‘Timeless’ episode 3 review: Judith Campbell and an atomic situation

Through three episodes so far, we’ve learned that “Timeless” is a show that has little problem playing fast and loose with the concept of changing history. Surprisingly, we’re rather fine with that. Kudos to the show for basically ignoring all of the minutiae of “rules” and all of that, mostly because no one really knows or understands how time travel works more than the next person.

The real selling point of this show is entertainment, and executive producers Shawn Ryan and Eric Kripke do a marvelous job at telling stories that incorporated some elements of history, but also bring you some adventure, a little bit of humor, and action that feels effective without ever coming across as overkill. That’s not always easy.

For this episode tonight, the team (led by Lucy, surprisingly engaged following her trip to the end of Abraham Lincoln’s life) headed back to 1960’s Sin City, desperate to track down Garcia Flynn and figure out what he wanted there. As it turned out, he was ready to use one of the most influential women in order to do his bidding, Judith Campbell, a woman with ties to the mob, John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, and more. Per the show’s interpretation of her, she was someone who had the ear of some of the world’s most important men. We can’t debate the accuracy of this given that we’re not a historian, but we can say that the show did a great job of making this woman spirited, adventurous, and a nice change of pace from many other people in the era.

Unfortunately, the problem here is that Flynn was using both Judith and Anthony, a guy (supposedly) being used in his own way, in order to get to an atomic bomb. Unfortunately, he managed to retrieve it, leaving the team (let alone the rest of the country) in some further peril.

Back in the present, Lucy learned that her fiance may not be all that bad of a dude; she just didn’t know him, and that was problematic. Meanwhile, Rufus continued to stand up for Anthony in front of Wyatt, even though the two previously sparred in the past. (By the way, Wyatt trying to contact his wife before her death via telegram was heartbreaking.) There wasn’t quite the enormous cliffhanger this week other than Flynn’s “success,” but given the entertainment we got out of this episode, that was okay. You don’t want people to start to take advantage of these happening every week.

Grade: B+. While the show still needs that knockout episode for us to classify it as a top-tier network show, it’s close. “Timeless” is at least, through three episodes, a show we look forward to every week.

Next week – We’re heading to Nazi Germany, and we’re meeting Ian Fleming! If you want to know more, you can learn about it by heading over to the link here. (Photo: NBC.)