Travelers: David
December 16, 2018 5:13 PM - Season 3, Episode 9 - Subscribe

The Faction sets off nuclear blasts that destroy all of the Travelers' archives, except the one in which a wounded David just happens to be trapped.

*Another nuclear bomb is detonated in Shanghai one hour after the London bomb.

*At David's, Marcy leaves him a voicemail, goes to start dinner and finds the bloody cloth in the sink, and activates a GPS tracker to find him. David wakes up in the archive, surprisingly alive.

*MacLaren joins Trevor, Philip, and Carly at HQ. The Shanghai Traveler team got footage of the bomb out to their historian in their failed attempt to disarm it, showing it to be a Rothki device 20 years before its invention, which proves Faction to be behind the bombings. Philip's alternate timeline vision means there is a bomb is likely another bomb nearby scheduled to go off in an hour.

*Marcy tracks David to the archive, which is now locked closed, and she activates a comm that she had secretly implanted in him. He's surprised not to be more gravely injured from the shooting, but Marcy realizes the nanites in the blood bags he was holding have been healing him. He tells her that there's a big metal box in the room that wasn't there before.

*Jeff comes to to find himself strapped to a wheelchair in front of a television, the same torture/interrogation tactic 001 used on Travelers previously.

*MacLaren calls Yates at the FBI and tells her that his team has found a bomb in some old fairgrounds and sends her the address, then joins the team at the archive. Marcy confesses her comm transgression, then instructs David on how to comm in the rest of the team. They tell him that the box contains a bomb which he will have to disarm. Yates arrives. Trevor walks him through cutting the detonator wire, but then MacLaren has to instruct David to grab the core with his bare hands and throw it from the explosives, giving him a potentially lethal radiation dose.

*The team learns that another bomb has detonated in Moscow, making their archive the only one left.

*MacLaren tells Yates about how archive nanites are used to store all of the digital records of the 21st that the Director will need, that they are transfused into the blood of known ancestors of people who will survive in the future. Yates wonders why MacLaren is suddenly being so forthcoming, and he tells her it's more important than ever that she trusts him so they can work together to save the future.

*Jeff plays possum while his captor is adjusting his restraints and manages to break free of the chair and run.

*The team gets David to HQ and starts treatment, and Carly's doesn't notice a missed call from Jeff on her phone.

*MacLaren goes back to the condo to change his bloody clothes, and Kat is waiting. She was surprised to find his things still there after their last conversation, that she's packed him a bag and that they are over.

*At HQ, Marcy continues to treat David. Boyd arrives with some of her share of nanites, but says David will need military grade ones to survive. Marcy believes that the Director will send a D team to save him.

*At the Lab, Ilsa tells Dr. Teslia she is receiving a transmission, an upload which she can't block which if it completes will diminish her cognitive abilities.

*At HQ, Carly wakes up and notices her missed call from 8 hours before, and alerts MacLaren - it's Jeff saying he'd been kidnapped and was trapped in an abandoned mall, then the message is cut off by gunfire. Philip identifies the potential location, and MacLaren and Carly go to the rescue (leaving Trevor behind as he's gone aphasic again).

*David tells Marcy he knows she's from the future, that the archivist told him, thinking he was one of them. He asks her if they can go home.

*MacLaren and Carly see blood at the loading dock but no Jeff, and are about to leave thinking he's been taken elsewhere when MacLaren notices the freshly-plastered cinder block wall. They smash through it and find Jeff behind the wall left for dead.

*At the lab, Grace tells Teslia that the program being uploaded won't kill Ilsa, since the Director cannot take a life, but she is concerned to find out exactly which program it is.

*At HQ, Jeff tells the team that he was sent to infiltrate Faction to learn if they and 001 were working together, but they were onto him.

*David again asks Marcy if they can go home. She agrees, and then David imagines himself back home and fully healed, as MacLaren explains the Traveler program to him, and welcomes him to the team. Everyone says their goodbyes and thanks for his bravery, and leave him to Marcy's embrace. Back at HQ, Marcy tries desperately to keep David alive, to no avail. At his final moments, the Director messengers "Protocol Omega", and David dies.
posted by oh yeah! (8 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, fuck. I got my hopes back up with David's miraculous recovery from the bullet wounds. As soon as he touched the core I knew it was probably hopeless, but like Marcy I just kept hoping that the Director would swoop in with the magic nanites. That was heartbreaking.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:17 PM on December 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


Could Ilsa be the prototype or 'baby' Director?
posted by sammyo at 8:09 PM on December 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


I had already written David off as dead, so this wasn’t as impactful as it magbe could have been. Interested to know what omega protocol is...
posted by lucy.jakobs at 7:17 PM on December 17, 2018


So sad. Had hopes up even though I knew it wasn't likely. Am disappointed that the giant Ilse program wasn't some way to save David.

RIP cinnamon roll. Seriously, you were the nicest person and you saved a ton of lives and it would have been awesome to have you on the team. That guy was just a sweetie.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:54 PM on December 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


that sucked. he was one of my favorite characters of all time.
posted by evening at 11:33 AM on December 30, 2018 [3 favorites]


I kept not being sure if they were really going to kill him or if there'd be a last minute rescue through deus ex director. I simultaneously wanted the rescue and dreaded it as cheezy storytelling. The show gave him quite a send-off, though.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:56 PM on January 8, 2019 [2 favorites]


just tears, everywhere. that last scene in his mind when each of them says bye to his subconscious was so tough to watch. i don't even know or care if they used the blackbox to do that or not but man it was just so good and so sad and goddamn you show!

ditto about the cheesy storytelling rescue versus super sad goodbye. i think the writers knew how hard this would be to write and they definitely conveyed it.
posted by numaner at 7:39 PM on January 8, 2019 [1 favorite]


David dying was sad and I cried buckets, but I’m also super suspicious of Jeff being left behind the wall. Like, sure, maybe, but also the consciousness transfer tech is portable, right? Who, exactly, is behind Jeff’s face? And how can they really ever know besides doing a brain scan every time someone comes through the door?
posted by corb at 7:52 AM on January 24, 2019


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