Tag: eric mccormack

Travelers Season 2 Episode 12: 001 Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 7 Comments

Trav212SimonVincentDevice

This episode ends another season of Travelers, and mirrors season 1 episode 5, Room 101, with the team’s friends and loved ones being held hostage and abused this time. The companions receive more humane physical treatment from Vincent/001 than the travelers did, but he’s out to destroy their relationships and peace of mind. That way he can make a quick escape while the travelers are distracted with the crisis he’s created. We’ll have to wait for season 3 to find out if 001/Vincent’s plan allows him to get away with hiding in plain sight, and if the companions can forgive the travelers for lying to them.

The cold open consists of a videotape recorded by MacLaren at ops in which he confesses to being a traveler:

“Seven months ago my consciousness was sent from the distant future into the body of Special Agent Grant MacLaren, moments before he would historically have died in the line of duty. Since then I have assumed his life, his work, his marriage, pretending to be a man very different than myself. In truth, I am traveler 3468, one of thousands of travelers around the world who have come from a time when life is all but wiped out, to save humanity. To change the path. I know how that must sound, especially to you, Kat, but it’s true.”

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 11: Simon Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

 

Trav211Simon&Gang

This episode we delve further into Simon’s back story and his research with Vincent. We also find out a little more about what Vincent is up to in the present. The travelers search for Vincent with Simon’s help, and things come to a head in their personal lives. MacLaren brings Dr Perrow in on a plan to capture Vincent.

We start the episode at the 2012 gala where original MacLaren and Kat met Vincent, which Vincent mentioned to traveler MacLaren when Mac questioned Vincent. It’s a silent auction, and Kat tells Grant that there’s no way football tickets are worth that much. But it’s for the children!! He runs into Vincent as he steps away to get them another drink.

Vincent stops to chat with Kat, assuming she means that she endowed a research chair when she says that she donated a chair to the auction. Still socially awkward after 11 years in the 21st. Kat explains that she means a literal chair, which doesn’t have any bids yet, so they take a walk over to look at it.

As they approach, Vincent is mesmerized by the series of Simon’s drawings displayed next to Kat’s lovely chair. She informs him that the drawings were done by a patient at the hospital. Visibly moved by the sight of his lost home and people, Vincent buys all of them.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 10: 21C Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

Trav110OrderlyMarcy&Vincent

In this episode, Marcy takes drastic steps to bring back the memories she lost in the reset, and the show does a drastic retcon of her origin story. While Marcy is taking her ice bath through memory lane, the rest of the team is charged with helping to protect future POTUS 53, currently a sweet little girl under attack by the Faction. When you’re an evil death cult, it’s never to early to assassinate a president.

Marcy begins her ice bath ritual with a quasi suicide note for David, because this show loves to torture him. Not that I mind all that much, since David’s happiness is frequently based on guilting people into doing what he wants. He’s one of those guys whose excessive sensitivity makes every situation about him, and Marcy’s need to recover her past is, of course, actually about his needs instead of hers.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 9: Update Recap

~ Metacrone

Trav209PhillipatUpdate

The travelers move on from the machinations of the Faction in this episode, once again settling into the business of long term life in the 21st century, with all of its risks and rewards. Phillip is given his first historical update, restoring his function as the team’s historian. Trevor and MacLaren face personal tragedies. Marcy and Carly help Phillip rebuild the team’s investments.

Phillip picks up his swag bag as he enters a mostly empty movie theatre and finds the seat labeled with his traveler number. A young woman sitting a couple of seats away asks him if it’s his first time, to which he replies, yes. She tells him it’s her second, and points out a man who’s there for the third time. The man’s face is filled with dread. Being a historian is not for the faint of heart, but we already knew that.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 8: Traveler 0027 Recap

~ Metacrone

Trav208GraceTrevMac

This episode is a big one for the season and the series, with the trial and vindication of Grace/0027, the rushed discovery of the real traitor programmer, the dismantling of the quantum frame (for real this time, it appears), and our first peek at the face of God the Director, through the almost forgotten super secret two-way communication that Ellis made possible.

It’s a lot to pack into one episode, so let’s get started.

The episode begins with the Faction on vacation in the country, taking full advantage of the opportunities now available to them in the 21st century. The team is observing the rebels and their lakeside cabin hideout, while Phillip uses some fancy new software to establish TELLs for the two guards who are easily visible. As they’re overwritten to become travelers, a third rebel comes around the corner, ready to shoot, so that one has to be killed instead of overwritten. MacLaren sends the two new travelers into the cabin, where they force the three rebels who are eating lunch to surrender. Why fight when it would make you spill your delicious 21st century soup?

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 7: 17 Minutes Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 8 Comments

Trav207TrevPhilMarcy

In 17 Minutes, we try something a little different from the intensity of last few episodes. So much so, in fact, that Brad Wright, credited writer on the episode, forgot to include most of the plot. It’s a classic repeating time loop episode, this time combined with the goal of preventing the massacre of the team at the hands of the Faction.

As we begin, Katherine receives a giant, gorgeous bouquet of roses from her mother. It turns out it’s her and Grant’s 10 year wedding anniversary, and he hasn’t acknowledged it yet, even though it’s already 7:00 AM!! She sends him a pointed text to remind him that he’s a lousy husband and that she was bussed in from the 1950s.

Meanwhile. the team gathers for a road trip to a lake in the mountains where a meteorite is about to crash that’s crucial to the science of time travel. While they prep, we get some more misogynist dialogue about the “girl’s” training in “21st Century Female Behavior” letting Mac know that Kat is right, he’s a failure as a husband. It must be 8:00 AM by now and he hasn’t even sent flowers, never mind bought her diamond jewelry.

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Travelers Season 2 Episodes 1-6- Review and Analysis of the First half of the Season

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The Travelers season 1 finale left the show set up with several crises waiting for season 2. Marcy had been rebooted and we weren’t sure how she was. The Director had been rebooted and was under attack. We weren’t sure how it was, and there was the possibility that it wouldn’t win against the Faction. Grace and Trevor had been shot by Ellis, who’d then been killed by a messenger from either the Director or the Faction. Something was downloading into the quantum frame. There were conflicting messages about whether to kill MacLaren or destroy the quantum frame. Forbes and a strike team were staring at the group in the barn, ready to arrest them all.

It sounds like the set up for an exciting season, but they’d taken care of most of these issues by the end of the first episode, using deus ex machina once again. Everyone who was hurt is okay, thanks to deus ex nanites. Time travel seemed to be working fine. The quantum frame was being dismantled. Most of the FBI agents in MacLaren’s office were now travelers, including Forbes, so everyone was set free and forgiven any crimes.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 6: U235 Recap

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Trav206GanginNavalBase

This episode brings the plague and Faction civil war arcs to a close with a giant hand wave from the Director and a whisper from Grace. It’s all very Deus Ex Director Machina. As with episode 6 in season 1, Helios 685, the team spends the episode doing Very Important Things that mostly don’t matter, because the Director will eventually manage to pull off the save.

The episode picks up back at headquarters, with Jenny being moved onto a gurney. They toss her on it instead of placing her gently, then start questioning her again. Carly brilliantly holds her at gunpoint. I don’t know what happened to her IQ this season. Jenny tells her to go ahead and shoot, she wants to die anyway (They brought her back from a suicide attempt 5 minutes ago in their time, FFS.)

Jenny won’t tell them where the frame is or how many Faction members are in the 21st. Grace reminds them that there could be thousands more in the frame. Trevor says it could be anybody they meet.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 5: Jenny Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 8 Comments

Trav205JennyMarcyCarly

As with season 1, this season’s episode 5 is a game changing episode that reveals what the future world is like, and just how dangerous the 21st is for the Travelers. This time, Travelers inadvertently start a plague instead of preventing one, and realize that they’ve been used by the Faction for months.

Almost everyone’s life is at risk from the new plague. Victims bleed from their eyes before they die, so you know it’s bad. Global pandemic stories are the best.

Part of me feels like this recap should be a transcript of the entire episode. There are a lot of important facts thrown out at a rapid pace, so it’s easy to miss some. I’ll try to control myself.

We pick up not long after 11:27 ended. Jenny commands Phillip/3326 to access memory chain 71985VX and write the information down on her white board. He does so silently, as if he’s in a trance. When he finishes, Dr Derek/D13, the Director’s favorite super doctor, arrives to get a copy of the formula. Jenny told Derek that she would send him a copy, but he was so excited that he wanted to see it for himself. He says that parts of the formula will be difficult to reproduce, takes photos of the whiteboard, and leaves.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 4: 11:27 Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

Trav204BishopMac

The team is ordered to take part in not one, but two terrorist attacks this episode, occurring simultaneously, against a thinly veiled version of agribusiness conglomerate Monsanto and MacLaren’s old friend Congressman Bishop. They are forced to improvise, as always, with the usual mixed results, but this time the Director is watching them closely.

Carly buys a bomb from a guy at a preagreed spot next to a dumpster in an alley, using codewords and a text conversation on her phone to identify herself. She tells the guy they shouldn’t have any more contact, now that their business is concluded.

Trevor delivers a bomb to a woman using the same code words and text conversation as identification. The package is a different size than the one Carly received. The team has inserted themselves as a middle man in this transaction to make sure that the woman (Abby) is successful with her bomb.

She asks Trevor questions about the safety parameters of the bomb, and he gives her some very specific warnings, including telling her she shouldn’t take it through a metal detector, or blow herself up trying to get through security. Guess we know what went wrong the first time.

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