TIMELESS Season 1 Episode 3 “Atomic City” Recap

By Ruby Campos

This week’s episode of Timeless starts with more confusion for our time traveling team than usual. They have no idea what happens on September 21^st, 1962 until Jiya tracks down that it is somewhere in Nevada. Wyatt makes the jump that whatever it is that Flynn is up to, it’s probably got something to do with Las Vegas and not the Nevada desert. Lucy does a quick internet search and learns that the DNC party happens to be taking place in Vegas. Not only will JFK be present but about a dozen celebrities will too, including the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

Meanwhile, always a step ahead of them in the past, Flynn secretly snaps some pictures of JFK and his mistress in the Vegas hotel as the party ensues downstairs.

The trio lands in the desert outside of Vegas in their sixties costumes and they see a bomb go off in the near distance. Rufus is pretty freaked and thinks they arrived too late, but Lucy and Wyatt (to her surprise), tell Rufus about the nuclear test site in the Nevada Desert. Rufus still thinks it’s bizarre but they need to get to Vegas and find Flynn.

They finally make it to the hotel but lament that there is no way they’re going to get tickets to the sold out party. However, they don’t dwell too long on this problem because Rufus, coyly stating his super power in 1962 is invisibility, sneaks in the back and finds some employee uniforms for them, so there’s no need to sneak in.

At the party, the Rufus and Lucy keep their cover, serve drinks, and are in awe at getting to see the Rat Pack perform, while Wyatt keeps himself prepared to take out Flynn when JFK makes his way to the stage. Rufus seems to be enjoying the atmosphere until he sees Anthony skulking around (if you recall, Anthony was the scientist taken hostage by Flynn when he stole the mothership in the pilot episode). Rufus gets to Anthony and urges him to come with him so he can escape, but quickly realizes that if he was actually a hostage, he wouldn’t be able to roam freely with no supervision. Anthony does not provide any information but warns Rufus to get away before Flynn kills him.

Meanwhile, Wyatt spots Flynn, who wasn’t actually targeting JFK, but his mistress, Judith Campbell. He moves her from the party to the kitchen with Wyatt close on his tail. They get into a fight (three episodes in a row for Wyatt here) and Flynn locks Wyatt out of the kitchen.

They interrogate Judith and they find out that Flynn is blackmailing her with the pictures of her and Kennedy. They try to convince Judith that they are trying to help her and keep her safe, but she continues to put up a fight.

Flynn has made his way to the desert and snaps at Anthony. He was assured that Mason Intelligence would only know the time they traveled to, not location. Flynn is sick of the trio being right on his tail, he wants to get rid of Rufus in particular, if there is not pilot they can’t follow him. Anthony also makes a case for himself saying this is so much harder for him than it is for Flynn, he’s a family man and Flynn just wants to finish Riddenhouse.

Back to Judith and the trio, Lucy is showering Judith with admiration and the two end up having a deep conversation about how their lives have seemingly changed so suddenly and are beyond recognizable.

Wyatt asks Rufus about Christy Pitt, because he asked Judith about her. Rufus has no idea who Christy is, but heard Anthony mention the name at the party.

Wyatt, who is equally sick of Flynn, but being a step behind him, decides, against Lucy’s protests, to use Judith to lure Flynn to the hotel so they can get it over with instead of falling into Flynn’s trap once again. However, when Flynn sees Judith in the window of the hotel, she hits Wyatt and makes an escape with Flynn and they drive off.

Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus have no more leads and they mope around the hotel for a while. Wyatt writes a telegram for 2012, pleading to his wife to go home with him on the day she dies in the present. Lucy sees him, and is sympathetic despite being angry with him for risking Judith’s life. As they get into a conversation about whether history is meant to be or just chance, Rufus rushes in. After looking at a poster displaying the atomic bomb, he puts two and two together. Christy Pitt isn’t a person but the christy pit. Flynn is after the A-bomb’s plutonium core.

Everything starts to come together. While Flynn may not know anything about the bomb, he doesn’t need to because Anthony would be his expert in the area. But who knows what would happen if the bomb were to explode during a time jump.

Rufus uses his combined uniform and invisibility to steal a car so they can find Flynn and stop him from stealing the atomic bomb.

They almost end up in a head-on collision and while Wyatt fights off the bad guys, Lucy gets Judith to safety and Rufus manages to get the bomb from Anthony. Just before they escape, Rufus has to beg Wyatt not to shoot Anthony because he knows he’s a good guy. However, they discover that the case that supposedly contains the bomb is empty, meaning Flynn still has the nuke.

Back to the present, Lucy is somewhat satisfied that they kept Judith safe but they are reprimanded for letting Flynn and Anthony get away. Rufus thanks Wyatt for not telling everyone that he stopped him from killing Anthony and assures him that he would do the same for him and Lucy.

Wyatt learns that his wife is still dead, despite sending the warning telegram, and resigns himself saying he knew it was a long shot, but is clearly still disappointed.

Lucy goes home to her fiancé, Noah and tells him she needs some time to make sense of her life again, and that she is moving in with her mother. He’s actually totally supportive of her decision and tells her to take as much time as she needs, and that he’ll be there whenever she’s ready, completely taking Lucy by surprise.

Lastly, Jiya tracks down the general location of the mothership in the present this time. The episode closes with Flynn, Anthony, and the other henchmen digging up the atom bomb somewhere in the Nevada Desert.

Other Notes

-Rufus was great in this episode and the MVP of this visit to the past. He was the one to figure out what Flynn was actually up to when they were at a loss for what they should do. He also has this genuine goodness about him, not wanting to believe Anthony is willingly on the bad guy’s team, and preventing his death even though things aren’t looking good for Anthony in Mason’s eyes. Plus, he had some great one-liners.

-While I agree with Rufus when he said that the three are finally working as a good team, I think Wyatt still needs to work on it a little bit. While he sees the main goal to be stopping Flynn at all costs, there are other things that need to be considered. He continues to ignore Lucy’s argument that they need to preserve past events as much as possible. He comes off as the reckless one to Rufus and Lucy’s cautious personas. Hopefully, he can work on taking their ideas into consideration more often and more easily because his making such drastic sole decisions of situations could have its consequences.

Watch Timeless on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.