“The King of the Delta Blues” is episode six of season two of Timeless.
This episode opens in San Antonio, Texas, on November 23rd, 1936, in a hotel room. A man is setting up some recording equipment and a woman asks him if it’s true that the guitarist they are waiting for made a deal with the devil. The blues singer they are waiting for arrives, and the recording begins.
In the present, Rufus is sleeping on the couch, which given that it’s old military issue is not that comfortable. As he states to Wyatt. Wyatt is now sharing their room with Jessica; in the previous episode, “The Kennedy Curse”, Lucy had spoken to Jessica and convinced the latter just how much Wyatt loved her. Lucy says that Jiya and Rufus can share her room if they want, and she will sleep on the couch.
Jiya wakes up, having had another vision. After what happened in “The Salem Witch Hunt”, Rufus had said he didn’t want to know any more visions, so Jiya doesn’t share what it was until the end of the episode.
Once awake, Jiya and Rufus are working on reprogramming the lifeboat so that it will safely transport four people. Then a clearly quite drunk Connor Mason comes up. He’s been reading an article about himself called Icarus Descending and Connor says that he is going to finally lose control of Mason Industries and everything else.
Agent Christopher arrives and wants to speak to Wyatt about something when they get the warning that the mothership has jumped to San Antonio. Neither Lucy nor Flynn know what is there that is so important – but Mason does. He says that Rittenhouse will have gone to the Gunter Hotel to stop Don Law from recording albums for Robert Johnson.
No-one else has the slightest idea who that is. Or why Rittenhouse would want him dead. Connor says that Johnson is the king of the delta blues, the father of rock and roll, and without him there would be no Elvis. At which point Lucy agrees that Connor is right. Without rock and roll, there would be no counter culture or civil rights movement in the Sixties.
Connor is told that he should go to the past this time. Which is something he’s never done before. And is a bit scared of doing, even in the machine he invented. Because he says that time travel is dangerous – which the others know pretty well by now. Connor ends up going, and Christopher wants Wyatt to remain behind. So she gives Flynn a gun this time, saying it’s time to start trusting him
Back in San Antonio, a Rittenhouse agent comes into the hotel room and would have shot Johnson if Flynn didn’t kill him first. Lucy introduces herself and Flynn and Agents Taylor Swift and Timberlake of the FBI. Connor introduces himself as Lando Calrissian of British Intelligence.
Even though the murder has been stopped, the recording session has been disrupted. Neither Law nor Johnson want to go through with it now – the latter believes he is cursed – and as they try and talk Law around, Johnson vanishes. So, they need to repair the equipment and somehow convince Johnson to record his songs. Which is not easy.
Agent Christopher wanted Wyatt to remain behind so that he could go after Rittenhouse. She has him go to the warehouse that Lucy’s mother Carol took her to – solo, because Christopher doesn’t trust that any outsiders she brings in won’t be Rittenhouse agents.