“The Desperate Hours” is episode five of season four of Continuum.
In the previous episode, “Zero Hour”, Curtis revealed to Alec and Kiera that the Traveller had (according to him anyway) been sent back into the past from hundreds of years in the future, simply to observe the past, but he had somehow changed something, destroying his future (it would seem that those future people had forgotten something called the ‘Observer Effect’ in physics, where the mere fact of observing something changes it). The Traveller went further back into the past and formed the Freelancers, but things got worse (and that’s not quite the story the Freelancers gave). He brought Curtis back to life by transferring his, spirit if you will, from another timeline into his dead body. The Traveller is still trying to fix things, and thinks they now have a chance.
Alec thought this was pretty much rubbish and left, but the Traveller tapped him on the forehead, and Alec had a vision, one in which he spoke to Older Alec, prior to the latter creating the time travel device. Only perhaps it was real, not a vision, for it was Alec who actually convinced his future self to go ahead with time travel.
Jason figured out that the device the future soldiers are building isn’t a bomb, but a stable portal to the future. They are escaping their destroyed future in the past, and some of the people coming back are Brad’s sister and her sons, who he believed were dead, which really could cause problems with his loyalties. Not that Kiera knows this.
Kellog, thanks to knowing what technology the future soldiers had stolen and a comment from Vasquez revealing that Future Kellog has kidney disease and needs a transplant, has realised that Future Kellog probably regards him as a perfect donor. So he wants to make peace with Kiera again. Carlos has also been brought back in by Kiera and Alec so that he knows what is going on.
This episode opens with Travis in his cell, threatening to expose everyone else who came back from the future. Which could cause problems for Kiera. Carlos is keeping Travis restrained and locked up without charges. The restraints don’t stop Travis from assaulting his lawyer and trying to use him to bargain for his freedom. Which doesn’t work. Piron wants Travis to be handed over to them; the technology discovered in him suggests a connection to Piron. At least, to those who don’t know where he is actually from, such as Nora.
Alec says that, in order to send Kiera back to her own time, they need to depend on two people who haven’t exactly proved they can be trusted – Kellog and Brad. Kellog isn’t exactly certain that he can trust Kiera and Alec, but he looks to be out of options. Kiera meets Dillon whilst she is at Piron, and encourages him to basically do the right thing (Dillon still doesn’t know what is really going on, but he does have proof that Kellog was involved in Escher’s murder in “Minute Man”). Kellog doesn’t seem to think that it will be possible to send Kiera back to her own time, and admittedly no-one else, including Kiera, is that certain. Once Alec has tried to send Kiera back to her own time using Future Kellog’s time machine, Kellog will destroy it, preventing the invasion. Now, they need Brad’s help to get close to the machine, so Kiera offers to give him back the key that she took in “Rush Hour”.
Kiera and Carlos end up clashing over Kellog, as Kiera needs him for her own ends and Carlos simply wants him locked up. Carlos is also a bit upset about Kiera leaving for the future, which he thinks will kill her, and without telling him.
Everything is building up to the series finale, “Final Hour”.