Timeless Season 1 Overview: Has Rittenhouse Been In Control All Along?

As the first season of "Timeless" ends, the mystery deeps. When the show started Garcia Flynn was using one of the time machines created by Mason Industries to change history in order to save the lives of his murdered wife and child. The threesome of Rufus (the pilot), Lucy (the historian) and Wyatt (the special ops agent) use another time machine to chase Garcia before he does God-knows-what to the timeline. See my previous review here: Timeless Episode 1-5 Reviews

Visited locales include:

1930s and the Hindenberg
1865 and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
1960s Vegas and the race for the bomb
1940s Nazi Germany
1830s and the Alamo
1970s for the Watergate scandal
1750s French and Indian War
1960s Apollo moon landing
1930s where they meet Bonnie and Clyde
1770s Revolutionary War
1660s American West and Jesse James
1893 and the Chicago World Fair where they encounter Houdini (cool!) and serial killer HH Holmes (scary!)
1970s Ohio in order to try to stop the murder of Jessica (Wyatt's dead wife)
1920s Paris and Charles Lindberg
1930s Chicago, Al Capone and Eliot Ness
1950s Washington and Joseph McCarthy. They also meet Lucy's grandfather Ethan Cahill (who is a closeted gay man).

You'd think with all this time travel, there'd be little room for anything else. There are a few prospects in the romance department though. Lucy and Wyatt's relationship continues to develop. Will they eventually have a love connection? I feel sorry for Lucy's finance. She has no recollection of Noah and eventually breaks up with him. Jiya and Rufus FINALLY admit their feeling for each other. Good thing he didnt die from that bullet wound. We also meet Agent Christopher's wife and children.

So...what do we know about Rittenhouse (the big bad of the series) at this point?

Basically Rittenhouse is behind EVERYTHING. Many historical figures were Rittenhouse (Nixon, Ford, etc). Lucy's bio-dad Benjamin Cahill is Rittenhouse. And in the shocking finale we learn that Lucy's mother is Rittenhouse too. She also doesnt give a squat if her other daughter Amy ever materializes again. Cold, Carolyn, very cold.
Has everything done by the trio to stop Flynn actually gone exactly as Rittenhouse planned?
Lucy's grandfather gathers Rittenhouse intel so the team can take them down in the present. At least 150 members are arrested per Agent Christopher.
Connor Mason had his own plans all along and joins Team Good Guys.
I'm still confused about Lucy and the journal. At some point she supposedly gave it to Flynn (who then gives it back to her in the finale). He mentions that she "aged well". Does this mean a future Lucy traveled back and gave it him? Per the time travel rules, they cant go into the future so that's the only scenario that makes sense to me.
Lucy gives Flynn the info (thanks to Gramps) on who killed his family. Just then Christopher arrest him. Flynn is none to happy with Lucy since he thinks it was a set up. Dude, you've been killing people all season. You shouldnt be surprised by a little double crossing.
Emma (another pilot who supposedly was hiding from Rittenhouse) is instead working FOR them. No one on this show can be trusted.
And we definitely know what Rittenhouse plans thanks to Carolyn (even though we dont have the specifics). “Rittenhouse has an operative on the mothership and soon they will control everything: the past and the present, the future. Together we will change history.”

Grade: 4 Monsters (out of 5). I continue to enjoy how this show depicts real historical events. I look up the characters after the show and often learn something new. Katherine Johnson at NASA was a nice touch. The current movie "Hidden Figures" tells her story. I also enjoy the humor of the show. Our time travelers often use different aliases such as FBI Agent Mulder, Wesley Snipes, and Dr Quinn Medicine Woman.

Another positive for the show is it's representation of people of color and the LGBTQ community. The show doesnt sidestep the fact that Rufus is a black man who is forced to function in very racist early America. Not so much fun for him. The team's interaction with Lucy's gay grandfather was also well done. More of this please!

After an "OK" start, "Timeless" got it's sea legs. With the revelations of the finale, the show gives us a whole new set of possibilities. Here's to hoping a season 2 occurs so we can explore them. I'm definitely feeling a cool "12 Monkeys" vibe. And what's up with Jiya's visions of the Golden Gate Bridge (being destroy or built-- I'm not sure which) and her bloody eye? Does she have some sort of innate time traveling ability or is this due to being on the ship?