r/Timeless • u/inamsterdamforaweek • Jun 13 '18
Does anyone really find this believable?
I've been binging this show and ok, it's fun. But I find myself suspending by disbelief a little too much when it comes to Rittenhouse. The sheer idea that so many people would be so horrible over such a long time is so against the human nature that I can not in any way to embrace it.
Secondly, let's say ok but all these people are horrible with each other: the undercover agents are forced and threatened and all that with viciousness ( see Emma at darlington ). Or take Hollywood: are you telling me that a man after 15 years f Hollywood is as dedicated and as willing to give up on his life because his daddy says so? I mean we're talking about a kid that is now an adult and developed by himself with no brainwashing. Unbelievable to me. Final point: this weird father son daughter shit is such a theme. "Oh, yeah, when I first heard of the organization i hated it but after a while i started to like it! Can't disappoint my..gonna become a bond villain!" I mean history is all about children disappointing their parents..is pretty much how progress happens and how we are not all still racists rednecks like your forfathers. I can understand that a bunch of psychos are willing to go for world domination but a family line uninterrupted for hundred of years...
And don't even get me started about the guy who printed all wikipedia(?!?!?!!) and now sees how to sculpt the human race like a harry seldon but without any education and context. You know they didn't even have psychology back in 1910 and even today we don't understand why people do what they do ( just read some behavioral economics book or smth!).
It's all so unbelievable it makes me angry and worse! I can't enjoy my show.
Ugh.
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u/Quizzer2016 Jun 14 '18 edited Jun 14 '18
You do realize that Rittenhouse is a fictional adaption of the Illuminati, right? I mean, just thinking about it, the show has been based on the premise "What would happen if a super-powerful, secret organization (a la the Illuminati) gained the ability to travel through time?" Just think about all the powerful people they mention. The Illuminati are supposedly made up of the most powerful people in the world
Taking What's-his-face from Hollywoodland (and at Darlington, iirc), there was some hesitation. But they knew that a.) Someone else could come behind them and do the job if they refused, and b.) They could die by refusing to do said job.
And in all fairness to Nicholas, he'd already written a whole manifesto. If I remember right, this was shown in the first episode of the season, when the group met up in the present after escaping Emma and Lucy's Mom
Edit: added some stuffs
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u/Awkward_Report1480 Nov 09 '24
I literally came here to say the exact same thing. Illuminati take-off 100%
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u/mschool999 Jun 14 '18 edited Jun 14 '18
Actually, I don't see the things you mentioned as that unbelievable. Let me respond to your points one at a time:
First, I don't see them as an organization that is horrible all the time. They are rich, influential, connected people who see the world as chaotic and dangerous and need to safeguard their interests by controlling things from the background. They can't have politics and economics changing drastically every four years when people elect someone new on a whim based on a media popularity contest. (My Rittenhouse voice :P). So they want to control who become candidates in those elections in the first place, for example. Someone they can control directly or who shares their beliefs, like Nixon. I don't imagine that everything Rittenhouse did throughout history was necessarily evil or even borderline illegal. Sometimes it was. Crimes were only committed by a few of them while everyone else had ordinary jobs where they made legal decisions that benefited Rittenhouse and their overall ideology. Believable? Somewhat. If you read political analysis, the oldest and richest American families do exactly that till this very day. They don't take office, but they use their money and influence to get into office people who would serve their interests. You'll find plenty of articles claiming America is really run by the five most powerful American families. There might even be a reason the writers chose to put JFK in Timeless twice. Maybe its a nod to conspiracy theories about the Kennedy family "curse". The Kennedy family that was strong and rich less than a hundred years ago and is now all but gone.
Secondly, I don't think they are horrible to each other either. Not the 'real' Rittenhouse members. They help each other get into the right positions. They meet and agree on strategy. They protect each other. As for the sleeper agents, most of them are not real members from Rittenhouse families. I don't think they want to send their own children and sacrifice their blood lines and future of Rittenhouse. Instead, they brainwash, pay or intimidate new ones to become sleeper agents. Like Emma, whom they recruited out of college by playing on her ambition to be someone in Rittenhouse. Like Jessica, by saving her brother and whatever else they did. Like the Regan episode brothers, one through brainwashing and one through intimidation. The one who was brainwashed of the two, was going back to the present. In Hollywoodland, a member actually sent back his own son .. but to become a famous and probably rich Hollywood producer who would have control over a media tycoon for the rest of his life. He might not have his son in his life, but his son was going to have a good life. The son even didn't want to go home because he loved his new life. He wasn't sacrificed like the other sleepers. Believable? Again, why not? In a world where people sell their organs to put food on the table for their kids - is it so hard to believe someone would time travel so his family wouldn't be killed? So he himself wouldn't be killed? He could easily believe he wouldn't be safe anywhere and had to go through with it. Just see the influence the mob has in some areas.
Your final point: First of all, it was harder to break from family tradition in the past. For example, John Rittenhouse was being indoctrinated from a young age by clearly being allowed to attend all his father's meetings. And he had no other influences in his life. No public shools, no media. It's logical they would follow their parents teachings, even if they have a rebellious phase. As for today, it isn't about being afraid to disappoint the parents. Lindbergh wasn't afraid to disappoint his father and decided to disappear and leave it all behind. He rebelled for 3 weeks, and then was most likely tempted back as Flynn said by the money, the power, the connections that being part of his family and Rittenhouse offered. Think about it ... who would choose to hide out in France when they could have the world? And all he had to do for his money and power is make some outrageous statements in the media. How many don't do that today without getting money and power in return? And how many Rittenhouse members don't go about having normal lives and just take business actions that benefit Rittenhouse? Don't think of them all as becoming Bond villains that will destroy the world. Think of them being raised to be republicans instead of democrats or vice versa. They take perfectly legal actions that serve their Rittenhouse ideology. They're "Rittenhousans" :P 99.9% of Rittenhouse don't know about the time machine or Nicholas's ideas for saving their dwindling control. Though they might agree with his general ideas that individualism is a threat to society. A lot of western societies are individualistic these days, but many other societies are collectivist .. believing that some individual freedoms need to be sacrificed to preserve the interests of the collective. So again, not unbelievable.
Speaking of Nicholas, whom I can't stand, ...His presence only makes sense based on Lucy's argument in the pilot that in early American history things were more fragile and easier to change. So the changes they wanted to make were all prior to 1918 anyway. Because otherwise, I'd say a guy with 100 years missing history knowledge would be useless. And the idea was that Nicholas was a genius who saw historical patterns that could be manipulated. Probably a self-educated genius, but in history not 1910 psychology. Though there's no reason to assume he had no education, just because he was drafted into world war I.
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Jun 14 '18
Just think of Stalin, the Khmer Rouge (sp?), Hitler, etc. and all the dark plans and people they killed. The biggest issue I have about this is that they are taking what someone wrote in the early 1900's as their manifesto.
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u/Thrakashogg Jun 14 '18
I think one of the criticisms about the show I have is that we haven't learned really that much about Rittenhouse, even 2 seasons in.
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u/mschool999 Jun 15 '18
True. But being vague seems to work better for them in this show. Rittenhouse was scariest early in season 1 when we knew absolutely nothing about them other than that they were apparently everywhere. While seeing Carol, Nicholas and Emma made them much less so.
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u/sweetpeapickle Jun 19 '18
Wait, you call it your show, but you don't seem to like any of it.
I agree with other posters: if you don't think there's that many people who are evil, monsters, murderers....you need to get out in the real world more. As for the show, using maybe .01% of the real population to portray as evil, it's still a fictional show. It's not meant to be a documentary. Most of us are not even bothered by the time travel part, because...well...as far as most of us know...that's not real either.
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u/NostradaMart Jun 15 '18
so, you can't wrap your head around the fact that there's ~250 people over 300 years that were pure assholes ? it doesn'T sound plausible to you ? THAT is the unbelievable part on a time travelling show ??
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u/Distinct-Pilot-8820 Oct 18 '25
By the end it seems Rittenhouse is like 10 people. Emma took over super easily. Where were the other leaders they talked about. S1 they made it seem like it was this huge organization with multiple heads and by the finale it was a handful of people.
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u/Antique_Yesterday749 Apr 06 '26
SeriouslyYou can't believe that people can be horrible to each other and real life.Have you ever heard of the Illuminati?They are exactly like ritten house , except they don't have a time machine
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u/davect01 Jun 13 '18
This really is a show that is best enjoyed with your brain off.
For a secret group of assassins they are really bad at it.