Things Get Witchy on Timeless

Last week ended with the (not) shocker of Wyatt’s long-dead wife, Jessica, actually being alive. And not only that, it just happened to coincide with Lucy and Wyatt finally banging it out, because of course it did. Now I’ll just sit here and wait a few weeks until Lucy finds out “hey, 1940s condoms are pretty useless and now I’m pregnant!” And since this fetus will be going through time all the while, ta-da! Timelords! It’s all connected! But seriously, the Jessica Is Alive card is a disappointing one, but I have a little more hope for what it means to the storyline after watching The Salem Witch Hunt last night.

Last we saw the team, Wyatt broke out of the bunker after getting a text from Jessica, who, in his reality, has been dead for a bit. We pick up right where we left off with Wyatt in the bar, gaping at a not-dead wife, and Jessica more annoyed than pleased to see the estranged husband from her reality. Turns out Wyatt is shitty marriage material in this timeline, and Jessica doesn’t have time to stroll down memory lane while at work, so she tells him they’ll talk later, wherever he’s staying. Yikes.

Meanwhile, at Rittenhouse HQ, Keynes is getting caught up on all things New Fangled, and I’m not sure which he’s more disgusted with, women in pants or stationary bikes. Ahhhh, nothing like 100 year old values to make you appreciate women’s suffrage (although I’m 100% with him on the bikes. Torture devices). Carol tells Keynes that exercise is allegedly good for us (I don’t buy it), and that Flynn is still locked up, thanks to Lucy, her wonderful, traitorous, enemy daughter. Emma and Keynes are both not too keen on giving Lucy credit for shit. In fact, they’re both pretty gung-ho about killing her, since she has a way of beating them ALL THE TIME with nothing more than a scrappy attitude, a Delta, and a genius engineer. Carol is, not surprisingly, not too excited about killing her kid, but hey she joined the club.

Back in the bunker, Jiya tells Rufus about her premonitions, and for a time-traveler, Rufus is pretty goddamn skeptical of his girlfriend’s new skill. Jiya tells him that she sees him kill an old-timey pilgrim dude with a scar on his face, and before they can fight about whether or not she’s has visions or is just fucking with them, the alarm sounds saying that the Mothership has landed. Turns out Rittenhouse is heading to Salem during the height of the Witch Hunt, and Jiya gets more worried about Rufus killing someone. Lucy calls Wyatt to let him in on the fun, but he tells her that his wife is suddenly not dead, and Lucy is much more understanding about this inconvenient plot development than I would be.

Lucy tells Agent Christopher & Co that Wyatt isn’t coming because Jessica has a pulse, and Rufus is (obviously) the only one surprised. Soon after Lucy explains their timeline differences, it’s discovered that Rittenhouse went to 1980 and presumably killed the person who killed Jessica. Of course Rittenhouse is behind it, and that right there is what made Jessica coming back even remotely interesting to me. I’m still mostly regarding her as an inconvenient obstacle thrown into a ‘ship because it’s the year 2018 and still people think the Moonlighting curse is a real thing, but the idea that Rittenhouse brought Jessica back to fuck with Time Team shows some interesting potential. After this major discovery, Flynn volunteers to go in Wyatt’s place, and after Lucy explains that a single woman and a black dude won’t get too far in the 17th century, everyone reluctantly agrees and they’re off!

Once in 1692, Lucy starts giving a history lesson about the most infamous example of mass- hysteria when they’re interrupted by an angry woman in a cloak. They tell her they’re from Boston and came to see if they could help. She introduces herself as Abbi (Sofia Vassilieva) and invites them to the tavern, since “beer is proof God wants us to be happy.” Abbi is my kind of people. Once at the tavern, the team barely gets a chance to sit down before Judge John Hathorne stomps in, parading around nine condemned women. Lucy and team are a bit confused because there are only supposed to be eight men and women killed today, but it makes more sense when their new pal Abbi, or Abiah Franklin, is accused and convicted right there in the tavern, after she demands a new trial for the others. In case you didn’t know who Abiah Franklin was, you’re not alone, but turns out that she’s actually the mother of as-yet unborn Benjamin Franklin, so her being hanged is probably not great for America.

While Lucy is coming to this realization, Rufus sees a dude with a scar on his face and freaks the fuck out, because according to Jiya, Rufus is gonna kill him. Rufus, being Rufus, decides that Scar Dude must be the sleeper agent, otherwise why would Rufus shoot him? Flynn disagrees, but shows he can be a team player when he …ahem… “talks”

to the man, only to confirm that he’s not Rittenhouse, and he didn’t accuse Abbi of shit. He does mention that it’s usually people close to “witches” that make the accusations, and Lucy remembers that Abiah’s sister Bathsheba (Emily Swallow) was pretty into pointing fingers, so off they go to question her and her husband. Rufus decides to check out the jail to see if he can break Abbi out, and Flynn goes with Lucy. Bathsheba admits that yes, she’s been busy accusing people, but she wouldn’t accuse her own sister! She has a line!

Once they meet back at the tavern, Rufus tells them that he hasn’t had any luck, either, and Flynn is still pouting about not having a gun which, honestly is the most entertaining part of this whole thing. Dude has one hell of an itchy trigger finger. It’s okay, though, because soon Flynn is surrounded by guns when Hathorne comes to arrest them for witchcraft! Turns out Carol really is a team player, and added Lucy to the list of people she’s accusing along with Abiah. Flynn manages to escape, but the others aren’t so lucky and are hauled off to jail to await execution. Lucy bonds with the other accused, and when Carol comes to check on her, Lucy tells her to fuck off. I love that Carol is sending her kid to the gallows but still wants to be buds. Carol tells Lucy that Franklin is a necessary sacrifice, and if Lucy joins her, they could try and convince Keynes to not kill her. Sounds super appealing, and Lucy again tells her mom to go fuck herself.

Lucy, Rufus, and the other accused are sent to be hanged, and just as Abiah is about to swing, Flynn shoots a judge! Yay, he got a gun! He stole it from Bathsheba, but hey, that’s only fair, right? In the ensuing chaos, not only does Abiah escape, but so do all the accused, thanks to the “I Don’t Give A Fuck About Preserving History Anymore” attitude Lucy is sporting these days. I gotta say, I kinda wish she’d adopted that in time to save Lincoln, but better late than never, I guess. Lucy gets hurt in the scuffle, and Flynn helps her to the Lifeboat, and getting buckled (Wait, that’s Wyatt’s job!). As they’re escaping Rufus runs into Not As Cool Scarface, and they end up in a standoff. Rufus begs Scar Dude to just go home so Rufus doesn’t have to shoot him, and he listens, only to be run over by a fucking wagon. Now I don’t know what the fuck kind of time travel theory they’re working with. Do Jiya’s premonitions about someone dying have to happen? Or was it just a fluke? More on that later, though. The team hops into the Lifeboat and heads home.

Ah yes, 2018, where Jessica tells Wyatt she wants a divorce and Wyatt tries to explain that he’s not the giant asshole he’s apparently been for the past few years. This all begs the question though: would they have stayed together in his original timeline, had Jessica not been murdered? Regardless of which timeline we’re in, Wyatt has only been “traveling” for a couple months, but Jessica had the look of a woman who’s been living in the dark about her partner’s life for years. Most of what we see in 2018 is Wyatt begging Jessica for a second chance and Jessica saying she can’t trust him, so Wyatt naturally takes her to the fucking bunker because why not? It’s not like there are other people he’s putting at risk. Agent Christopher tells him that Rittenhouse brought her back, and maybe that should raise some red flags, but Wyatt is hearing none of it. He wants Jessica to live with him and the team like a mole person. Wyatt doesn’t think things through, is what I’m getting from this. Jessica still isn’t buying this shit, even when she sees the Lifeboat appear, and we all get treated to an awkward as fuck moment between Wyatt, Lucy, and Flynn, with a little Jessica on the side when Flynn helps the injured Lucy off the ship, and Wyatt forgets for a second that he dropped her like a hot potato a few hours ago. Fuck it, I’m shipping Flucy now. I can get Wyatt wanting to figure shit out with Jessica, I can. But then he decides to just bring her to the bunker to live with him and Lucy, with whom he literally just had sex. And it never occurred to him to think about anyone else in this situation. Awesome, Wyatt.

Meanwhile, after talking about the Salem Witch Revolt, Rufus tells Jiya that he doesn’t want to know about her premonitions anymore, because the only reason he gave the scarred man a second thought was because of what Jiya told him, and the lines between fate and free will are blurring a bit more than he’s okay with. Jiya doesn’t apologize, but reluctantly agrees not to tell him, which is smart. She’s better off telling Wyatt so he can make a note of shit but not freak out like Rufus does. That is, if Wyatt stays with the team at all.

Back at Rittenhouse HQ, it appears Keynes has discovered the drive-thru, and while all these musings would sound entertaining from literally anyone else, Keynes has a way of making everything sound sinister. Carol reports back that Flynn is working with Lucy, but it doesn’t matter much, because Keynes and Emma (who apparently lives there now) kick her off Operation Kill Lucy, which, fair.

Honestly I’m not terribly sure how I feel about this episode. I really did enjoy seeing more of Flynn, and his more brash and brazen attitude towards time travel is refreshing, as is Lucy getting the history stick out of her ass, but I really didn’t care for spending the whole episode watching Wyatt try and get Jessica back. It felt fairly one-note the whole time, and while I’m willing to give this storyline a go, I’m still kind of disappointed that such a predictable “twist” came about.  

What did you think of Salem Witch Hunt? Are you a fan of the Jessica storyline so far? What do you think Keynes and Emma have planned? Do you think Carol will defect to the Time Team, now that she got the boot from her “project?”