The episode begins with yet another Traveler typical day. The crew waits for a new cell of Travelers to arrive. This time they are set to arrive in a family because a father drove his car containing his wife, son and daughter off of the upper level of a parking lot. Unfortunately, this time the exchange does not go down smoothly and the daughter who was meant to be the teams historian remains unchanged because there's been a misfire. This throws a wrench into the new teams mission. Philip hands over some money and tells them what bets to place so that they can have enough cash to start off. Trevor hands over a device so the mission can be started. MacLaren decides to take the daughter to her grandparents home so that they can figure out what to do next.
Philip, Marcy, Cary and Trevor travel together and they discuss the fact that they all could have been misfires. Trevor points out that when the original Travelers first came to the past, a full thirty percent of them were misfires. The fact that the Travelers are terrified by the possibility of a misfire suggests that when this happens, the consciousness of the Traveler is lost forever. As they contemplate this, a truck comes out of nowhere and crashes into the vehicle they are traveling in. The first to awaken are Trevor and Carly, and they find themselves strapped into wheelchairs in separate but adjoining cages. Each Traveler has an intravenous drip and a catheter to take care of the bathroom needs. Half of Carly's face is covered in blood from a head injury but given how much any cut on the head bleeds, it's not an indication of a necessarily of serious injury. Trevor has a bad cut on his cheek. At this point, both Marcy and Philip are still unconscious.
Blissfully unaware that something has gone terribly wrong with his team, MacLaren arrives at his office only to be confronted by Forbes. It seems that MacLaren was supposed to be in court to testify but he missed the date. MacLaren lies again and claims that Kat wanted him to pick up a chair for his client. As excuses go, it's absolutely weak tea and not only is Forbes not buying it, he makes it clear that the prosecutor won't either. It really is time for MacLaren to do some in-depth research on his host's life because he is missing so many things and being forced to lie so consistently is going to blow his cover.
A man enters the lock up and Trevor plays it cool, saying he needs to get out of there because he has a test to study for and doesn't want to be grounded again. The man wheels Philip out of the room without answering Trevor. Marcy regains consciousness. The next person to be taken is Carly and she is wheeled into a large room and placed in front of a television. The question, "Who have you told?", appears on the screen. Carly stays in character and pretends to be confused by the question. When it's clear that Carly isn't going to answer, images of Hall, MacLaren and Jeff appear on the screen. Carly is asked if she knows who these men are and the only one she cops to knowing is Jeff, the father of her child. Carly tries to use the fact that Jeff is a cop to suggest that there will be trouble for abducting her. The next question to appear is, "When are you from?". This means that her abductors know that she is a Traveler. Shit. Carly decides to continue to play dumb but then she is shown a video of her son and asked, "What are your protocols?" Carly freaks the hell out and threatens to kill them if they harm her child.
It's now the next day and David is freaking out because Marcy didn't return home the night before, even though she promised to be home early. With no idea of where Marcy is, David heads to the FBI field office to see MacLaren. MacLaren plays a little cat and mouse with David, initially confused about how David knows who he is. It's only when David reveals that Marcy didn't return home that MacLaren gets worried. When David tries to reach his team through the coms and gets no answer, he's then certain that something has gone terribly wrong. MacLaren has his assistant use NSA tools to alert him if any of his team are picked up by any camera.
Philip is returned to his cell and is so happy to see his team because when he was wheeled out, he was unconscious. The happiness doesn't last long because Philip realises that he is about to go withdrawal and admits that he hasn't gone more than 18 hours without a hit since coming to the past. Trevor tries to encourage him to tough it out but the panic and the need are already setting in. Carly is then brought back from her own interrogation and she has to scream about not being able to see, to get the man who brought her back to wipe the blood from her face. Carly tells the rest about being asked when she's from and they realise that whoever is responsible for kidnapping them knows things that they shouldn't.
The dude who has been transporting the Travelers shows up and this time, he injects two syringes into Philip's IV. Marcy immediately starts freaking out thinking that if both syringes are filled with heroine, they've given Philip enough to overdose on. Marcy is the next to be taken and as she is wheeled away, she screams at Philip to remain conscious no matter what. It turns out that their abductors did indeed give Philip heroine but they also gave him a drug which would cause his altered brain to start spewing forth facts. He talks about shelter 41 being destroyed and killing thousands of people moments after an alarm bell goes off. Now we know that historians have been altered in order to retain information about the past. Philip starts talking about the year 2141 and how the air and water had been recycled so many times that they taste of metal, as the rest of the team frantically screams for him to be quiet and forget about the future.
It's Mary's turn for interrogation and like all of the others, she's asked when she's from. When an answer is not forth coming, Marcy is shown a video of David getting a call from her, explaining her absence. Marcy then sees a video of Philip being shot to death which results in her having a seizure. When Marcy awakes, she is back in her cage and is able to see for herself that Philip is alive and well.
Now that Philip has been made pliant through the introduction of drugs, it's his turn to be questioned. Instead of providing information, Philip answers his questions with quotes and starts to ramble nonsensically. Getting nowhere with any of the Travelers, the abductors decide to finally give Trevor a shot but he's even less helpful and spends his time cracking jokes.
MacLaren is making some headway at finding his team thanks to his assistant being able to locate the vehicle they were in when they were hit by the truck. MacLaren's next move is to reach out to Boyd, even though this means breaking protocol. Boyd does have some empathy for MacLaren but points out that this could be the work of the director. It seems that the Director has been known to take out cells of Travelers when they don't follow orders or screw up in an epic fashion. Boyd is quick to point out that the real power resides in the future but she does offer to be MacLaren's back up if he finds a solid lead.
Maclaren meets with the family of new Travelers to discuss their mission. At this point, with his team missing, he doesn't believe that they can pull off the mission which means that a lot of people are going to die.
Carly has come up with a plan to get them out of there but she refuses to share the details with Trevor, certain that he will think that it's too risky and try to stop her. When Marcy is returned to her cage, Carly once again calls out to have the blood wiped from her face. This time when the man reaches his hand inside the cage, Carly bites his wrist. Blood quickly starts to put out of the mans wrist and so Carly continues to bite down until he is on the ground dead.
MacLaren has figured out where his team is being kept and arrives to rescue them with Boyd. MacLaren's team are all unconscious by the time he is able to get to them. MacLaren comforts Carly who when she wakes is sad that they were unable to complete their mission because this is going to mean the deaths of thousands. Carly is certain that the reason they were kidnapped was to stop their mission.
Okay, this week we learned that in the future the environment is in rough shape and that the few surviving people are crammed together in shelters. We also learned that the air and water are so recycled that they don't resemble anything we have today. It explains a little bit about why the Travelers had no problem giving up their lives in the future to go back to the past and try to change things. We still don't know anything about the power structure of the future beyond the fact that the future holds all of the power. I'd like to know more about the Director and how these missions have been organised.
Marcy's concern for David once again suggests that she really and truly has feelings for him. We also had another instance of Marcy having a seizure. We know that there's an MRI of Marcy's brain but we don't know what it revealed. Clearly there is more than cognitive limitations going on with Marcy's host but what exactly we don't know because it's just been left there as a looming threat on Marcy.
We did learn that a brain has to be altered in order to be a historian. The fact that each group is sent back with a historian suggests that they are absolutely necessary to the survival of cell. It makes me wonder if there are special requirements to becoming a historian? We've already seen how the loss of a cells historian can lead to difficulty surviving the past because obviously, Travelers don't necessarily have the skills to blend in well with the 21st century.
Given that MacLaren is well aware that Forbes is a really good cop, he is absolutely leaving himself open to being found out. All he's done so far is lie to Forbes and Forbes is smart enough to know when he's being lied to. Should Forbes become curious and I suspect that will happen soon, it will lead to trouble for MacLaren. MacLaren is so involved in Traveler missions that he's forgotten to actually live his host's life and that includes investigating cases and apparently fucking his wife.
Trevor joking about getting an erection while having a catheter cracked me up. At this point, I'm absolutely certain that Trevor is significantly older than the body he is currently residing in. We know so little about him but his surprise at getting morning wood, as well as his commentary about the bodily functions of a teenage boy implies heavily that he might actually be middle age or older. It explains why he has no time for teenage politics of high school.
