“The Red Scare” is episode sixteen of season one of Timeless and the season finale.
In the previous episode, “Public Enemy No. 1”, Flynn had travelled back to see Al Capone because he wanted the gangster to get the mayor of Chicago to speak to him – the mayor being a member of Rittenhouse. The Rittenhouse member Flynn had questioned in Paris in “The Lost Generation” had told Flynn about a regular meeting of all the Rittenhouse bigwigs, but the man didn’t know much more about it than that. Flynn has missed the last meeting by two years, but he now knows about the next one, 25 years later (although it’s odd he didn’t ask more questions about the previous meeting; he does have a time machine after all and could have gone back to it).
Rufus got shot by Capone, and is not in a good way. He’s piloting the lifeboat back to the present, because hospitals in 1931 Chicago are both primitive, by comparison, and segregated, but he desperately needs treatment. In the present, Mason has convinced Lucy’s father to give him access to a bunch of computers belonging to the NSA, because he has some superior data mining software which will allow him to track anyone, anywhere, any time. Oddly, Mason seemed to be acting a bit suspiciously regarding this; does he have something planned?
This episode opens with Flynn back at home with his wife and daughter. This is actually a recollection of his. He thinks the next mission will be the last – not the first time he’s thought this – but two more of his men have deserted.
Lucy and Wyatt are back in the present with an injured Rufus. They don’t want to take him to a hospital, so Lucy calls her fiancée, Noah, who is a doctor. Rufus is patched up but he still needs a hospital, and Noah is not happy about this. He feels that his fiancée has been stolen, and replaced with someone else. Sort of true that. Jiya and Agent Christopher arrive as they get information that Flynn has jumped back to 1954. Lucy is still not convinced that they shouldn’t let Flynn wipe out Rittenhouse. She doesn’t appear to have considered that this would have an effect on her too. Rufus isn’t really fit to pilot, so Wyatt asks Jiya if she can help. Sending an additional person back isn’t something Rufus wants to do, but Rittenhouse’s men turn up on the doorstep, so they have no choice. Christopher remains behind and is arrested. It seems Mason is up to something; he may be trying to get rid of Rittenhouse.
Back in 1954, McCarthyism is in full flow, and Lucy believes that the senator is a member of Rittenhouse. So does Flynn, who is already confronting McCarthy (who comes across as an arrogant, paranoid coward) and getting him to give him the location of the meeting. In return for which he hands the senator pictures of Wyatt and Lucy, saying that they are the Communist spies. So the two get arrested by the FBI. Rufus and Jiya are not with them, and when Jiya’s eye becomes red, Rufus starts to worry that this is a result of having a fourth person in the lifeboat. This may be justified.
Flynn speaks to Lucy, and tells her what he’s planned, and that he will be killing her grandfather. Although he’s not sure what this will do, he doesn’t think it will be good – it seems he has considered this. Although her father is already alive, so it wouldn’t be quite as bad as it could be. Flynn isn’t gloating about this though. Lucy says there must be another way, but she doesn’t know of one.
Things seem to be coming to a conclusion, but the season ends on a cliff-hanger, continuing in “The War to End All Wars”, because some things are not what they seem.