Second Look: Continuum Season 1, Episode 10 – “Endtimes”

Continuum Season 1, Episode 10 “Endtimes”
Written by Simon Barry
Directed by Patrick Williams
Aired August 5, 2012 on Showcase

“You ever stood on a beach and faced an approaching tsunami?” – Alec Sadler

After an incredibly intriguing, somewhat cluttered, and often unfocused first season, “Endtimes” presents Continuum with a new opportunity: to consider a life beyond its first ten hours, translating some of of its bigger plot teases and deeper character dynamics into something tangible for future seasons to build on. “Endtimes” aims to be exactly that, a dynamic hour full of big creative swings and teases of a larger, even more overarching story – unfortunately, it’s all a bit too much for the freshman season finale to handle, overstuffing and underexplaining itself as it rushes to kickstart its larger narrative, expand its story, and find a satisfying ending to the many arcs and ideas of its first ten episodes.

“Endtimes” goes about this in some incredibly strange ways; after being the catapult for so much of season one’s story and explorations of morality, Kiera oddly becomes an observer to the world around her – particularly in the episode’s first two acts, when she stumbles upon a man named Jason, who turns out to be a fellow time traveler who, for some reason, ended up landing in 1992 instead of 2012. Though this gives some voice to Kiera’s strange decision to sleep with Kellogg at the end of “Family Time” (so she could steal back her piece of the time travel device), the arrival of Jason introduces a whole bunch of other elements into the series; mentions of “freelancers” and “privateers” monitoring ‘the timeline’, someone named Escher, all of which become window dressing for the real meat and potatoes of the episode: Kagame’s attempt to kick start the revolution by triggering the same explosion that the corporations would later hide from the history books.

“Endtimes” mostly splits its time between those two stories; and as you might expect, Jason’s goofy introduction and insanely vague “reveals” overshadows the importance of Kagame’s death. Or more accurately, Kagame’s attempt to give his life the most badass, resonant time travel story he can think of by killing himself on the day he was born, avoiding annoying time travel paradoxes (at least, for now) and kickstarting the revolution with the very event – the bombing of a corporation withholding medical supplies from the public – that led to the dystopian corporatocracy of 2077. And by doing so, he also creates the genesis of Theseus, fulfilling the prophecy of Julien’s ascendance to revolutionary leader, and who will (apparently) become a co-conspirator alongside his brother 65 years in the future (and to top it off, become the very man who inspires Kagame to take on the mission of time traveling in the first place).

It’s a nifty bit of storytelling, especially when divorced from the context of the rest of the story; however, it isn’t quite congruent with the Kagame we’ve seen in the first nine episodes, whose insistence that they “do things a different way” led to the usual rounds of kidnappings, propagandizing, and internal ideological fracturing that define the failed revolutions Kagame and Liber8 are clearly so desperate to avoid. It makes for an interesting contradiction of a character, but it is one Continuum itself doesn’t appear cognizant of; and that robs Julien and Kagame both of having some agency in their own decisions, both in the past and present. If Kagame was to be a bold revolutionary who insists on non-violence, why did he turn to guns and bombs to establish Julien as the ideological head of the Liber8 movement? Why create so much internal tension with Sonya and Travis, only to dip out and leave a sloppy, unproven teenager in his place? Kagame’s actions raise more questions than answers – which add an air of mystery to his character and his ominous decisions, but also flatten him in a way that robs Continuum of an incredible chance at giving its story, and some of its main characters, some depth.

It makes his choice the centerpiece of “Endtimes”, yes, but what purpose does that ultimately serve? His death is more confusing to Julian than anything, and the power vacuums now left in 2077 and 2012 raise a number of logistical questions (not just about the mechanics of time travel, but in the supposed logic of the supposed enigmatic, genius leader). After building up his character for a half-dozen episodes, the reveal of Kagame to be but a willing pawn in a much larger game being played by Alec, Julian – and presumably, whomever Escher and the “freelancers” mentioned by Jason in this episode are – makes for a disappointing exit of one of the show’s most enigmatic personalities, revealing him to be mostly a minor catalyst with a cool backstory, than someone whose manipulations of message and purpose whose power can be felt across generations.

There was certainly opportunity for “Endtimes” to give space to this, especially when you consider the non-science fiction elements of the episode, which are just a dude named Gardiner asking a lot of questions about Kiera’s fiction Section Six before being mysteriously shut down by the suddenly-important and omniscient “Escher”, whose presence is left unseen and unheard in the season finale (but will become a major part of the seasons to come, which at least justifies its inclusion here). This is easily the least satisfying part of the episode, abandoning anything interesting with Carlos (whose first day on the job coincides with Kagame’s attack on the plaza) or the precinct itself, in pursuit of another formless story about mysterious suits and agendas the audience isn’t privy to learn about in the course of the season finale, which just makes it kind of an empty, moot story “Endtimes” spends too much time pursuing.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in “Endtimes”, but unfortunately one explored in much better episodes (and seasons) to come. There are inklings of more thoughtful ruminations on the impact of revolutions, the power of corporations, and the supposed benevolence of a billionaire who decides the world needs to be remade – unfortunately, Alec is mostly sidelined in this hour, save for his meeting Kagame and learning the password to the encrypted file he found in Kiera’s suit, leaving him and Kiera, the show’s two most important characters, left in limbo for most of the hour. There are interesting moments with them – Kiera tearfully watching Jason describe the time machine she knows she can’t use, 2012 Alec wrapping his head around the lessons his future self taught Kagame – but there’s just too much vague-speak and clubfooted storytelling around it, to allow its more compelling elements room to bring resonance to the silly mechanics of the hour.

And so season one ends with characters in precarious places; Alec listening to his future self, while Jason feels defeated for not changing history, Kiera takes a boat ride with Kellogg (another one utterly sidelined in the finale), and Sonya presumably puts a bullet in Travis’s head to solidify her succession as the head of Liber8. While its lack of resolution is intentional, its wholesale application across every plot line leaves season one feeling like an incomplete, distracted thought (we don’t get a single shot of Kiera thinking about her son, or a meaningful flashback to 2077 at any point). It’s a strange, somewhat daring choice – and although it doesn’t entirely work as a season finale, certainly sets up season two to pick up the pieces and build something larger and more interesting out of the wreckage.

Grade: C+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Future Julien makeup is always hilarious; it gets a solid introduction here, as Julien and Kagame meet in prison in 2077.
  
• Fun fact: Tony Amendola (Kagame) was also Salman Rushdie in Seinfeld‘s “The Implant”.
  
• Bringing in Jason in the last episode is ballsy enough; using him to tease another unseen, all-knowing character is… borderline ludicrous in its self indulgence. But it almost works!
  
• Gardiner gets a brief glance of Kiera using her suit powers to save herself and Alec during the building explosion… meaning he’s farther along on discovering who she is than Carlos, which is hilarious.
  
• I don’t really know why the only flashback to 2077 is a repeat of what we saw in “A Stitch in Time”… with the added shot of Julien and Curtis jumping into a future helicopter as the big explosion happens. Ok?
  
• We get a shot of baby Kagame, as Sonya delivers money to his mother, moments before bringing Travis into a storage room so she can surprise him with a bullet to the head. Or so we can only presume!
  
• Kagame really doesn’t do shit except espouse nonsense phrases like “That’s my role to play in the larger plan”, “we will write history together, brother” and my favorite, “there are many ways to sacrifice.”
  
• “The truth is, I’m the one that sent you back in time. You’re not going to believe why.” *eyes roll*
  
• And that’s a wrap on Continuum‘s first season! Make sure you bookmark the home page or sign up for the newsletter, because season two reviews will begin February 17th. Thanks for reading!