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RSS'Journeyman' starts to become clearer
We're starting to get more clues on Journeyman -- clues about Livia, about Langley, and about Dan himself. Plus, Jack is starting to get a clue, which is nice. But all this clue-getting doesn't necessarily make anyone's lives any easier.
Hey, look! Gag spoilers from the future!
Dan's assignment this week took him to 1973, and a key party. A key party hosted by John Schneider, no less! Skanky 70s swingers' sex really isn't doing it for him (even though Livia is there) -- he more interested in watching Nixon give his "I am not a crook" speech live, in real time. Hee! Tragically, he's so distracted by Nixon that he doesn't realize he's sending an innocent college girl off to get her mind blown, when she catches her mom in flagrante with a fellow party-goer. Ick.
The girl is Abby, and she's Dan's assignment. He saves her from being murdered by a guy picking up hitchhikers, only to send her off with some skeevy hippies, one of which -- Sammy -- is a very bad man. Sammy gets his band of not-so-merry pranksters to start knocking off liquor stores -- he says he's going to redistribute the food to the poor -- which will land Abby in jail for 30 years. Dan and Livia show up for the robbery, convince Abby she wants to have her own life, gives her a bunch of not-yet-hijacked, not-yet-printed money, and sends her on her way to become a leading progressive politician in our own time. Good to know.
But that's hardly the big news: Since Jack fingered Dan for the money, the feds have come knocking. Dan is pissed, especially when Jack demands Dan tell him the truth. "I did tell you the truth back then with Livia, and this is what you did with it!" I can see where Dan is coming from, but did he honestly not think the "no, seriously, time travel, dude" conversation would take at least a couple of times to sink in?
Katie proves herself to be brilliant again, some more, when the Feds storm the house before they'd gotten rid of the cash. She hands Dan a briefcase, which the Feds immediately want to search. They do -- and it's clean. That's because Katie hid the money in Dan's jacket, which the Feds were too distracted to search. She's good.
She's also the one who figures out the truth about Livia. Dan has a box of Livia's things in the closest -- her office sent it to him after she "died" -- and the Feds unearth it while searching for the money. Katie finds a picture of Livia -- and old, black-and-white, not-of-this-era photograph. Gah! Livia ain't from around here --- or now, as the case may be.
Dan finally asks -- so what's the deal? Livia's home base is in 1948. She got plunked in the late 80s and didn't seem to go anywhere, so she put together a life -- getting a job, going to law school, meeting Dan, falling in love. She didn't think it was an assignment... but apparently it was. Then she got pulled back. Was her assignment to get Jack and Katie together, thereby producing Zack? To groom Dan for time travel? To mess up Jack's life? Or something else entirely that we haven't figured out yet?
Speaking of things we haven't figured out -- Langley calls Dan for yet another cryptic conversation. He reveals that he's now teaching at a college, that he left his think-tank work because the government was threatening to use it to fight terrorism, and that he's currently talking to his students about quartz. That last bit seems like an odd snippet of information to share, until one of the thieving hippies shows off his quartz pendant and says it's the best timekeeper in the universe. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, the Feds are sniffing around Jack, too -- he messed with a former currency case! Say what? says Jack. Yeah, you got handed a counterfeit bill in 1995, which was actually a leaked prototype of the redesigned $20. But that bill has the 2003-2006 Treasury Secretary's signature on it -- and no counterfeiter could have known that. The feds conclude this means Jack tampered with the evidence, replacing it with a current bill. Jack realizes it's proof -- proof that Dan really is traveling in time. He goes off to the bar to drink his way to acceptance of this knowledge.
Highlights, quotes and odds and ends:
- Again, as always, I was loving Katie this episode. She's awesome -- cool in a crisis, but still freaked out that all this is happening to her family. Her minor freak-out when Dan revealed that his "business trips" would start getting longer was perfect.
- She also gets great quotes: When Dan tells Katie about the swinger's party: "Honey, I loved that you went to a wife-swapping party and it was Nixon that turned you on." Hee!
- After Katie finds Livia's picture, she goes to see Dan. He tells her he sent a girl to jail for life, and she says "Great!" Dan objects, and she says "Sorry, I didn't hear your answer, my query was perfunctory." Normally, I'd call foul on someone using perfunctory in casual conversation, but I totally buy that Katie would do it.
- Jack tells the fed that he has "way too much time on [his] hands." Little does he know...
- Now that Livia is starting to share information, I have a new target for my frustration: Langley. Seriously, he just calls Dan to ask him about his "book"? Tell us what's going on, dude! Are you controlling this? Are you trying to stop it? What's the anti-terrorism component -- stopping events before they happen? Come on, tell us!
- The last scene with Jack, where he starts to realize that Dan is telling the truth, was a quiet knock-out. Poor Jack -- he's never going to be able to drink his way through this, but he's damn well going to try.
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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
This show the last few times out has produced some cl***ic "WTF?" moments, and its' absolutely brilliant.
I'm falling more and more in love with this show. Just fantastic story telling all around. It takes a premise that requires a ton of suspension of disbelief and makes it completely believable.
I like how zap2it made such a big deal about John Schneider guest starring when he was only on screen for 3 minutes.
So, did Dan start all the trouble with Abby by sending her to see her mom? If so, why was he there in the first place? So that would happen?
Another great episode. It's a shame the Writer's Guild strike will likely prevent us from finding out what the original season 1 endgame was until next year (***uming the show comes back, which I think it should).
A lot of interesting storylines. They seem to be dropping hints in the past often, from the phone call in the past from Langley, to the little brother, to the quartz comments today. Makes me sort of wonder if this will be some sort of "Back to the Future" thing where something in the past that Dan learns will help the future.
That said, it could be a collision course thing, with both the past and present searching for something. So following the logic set forth, Livia was sent to meet Dan and set him on his course ... which meant that her leaving was actually critical to his development. I think the idea that Zack could be critical might be something worth paying attention to.
Of course, it seems as if she's not done with him, so maybe she's searching for something and hoping to use Dan to help her find it. It'd be too hard to do, but it would be great if somehow all these trips tied together.
Way to step up at the end by Jack ... stealing the 20 (I'm ***uming that was the implication). I guess my only question is ... when he turned it in the past ... why didn't he notice the dates? Eh, small detail, but for Supercop, that's an interesting thing.
Another thing - what's the deal with the Dylan McClain (sp?) money now. Does the investigation disappear? It's hard to imagine that one single bill can maintain an investigation now that the timeline has been changed and the majority if the money has been dumped in the past already.
I like the fact that they aren't giving everything away and they are building up. They gave some on Livia ... but held back on Langley, which I think is nice. At some point, though, considering this is mroe of a human dynamics show, they have to get a bit more into the workplace dynamics. They've glossed over it up to this point.
My own big concern is how they explain it. Like Moon Bloodgood's last show, Daybreak, I sort of hope that they don't. Trying to explain something like this may push it. That said, I think it can be done, just has to be careful on it ... and it does seem like they are setting up some level of explanation.
So many interesting possibiities. I think the thing that's missing on TV these days, with so many procedurals, is the lack of possibilities. I guess it fits the modern individual, but I like a show where I am forced to explore things, to see what they are offering. They've taken a tough premise, but they've done a good job with it by making it a show about the characters, and not the premise. The acting's been great, and the dynamic between Dan and those around him has been great.
The show just keeps getting better, and the newest revelations open a world of possibilities. We need more viewers! This is a great show.
Someone may have suggested this already, but isn't it possible that the Fed is conducting his investigation not to discover if Dan has 'inherited' the hijacked money, but he is doing it to prove that someone is traveling through time. It could be that the time traveling is being controlled by a privately owned organization or a small group of private individuals who seek to change the world for the better. The federal government is catching on to what is taking place, and they now want to control it in the name of national security. By identifying the time travelers, the Feds may believe that they ultimately will be led to the people who are responsible for all of this.
"He goes off to the bar to drink his way to acceptance of this knowledge... Poor Jack -- he's never going to be able to drink his way through this, but he's damn well going to try."
Nice one Miss Jersild.
I'm really enjoying the show and (surprisingly) following most of it.
A few questions, though...
Didn't Livia take the money in a previous episode to allow Dan to buy back into the poker game? Why is it still in the closet? Did she only take some of it? How much money could you fit in an army jacket anyway?
The recap suggests Dan told Jack about the time travelling. When? I don't remember that.
Let's see Jack get a headache and goes back in time - it happens to me all the time. This is why CSI Miami is at least realistic.
I GOT IT, with the anti-terrorism thing. The season finale will be Dan going back in time and he be the reason United 93 landed where it did.
Here is another theory. Has anyone considered the possibility that Livia's current participation in the time traveling adventures is not voluntary. Remember that she was on an airplane that eventually crashed, killing all aboard. She may have been saved by whomever is controlling the time traveling, but in return, she had to agree to time travel for them once again. If she refuses, she could be sent back to the very moment that the airplane fell to the earth. Think about it. You rarely see Livia smiling happily, even when she is with the man with whom she once had a deeply intimate relationship. She may know something quite ominous, or she simply may have resigned herself to the fact that she will be doing this for the rest of her life. Just a thought...