In this episode the entire reason for the series – a group of people attempting to travel years back in time in order to reshape the future – is finally explored and tested. To this point the Liber8 members and Kiera have been kicking it around 65 years in their past without noticing any consequences whatsoever. Liber8 is now known in 2012 - why isn’t their prior knowledge of them in the 2060s/2070s? The time travelers have damaged property. They have killed people. They have earned significant amounts of money in the stock market and through betting on sports. Yet nothing in their memories has changed. So it makes sense to question, what can they change? What can they effect? Is there a magnitude threshold that needs to be crossed before the future is changed?
Unfortunately nothing is really proven. At the end of the episode Matthew Kellogg’s (unconfirmed) grandmother is killed. Yet Matthew persists. Hopefully Kagame takes the events as fact and that their paradoxical vulnerability is unaffected by their presence in 2012. However, as Alec points out to Kiera, the absence of proof is not proof of anything. So we as viewers are left without a knowledge of what can and/or cannot happen to the time travelers and their future. However, if they are in an alternate/parallel universe what’s the point of the show? Nothing they do will effect their own timeline. Very frustrating.
Also of note, so far we’ve assumed that Matthew Kellogg has been able to operate separately from Liber8. However, just within this episode we’ve seen the main Liber8 group both take his grandmother and know of his tipping off/communicating with Kiera. They have also been able to shadow Kiera three times. Once at the beginning with Garza in the truck while Travis killed the first Lilly Jones, once after Kiera meets with Matthew at the dinner and once after Kiera finds out her grandmother is pregnant in her police cruiser. This is a dangerous combination for the Protector as Kiera grows more dependent upon Matthew.
Perhaps most concerning in this episode is the fact that Kagame even knew Kiera’s grandmother’s name. He also knew Matthew’s grandmother but that could have been group information prior to this episode. Kiera and Matthew postulate early in the episode that she could be there for a reason for Kiera being there in 2012, part of some bigger plan, since the guards were in on Liber8’s time travel escape and Kagame knew Kiera’s personal information.
The inner-Liber8 distrust grows. Travis, perhaps with Sonya’s help, acts independent of Kagame and takes out Kellogg’s grandmother. Kagame also questions Sonya’s loyalty at the beginning of the episode and Sonya tells Garza to kill the Lily Jones victims before testing them against Kagame’s wishes. This could be the sowing of the seeds for an all-Travis-Sonya Liber8 show soon with no holds barred open warfare and conflict.
The “flashbacks” in this episode were informational, but not imperative, to the main story. Unless I missed something, of course. The whole Satech warehouse bombing didn’t seem to connect to the episode at all which leads me to believe it was there for continued backstory of Greg working closely with Sadler at Satech. The other “flashbacks” with Kiera discovering she was pregnant right before Greg proposes and Sam finding the butterfly necklace were at least connections to the Lily Jones part of the story. But, again, were unnecessary and solely performed the purpose of providing an emotional family connection.
Did you notice the conversation between Alec and his step brother when Alec tells him “If you want to change the world you have to leave your living room first.” I did. Interesting.
Did you also catch Kiera’s first Lily Jones’ Terminator reference? Perfect. Cause it was a total Terminator moment.
Kiera asks Alec to track down someone. Kiera also asks Carlos to track down someone. I assume one of the people was Kagame’s mother. Was there another? Or did Kiera ask both to track down Kagame’s mother?
Finally, what’s up with Alec obsessing about Lily Jones’ picture on his tablet? Is he attracted to her or was it for another reason? Interesting.
