Timeless S1E10: Who's Rittenouse? Revealed
Jul. 6th, 2024 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt's been over 4 months since I last wrote about the TV series Timeless. It originally aired in 2016-2018 on NBC. I watched it earlier this year streaming on Hulu. I actually finished watching it, both seasons, back in February, but it subsequently got lost in my backlog of things to write about. Now I have time to pick the thread back up.
In my last blog about Timeless, back in February, I mused about who or what "Rittenhouse" could be. It's the name of the mysterious, invisible, powerful bogeyman that drives the whole series's plot. We're introduced to the name as early as the first episode, when the apparent villain, a former-government-spy-turned-terrorist named Flynn who's stolen a time machine and is going back in time to kill key US government officials, says, in so many words, "It's not me you should be chasing, it's Rittenhouse." Okay, but who or what is Rittenhouse, and what do they want?
Clues dribble out over successive episodes, but mostly it's a cat-and-mouse game as the protagonists, Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus, chase Flynn to stop him from murdering past key political leaders— including presidents. The nature of the hidden enemy becomes more clear in Episode 10, "The Capture of Benedict Arnold". It's also where the protagonists agree to join forces with their immediate enemy, temporarily, to oppose the hidden enemy.
In this episode Flynn travels back in time to upstate New York, 1780. It's when Benedict Arnold betrayed George Washington to the British. The protagonists fear Flynn is changing the past to aid Arnold and the British, helping them capture George Washington and presumably defeat the fledgling United States of America in its war of independence.
Flynn, in this episode, tips his hand instead of moving mysteriously. He declares that he's not trying to harm Washington or aid the British. He's actually after Arnold himself— because Arnold was one of the first members of Rittenhouse, having befriended founder David Rittenhouse. In this story Rittenhouse is a person. And Arnold knows who and where he is. And Flynn wants to force Arnold to take him there— presumably so he can kill the first Rittenhouse and thus destroy the organization he founded.
As the plot unfolds we viewers get to see a bit that answers the question, "What does Rittenhouse want?" David Rittenhouse is brilliant and power-hungry. He's also evil. He has a regressive aristocrat's view of the world, that the populace are basically cattle who need a ruler. And he's better than the actual aristocrats of the time because he's smarter... and more willing than some to be ruthless.
In the episode the protagonists manage to kill Rittenhouse... or at least seriously wound him and leave him for dead. His adolescent son escapes, though. Flynn wants to kill the boy, arguing he's already internalized his father's evil mindset. Lucy, emotional and arguing that maybe he's not evil because he's just a boy, struggles with Flynn over a gun while the boy escapes.
When the two sides return to the present, Rittenhouse— the evil mastermind organization— is pulling the strings just as much as ever. But now the protagonists understand what Rittenhouse is, and are willing to join forces with Flynn to oppose it.
In my last blog about Timeless, back in February, I mused about who or what "Rittenhouse" could be. It's the name of the mysterious, invisible, powerful bogeyman that drives the whole series's plot. We're introduced to the name as early as the first episode, when the apparent villain, a former-government-spy-turned-terrorist named Flynn who's stolen a time machine and is going back in time to kill key US government officials, says, in so many words, "It's not me you should be chasing, it's Rittenhouse." Okay, but who or what is Rittenhouse, and what do they want?
Clues dribble out over successive episodes, but mostly it's a cat-and-mouse game as the protagonists, Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus, chase Flynn to stop him from murdering past key political leaders— including presidents. The nature of the hidden enemy becomes more clear in Episode 10, "The Capture of Benedict Arnold". It's also where the protagonists agree to join forces with their immediate enemy, temporarily, to oppose the hidden enemy.
In this episode Flynn travels back in time to upstate New York, 1780. It's when Benedict Arnold betrayed George Washington to the British. The protagonists fear Flynn is changing the past to aid Arnold and the British, helping them capture George Washington and presumably defeat the fledgling United States of America in its war of independence.
Flynn, in this episode, tips his hand instead of moving mysteriously. He declares that he's not trying to harm Washington or aid the British. He's actually after Arnold himself— because Arnold was one of the first members of Rittenhouse, having befriended founder David Rittenhouse. In this story Rittenhouse is a person. And Arnold knows who and where he is. And Flynn wants to force Arnold to take him there— presumably so he can kill the first Rittenhouse and thus destroy the organization he founded.
As the plot unfolds we viewers get to see a bit that answers the question, "What does Rittenhouse want?" David Rittenhouse is brilliant and power-hungry. He's also evil. He has a regressive aristocrat's view of the world, that the populace are basically cattle who need a ruler. And he's better than the actual aristocrats of the time because he's smarter... and more willing than some to be ruthless.
In the episode the protagonists manage to kill Rittenhouse... or at least seriously wound him and leave him for dead. His adolescent son escapes, though. Flynn wants to kill the boy, arguing he's already internalized his father's evil mindset. Lucy, emotional and arguing that maybe he's not evil because he's just a boy, struggles with Flynn over a gun while the boy escapes.
When the two sides return to the present, Rittenhouse— the evil mastermind organization— is pulling the strings just as much as ever. But now the protagonists understand what Rittenhouse is, and are willing to join forces with Flynn to oppose it.
