Second Look: Continuum Season 1, Episode 5 – “A Test of Time”

Continuum Season 1, Episode 5 “A Test of Time”
Written by Jeff King
Directed by Patrick Williams
Aired June 24, 2012 on Showcase

After a couple awkward episodes bridging Continuum from its ambitious pilot to the genesis of some of its larger narratives and themes, “A Test of Time” hits the ground running as it begins to marry the stories of 2012 and 2077 together. A lot of this sudden momentum comes from the series overtly leaning further into its burgeoning science fiction elements, with an episode that feels like a recentering of the series on its most important, emergent themes – and though it isn’t always a neat (or completely logical) transition, “A Test of Time” makes for an intriguing halfway point of its freshman season, as the episode’s third act begins to unearth some of the more interesting overarching ideas lying at the heart of the series.

“A Test of Time” is really focused on a single idea, one planted in Liber8’s mind by none other than Kiera in “A Stitch in Time“, when threatening Lucas while he was in police custody; what happens if you kill someone’s grandmother? The assumption being, of course, that shooting one’s grandmother in 2012 would prevent them from being born and time-traveling from 2077 in the first place. When Kagame decides this is the best strategy to set Liber8 up for success in 2012, this sets Liber8 and Kiera both on a path to find every Lily Jones in Vancouver – which starts off with Travis viciously murdering a young woman and leaving her in a ditch, kicking off the episode’s investigation-of-the-week elements, and setting Continuum on a course to start addressing one of the paradoxical elephants making its way into the room.

Though there are a lot of story elements that bring us from point A to B in “A Test of Time”, there three elements that really stand out. The first of these comes from Kagame himself, who suddenly decides Travis’s approach of knuckles and bullets to gain influence is too divisive and risky, and rather, they should focus their attention on a more “strategic” approach… which turns out to be haphazardly, and violently, killing young woman who unfortunately share a name with Kiera’s grandmother. It’s a strange move for the man whose spent more time meditating than planning since he arrived in 2012, creating what feels like an unintentional dichotomy between what Kagame theoretically represents, and what his actions actually reveal him to be. Though Kagame paints himself as a peaceful, considerate revolutionary, his morals and tactics are grounded in more familiar, complicated territory; in this episode alone, he lets Travis off the leash to murder a young woman, starts to build divides within his own group by questioning Sonya’s loyalty – and of course, his still-mysterious role in the 2077 attack, which takes on new mystery when Kiera’s husband quietly reveals him and other SadTech executives were aware of the terrorist attack beforehand and changed locations accordingly.

It doesn’t make for the most consistent storytelling – and for those watching without knowledge of where the season takes Kagame, it makes for an incredibly ambiguous, inscrutable character that keeps Kiera, the Vancouver PD, and Continuum as a whole on its heels a bit, in ways that allow the character to (at least for now) feel more dynamic and unpredictable, than random and inconsistent; his decision to employ Kiera’s own threats against her certainly displays a cunning and ruthlessness not seen in the other fumbling members of Liber8 in the first five episodes, seeking to cause chaos even as he stirs up shit inside the walls of his own house.

Kagame’s plan to murder Kiera’s grandmother also allows Continuum to dive headfirst into two potentially sticky topics for a time travel series. For most of the episode, Kiera and her grandmother’s interactions (her grandmother being a pregnant teen vagrant, complete with goth aesthetics and nose rings) posit that Kiera’s life lives on a closed loop, essentially; she was born to Lily’s daughter in the future, traveled to 2077, and returned to the 2012 she came from. By those rules, it’s no surprise Kagame, Kiera, and Kellogg (I’m just noticing that, by the way) all consider employing violence against their ancestors; by this logic, Kiera’s longing for the future she came from, and her desire to protect her grandmother, make perfect sense – and provide a surprising amount of tension to “A Test of Time”, even when its attempts to ground the story in an emotional connection (Kiera’s flashbacks also include when she found out she was pregnant and first told her then-boyfriend) fall a little bit flat.

That all changes, of course, at the episode’s conclusion; after Kagame captures Kellogg’s grandmother Mattie as leverage against when he suspects he’s been working with Kiera. This leads Kellogg – off-screen, unfortunately – to kidnap Kagame’s mother (while she’s pregnant with Kagame) and use her as a bargaining chip to get Mattie back, and protect Kiera and Lily from being killed. But it turns out Kagame doesn’t have the entire Liber8 house back in order, and he watches helplessly as Travis guns down Mattie, who dies in her unborn grandson’s arms… and then nothing happens. Kellogg remains alive and present, fulfilling his end of the bargain by taking Lily and Kiera’s grandfather somewhere far away from Liber8 on his yacht – which ultimately seems to be a bit of an unnecessary precaution, given Kellogg’s survival suggests the time-travel event has created a new, parallel timeline different from the one everyone left behind.

It’s a rather bold move for a time-travel series to challenge the paradoxes lying at its core in only its fifth episode – and to Continuum‘s credit, “A Test of Time” lets this idea sit with the audience, keeping its focus on the insular emotions of Kiera and Kellogg, rather than let itself devolve into something more akin to late-era episodes of The Flash, where most of the episode is spent trying to explain away illogical convolutions until its blue in the face. Instead, “A Test of Time” moves forward, letting the audience sit with the idea that maybe Kellogg is now a man untethered to time – or, more importantly, that the future and family Kiera is hoping to return to may not even exist anymore.

Regardless of what that answer actually is, Continuum‘s final minutes do well to steer the audience back to the present narrative, ending on Kagame’s threat to Travis (“You behave like a rabid dog, and I will put you down“, once again calling into question some of his performative pacifism) and a flash-forward to Kiera showing Jake the necklace Lily wears in this episode. It’s a smart move, one that shows some ambition and forethought in Jeff King’s script, not letting the series get distracted from its stories, even as it begins to surface some of its bigger concepts and plot twists. It’s a confident choice, and one that ends “A Test of Time” on an unexpectedly intriguing high note.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Kagame quietly calling out Sonya’s loyalties is an interesting choice – one that could backfire, given Travis is now back to his genetically-enhanced self.
  
• There’s but one scene of Alec and his brother on the family farm; when Alec tells him he’s not attending his stepdad’s meeting of “conspiracy freaks”, Julian reminds him that like or not, this is the only family he’s got. Alec also points out that “if you want to change the world, you’ve got to leave the living room first.”
  
• We really don’t ever get to see Kiera in her military career as a young adult; the day she finds out she’s pregnant with Jake, which occurs after she’s moved back into civilian life, might be the closest we ever get in these early episodes.
  
• Really wish we had some setup of Kellogg kidnapping Kagame’s mother, because Kagame coming into contact with his unborn self is an indelibly awesome image.
  
• Seeing Katie Findlay as Kiera’s grandmother Lily unfortunately gives me The Killing flashbacks.
  
• Love seeing character actor Adam Greydon Reid as a sandwich chewing CSI from the coroner’s office.