‘Timeless’ episode 4 review: Nazis and the (real life) James Bond

So far through three episodes, “Timeless” on NBC showed itself to be a fun, entertaining romp through time. While there are serious moments, you never find yourself drowning in them and there is still a sense of fun that pervades the majority of the scenes you see.

Moving into the fourth episode entitled “Party at Castle Varlar,” you do see that once again. In some ways, you can even argue that this is the funniest episode to date, which is a rather odd thing to say given that we’re dealing with Nazis here. Much of the humor stemmed from the appearance of Ian Fleming (a very fun Sean Maguire, “Once Upon a Time”) turning up. It was at this time he was undergoing a series of undercover missions, getting in some ways inspiration himself for his books.

As it so turns out, Wyatt actually is quite the fan of a certain James Bond, so he spent the majority of the episode geeking out over Fleming while he in turn tried relentlessly to hit on Lucy. After moving forward into the present, they learned that Rufus, Lucy, and Wyatt were all characters in a James Bond movie starring Sean Connery. It’s hardly the biggest change to the timeline we’ve seen to date, but it doesn’t quite matter.

In terms of the larger mythology of the series, Garcia Flynn and Anthony used the nuclear bomb in order to power the mothership, doing something rather different with it than first planned. He continues to claim that there is a greater purpose to what he is doing, and that she’ll understand soon enough. Maybe that’s true, but it’s hard to see all of it now. We just hope that at some point before the midway point of this season, Flynn starts to make a little more sense as a primary villain for the show.

One other thing that we need some more information is Rittenhouse, given that this group is holding Rufus hostage in terms of recording the missions. They’re forcing him to hide secrets from his fellow team members, and that’s not an easy thing for him to digest or feel good about. Therefore, let’s hope that we see some sort of change for it coming up in the near future.

Overall, this is an episode that contained many a fun moment, and while it may not be the huge cliffhanger we’ve seen in the past, we do love Lucy’s demand to get her sister and her old life back if she is going to continue with these missions. Grade: B+.

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