“Hollywoodland” is episode three of season two of Timeless.
At the end of the previous episode, “The Darlington 500”, Nicholas Keynes made a speech to Rittenhouse, one that inspired them. Until that point, Emma didn’t seem to think much of Nicholas; after that, she was rather more impressed. Interestingly, Lucy’s mother, Carol, didn’t seem as happy about the speech as everyone else – and she was the one who wanted to bring Nicholas back to the future. Jiya seems to be able to see future events in her visions; given that she saw the Golden Gate Bridge as a tangled ruin at the end of “The Red Scare”, this is bad.
This episode opens in the past, behind the Hollywoodland sign, with one man talking to a younger one, his son, and telling him to remember his training and he will be fine. Then the older man departs in the mothership.
It’s now January 2nd, 1941, in Hollywood, and the young man is now older – fifteen years older – a producer at RKO and on set shutting down a film. His father, now much closer to him in age as it’s only been two months for him, and tells him it’s time to get to work.
In the present, Jiya has another vision and seizure and this one Agent Christopher sees. Christopher didn’t know about these, as it had been kept hidden from her. Mason is giving the impression that it’s not dangerous, but he is keeping something back, which is revealed later when Christopher gets a doctor for Jiya.
Lucy doesn’t know the importance of the date and location the mothership went to, so she and Agent Christopher go and see Flynn in prison again. Flynn has been stabbed by a random inmate – who he then killed – one he says must have been working for Rittenhouse. Flynn wants to get out because eventually Rittenhouse will manage to kill him. Christopher is not willing to do this, but Lucy tells Flynn that she will get him out, if he tells them what he knows.
Back in 1941, Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus have stolen some clothes, as they no longer have the budget they used to and the entire wardrobe was destroyed in “The War to End All Wars”. Flynn’s information has pointed them towards Paramount Pictures and, in order to not get them thrown out, Rufus pretends to be Langston Hughes (and when asked to say some of his poetry later on quotes from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air‘s opening).
The Rittenhouse operative proves to be surprisingly easy to track down, because he’s producing a dinosaur film called Jurassic Park. Rittenhouse steal the only copy of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, which seems an odd thing to walk off with. Lucy says that someone who would like to see the film destroyed is press magnate William Randolph Hearst – because the film is based on him. So perhaps Rittenhouse want something from Hearst. They are aided on the way by actress, and inventor, Hedy Lamar.
Lucy is made to sing a song at Hearst’s, and she picks a love song which she basically sings to Wyatt. It seems that their feelings are finally going to come out. Wyatt gets a heck of a shock at the end of the episode though.