Family is more important than anything. Capone is sure Hart won’t shoot – and Hart’s twichy eye would seem to support that. Wyatt doesn’t trust either of them and dives for Rufus just as Capone does shoot, and Hart does too – but not soon enough to stop Rufus from being hit!

Wyatt takes out Frank (Paul Moniz de Sa) and tells Lucy to get the bleeding stopped. Hart goes to Capone and cries over his brother’s dead body. Wyatt apologizes for not acting faster.

Cahill goes to Connor for a status check. Connor is in his office shuffling papers, but tells Cahill they are back on track to be up and running soon. Connor tells him they need time. Connor tells Cahill that if he wants speedier results going forward, he needs access to the NSA data farm in Utah. He tells them his team has developed advance data mining systems – and they’ll be able to find anyone, anywhere at any time Cahill wants. OMG – the show is turning into Person of Interest now!

Lucy thanks Hart and apologizes as she and Wyatt help get Rufus to the lifeboat. They strap Rufus in and he’s able to tell them which button to push, but then he passes out – before he can finish what he wants them to tell Jiya. The lifeboat is rotating furiously as the episode ends! I have a terrible feeling that as bad as this cliff hanger is, the last episode will have one just as bad.

So many Easter eggs in this episode! Loved it! I also like how this show has been able to really craft three-dimensional characters. They’ve also evolved the villains and moved that aspect of the plot along in a really interesting and dynamic way. Having a shorter season really is an advantage to storytelling – at least for the long arc. This show has found a way to really have terrific episodes that anyone can watch, however, with the great windows it opens up on history. It doesn’t hurt that the core cast members deliver terrific performances every week – writing alone can’t make you care about all of them. If you’re enjoying this show as much as I am, be sure to tune in to the finale – and live tweet #RenewTimeless! In fact, don’t be shy about using the hashtag as often as possible! In the meantime, let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments below! And I think we all need a hug....