Tag: science fiction

Travelers Season 3 Episode 9: David Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

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Episode 9, David, is the penultimate episode of season 3, but it actually feels like episodes 8, 9 and 10 are meant to be watched together as a trilogy, since they breathlessly flow from one to the next.

This season goes out with several bangs, beginning with this episode. It’s crazy and intense and will have you on the edge of your seat.

The episode begins in Shanghai, with a Traveler team infiltrating a dark building. Inside the building, they climb on top of a self-contained vault, similar to the archive in Seattle. Next, they wave a Geiger counter over the roof, then mark a spot with chalk. They drill through the metal of the vault, then lower a wire cable, hooked to a small tool, down to a device below. It’s a nuclear bomb, and they’re attempting to disarm it. The design for the bomb can be seen on a pad held by one of the Travelers.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 8: Archive Recap

~ Metacrone

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Welcome to the beginning of the end, fellow Travelers! Episode 8 marks the start of the story cycle that will take us through the season finale. These are three exciting, well-written episodes, and I’m looking forward to writing about them. They’re also very emotional and filled with plot and science.

So, rather than spoil anything, let’s get started.

The scene opens on beloved Canadian actor Christopher Heyerdahl, who you’ll definitely recognize from somewhere if you’ve watched any genre TV in the last 30 years. His character, Andrew Graham, is alone outside, in a deserted area, wearing a pair of coveralls and burning the personal effects of Linda MacVicar, who was Aleksander Andrieko’s foster mother in S3 Ep3. He even has her purse and phone.

The phone rings as he’s slowly removing and examining the items in her purse. He gently places a unicorn figure on top of the pile, then answers the phone, but doesn’t speak. It’s Linda’s foster son, Ronnie, who was also shown in episode 3.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 7: Trevor Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments
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The Time Twins

There are more Travelers posts HERE.

Episode 7, Trevor, focuses on Mac, David and Trevor. Trevor begins to feel the effects of his long life and multiple host bodies. He makes a pact with the Director so that his host body can be reused when his mind is gone. This doesn’t sit well with Grace, so she decides to find an alternative.

Assume that this recap should be filled with this emoji: 😭😭😭. I will do us all a favor and not overuse it. But, inside, I’m crying every time Trevor and/or Grace are on screen ripping my heart out. And Philip.

Mac continues his back and forth with Kat. At the beginning of the episode, he’s convinced her that all is well. Their relationship is saved, again. But he makes another mistake before long, which brings back Kat’s doubts and fears. This time, she uses reliable facts when she goes up against Mac, the kind that he can’t turn around and use to gaslight her.

I love it when we get to see Kat’s intelligence.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 6: Philip Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 6 Comments

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Find more Travelers posts HERE.

Episode 6, Philip, brings back the special ops Traveler team of Hall, Luca and Kyle, for a deeper look into how historians function, what’s up with the Faction now that 001 is in charge, and how Kyle has changed the dynamic of Hall’s team. We say goodbye to more recurring characters in this episode, as the Director’s lack of sentimentality becomes more apparent with every episode. The events of this episode also give us a glimpse into the current state of the future. Travelers in the 21st aren’t supposed to talk about what they left behind, but it sounds like the people they left behind in the future never forget the reason the Traveler program exists.

Soldiers mirror their leaders, and we’re seeing that reflected throughout this season, in ways large and small, from the Faction using the same violent techniques as Vincent to Philip and Trevor losing their tendency to argue with Mac’s decisions based on whether they think they’re the right, moral thing to do. Mac and his team are moving closer and closer to the behaviors and ideals of Hall’s team. In season 1, Mac and his team were appalled by Hall and his team’s behavior and attitudes. The team doesn’t see it, because their journey in that direction will look different from Hall and Luca’s, but with every episode they fall further into the “ends justifies the means” rabbit hole.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 5: Naomi Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

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All manner of things come to a head in episode 5, Naomi. The title character is a girl who begins the episode on a school field trip to a nuclear power plant. Because a Traveler team is waylaid and can’t carry out the Director’s plan to stop a nuclear explosion, Naomi is pressed into service as a super messenger, with her brain running a program that allows her to shut down the hack that was going to cause the nuclear power plant to go critical and kill tens of thousands.

The Director’s program doesn’t leave Naomi’s head as expected, so she’s left speaking code at inopportune moments. Grace, with the support of Mac’s team, is called in to fix the issue. It’s proves to be a very stubborn program.

Issues are also coming to a head for David and Kat, in the aftermath of their kidnapping and the strain it’s put on their relationships.

Kat insists that Mac meet her at her therapist’s appointment, so that they can work on their issues. He can’t find the emotional honesty that David and Marcy have, that allows them to work around the secrets Marcy needs to keep. Instead, Mac keeps piling on fresh lies and defensiveness. When he gets called back to ops, he becomes even more aggressive and defensive, in order to give himself an excuse to get out of the meeting. But he actually means everything he says.

David decides that he needs to take protecting himself to the next level, which scares Marcy. After David spent season 2 worrying that he could lose Marcy again at any time, in season 3, it’s Marcy’s turn to worry about losing David, and her turn to go overboard with it. David goes overboard himself, because this is about more than just keeping himself physically safe.

This is about protecting his image of himself as a man and as someone who can move through the world with the automatic protections that men take for granted. It’s untenable for him to worry about becoming a victim of violent crime every time he leaves the house, so he needs to confront it, and win, to calm his nerves, even if the confrontation is purely symbolic.

Imagine if he had to consider his chances of being raped every time he went out alone after dark.

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Travelers Season 3: Did Carly Provoke the Director into Intervening with Jeff?

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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Spoilers Through Season 3 Episode 10, Protocol Omega.

In season 3 of Travelers, Jeff and Carly’s series-long battle finally ends with Jeff being taken over as a Traveler. Later, the Traveler who’s using Jeff as a host, 5416, suggests that the Director only took Jeff because Carly stood her ground during an argument and turned it into a kill or be killed situation, forcing the Director’s hand. In other words, he accuses her of causing Jeff’s death by making the Director choose between allowing both her and Jeff to die, or using Jeff as a host.

During the same conversation, 5416 makes it clear that he knows little about Jeff as a person or his history with Carly. Over the next few episodes, it becomes obvious that his training was lacking in other ways, because the future is getting worse, instead of better. His supposed “calling out” of Carly for causing the Director to take Jeff as a host, when it otherwise wouldn’t have, is based on ignorance, and should be dismissed.

When evidence from all three seasons is examined, it’s clear that the Director planned to use Jeff as a host, and planned to use him for this mission. Indeed, 5416 acknowledges that he’s been training for this mission, and has had training to function as “Jeff”, just not enough.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 4: Perrow Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 8 Comments

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Find my other Travelers posts HERE.

Episode 4, Perrow, picks up the dropped thread of 001, who went into hiding at the end of season 2, and hasn’t been seen since. The Faction kidnaps Perrow, via car accident, because they want something from her. She’s injured so badly that Perrow’s body is no longer viable, but the Faction can offer 001 a new host in trade, and an army for her to lead.

001, the first Traveler, had been using Vincent Ingram as his host body since he accidentally transferred into Vincent, instead of another man, on 9/11/2001 in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center, minutes before the plane hit the building (S2 Ep1, Ave Machina). Over the course of season 2, he built a consciousness transfer device in the 21st century, with the help of Traveler 004/Simon, a highly trained Traveler who’d been institutionalized after his host developed schizophrenia.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 3: Protocol 3 Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 6 Comments

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Check out my other Travelers posts HERE.

Aleksander Part 2 Protocol 3 takes us back to an almost forgotten episode from early season 1, the third episode of the series, Aleksander. In Aleksander, Philip was struggling with both his unexpected heroin addiction and the burden of his historical knowledge. He decided to take action and save as many individual lives as he could. This culminated with him creating a fake mission to convince the team to save a young boy who’d been kidnapped by serial killers, Aleksander Andrieko. Aleksander is saved, but the mission turns disastrous and the team discovers Philip’s deceit. The Director orders the team to leave Aleksander behind to die, but Philip won’t let them do it.

I always wondered if Aleksander and that episode would come back again eventually. They weren’t mentioned in season 1 or 2, but dealt with important concepts that haven’t been fully dealt with otherwise. So, I’m happy that the show has returned to Aleksander, and we get to see the effect that being rescued under such strange conditions had on him.

We also get a glimpse at the Director’s process of continuously reassessing timelines and the infinite branches that are always forming and reforming, as every new variable creates new possible futures. This episode shows us that not only is the Director not infallible, its mistakes arise from the unpredictability of human behavior.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 2: Yates Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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Find my other Travelers posts HERE.

Now that the worst of 001’s mess is cleaned up, the team moves on to a more normal mission and Mac gets a new partner, FBI Agent Yates. Neither is thrilled with the situation. They are ordered to protect a TV pundit who spreads fake news and has latched onto the Travelers as a good source of inflammatory rumors to keep his fanbase riled up. Some fans take the rumors too seriously and pull off a tragic attack on a candidate for Congress and his wife.

The Travelers and their significant others continue to deal with the fall out from the kidnapping. David, Kat and Jeff have been through multiple traumatic experiences, some at the hands of people they trusted and care about. The memory inhibitor might work for a mind wipe, but, as we were already seeing with David and Kat in episode 1, the physical, muscular memories of fighting back during an assault are still carried by the body. And, as Carly tried to point out, for David and Kat, the erased 24 hours is just the tip of the iceberg, as far as evidence that something is wrong and that their partners have changed.

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Travelers Season 3 Episode 1: Ilsa Recap

~ Metacrone

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This is a recap. For my review of episodes 1-3, click HERE.

If you need to catch up, my recap for Season 2 Episode 12, 001 is HERE.

Are we ready for season 3 of Travelers, kids???

Netflix and Brad Wright (the Stargate franchise) have dropped 10  new episodes of the time traveling, body swapping science fiction drama. Travelers stars Eric McCormack (Will and Grace) and a cast of young Canadian actors which includes MacKenzie Porter, Nesta Cooper, Jared Abrahamson, Reilly Dolman, Patrick Gilmore and Jen Spence.

It always feels like a long wait between seasons for Netflix shows that drop their entire seasons at once, but the wait was actually a little less than a year this time, for those of us who are outside Canada. Because Canadians now will also be watching Travelers on Netflix, instead of the Showcase network, they had a little extra wait.

But, enough chitchat. Let’s talk about the episode!

Season 1 begins in a hospital room, with a woman we will come to know as FBI agent Joanne Yates, sitting by the bedside of her dying mother. Her mother is unconscious, but then her eyes open and she turns her head to her daughter. She says, “Joanne, I want you to listen to me carefully.”

Next we see the Traveler team and the significant others who were kidnapped by Vincent at the end of last season (001, Season 2 Episode 12) riding together in an old school bus. The significant others are unconscious, except for Grace, who doesn’t need her memories altered, since she’s a Traveler. Grant remembers Kat slapping him as she rejected him, after learning he wasn’t really the man she married. He asks the bus driver to slow down, so the bumps don’t wake up the sleeping passengers.

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