Travelers: Bishop
December 27, 2016 10:08 AM - Season 1, Episode 9 - Subscribe

Circumstances force MacLaren to go off-mission during an unusual solo assignment involving his wife, politics, and a catastrophic air disaster.

*A couple (the Hayes) are out for a jog; after Mr. Hayes takes a break to answer a phone call about an oil pipeline bill, Mrs. Hayes pushes him off a bridge to his death.
*Over morning coffee, David tells Marcy he can't pretend his feelings are platonic anymore, and thinks it's best if she moves out.
*Jeff confronts MacLaren at the FBI office about his affair with Carly, threatens to tell Kat, but MacLaren tells him to get lost. Jeff instead looks up MacLaren's address and goes to see Kat.
*Carly has a job interview with a landscaper, which goes well.
*Trevor's dad tells him he's been suspended for a week for ditching the physics midterm makeup, and that he's decided to send Trevor to a military boarding school in Idaho for the next 8 months.
*MacLaren finds an envelope in his car addressed to T-3468, with a note "keep with you at all times". The envelope contains a mysterious black box, which he takes to Philip for examination, but it is lined to block a scan. (Philip is not at his mental best due to withdrawal, but tells MacLaren he's finding the addiction support group helpful in trying to get clean.)
*David, drinking his lonely morning coffee, calls Marcy to see if she wants to come by and get her stuff. (She is now sleeping on Philip's couch.)
*MacLaren is joined in his car by Traveler 3112, Mrs. Hayes, to brief him on his new solo mission before she goes to her murdered husband's funeral. MacLaren is to board a plane and be seated next to Congressman Bishop and await further instructions.
*When Carly goes to the landscaper for her first day of work, he tells her he won't be hiring her after all, as her background check shows a charge of having assaulted a police officer.
*Kat calls Mac, but when he tells her he's got to fly to D.C. on escort duty, she hangs up on him.
*Philip gives Marcy her spinal injection.
*As Trevor attempts to weed the garden, Gary apologizes for how bad their relationship has gotten. Trevor reaches out as well, suggesting they watch some golf together later.
*Carly confronts Jeff outside police station about the false assault charge. He says he wants them to be a family again, and she describes exactly how he would have killed real-Carly that night, and storms off.
*MacLaren tells Philip about his solo mission, nervously boards the plane for his first ever flight. Bishop arrives and takes a phone call from someone asking about Hayes' funeral, and says that the pipeline bill will go forward regardless.
*Carly tries calling MacLaren for help with the Jeff situation but he's out of comms and phone range. She returns to the police station and tells Jeff that if he really wants to get together he should take Jeffrey for a few hours so she can go on more job interviews.
*David tells Marcy that he misses her, she tells him that she's dying, and they kiss.
*Carly goes to Philip to find out where MacLaren is so he can help her deal with Jeff's fake assault charges. When she checks on the flight status, Philip is finally clear-headed enough to recognize the flight number's historical importance and tells Marcy and Trevor via comms that they have a problem.
*MacLaren discovers that Kat is seated in coach - she tells him that she thought she would catch him with a woman, because Jeff said Grant was sleeping with his wife, but they are interrupted by turbulence.
*The comms start working because the plane is descending. Philip explains that the flight is going to crash because some lithium batteries caught fire in the cargo hold. The black box opens; it contains a two-person stasis field generator and the instruction "Save Bishop".
*The team arrives at what will be the crash site. MacLaren tries to get Trevor to tell him how to expand the stasis field to 3 people so he can save Kat too, but he says there's no way. When Philip tells him the only part of the plane that remains intact after the crash is the tail, he gives the stasis field generator to Kat and Bishop, and climbs into the tail.
*The team watches the plane crash and burn in a field, and the stasis-field ball thrown free. They resuscitate Kat and Bishop, and after a brief moment of glee over his survival, Bishop becomes host for a new traveler (as Kat watches in fearful confusion).
*Carly and Trevor rush back to the wreck, and see MacLaren on a gurney being wheeled into an ambulance (which has arrived sooner than it should have).

Showcase Blogs - Episode 9 Recap
posted by oh yeah! (12 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I was surprised that MacLaren suddenly cares about his wife so much -- from a pragmatic standpoint he'd probably be better off if she were dead. And now she knows too much, will the director have her eliminated anyway?

Loved that little moment of one of the passengers being messenger-killed to say "You are off-mission" to MacLaren, very effectively creepy. (I could happily live the rest of my life without seeing another fictional plane crash, but I guess they did ok at not dwelling too much on showing the passengers' reactions, and the crash itself was pretty CGI-ish.)
posted by oh yeah! at 10:27 AM on December 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love the portrayals of the Travelers when they are in awe of the small things in earth - that moment when Trevor is weeding and seeing the light and the plant is exquisite. The series does that so well.
posted by gt2 at 10:19 PM on December 29, 2016


er - they got the cancellation confirmation?
posted by porpoise at 8:55 PM on December 30, 2016


er - they got the cancellation confirmation?

Huh?
posted by oh yeah! at 5:02 AM on December 31, 2016


I just got a weird vague ineffable feeling that the writers knew they weren't going to get renewed while writing this ep. Sorry for the derailment.
posted by porpoise at 11:07 AM on December 31, 2016


Anyone know why Ms Hayes had to kill her husband? And I was hoping that Maclaren would put the two children on the plane in the stasis field with his wife, as I figured the three of them would about equal his mass
posted by purenitrous at 10:37 AM on January 8, 2017


Anyone know why Ms Hayes had to kill her husband?

Mr. Hayes' last phone call was about the same pipeline deal/bill that Bishop was on the phone about in the plane. If you mean why was Hayes killed outright rather than overwritten by a traveler, that wasn't really addressed in this episode.
posted by oh yeah! at 11:07 AM on January 8, 2017


So did I miss something, or was there a reason why Bishop wasn't overwritten just before the flight? That would have rendered much of the rest of the episode unnecessary.
posted by pipeski at 1:56 PM on January 8, 2017


or was there a reason why Bishop wasn't overwritten just before the flight?

Because the future wouldn't have his TELL (time, elevation, latitude, longitude at time of death) in the historical records for the hours before the flight? Remember misfire-girl from the 'Room 101' episode, where MacLaren thought the speed variable of the car might have been the reason the historian didn't make it through with the rest of the team. (Probably Bishop's overwrite actually happened a little later than his original time of death, since he should have been in the fireball with the rest of the passengers instead of away in the field getting CPR, but maybe that can get a handwave because of the stasis ball being factored in to the calculations.)

Or it's an ethical issue - travelers are only sent into the bodies of people whose lives are about to end, I don't think we've seen that rule violated so far. Bishop had to be on that flight for his body to be forfeit, regardless of the complications involved in getting his body through the crash uninjured.
posted by oh yeah! at 2:28 PM on January 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


You've clearly given this a lot more thought than I've been able to conjure. Hats off to you, oh yeah!
posted by pipeski at 4:50 PM on January 8, 2017


Anyone know why Ms Hayes had to kill her husband?

Bishop was only on the plane because he had just attended Hayes' funeral, and was flying home.

Or it's an ethical issue - travelers are only sent into the bodies of people whose lives are about to end, I don't think we've seen that rule violated so far.

I assume that they only do this to limit unwanted changes to the timeline; by only using almost dead people as hosts, they can be certain that their actions cause the changes to the timeline, rather than the lack of the actions from the host.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:39 AM on January 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I assume that they only do this to limit unwanted changes to the timeline; by only using almost dead people as hosts, they can be certain that their actions cause the changes to the timeline, rather than the lack of the actions from the host.

Oh, good point, that seems the most likely answer.
posted by oh yeah! at 8:57 AM on January 15, 2017


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