THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST DISTURBING EPISODE OF TRAVELERS YET, but, hot on the heels of last week’s episode, it proved to be another one of my favorites. The cast and crew are on a roll, and this episode we get to see MacKenzie Porter convincingly play several different versions of Marcy without breaking a sweat.

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This episode gets into some Vincent stuff that’s too complicated to even introduce. Read on to share in my confusion.

 

Spoilers ahead!

 

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Full Episode Recap and Analysis

 

Marcy Prepares For Something Drastic

 

THE EPISODE BEGINS WITH MARCY PREPARING FOR SOMETHING in David’s apartment, and it doesn’t look like her plan is a particularly good (or safe) one.

Marcy, sitting at the table, finishes writing a letter, puts it in an envelope and sets it down. Marcy then sends Carly a text message, informing her that she’ll be undergoing a “medical procedure” today, and requesting that Carly come by David’s apartment at 4PM, sharp. Carly agrees, but naturally asks if Marcy is okay. Marcy responds that she “will be”. I think at this point we all know where this is going.

Making her way to David’s bathroom, we see that Marcy has set up medical monitoring equipment. Uh oh. We have seen Marcy use David’s bathroom for self-surgery in the past, and it looks like she’s about to do something like that again.

Thankfully, Marcy does not cut herself this time, but what she’s doing appears to be no less dangerous. Marcy puts sensors on her chest to monitor heart rate, blood-oxygen level and respiration, then Injects herself with something black (leftover nanites she swiped from the virus episode, maybe?), then drips some kind of eyedrops into her eyes.

Marcy looks in the mirror for a moment, no doubt thinking something along the lines of “this is a really bad idea” before stepping into the bathtub. The bathtub, by the way, is filled with ice-water.

Marcy submerges herself up to her neck in the ice-water, and closing her eyes as the beeping of the monitors increases.

I’m assuming that Marcy is trying to regain her lost “pieces” through this mysterious procedure.

Grant and Kathryn Try to Cope

Back at the MacLaren loft, Kathryn stands motionless in the kitchen with the faucet running, an empty glass in her hand, staring into space. Grant comes over, fills her glass for her, and the two embrace. After losing their baby in the last episode, the couple is understandably devastated.

Hall’s Team Kidnaps a Child

 

Hall, Luca and Kyle pull up in a car alongside a group of children who are walking to school. All the children except one (Anna Hamilton, played by Elle McKinnon), freeze in place, and judging by the squeaky static sound we hear, this is somehow done by the Director.

Anna can still move and speak, but clearly doesn’t know what’s going on. Hall asks her to come with them for her own protection, but she’s not into the idea, so Kyle grabs Anna, throws her in the car, and the Team speeds off with her. After the car departs, we hear the static sound again and the other children unfreeze. Anna’s friend Bree (played by Yobdee) is especially baffled, looking around everywhere for her missing friend with no idea of what just happened.

Marcy Begins to Remember Her Host’s Past

 

Marcy, eyes closed in the ice bath, begins to remember her host’s past. Marcy 1.0 was at some point apparently in a mental health ward. In case you don’t remember, Marcy 1.0, when we met her, had significant brain damage, and as a result, was quite childlike.

In this memory, Marcy is happily working on her reading skills with a nice orderly (played by Omari Newton). She reads “What will you become?” out of a picture book, a profound question we already know the answer to. The peaceful reading session is interrupted when an aggressive orderly (Drake, played by Benjamin Rogers) loudly enters the room to take Marcy to her “treatment”. Marcy really (really) doesn’t want to go.

Nice Orderly has a problem with Drake, who at this point has roughly grabbed the resistant Marcy. Nice Orderly insists that Marcy is a “person“, and that she should be “treated with respect”. Nice Orderly doesn’t actually stop Drake, however, and Marcy is literally dragged, kicking and screaming, away.

Drake successfully drags Marcy to the treatment room, and things are even worse than I expected. Once Drake straps Marcy into an ominous-looking white chair, Vincent appears in a lab coat, appearing to be posing as a doctor, saying creepily:

“Dear, sweet Marcy. Don’t be afraid, dear. I have no desire to hurt you, and I mean that sincerely. No, quite the opposite. I only want to make you whole again.”

Okay, what is going on here?

First of all, we had no idea that Marcy 1.0 was even ever in a place like this. When we met her, she had her own apartment and was a client of David, who helped her with her everyday life as part of his social work. No freaky, Vincent-run mental health ward was in her life at all.

Secondly, Vincent. This guy. Apparently, he was messing with Marcy before she was even a host. Vincent says he wants to make her “whole” again. Does this mean reversing her brain damage, or something else? Who knows.

 

If this means that Vincent knew Marcy would be a host in the future, he has proven here that he is on a whole other level, and this has all kinds of big implications. Vincent, remember, is Traveler 001, the first Traveler of all, so how could he tell what’s going to happen in the future? As far as we know, he has no support system in the future. No Messengers giving him information, no Historians, no updates. So, how could Vincent know Marcy’s future host-body-candidacy?

Even if he did somehow know Marcy was going to be a Traveler host, what could he hope to gain by messing with her before she becomes a Traveler? Are we to assume that Marcy 1.0’s involvement with Vincent is just a coincidence? It’s possible, but knowing all the parties involved, seems unlikely.

Well, I have a new theory about the nature of Vincent. I have typed up a full analysis in my “Final Thoughts” section at the bottom of this recap.

We now see present-day-Marcy in the ice bath again, unconscious and convulsing, as she remembers this terrible past.

The Team Gets a Mission

 

Carly receives a Messenger who directs the Team to provide tactical support to another Traveler Team at a specific location and time. No one can get ahold of Marcy (currently in an ice bath) or Grant (who turned off his comm to grieve in peace with Kathryn). Because of the absence of Marcy, the Team medic, Philip cautions his fellow Team mates to ‘not get shot today’.

The Team arrives outside Grant’s building, and Philip knocks on the door. Kathryn answers it, and is a bit confused that Philip knows her name. Grant pushes past them, explaining that Philip is his confidential informant and that he “knows better” than to show up at his house. Kathryn doesn’t have time to probe this further as Grant rushes Philip away. Kathryn has more important things to worry about, so maybe this weirdness won’t cause any problems later on.

Marcy 1.0 Didn’t Like Her Treatment

Back into Marcy’s freezing mind we go as she remembers what happened after the mysterious Vincent treatment we saw about to begin earlier.

Poor Marcy 1.0 sits, crying, on the floor in a common area of the mental health ward. Nice Orderly approaches her with a bowl of ice-cream, and, knowing she feels betrayed by his failure to protect her from Vincent and Drake, explains to Marcy that he “needs this job”. Apparently, Drake has some clout here that Nice Orderly cannot rise above.

Marcy won’t look at him or respond to his inadequate apology, so he leaves the ice-cream and departs.

Simon (played by Chad Krowchuk), a patient of the ward who we saw in the background earlier, quickly enters the room, sits down in a seat near Marcy, and begins to talk to her. It appears that Simon probably has brain damage of some kind as well, but listening to him, it sounds as if he may know more than you’d expect:

“Marcy? Did it work this time?”

Marcy shakes her head slightly in response, and Simon continues:

“I told him the information transfer was way, way too slow. I tried to fix it. To get you back in. You’re still in there. You don’t know because you’re not, here. He knows. I’ll keep trying, but squid transistors barely even exist here and now.”

Okay. Not enough information there, Simon.

Simon then asks if he can have Marcy’s ice-cream. Marcy nods, so he takes the bowl and leaves just as abruptly as he came in.

The Team Meets Up With Hall’s Team

 

Hall’s team, plus Anna, sits eating at a diner somewhere. Anna has calmed down a lot since we saw her dragged into the car earlier, and asks how Hall knows that her parents are okay, and Hall explains they are being protected just as she is.

Grant enters the diner. As usual, neither Hall nor Grant are happy to see each other, but the Director called them both here, so they know they need to work together.

Hall explains to Grant that Anna is set to be the 53rd President of the United States in the future. Grant doesn’t remember the past that way, saying that he believes “another old white guy” was the 53rd president. Hall reminds Grant that the election was close, and the “country was torn apart” by it somehow. I’m guessing that the future winner of the election has changed because of the actions of the Travelers, or that they are currently planning to change it.

Hall says his mission is to keep Anna alive until 1600 hours, but doesn’t know why 4PM is the cutoff.

Hall doesn’t think he needs “tactical support”, but is quickly proven wrong when a gun-toting squad of randoms shows up outside the diner. Seriously, they look like regular people, which makes me think they are Travelers of one affiliation or another.

Hall, eagle-eyed, spots them before they begin firing, and Luca gets Anna somehwere a little safer, behind a counter in the diner.

The goons begin shooting into the diner, but their aim isn’t great. The Team, who we now see is outside, provides support, Trevor and Carly firing at the goons while Philip calls out their locations, watching parking lot surveillance camera feeds in the van.

The Team efficiently takes all but one of the goons out. The surviving goon tries to escape but is over-written by the Director. Actually, “over-written” may be the wrong term here, because the goon just bleeds from the nose and dies. I’m not sure I’ve seen that before, but it seems like a pretty useful trick to have available.

Grant and Hall yell at each other about whether they should leave the diner and whose fault it is that the goons found them, but Luca interrupts, agreeing with Grant that they should take Anna elsewhere. Hall finally agrees, and the two teams depart with their precious cargo.

Nice Orderly Tries to Protect Marcy 1.0

 

Marcy continues to freeze in the bathtub, and we see her heart rate continue to drop.

Inside her mind, she remembers Drake trying to feed Marcy 1.0 in the mental health ward, but Marcy keeps saying she wants to go home. Drake tells Marcy that the ward “is her home now”, but Marcy disagrees, telling Drake that she “works here”.

Drake is instantly (more) angry, telling Marcy:

“Get that outta your head!”

This is a weird thing for Marcy to say, and it gets a weird reaction from Drake, who then grabs Marcy by the hair in order to force-feed her.

Nice Orderly now enters, yelling at Drake to stop, and warning that he will report him to someone named “Dr. Carroll” if he continues to abuse Marcy. Drake laughs at this, and calls Marcy his “hot little girlfriend”.

This proves to be a step too far for Nice Orderly, who punches Drake in the face as a response. Drake is incensed, and punches Nice Orderly back, knocking him to the floor.

As Nice Orderly lies defeated, Drake orders him to quit his job at the ward and never come back, kicking him for emphasis as he leaves. Marcy cowers nearby, her only ally proven unable to protect her.

The Teams Drive Anna to a Safehouse

 

In a car on the way to a safehouse, Grant is getting a kick out of protecting a future president currently in child form. Anna says she needs to use the bathroom, and Grant responds:

“It’s not far now. You just have to hold it a little longer…”

Then adding under his breath:

“…Madam President.”

Levity complete, Grant questions Hall about the nature of the conflict they’re having over Anna. Both Grant and Hall believe that their opponents in this mission are Faction Travelers. I have my doubts about that.

Grant asks Hall:

“So in this timeline, she actually wins the election. Why would the Faction not want that?”

Hall explains that the Faction are simply “working off old information”. I don’t understand this explanation at all. Grant is saying that the Faction should want Anna to be president for some reason. If this is the case:

• Why is the Team protecting someone who the Faction wants in power?
• Why would the Faction want to kill someone they want in power? Are they trying to kill her? Or capture her to keep her safe? It sure looks like they’re trying to kill her, because they’re shooting bullets in her direction. 

I don’t get it. Either way, I don’t think these goons are Faction Travelers. That’s so two episodes ago. I think they are something that Vincent has cooked up. Moving on.

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Anna asks where they’re driving to, and Grant responds that they’re going to a farmhouse, where she’ll be safe.

Luca chimes in, asking why Marcy isn’t with them on this mission, and Grant repeats with what he heard from Carly: That Marcy is having some kind of “minor medical procedure”. Grant assures the wannabe-brother-to-Marcy that he’s sure Marcy is fine.

She’s not, Grant. Not fine. Dying in an ice bath.

Meet Marcy 1.0, Before Her Brain Damage

Well, this is unexpected. Back inside Marcy’s mind, we see her remembering Marcy 1.0 as we’ve never seen her: A very un-brain-damaged Marcy 1.0, working as an orderly at the very mental health ward she is later a “patient” in.

Marcy 1.0, a happy, warm, kind person, is bringing Simon his daily medication, and asks Simon the name of the subject of a picture he’s drawing. Simon responds:

“0092”

Oh boy, here we go. Marcy doesn’t get it, of course, but Simon has just revealed his affiliation with the Traveler Program. He goes on:

“She’s not born for another two… no, hundreds of years from now.”

 

“Home, sweet home. The ozone layer is gone by then, but that’s just one problem. In a hundred years, it’s way worse. We live under the ice. The math’s not that complicated, You have two people that want the same thing… The two people fight over the one, and then there’s none.”

Simon is a Traveler, and I bet his number is a low one.

Marcy nods and smiles, kindly humoring Simon, assuming that he’s either making up a story or is hopelessly delusional. Simon says he isn’t supposed to take any medication before his “treatment”, and Vincent shows up behind them right on cue, confirming his desire that Simon not take his medication.

Simon interrupts with more Traveler talk, announcing to the room:

“Maintenance of the yeast vats, first and foremost, is your responsibility to the community.”

Those yeast vats again. Every time I hear “yeast vats”, I think “no wonder they sent people back in time to change their situation”. What a nightmare.

Marcy tries to argue with Vincent about Simon’s medication, citing the never-present Dr. Carroll, who is apparently in charge of the ward. Vincent informs Marcy that all of this has been approved by Dr. Carroll, so Marcy quickly segues into another topic: Unsurprisingly, several of Vincent’s test subjects have not returned to the ward after their “treatments”, and Marcy is understandably concerned there is some horror-film-like situation going on with Vincent as the antagonist. Yep, she’s right. Pretty much a horror movie back there.

Vincent assures Marcy that the disappeared patients have simply been transferred to another hospital, and claims he has the paperwork to prove it. Hardly missing a beat, Vincent then asks Marcy for her help with his “therapy”, claiming he’s getting close to something big that will benefit all of humanity.

The Team Arrives at the Farmhouse

The Team arrives at the safehouse, a farmhouse seized by the FBI from a meth cook who, according to Grant, “burned himself to death in the kitchen”.

Carly directs Grant and Hall to place claymore mines at the perimeter of the property, and as Hall and Grant walk out to do so, Hall tries to clear the air with Grant. Grant isn’t interested, and the two are interrupted when a large aerial drone appears, peeking over the top of a nearby tree. Grant and Hall immediately shoot at the drone, but miss, and it flies away. So, the goons know where they are now. How in the world are they finding the Team so quickly?

Vincent Give Marcy Her First “Treatment”

In his office, Vincent explains the “treatment” he wants to perform on her as she looks over paperwork:

“The technology scans the brain and records specific patterns, not dissimilar to something like an MRI.”

Marcy isn’t super into it, asking for a summary of what the paperwork says. “Legalese”, Vincent replies, then pointing Marcy to the last page. Marcy looks, finding the compensation she will receive if she participates in the treatment. Unlike the Traveler Marcy we know and love, Marcy 1.0 understands money, and, looking shocked at the number she’s seeing, says: “That’s a lot of money.”

Because of his vast wealth, because he’s a Traveler, or maybe just because he’s a liar Vincent replies:

“Is it? I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve lost perspective.”

Apparently, the money was enough for Marcy, who we see has followed Vincent into the “treatment room”.

Simon is there, working on the large array of equipment we see arranged around the single treatment chair, placed in the center of the room. Marcy is disturbed by this, and asks for an explanation as to why Simon is there. Simon tells her:

“I helped build the first one in the future, too.”

Vincent tries to make her feel better by saying Simon is “assisting” as part of his “therapy”. Marcy is now fully creeped out, and tells Vincent that she wants to leave. Vincent won’t let her, calling in Drake to strong-arm her when she attempts to escape.

Vincent tells the screaming, panicked Marcy:

“You really should read everything you sign.”

Wait, did that paperwork actually matter? I’m pretty sure that what Vincent is doing is wildly illegal, paperwork or not. Maybe she assigned him power-of-attorney or something to enable him to better cover his tracks.

Simon cowers in the background as all this is going on, and we briefly see Traveler Marcy, still convulsing in her ice bath.

The Team Waits for Trouble at the Farmhouse

 

Grant and Trevor chat as they keep watch for trouble at the safehouse. Trevor talks about how he is “awed” by the potential of all youth, not just the ones that are going to be especially important presidents in the future. Grant responds that if they succeed in keeping her alive, Anna will “become one of the great leaders of a generation”.

Trevor switches topics, rather bluntly:

“I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the Director assigned you a mission to preserve the life of a child after what happened to you and Kathryn.”

Grant prickles a bit, saying:

“I think the Director isn’t a licensed therapist, and neither are you.”

Funny. But Trevor tells Grant that he understands what losing a child is like, having himself watched two of his sons die of old age. That’s just weird. I want to know Trevor’s age, once and for all. I know that he’s ‘older than the rest of the Team put together’, but I don’t know how old they are, either, so all I’m left with is that Trevor is really, really old.

Grant says his situation is completely different than Trevor’s. Yeah, I’m pretty sure everything is completely different than watching your children die of old age, Grant.

Carly spots a parade of vehicles approaching the farmhouse. The Team has set up a GoPro camera at the perimeter so the Director can spot Faction Travelers and kill them.

At this point, Anna gets Messengered, telling the Team:

“Protocol 3 is suspended. Protect Anna Hamilton at all costs and hold until reinforcements arrive.”

Protocol 3 is:

“Don’t take a life; don’t save a life, unless otherwise directed. Do not interfere.”

Anna is slightly disoriented by her Messengering, but Hall easily brushes her question off and hurries her inside, knowing that with a message like that from the Director, things are about to get dangerous.

Marcy’s First Treatment Did Not Go Well

 

We see the now-brain-damaged Marcy 1.0 being pushed down a hall in the ward by Drake, with Vincent by his side. Drake remarks that Marcy doesn’t recognize him, and Vincent explains something very revealing about what went wrong with the mysterious procedure:

“There was a malfunction. Some information was lost during the scan. Simon is working to restore it soon.

 

“Until then, Marcy is now to be considered a patient of this facility, under the care of Dr. Carroll.”

As if that’s not creepy enough. Vincent hands Drake an envelope full of money with the following instructions for dealing with anyone in the ward who might kick up a fuss at seeing Marcy inexplicably go from employee to patient overnight:

“Bribe those you can, and get rid of the rest. I leave it to you.”

Alright, time to drop some knowledge. Here’s what I’ve deduced Vincent is up to:

Remember how Simon told Marcy that he “built the first one in the future, too”, referencing the equipment Vincent is using for his “treatments”? Well that must be a Traveler consciousness-transfer device.

I believe what happened here was that Vincent scanned Marcy 1.0 in order to get her (as a person) converted into code, then tried to over-write her with herself. If it had worked, Marcy would be just as she was, which is clearly what Vincent expected to happen. Very unfortunately, as Vincent puts it, “some information was lost”, and as a result, Marcy is effectively brain-damaged.

When we see Vincent giving Marcy treatments chronologically later than this first one, he explains that he is trying to “restore” Marcy to her original state with a successful consciousness-transfer of her intact person-code.

Why is Vincent trying to make Traveler consciousness-transfer technology available to himself in the present time without time travel? Good question, but it’s one I can’t yet answer.

Regardless, this has very far-reaching implications, and indicates that many of the assumed Faction Travelers are likely Vincent Travelers. I’ll go further: These Vincent goons may not even be human. After all, where would he be obtaining the multitude of human consciousnesses from? He would need a ton of them to form his army.

For the Director-led Travelers and Faction Travelers, all consciousnesses come from volunteer humans. Vincent doesn’t appear to be obtaining volunteers from anywhere, so I’d guess he’s either transferring the same consciousness, copied over and over, into different hosts, or perhaps the Vincent Travelers are not human at all, merely being some kind of rudimentary code that makes them fully willing to do Vincent’s bidding, even up to the point of “dying” for him. Think about it. They never speak, and walk into gunfire with no fear. I know that people from the future are super hardcore and everything, but that doesn’t seem normal.

On the other side of any transfer are, of course, the hosts. If Vincent is transferring consciousnesses in his present time with no time travel or knowledge of the future, he’s likely mass-murdering innocent randoms in order to do so. This is something the Faction has done with the quantum frame, but I still don’t think this is them in action.

I’ve gone into more detail on these theories in my “Final Thoughts” section at the bottom of the recap.

The Bad Guys Approach the Farmhouse

 

As the bad guys approach the farmhouse on foot, Carly clears up my confusion of what it’s called when the Director just kills someone without over-writing them with a Traveler consciousness:

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“The Director should turn every one of them into hosts or kill them by messenger as soon as they’re on camera.”

Cool. Death-by-Messenger it is, then.

Carly gives Anna a pep-talk. Anna asks her “Why can’t we just talk to them?”, a diplomatic viewpoint foreshadowing her future as a political leader, something that isn’t lost on Carly.

Carly tells Anna that if they are all killed, and the bad guys try to take her, that she must fight them because help will be on the way. Anna nods, frightened but calm.

On the porch of the farmhouse, Grant sets up mattresses as concealment for the Teams to fire from. “Seriously?” Hall remarks, but Grant says it’s all they’ve got.

For some unknown reason, the Director isn’t killing the goons, so Carly gives the go-ahead, and the Teams open fire on their enemies. As usual, Carly kills a couple of them right off the bat, and the goons begin to fire back.

David Meets Marcy for the First Time

 

Back in the freezing Marcy’s memory, a van pulls up in an alley, and poor Marcy 1.0 gets out. The van then drives away, leaving her standing there, alone and lost.

It appears that when Nice Orderly was unable to improve her situation at the ward, he opted to help Marcy escape. I don’t think dropping her off in a random alley was the best execution of this idea, but it ends up being a good move, because David is in that alley.

Marcy is immediately afraid, walking down the alley clutching her picture book while nervously eyeing the potentially dangerous strangers walking towards her. She quickly turns to avoid them, literally bumping into David.

David, no surprise, is super nice to Marcy, and says she looks like she’s lost. David tries to help, but Marcy can’t tell him anything but her name, which David tells her is “easily in my top ten favorite names in the whole world”. This breaks the ice with Marcy, who delightedly laughs at David’s kindness.David introduces himself.

We see Marcy in the ice bath again, her blood-oxygen level no longer detectable, respiration and heart rate almost zero. Carly, currently in a gun-fight at the farmhouse, is probably going to be later than she promised, and Marcy is about to die. 

The Farmhouse Firefight Gets Dire

 

The Team is surrounded by a bevy of bad guys, one of them pulling up in a minivan with stick-figure-family stickers on the back window, further reinforcing my theory that these are Vincent Travelers whose lives have just been unceremoniously snatched. Again, it is possible they are Faction sleeper agents, but that doesn’t feel quite right.

There are too many goons for the Teams to handle, and as they mow down the hordes to the best of their ability, Hall wonders aloud why the Director isn’t helping them. Grant explains that the bad guys must have an “STA”, or “Space-time Attenuation Device”, an unfortunate invention that creates some kind of field the Director cannot see into.

Carly, from her vantage point on the second floor of the farmhouse, quickly spots the STA in one of the goon’s pickup trucks. Grant hands Trevor a grenade and tells him to get rid of the STA, saying they need an “end run”. For running and throwing, Trevor is obviously the guy for the job. Trevor grabs the grenade, running straight into the gunfire and making his way toward the rather distant pickup truck.

The firefight increases in intensity, and Carly is grazed on her arm by a bullet. Trevor, currently shooting and running flat-out, better hurry up with that grenade.

David Gets Marcy an Apartment

 

In freezing Marcy’s mind, David is introducing Marcy 1.0 to the new apartment he got for her. Marcy loves the lamp by her bed.

David is about to leave, but Marcy has become attached, and begs him not to. David says that he must, and mentions that he checked with the hospital Marcy said she came from, but found no record of her. This is thanks to Vincent, I’m sure.

Marcy runs forward and embraces an uncomfortable David, crying and begging him not to go. David reiterates that he can’t stay, but that he will be back the next morning to take Marcy shopping for essentials.

Sometime later, David returns to Marcy’s apartment with the paperwork she needs to get “something to live on”. Marcy can’t remember her birth date, so David decides it might as well be today, and gives her a purse with a little money in it as a “birthday present”. To say Marcy loves the purse would be an understatement. She’s overjoyed.

The two then proceed to have an adorable conversation about how old Marcy is. David eventually picks 25 years old.

The Goons Infiltrate the Farmhouse

 

The goons are progressively getting closer and closer to the farmhouse, and the Teams are being over-run. Carly takes out a sniper who had the still-sprinting Trevor in her cross-hairs, and three goons bust in the back door. Philip, right next to Anna, actually picks up a gun at this point, which shows you just how bad things have gotten. In fact, after Luca shows off his considerable combat skills by expertly taking out two goons single-handed before, Philip saves him by shooting a third.

A military Hummer with a soldier manning a roof-mounted machine gun arrives on the perimeter of the property. It’s very clear if that thing starts firing, the Teams are toast.

Just in time, Trevor gets close enough to the STA, and throws his grenade. Before the boom of the explosion dissipates, the Director has already killed or over-written all the goons. It’s finally over, and though blood has been shed on the Teams’, everyone is basically okay.

David and Marcy Read Together

 

In almost-frozen-Marcy’s memory, David and Marcy read together on a bench in front of a church. Marcy says she’s been practicing, and David tries to give her a piece of candy or something as a reward. Marcy playfully insists that she pay David, and he accepts the money, saying “We’ll call it a loan.”

Reading finished, the two begin to walk away when Marcy grabs David’s hand. David stops her gently, asking what she is doing. Marcy says that David is her “boyfriend”, and David explains that can’t be:

“I can’t be your boyfriend. I can be your friend. It’s not because I don’t like you, or that you’re not one of my favorite people in the whole world. It’s because it would it would be inappropriate.

 

Yeah, I know, that’s a big word.

 

Listen. Boyfriends come and go, but if you want, you can be my BFF. That means “Best Friend Forever”, and I don’t just call anybody that.”

We see present-day-Marcy again in the ice-bath, and she finally flatlines.

Anna “Reunites” with her “Parents”

 

Back at the farmhouse, Grant mentions that it’s now 1600 hours, meaning the danger has passed. Little does he know, Marcy is currently in grave danger. Carly runs past Grant, saying she’s “late”. Grant says “for what?”, but Carly doesn’t have time to answer. She’s running to David’s apartment, where she agreed to meet Marcy at 4PM. I don’t think the farmhouse is very close to David’s apartment, and 4PM is already here.

Anna’s parents arrive at the farmhouse, and Anna runs to meet them. After Anna walks away with her mother, Grant, Hall and Anna’s father talk. Apparently, as part of this attack, Anna’s parents (historically) would have died just minutes earlier, and were replaced by Travelers who “trained for years” to replace her actual parents. The father says that they will “make sure she never knows” they aren’t her original parents. That seems like a difficult job, no matter how hard you trained for it. Oh well, best not to question the Director, right?

Marcy is Dead

 

Marcy, though she is flatlining in the ice bath, is still remembering. She has now caught up to her own missing Marcy 2.0 memories from before her reset. These memories were the entire reason she performed this risky procedure in the first place, and it took for her to literally die to regain them.

First, she remembers meeting David on a bus from Season 1 Ep. 1, where David is shocked by her sudden lack of brain damage.

At this point, Carly finally arrives at David’s apartment and finds Marcy dead in the ice-bath. Carly drags Marcy out of the tub and begins chest compressions.

Marcy continues to catch up in her mind, remembering various intimate moments she had with David before her reset. Now she’s finally getting what she wanted.

David now arrives at his apartment. We can tell from the fact that he said he would be home at 5PM, along with the fact that Carly just recently got there, that Marcy has had no heartbeat for around an hour. That’s a really long time. Don’t try this at home, but the good thing is, if you’re going to have no heartbeat for an hour, the best place for you to be would probably be in an ice-bath, which helps to prevent brain damage in scenarios like this one. Marcy doesn’t need brain damage again. Please.

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David sees Carly performing CPR on the dead Marcy, and springs into action, but not before questioning Carly’s bullet-wounded arm:

“Are you shot?!”

Carly doesn’t address the question, ordering David to get Marcy’s medical kit from the other room. David does so, and takes over chest compressing while Carly charges a defibrillator.

Carly shocks Marcy with the defibrillator, and Marcy’s heart starts right back up. Carly gets Marcy into bed under the covers.

Marcy continues to remember, now recalling the moment she re-met David after her reset. We can now assume she has remembered everything, and apparently needed every second of unconsciousness/death to do so.

I suspect the Director knew what Marcy was up to, and, as usual, has everything working together in order to barely save her in time. That’s probably why it planned for the Anna mission to be done at 1600 hours.

Later, David boils water for tea and finds Marcy’s letter from the start of the episode sitting on the table where she left it. David opens the letter, and it reads:

“Dear David

 

If you are reading this, know

that I didn’t do this to leave you,

but to be whole again. You’re a

part of that. I need to fill

a void I know isn’t supposed

to be there.

I know this hurts you. I’m sorry.

But it was worth trying.

 

Marcy”

This is all very Shakespearean, in a good way. What gesture could be more romantic than risking death to remember your loved one? I know, it’s kind of more than that, but still.

Anyway, Marcy regains consciousness to find Carly sitting on her bed. Carly says:

“I’ll yell at you later. You find the missing pieces you were looking for?”

David appears in the doorway, letter in hand. Marcy is upse that David read the letter, apologetically explaining that David was only supposed to find it if… Yeah. David doesn’t like this at all:

“Unless you’d died. Yeah, I figured that one out. How could you do this? Knowing that I was probably gonna be the one to find you? “

Carly tells David that Marcy needs to rest, and he leaves in a bit of a huff. Anyone would be upset if their loved one did something this risky, and David is no exception.

Grant Goes Home to Kathryn

 

Grant arrives home and wakes up a dozing Kathryn, proudly telling her that he “saved a kid today”. They both smile slightly at this, so maybe Trevor was right about the Director giving Grant this mission as a form of therapy.

Marcy is Whole

 

Marcy wakes the next morning to find David gone, a note on the table reading “Gone to work”. Marcy leaves the apartment and finds David doing his thing outside somewhere. She explains to him that while she understand his problem with the whole ice-bath thing, it was “the only way” to “find the missing pieces” of herself. David replies:

“Okay, so? Was it worth almost killing yourself? Because honestly, this is-“

Marcy answers the question by interrupting him with a passionate kiss. Once complete, David says:

“Well, that was different.”

Marcy’s back! Hurray!

Before the soon-to-be-happy couple can continue their relationship talk, Marcy notices something on the street. I confess that I don’t know what I’m looking at, here. It appears to be a half-circle in the asphalt, something akin to half a manhole cover.

Marcy immediately recognizes it as something, and asks David if he knows who “did this”. David says he does, and that it was done by “some homeless guy” who “lives around here.” Marcy responds:

“I need you to take me to him.”

I’m assuming her Marcy’s new/old memories are proving useful already, and that Simon was the origin of the mysterious thing we see in the street. We’ll learn more very soon, I imagine.

Final Thoughts

 

 

Read below for my confused and unverifiable theories. For your confusion:

Vincent

 

Here’s my new theory on Vincent: Vincent’s host body may be inhabited by a non-human Traveler, in the form of a prototype Director, or something like that.

Hear me out. In Season 2 Ep. 8, we learned that the Director can speak through host bodies as more than just simple messengers, emoting and speaking more or less as a normal person would. Because of this, we know that the Director could (sort of) pass as a person.

We also know that the Travelers are sent back as code. The Director itself is obviously composed of code as well.

Is it possible, then, for the Director to travel like a normal Traveler, permanently inhabiting a host body, masquerading as a human being?

Imagine that, for the first Traveler mission, a prototype version of the Director, (instead of a human being), was sent back in time into the Vincent host body. If this is possible, it seems likely.

Think of it this way: You wouldn’t want to risk sending a human back the first time you tried Traveler technology if you didn’t have to. The reason for this? If you send a person back, you have to worry about them dying. If you just send back a sort of computer program, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.

It’s very common IRL to test potentially dangerous new technology and medicine on animals for years before moving on to human trials. Think of this like sending a dog or a monkey into space before sending people in order to ensure that everything about the technology is reasonably safe, and that the idea works, before trying it with people.

The Traveler version of this could be simply sending a computer program into the past before trying it with human beings.

If this is the case, it’s really too bad that Vincent’s self-preservation programming is set at a higher priority than his human-preservation progamming. The Director is all about preserving human life whenever possible, and Vincent just kills people all the time.

Some evidence that supports this theory:

• This theory would explain why Vincent’s original mission included his own, planned, death. A Traveler’s planned death as part of his or her first mission, as far as I can remember, has never been done, save for this instance.
• The Director has made it clear that it still wants Vincent dead. This makes a lot of sense if Traveler 001 is not human.

So, in short, Vincent was a pilot test of Traveler technology, using a disposable computer program instead of a person.

So what’s Vincent’s problem? Well, if he and the Director see themselves as two versions of the same thing, they probably see each other as an error that needs to be remedied. The Director must be programmed to not kill himself, however, which is probably why it hasn’t ordered any Travelers to kill Vincent, instead opting to send Messengers to Vincent requesting that he “self-terminate”.

Two Directors?

 

This time travel stuff has gotten confusing, so here’s an adjacent theory for you. If it’s possible that there could be two versions of the Director active at once, that would help explain a few things:

• Vincent and the Team getting Messengers when the Director was offline in Season 2 Ep 3. These could have been Faction Messengers, but why in the world would the Faction tell Vincent and the Team not to kill each other?
• Why the Director is keeping Vincent’s involvement in missions a secret from the Travelers, as it did in Season 2 Ep. 7. Whatever Vincent is up to is a touchy enough subject for the Director that he doesn’t kill Vincent himself, and also doesn’t tell the Team that they are fighting Vincent’s men, not Faction. This conflict is more complicated than the one with the Faction for some reason.
• Remember the timeshare customers from Season 2 Ep. 2? We know these people became Traveler hosts, but this whole issue was quickly dropped by Grant for some unknown reason. I don’t think the Faction even has the capability to transfer consciousnesses like we saw in that episode.  As far as I know, remote transfer requires T.E.L.L.s, and to get a  T.E.L.L., you need the Director. Our Director wasn’t online at that time, so…?

I just don’t have enough information to know what is and isn’t possible at this point, so theories abound. I’ll just have to wait and see!

 

Oh, and I’m glad Marcy’s back. 🙂

 

Read our other Travelers Season 2 Recaps and Analyses here