With Wyatt and Agent Christopher no longer officially working for Mason Industries, Lucy and Rufus are on their own for “Public Enemy No. 1,” or so it seems. The duo takes matters into their own hands when given an order they don’t like, throwing the company into chaos, and putting them on a dangerous mission as they go after Flynn.
The Time Team gets a kill order
It was bound to happen eventually since they hadn’t been able to capture or eliminate Flynn. Rufus and Lucy (and their new guard) are sent to 1962 to kill Flynn’s mother to get rid of the problem altogether.
Rufus and Lucy are, understandably, not okay with that. Just as it seems they’re at a loss for what to do, though, the duo sedates their new teammate, put a computer worm in the Mason Industries system, and take the time machine themselves after making the jump. In other words, like Flynn and Wyatt before them, Lucy and Rufus officially go rogue.
Being that Rufus and Lucy aren’t entirely self-serving, though, their rogue trip is short lived. Wyatt wants to help Lucy get her sister back, but the trio (and Agent Christopher) don’t get the chance to take on that particular challenge when they find that Flynn had already jumped to another era. It’s what separates the trio from the villains of the show - even when they want to do something for themselves, they can’t help but do the right thing.
Jiya gets caught in the middle
Until now, Jiya has been mostly in the dark about the details of Mason Industries and Rittenhouse and what the rest of the time team knows. As a result of Rufus and the team stealing the time ship, Jiya is under suspicion, to begin with. Mason knows she’s sleeping with Rufus, so there’s already a chance that Rufus has told her something - except of course, that he hasn’t.
He does call her to tell her that he’ll explain, but all that does is get Jiya in more hot water.
I am all for more Jiya in the show. I am also all for more development in the relationship between Rufus and Jiya. Jiya, however, deserves to get some answers. She might know bits and pieces of what’s going on, but the amount of confusion and fear she’s got to have after being detained because Rufus stole a time machine has got to be insanely huge.
She still runs interference for Rufus, even cutting the power with a cobbled together computer system. If this episode doesn’t lead to her getting the full story from someone, the writers are making a mistake.
What a waste of Misha Collins
Misha Collins was possibly the most talked about the guest star for this episode. He’s got ties to the creative team thanks to his work on “Supernatural,” and with him taking on the role of Elliot Ness, there was a lot of hype surrounding how he’d be part of the story. The man who would catch Capone doesn’t get to do the job since he’s gunned down in his apartment halfway through the episode! The “Supernatural” fans who tuned in to see what he was up to were probably very disappointed.
Al Capone has a brother
As the show has made a habit of doing, we get a piece of little-known history in “Public Enemy No. 1.” This time around, it’s that Al Capone had a brother who changed his name to avoid the Capone family stigma and become a law enforcement officer who worked Prohibition cases. It’s one of those stories that seems too good to be true, but the writers pulled the story straight out of history.
Lucy’s insistence that Capone’s brother takes the mobster in though so they can get help tracking Flynn down doesn’t go the way she expected. The standoff ends in a shootout with Rufus caught in the crossfire. Will he be okay? Will they make it back to the present? Will Jiya have to pilot the ship?
We’ll have to wait and see.
The verdict and what’s next
Twist after twist made this episode a doozy, and all the more fun as we race towards the season finale!
4.5 out of 5 stars
Next week is the season finale “The Red Scare” as the group goes to the 1950s to try to take down Rittenhouse once and for all.
