“Atomic City” is episode three of season one of Timeless.
In the previous episode, “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln”, Lucy had discovered that the reason her sister didn’t exist in the new timeline and that her mother didn’t have lung cancer was because her father had married a descendant of one of the people on the Hindenburg who didn’t die due to the events of “Pilot”. However, that should also have meant that she wasn’t born – which means that her father is not actually her father; rather shocking news. Then she went home to an engagement party with a fiancée that this Lucy has never met. Flynn had told Lucy in the first episode to find out about Rittenhouse, which is apparently a group, not a person – and the recordings that Rufus is making for Mason are connected to this group. Mason is thinking that Anthony Bruhl, the pilot and project leader who was kidnapped, may have been Flynn’s inside man. He may be on to something; Anthony is helping Flynn with regards to getting rid of Rittenhouse, whoever and whatever they are.
Flynn has now apparently gone to Nevada on September 24th 1962. JFK (who looks pretty unconvincing) is in Las Vegas for a Democratic National Convention fundraiser at the Sands, with a lot of important people – some of whom are also mobsters. The tourists are also watching atomic bombs detonate from Vegas. Dangerously close in fact – although people didn’t really know that back then. Nukes are not really a safe spectator sport. Atomic City being Sin City’s prior name.
Is Flynn planning to assassinate Kennedy a bit early? Prior to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in fact. However, he seems to be after a woman called Judith Campbell – who is apparently JFK’s mistress. As well as the mistress of a mobster. Flynn is intending to blackmail Judith with pictures of her and JFK, pictures that won’t benefit either of them. Quite what he wants to blackmail her to do is a different question. Wyatt and Lucy disagree on how to treat Judith. Just what is Flynn really up to in 1962?
Wyatt tries changing part of his past, as he’s seen, from Lucy’s experience, that the past can be altered.