“The Lost Generation” is episode fourteen of season one of Timeless.
In the previous episode, “Karma Chameleon”, Agent Christopher showed Lucy a picture of the Rittenhouse man that Mason has been seen with and she recognised him as being her father. When Lucy confronted him about this, he was actually happy, as he wanted her to know as she is a part of it too (in “The Watergate Tape” the Doc did say that Rittenhouse was something you were born into).
Wyatt and Rufus went back in time to try to prevent the birth of the man who killed Wyatt’s wife and two other women. Wyatt, getting desperate, accidentally caused the death of the killer’s father, which certainly prevented his birth. Unfortunately, when they got back to the present, his wife was still dead, although the other two women were alive. It seems the killer didn’t kill Jessica like he said he did; something Wyatt was having problems accepting as he was being taken away.
Anthony had decided to blow up the mothership in order to prevent Rittenhouse’s plans and against Flynn’s wishes. Apparently what Rittenhouse want to do, according to Emma Whitmore, is change history. Why this comes as an appalling shock, considering they had a time machine built, is rather odd. Rittenhouse are losing their grip on things more every year, and they could never control outliers such as JFK or Martin Luther King (both examples having been assassinated; perhaps not a coincidence). However, at the site of the explosion, Anthony was dead – shot – and the mothership was missing.
This episode opens with Lucy and her father, Benjamin Cahill, discussing it, and how she is taking it better than he did when he found out about Rittenhouse, and how his father, her grandfather, reacted. He states that Rittenhouse is not evil, and that they’ve moved on from the theories of David Rittenhouse. Wyatt has been taken to a black site for stealing the lifeboat by Agent Christopher. She has put in a call to a JAG lawyer to defend him, but he doesn’t want defending. Rufus is not exactly happy to found out that the Rittenhouse guy who has been threatening his family is Lucy’s dad. A paediatric surgeon.
Flynn has taken the mothership back to 1927, the date of the transatlantic flight by Charles Lindbergh in the Spirit of St. Louis. Lucy suggests that they let Flynn take out Rittenhouse, but Rufus says that he is too dangerous, as he will kill people. So they go back to 1927. With Wyatt gone they’ve got a new redshirt… err, new member of their team.
Flynn, Whitmore and one of his men have set up a weapon, which Flynn uses to shoot down Lindbergh’s plane outside Paris. Lindbergh survives, as Flynn wasn’t trying to kill him. The plane is a bit of a mess though. When Lucy, Rufus and the new guy get there they are told that Lindbergh crashed several miles short. The plane is on fire but new guy says that the plane landed, it didn’t crash, and it took a hit in the back rudder. Lindbergh himself is missing. At the crash site, they meet a reporter – by the name of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway says he can help them, in exchange for the scoop, and the first place he takes them is to a club where he says there is someone who can help – Josephine Baker. There are a whole bunch of famous, and later seriously famous, people in the club.
Back in the present, a whole bunch of new people have suddenly appeared. Christopher is not happy; it seems that the NSA has taken over control of the project. She is being blamed for Wyatt’s joyride, as she was the one in charge at the time. She speaks to Wyatt about it, and he says that it sounds more like a coup than something connected to his joyride, because it’s been done too quickly.
Lucy winds up in Flynn’s hands – again – as she’s trying to come to terms with her feelings about her father, Rufus gets stuck with Hemmingway in Paris and Agent Christopher seeks out Wyatt’s help.