Time to keep up the most important part of this series –
John is half naked again! Still confined by Brooke she spends a goodly amount
of time in a towel while Brooke tries to make friends with him
Yes, despite the fact that John is Jack the Ripper, Brooke wants him to trust her, wants him to be her friend and possibly with benefits. Oh Brooke, I get that he’s hot but he’s also a serial killer. Look but don’t touch there.
She wants to experiment on John – she’s a biotechnician and wants to use DNA to alter brain patterns. Including de-serial killering John. The problem is, she assumes that John actually wants that. She’s done a lot of research on him – she knows his name, his birth even the son he had (which even he didn’t know about) but hasn’t figured out that he quite likes being a serial killer. She’s also pretty loose lipped, telling all about Vanessa and her relationship with HG Wells. My isn’t she well informed
John decides he wants nothing to do with this and tries to
leave. Failed attempt one ends up with him in a cage with a man wielding some
dangerous amounts of roid-rage – looks like an old experiment of Brooke’s. He
commits the terrible crime of punching John repeatedly in the face before he’s
being stopped
His second attempt works, though, despite Brooke’s
bodyguard being disturbingly resistant to tranquiliser (or… well… realistically
resistant. Really, tranqs don’t generally put you down all that quickly, not
without being dangerous. There’s a reason why hospitals employ anaesthesiologists
and don’t just dart you) and ALSO committing the supreme sin of face punching
(not his beautiful face!)
Brooke is not amused.
We must now catch up with HG and Jane who is rapidly
joining the Wet Lettuce Sisterhood with her general dampness. She’s concerned
that she’s flirting with HG but he’ll think she’s a forward sluthussyjezebel
because of his Victorian values
Uh-huh, Victorians talked a good game but my gods they could be dirty sex pigs behind closed doors. You’re a historian Jane, don’t buy into this whole moral probity veneer.
They gush a bit and he talks about how routine sex is in
the modern world which means all the passion is missing (only if you’re doing
it wrong HG). But it was hilarious to watch him play with the internet and
discover pop-ups and dodgy pawn.
You think learning about the second world war will reduce
his idealistic faith in humanity? Let him browse the net for 20 minutes, we’ll
break him so hard.
Anyway, they’re deciding they need to research Chad
because Vanessa and Doug haven’t really pulled up much knowledge of anything.
Which means we have the Victorian guy and the historian playing modern
detective at Chad’s place
Can we have an aside here about how Vanessa can’t get
good help? I mean she has Doug, professional security guy. He has a team. She
has oodles of cash. Yet between Doug, his team and said oodles of cash they’ve
failed to find a guy working from a 19th century knowledge of
technology, failed to snatch him during their prisoner exchanged, failed to
find anything out about the Ominous Chad. Really? This is a level of
incompetence that beggars belief! It’s only maintained because only by Doug
& co being inept can HG and Her Lettuceness actually do anything
By the way Griffin continues to be sinister and creepy
but Vanessa assures him that the Time Machine is safe because of her team.
So they go to Doug’s and find his obligatory obsession
wall (must have décor for creepy people) and a letter that has the same symbol
on it as the mysterious letter HG sent Vanessa. On the letter are co-ordinates
and a time and date
So it’s back to the time machine, dragging up Martin from
his plot box and going to a merry jaunt to the 80s. HG for reasons and Jane because
she’s a historian to help them understand the time period
Hey readers, how old do you feel knowing there’s a TV
show that thinks you need a historian to understand the 80s?
It turns out they’re at a house party at Vanessa’s parent’s
house (Vanessa is only 3) and thankfully drunk flirty gossip with HG impressing
memory (her gossip skills are epic) is there to helpfully infodump everything
they need to know. Including that the Anders have lost of a lot of money and
may be selling up soon
Then they see a man with the same satchel as Brad had. Because
plain brown satchels are not only rare but apparently go into stasis and
apparently look the same in 1980 as they do in 2017. And, really, Chad kept a
37 year old Satchel? But just in case Gossip helpfully tells them that Satchel
guy has a child called Chad. Helpful there plot device isn’t she?
By the way, how old do you all feel now with me pointing
out 1980 was 37 years ago?
Seeing Vanessa’s dad going to a secret meeting with Chad
senior, HG and Jane follow to learn that Chad senior has stolen drug research
for a “project” utopia worth a fortune and is going to sell it to Mr. Anders
for oodles of cash (that symbol appears again). Except Mr. Anders doesn’t have
oodles of cash so he murders Chad senior instead
We can assume that Chad and his mother wanted to go back
in time to stop the murder then – though it doesn’t explain how they understood
time travel anyway or how murdering HG would achieve this. So more still to
come
HG and Jane run away and return to the present even as Jane
thinks they should stomp all over paradox and space time and stop murders
because Wet Lettuceness. It also gives HG chance to mansplain to her when
really she’s smart enough to figure this out. C’mon Jane sort yourself out.
Of course the question comes whether or not to tell
Vanessa that daddy dearest was a thief and a murderer and they decide on the
whole not to go with that. But they do ask Vanessa to do some research on
Project Utopia since she knows nothing.
There’s also a party going on – a fund raiser for senator
hopeful Sinister Griffin. Also attending is Griffin’s sister – Brooke. She and
Griffin both know about the time machine and need to accelerate their mysterious
plans with John having escaped. We don’t know what the plans are – but it turns
out that Chad Senior stole Project Utopia from their father
And the plot on this show is so twisted it feels almost
incestuous
To complete this, John breaks into the party. He doesn’t
even bring a bottle. Rude.
Yeah can we return to my comments about Vanessa’s team?
You’re holding a part for lots of rich people and a senatorial candidate but
some unarmed guy from the 19th century can break in and then run
amok with a kitchen knife? How inept is this team?
And get the reaction “we must evacuate the building!”.
Vanessa, it’s a man with a kitchen knife. Not a bomb scare.
John manages to run amok because Vanessa’s team is
terrible, stabbing random people including Griffin (his plot armour saves him).
At least Jane dispels some lettuceness when she confronts him. He eventually
runs off in the Time Machine (because Vanessa’s security is terribl). It returns
automatically because HG has rigged it that way –but without John
John is now in Paris in 1918: the location of his son
which Brooke helpfully told him about
No doubt HG and Jane will follow and not bring any of the
dangerous men with modern weapons
Actually, given Doug’s team’s performance, maybe that’s
for the best.
