“Stranded” is episode seven of season one of Timeless.
In the previous episode, “The Watergate Tape”, Lucy went to see her father, but backed out when he answered the door. She doesn’t know who he is, but he knows who she is – for he’s part of Rittenhouse. Perhaps he knows he’s her father too. According to the Doc, Rittenhouse has been around a long, long time – since just after the founding of the United States. They know that Rufus has been working, unwillingly, for Rittenhouse and that Lucy spoke to Flynn and that the latter is reading Lucy’s, future, journal. Things are currently a bit rocky between the three.
This episode opens with Wyatt, Lucy and Rufus being chased through some woods in the dark before being captured by French soldiers on September 15th 1754. It’s the French and Indian War, where the French and their Indian allies are fighting the British. A young George Washington is fighting on the British side, but that doesn’t seem to be Flynn’s plot. The team escape from the French, and discover Flynn’s men planting C4 on the lifeboat. The C4 is detonated, and the mothership leaves, stranding the three back in the past. Plus, they’re stuck in enemy territory – and the Frenchman who captured them is not happy about the man they killed in the escape.
Rufus could fix the time machine – but he needs a whole lot of parts to repair it which haven’t been invented yet. So, he’ll need to jury-rig a capacitor, and learn how to be a blacksmith to forge some iron. This isn’t going to be easy, because even if he fixes it, landing it safely will be a problem – because the navigation system is damaged. There is a protocol that Mason has set up to get a message back to Mason Industries. Which is bury a time capsule and get it dug up in the future, so that Mason can help them land. Rittenhouse isn’t happy about losing both the mothership and the lifeboat.
The team need to get into a French fort, Duquesne, whilst being hunted by an angry French officer and his men. The French aren’t the only problem – there are their native allies as well. They do get a chance to take through their issues with each other though. Probably because they’re reasonably certain they’re going to die.
There’s a funny scene where Wyatt is going to be treated by a French doctor – with 18th century medicine. Which would be likely to kill him.