“The Watergate Tape” is episode six of season one of Timeless.
In the previous episode, “The Alamo”, Wyatt was going to be replaced because he hadn’t managed to kill Flynn yet. However, both Lucy and Rufus refused to work with anyone else and, as Rufus is the only pilot they have left for the time machine (with the other, Anthony, being with Flynn), Wyatt was allowed to stay on the team. Lucy’s mother gave her the name of her father, her real father. So far, she hasn’t worked up the courage to confront him.
This episode actually opens in the present for once, rather than with a clip from the past. Rufus gets a text message at home from Mason asking him to come outside. Mason is outside in a limo, as is the man from Rittenhouse who threatened Rufus in “Party at Castle Varlar”.
The mothership has gone back to June 20th 1972, the time of the Watergate scandal. Apparently, one of the tapes that Nixon recorded had 18 and a half minutes erased by Nixon’s secretary before anyone could listen to it. The man from Rittenhouse doesn’t want anyone to listen to the missing minutes, and certainly not Flynn.
When they arrive back in 1972, they get caught in a confrontation between an anti-war demonstration and some soldiers. During which, all three of them are kidnapped by Flynn. Flynn has already got the tape he needed. However, he shot a couple of guards on the way out, and he needs Lucy to go and get something for him. On the tape, Nixon is discussing Rittenhouse – and it seems the Watergate scandal was a cover-up to hide Rittenhouse. Flynn had told Lucy about Rittenhouse, but she didn’t believe him. Flynn lets Rufus and Lucy loose to get the document he wants, as he’s a wanted man, and keeps Wyatt prisoner to ensure their cooperation.
Flynn uses the time to work on Wyatt’s loyalty, and discusses some of his past. He says that, whilst working for the NSA, he found money being funnelled to Mason, to fund the building of the time machine. When he told his NSA contact what he had found, Flynn says that his wife and daughter were murdered. So, given the rules of time travel, he decided to wipe out Rittenhouse completely.
Rufus is told by Rittenhouse (he is given a number which works in the past) to destroy the document once he gets it. Lucy suggests that the go after ‘Deep Throat’ – the man who leaked the Watergate break-in to the press. He says that before the burglars were caught, they had broken into another room first. When Lucy and Rufus find the doc they are looking for, it is not what they expected.
More is learned about Rittenhouse, and secrets are revealed that the team were keeping from each other.