OH MY GOD. ALL OF MY DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE. MY CONSPIRACY THEORIES AREN’T JUST PARANOID DELUSIONS. THERE IS A RIVAL FACTION TRYING TO TOPPLE THE DIRECTOR. 014 AND 027 SAID SO AND THEY HAVE SUPER LOW NUMBERS AND ARE SUPER IMPORTANT SO IT MUST BE TRUE.

But they killed Grace, and Trevor hates them, so what does that mean? But Trevor might be the inside man, so maybe he was stopping the transition into Grace not just because he cared about her (please don’t take that away from me, show), but because he was trying to stop 027 from escaping from the rival faction in the future. Or, maybe 027 and 014 are the rival faction. My head is starting to hurt. Conspiracy theories are complicated. Also, I might still be a little paranoid.

Hold on to your hats, fellow travelers, we got a lot to unpack in this episode.

We start with Marcy and David in bed, Trevor checking the stitches from his organ donor surgery, and the travelers’ wet dream, a farmer working his farm. The farmer gets into trouble using his giant drilling tractor (?) and promptly becomes a traveler. Farming machinery is more dangerous than people realize. The traveler is elated to be outdoors surrounded by plants and animals.

Continue reading “Travelers Season 1 Episode 11: Marcy Recap” →

The team has loaded Kathryn into the van after last episode’s plane crash and is getting her, and themselves, out of Dodge. They can’t be linked to the crash site in any of the news reports. As they speed away, Philip and Trevor restrain Kathryn while Marcy sedates her. Marcy calls McLaren’s cell phone. One of the EMTs answers it and tells them to deal with the Kathryn situation, then go to headquarters. The team takes Kathryn home, gives her a memory inhibitor, and puts her to bed. She’ll forget most of the last day. Philip and Trevor pour out several bottles of wine to make it look like Kathryn and McLaren got blackout drunk the night before to explain her headache and memory loss. They head off to headquarters.

There’s a medical team at headquarters, with a complete medical suite set up in the garage. The head doctor introduces himself as D13. D for doctor, or, Derek. They are an elite team that usually works on heads of state, but also treats whoever else the director sends them to, world-wide. Told you McLaren was one of the director’s favorites. 😉 Mclaren’s injuries are so extensive that even Future Medicine™ might not be able to save him. He’ll need an organ transplant, so someone will have to volunteer to be the donor who grows the new organ. Medical nanites will do most of the other work. Trevor ends up being the donor to grow the organ. It’s an extremely painful process. McLaren also needs multiple surgeries.

Continue reading “Travelers Season 1 Episode 10: Kathryn Recap” →

The opening scene of this episode might be one of the best scenes of the entire series. Secretary Hayes and his wife are jogging through the woods when he gets a phone call. As he takes the call, he stops to sit on a wall overlooking a steep drop down to a bay. He’s boasting about pushing a pipeline through despite ethical and environmental objections. When Hayes hangs up the phone, he complains that he’s sweating, and that the exercise is going to kill him. Mrs. Hayes pulls a towel out of her waist pack that’s way too big for the size of the pack (traveler magic? 😉 probably an extremely tight fold) and replies, “Oh, honey, don’t be silly. That isn’t going to be what kills you.” Hayes looks confused as she shoves him off the wall, down the steep drop, to his death. She looks around to double-check that she wasn’t observed, then starts crying and calling for help. Well-played, Mrs. Hayes, well-played. Who of us hasn’t had that fantasy about someone?

Cut to Marcy and David enjoying a cup of relaxing, snobby, organic morning coffee. They are in Seattle, after all. The sexual tension has finally gotten to David, so he asks Marcy to find her own place. But he feels really, really terrible about it. Marcy must have lost her subsidized apartment when Ken found out the truth about her, because she had her own place when we met her.

Baby daddy Jeff is continuing his hobby of harassing travelers. This morning it’s McLaren’s turn. Jeff shows up at the FBI office to warn McLaren off his woman. The guy’s got some balls for a beat cop. Aren’t law enforcement agencies a bit territorial, and prone to pulling rank on each other? Showing up on McLaren’s home turf is nervy, either way. Next he’ll go straight to peeing on Carly to mark his territory. Great guy.

Continue reading “Travelers Season 1 Episode 9: Bishop Recap” →

All three male members of the team are talking to prostitutes online and I am very confused. McLaren, in particular, has both a wife and a girlfriend. The man must be insatiable. Ooooh, it’s a mission. And the sex workers end up dead, because that’s what always happens on TV. Wouldn’t want to appear to condone prostitution. It has nothing to do with misogyny at all.

So, anyway, all three male members of the team are chatting up online prostitutes for purely platonic purposes. Philip is giving the prostitute a hard time about intimacy, but she just asks if he’s hard. Maybe Ray was on the right track when he asked if Philip had a boyfriend. Or maybe Philip isn’t interested in cybersex with a girl who’s about to die. McLaren gets told he’s “dad hot,” just to yank McLaren’s (and Eric MacCormack’s) chain a bit. Trevor gets lost in listening to his assignment’s happiest memory. Once again I wonder just how old a soul Trevor is.

The death countdown clock hits zero and the travelers enter the prostitutes without a hitch, but a minute later their feed is lost. The bomb that killed them wasn’t defused by a fourth traveler, Donner, like it was supposed to be, so the three women are all dead. Once again, I wonder why the director cuts these transitions so close.

Continue reading “Travelers Season 1 Episode 8: Donner Recap” →

Protocol 5: In the absence of a mission, resume your host’s life.

I’ve wondered before if any of what we’ve seen so far has been hallucinations, especially in Room 101. The characters definitely hallucinate in this episode. But, thankfully, no one puts their best sniper in the body of a frail old woman, then tells her to aim at the ground, before letting her and the chief engineer of their crucial mission die before the mission is completed. This is a much better episode than Helios 685, as long as you don’t mind character-driven episodes. I love character development and interaction, so I’m good.

The main characters aren’t so good. Their hosts’ lives feel mundane after working several exciting missions since their arrival. Marley is flat-out bored. Original Marcy didn’t have a very exciting life. Traveler Marcy is a doctor, so the obvious solution to her boredom is to do minor surgery on herself to remove her com, turn it into a Vagus Nerve Stimulator to help her seizure disorder, and then reinsert it under the skin in her chest. While bleeding all over David’s apartment. David is understandably disturbed when he gets home and finds Marcy looking like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. They have a long talk about their relationship and Marcy’s mental health, which somehow ends in David doing a spinal tap on Marcy. That guy is really in love, if an invasive medical procedure felt like a sane compromise in that situation.

Continue reading “Travelers Season 1 Episode 7: Protocol 5 Recap” →