Episode 5 of 10

1) I had no clue the events of the show took place in and around San Fran! Maybe it came up in the pilot, but their present day location has never really been the focus.

2) This episode already marks the half way point in the season!!

They have show shots showing they are in SF. They have shown the Golden Gate bridge, and probably other locations, but I'm not sure if those are familiar to people not from the Bay Area.

You’re right come to think of it. Jiya had a flashback that included the GG bridge in the S1 finale.

Next week's episode looks fun. I liked this one and I figured JFK was still going to get assassinated at a different date.

Fantastic episode! Nice take on a JFK story. Would have been boring to time travel to Dealey Plaza in 1963 and focus on the assasination.

I also really liked the music score during the Lucy and Wyatt ending scene.

I also had no idea the setting was in the Bay Area, even though I remember the vision of the Golden Gate Bridge - which makes me sound dumb haha. I mean, the focus is always on where they time travel to and you never really think about the present day location.

More time travel stupidity from Rufus, and nobody is calling him (or Lucy) on it. This is becoming rather annoying.

Awesome episode. Nothing to nit pick here. It was a fun take on the JFK story.

Wyatt and Emma’s fight scene in the hospital was pretty badass. Annie Wersching looks really hot being an ice cold assassin.

Funny how being told to not show up in Dallas still didn’t change JFK’s fate.

Agree with everybody above - great episode. Given how the show isn’t afraid to change events, I’m not sure any of us knew JFK was safe.

Badass throw down in the hospital room!

The scene in the girl’s bedroom where JFK learns the fate of his family members was really well done and heartbreaking.

Which I think ties back in to the conversation between Rufus and Jiya at the desk. I wonder if time will correct Rittenhouse...

Speaking of, still not onboard with Carol or her “efforts” to save Lucy.

Another solid episode. Question: Why did the coin change to Nixon after JFK walked out of that room?

the coin* change was to show that Nixon became president in 1960 instead of Kennedy, presumably because JFK wasn't going to go back to his own timeline, because he was dead or whatever.

It was a fun episode and I enjoyed it. I realize this isn't a documentary and that time travel is a fantasy, but here's my problem with stories like this [nerd alert]: when they removed JFK from his own timeline (1934) and brought him to the future (2018), he ceased to exist in the present-day timeline, so as soon as they brought him here, he could not have become president. He would have been nobody (except maybe Joseph Kennedy's missing son who disappeared mysteriously one day). Being killed in the present would not affect any of that. Of course, after they returned him, things could go back the way they were where he eventually became president (or close enough). [/nerd alert]

*Numismatical Nerdly Nit-pick: (Edit: This is probably not true)
Nixon could not have appeared on the coin unless he was killed in 1963. You can't appear on US currency or stamps until you are dead 1 year for a president, 10 years for a regular person.

How true! He would have disappeared from history in 1934, and Kayla and her friends wouldn't have heard of President John F. Kennedy in 2018. The coin should have changed the moment he left 1934, and not necessarily to Nixon. Maybe whoever would have run in JFK's place would have won the 1960 election. Aw man, now it's ruined. 😕

Some time travel fiction has taken the tact that the changes made by altering historical events doesn't immediately propagate throughout all of time at once. That the changes move more like a wave, spreading through history at a certain rate.

Frankly, this show has never really shown much regard or concern for a rigorous, logical approach to time travel. The producers aren't bending over backwards to construct the implied rules of this fictional universe.

(More generally).

Time travel and alternate parallel universes, are almost always allegorical than anything resembling rigorous hard science.

At best, all they can do is keep the internal "logic" semi-consistent within the setting. If they can't even do that, then the writers largely don't give a damn.

What’s interesting about the alterations this time is that one of the core lifeboat trio stayed behind. So now Wyatt thinks JFK died in Austin Texas and never knew that Dallas was the original timeline. He’s the one you had to stay behind to make room for Garcia! I guess were left to assume that all of his other memories from the trips have remained intact.

They took him back to the same time whn he left so it was as if he never left.

I had missed that and I'm guessing the writers will as well.

Is that new or something? Because Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, and the JFK half dollar went into proof production on January 2, 1964 (a mere 41 days after JFK's death) and general production on January 30th.

Also, Dwight Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, Legislation to create Eisenhower dollars passed in March of 1970, but could have been passed sooner if Republicans and Democrats hadn't squabbled over whether the coin would be made from silver (Republicans) or cupronickel (Democrats).

EDIT: Also, FDR died on April 12, 1945 and FDR dimes were released to the public on January 30, 1946.

I’m sure the tigers did this on purpose, but I just realized that granddaddy Rittenhouse said they need somebody like Nixon that they can control. Yes, the coin changed*, but in the episode last season when they went back to Watergate the missing tape was actually Nixon talking about Rittenhouse. I’d be interested to go back and watch that ep now.

*If Nixon was on the coin, does that mean he was killed? I didn’t catch the date on the changed coin.

Wrong show. TWD had a tiger.

It's not new, probably just wrong! Googling only yielded information saying no living person can be on US currency and that Presidents must be dead for at least two years before they are eligible for inclusion in the Presidential Dollar series (those gold-colored dollar coins no one uses). Then they go on to give 6 examples of exceptions to the "no living person" rule. I did find someone else who mentioned the 10-year rule about postage stamps, but cited no sources. I edited my claim above and will continue to investigate.

Edit:
I must have been thinking of Postage stamps, sorry. I found this on the cbsnews site (from 2011):
I haven't find if that rule applied to coins and currency as well. I guess it's more of a "Philatelic Phun Phact."

Didn't he still become President? At the end, after returning him, I thought they said he was shot in Austin rather than Dallas in 1963.

I think the coin changed to Nixon because while he was in 2018 it meant someone else (Nixon) must have won the 1960 election, but after he returned to 1934 he went on to become president in 1960.

Yes, after they returned him. When it looked like he was either going to escape or die at the party and not return to 1934, the coin changed to indicate that the past changed. My original point was that the act of taking someone out of their timeline and back to yours changes the present until you bring him back, according to all the "rules" the show has set forth so far. As soon as they step off the lifeboat they ask the "ground crew" questions to find out if history as they know it changed.

When they stepped out of the lifeboat with JFK, everyone SHOULD have said "Who's JFK?" because as long as he was in 2018 he could not have become president in 1960. You could argue that they always intended to bring JFK back (the whole time he was in 2018) so he still existed in the past, but then you are in Bill & Ted territory, where they say, "hey let's remember to time travel back to yesterday and hide the car keys here." (I actually thought that was really clever in that movie.)

Re-watching this episode now. They addressed this issue in the bunker when Jiya tells Rufus and Connor she's confident they'll find JFK because they all still knew him as President Kennedy in 2018. She was convinced it proved he would be returned to 1934 and go on to become president.