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Some information about this episode

Joaquin Murrieta

Joaquin Murrieta Carillo was an incredibly complex man, very much a real-life analogue for our Garcia Flynn. After being accused of stealing a mule, his wife was kidnapped and violated, his brother was hanged, and Joaquin was horsewhipped. With those who tortured him and his loved ones on his hit list, he went on a rampage and managed to bring all of them to a swift end. Some would say that’s justice, but in the day, he was an outlaw who struck out at goodly men.

They called him the “Robin Hood of the West”/”Robin Hood of El Dorado”, but he’s more well-known as the inspiration for Don Diego de la Vega (Zorro). Johnston McCulley found The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge fascinating, and thus Zorro was born.

There are many conflicting accounts of Murrieta and his exploits, so it’s hard to decipher what happened to him after his killing spree. Some say he was a Monte dealer, others speculate he was a horse trader, or just a bandit. His death was widely reported as due to a raid in Coalinga, California in 1853. His preserved head had been displayed in San Francisco, but was destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. As seemed standard for tales regarding Murrieta, his sister reportedly claimed that said head was not that of her brother, so the stories of his death may have been greatly exaggerated.  (sorry, I had to.)

Steampunk Dividiver

Rescue Rufus

Picking up RIGHT where we left off last Spring, the team gears up for a trip to 1848 in order to save Rufus. “Tomb Raider” Lucy and “G.I. Joe with real-life hair and beard” Wyatt appeared just long enough to instruct the team, and then they were off in the 2018 Lifeboat. Our Time-Team has an upgraded vessel, and marvels at it’s new features briefly before making the jump.

They meet Joaquin Murrieta there, and Flynn discovers a kindred spirit. Wyatt makes the connection that Jessica is the lynchpin upon which their troubles originate, so Flynn makes the decision to become her killer in 2012 and declare himself expendable in a message to the rest of the team.

An alternate timeline Rufus then appears in 1848 and joins Jiya, Lucy, and Wyatt in order to complete the mission and move forward with him now alive. Since he’s gotten there separately from the others, he’s a different Rufus than the team already knows, which makes for some interesting baggage lingering between him and Jiya.

Destroy Rittenhouse

Emma is up to no good, as per her usual. After Coloma, she jumps to North Korea circa 1950. She knows the Time-Team follows her wherever she goes, so she activates a sleeper agent during the Korean Conflict in order to lure them into a trap. Her Henchman is a helicopter pilot, and he’s instructed to crash a copter containing Wyatt, Lucy, Rufus, and Jiya.

Korean War Henchman carries out the plan, but Wyatt thwarts the ultimate goal by attacking him at the last minute. They crash, but our team is left alive to face another day. They save a pregnant Korean woman, deliver her baby, and create a legacy in the future that has lasting effects in time-travel technology. Ironic, right? Maybe this time around, the Lifeboat can counter any of the horrible consequences before they occur. I mean, it *is* time-travel.

Close the Loop

Rittenhouse defeated, Rufus saved, and our heroes back in an updated timeline, they still have unfinished business to clean up. Once they make it to 2023 the normal way, they make one last trip to give the journal to Flynn so he’ll kidnap Anthony and begin his journey through time. They’ve had a few years to construct a speech for Flynn that will lay out a trajectory for his evolution from villain to hero.

After Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus return to 2023, they reenact the pose in the Lifeboat hatch from the beginning of the series. It was a lovely way to circle back to the start of the show, and a bit of a self-referential reference to itself in the process.

Random Stuff

Karen mentions that she’s visited Coloma, California (she’s a CA native), and it’s an amazing place to see.
We mention that the “Time After Time” montage is amazing, and worth a viewing (or two) on it’s own. More info on PopSugar.
If you want to learn about Leyden Jars, check out this wiki page.


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On January 28

Data Privacy Day
1547 – Henry VIII dies. His nine-year-old son, Edward VI, becomes king.
1754Sir Horace Walpole coins the word serendipity in a letter to a friend.
1813Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice is published in the United Kingdom.
1902The Carnegie Institution of Washington is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
1915 – An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard as a branch of the United States Armed Forces.
1956Elvis Presley makes his first national television appearance.
1958 – The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.
1985 – Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) records the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief.
1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission: Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Notable Births:
1457Henry VII, king of England
1864Charles Williams Nash, American businessman, founded Nash Motors
1912Jackson Pollock, American painter
1930Roy Clarke, English screenwriter, comedian and soldier (Last of Summer Wine, Keeping Up Appearances)
1936Alan Alda, American actor, director, and writer
1950Barbi Benton, American actress, singer and model (Playboy, Hee Haw)
1959Frank Darabont, American director and producer
1968Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer
1969Mo Rocca, American comedian and television journalist (The Daily Show)
1977Joey Fatone, American singer, dancer, and television personality (NSYNC)
1980Nick Carter, American singer-songwriter and actor (Backstreet Boys)d
1981Elijah Wood, American actor and producer
1998Ariel Winter, American actress (Modern Family)
Notable Deaths:
814Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor
1271Isabella of Aragon, Queen of France
1547Henry VIII, king of England
1939W. B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
1986Space Shuttle Challenger crew
• Gregory Jarvis, American captain, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1944)
• Christa McAuliffe, American educator and astronaut (b. 1948)
• Ronald McNair, American physicist and astronaut (b. 1950)
• Ellison Onizuka, American engineer and astronaut (b. 1946)
• Judith Resnik, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1949)
• Dick Scobee, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1939)
• Michael J. Smith, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1945)
1996 Jerry Siegel, American author and illustrator, co-created Superman
2005Jim Capaldi, English singer-songwriter and drummer (Traffic)
2009Billy Powell, American keyboard player and songwriter (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
2016Signe Toly Anderson, American singer (Jefferson Airplane)
2016 – Paul Kantner, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Jefferson Airplane) Deaths of these two band members are not related
2017 Geoff Nicholls, British musician (Black Sabbath)

On December 24

Christmas Eve
1777Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is discovered by James Cook.
1818 – The first performance of “Silent Night” takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.
1851 – The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., burns.
1865 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form The Ku Klux Klan.
1968Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits and broadcast live TV pictures.
1973District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.
1994Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked on the ground at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers, Algeria. Over the course of three days three passengers are killed, as are all four terrorists.
1999Indian Airlines Flight 814 is hijacked in Indian airspace between Kathmandu, Nepal, and Delhi, India. The aircraft landed at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The incident ended on December 31 with the release of 190 survivors (one passenger is killed).
Notable Births:
1809Kit Carson, American general
1818James Prescott Joule, English physicist and brewer
1894 Jack Thayer, American businessman and Titanic Survivor
1905Howard Hughes, American businessman, engineer, and pilot
1922Ava Gardner, American actress
1923George Patton IV, American general
1927Mary Higgins Clark, American author
1945Lemmy, English hard rock singer-songwriter and bass player
1946 Jeff Sessions, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Alabama and 84th Attorney General of the United States
1959 Lee Daniels, American director and producer (Precious, Monster’s Ball)
1960Glenn McQueen, Canadian-American animator (Pixar)
1962Kate Spade, American fashion designer, co-founded Kate Spade New York
1964Mark Valley, American actor (Fringe, Human Target)
1966Diedrich Bader, American actor (The Drew Carey Show, Office Space)
1971 Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican-American singer-songwriter and actor
1973 Stephenie Meyer, American author and film producer (Twilight)
1974 Ryan Seacrest, American radio host and television personality, and producer
1974 – J.D. Walsh, American actor, director, and producer
1991 Louis Tomlinson, English singer-songwriter (One Direction)
Notable Deaths:
1863William Makepeace Thackeray, English author and poet
1873Johns Hopkins, American businessman and philanthropist
1914John Muir, Scottish-American geologist, botanist, and author, founded Sierra Club
1967Burt Baskin, American businessman, co-founded Baskin-Robbins
1984Peter Lawford, English-American actor
1986Gardner Fox, American author (DC Comics)
1992 Peyo, Belgian cartoonist, created The Smurfs
1993Norman Vincent Peale, American minister and author (The Power of Positive Thinking)
2009 George Michael, American sportscaster (a fixture in the DC broadcasting community, not the singer)
2012 Charles Durning, American soldier and actor
2012 – Jack Klugman, American actor
2016 Liz Smith, English actress (The Vicar of Dibley)
2016 – Richard Adams, English author (Watership Down)
2017 Heather Menzies, Canadian-American model and actress (The Sound of Music, Logan’s Run)

Steampunk Dividiver

Links from this episode:

Friend of the show, Michael Ahr, writes about the two-part finale here: DenofGeek.com.
Fangirlish review about the two-part finale is here. Check out their Timeless coverage here.


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