My worry was a bit premature last week, but it’s still early days for Frequency and a long season ahead still makes me nervous about rapid changes to the timeline. But episode three “The Near Far Problem,” goes a long way in lessening those fears with a pretty decent episode this week.
Raimy is still investigating Thomas Goff in what is now 2016C, the timeline in which Goff has been on the run for 20 years. Raimy believes the key to finding Goff is Maya Gowen, the woman who we saw escape from Goff’s cellar in 1996 at the end of last week. On Raimy’s end, Maya is still missing, but on Frank’s end in 1996, Maya could still be on Goff’s property. Frank enlists Reyna to go check out Goff’s house again, without a warrant, and after finding evidence in the cellar, a search party finds Maya unconscious in the woods behind Goff’s house. Hello, 2016D.
Although both investigations take up the majority of the episode, nothing felt rushed like it did last week. Raimy was avoiding the topic of her mother’s funeral, but that topic also allowed us more scenes between Raimy and Gordo. Despite Gordo not knowing about the ham radio, he is her confidant. Frank tells Raimy that he understands she’s alone on her side of things, but that’s not entirely true. Gordo’s there, and so is Satch Reyna. They might not know about everything that is going on, but they are present for when or if Raimy decides to bring them into the fold.
We also get some of Daniel this week too, in 2016A flashbacks and in the new 2016D. In the flashbacks, Raimy and Daniel are on a date at their favorite bar. In 2016D, Raimy is sitting alone at the bar. At the end of the episode, she takes Gordo there for some drinks when the two run into Daniel. I’m not sure if we’re heading into a destiny/fate thing, where this new Daniel is going to keep showing up and the two eventually reconnect in a “we’re meant to be” kind of way. But I did enjoy this small scene in the bar between the two. Sure, he accuses her of stalking him, but I think he saw some of her sincerity when she was talking about everything she loved about that bar. Really, this can go one or two ways. The destiny/fate thing, or the timeline reverts back to the original. Raimy can’t have her cake and eat it too, and I don’t know if she can keep changing things so she has her dad, her mom, and Daniel.
Raimy’s emotions get the better of her this week. It’s understandable, but talk about reckless. In a nice back-and-forth sequence between the past and the present, Frank and Reyna in 1996 are chasing down Goff at the same time Raimy has the older Goff on the ground, beating him to a pulp. The moment she pulls her gun out, the younger Goff steps out into oncoming traffic and is killed, the older Goff disappearing from under Raimy’s gun. For Raimy, it’s a lesson without consequences. The second she targeted Goff, she was convinced he was the Nightingale, even while Frank was trying to get her to slow down. Because after Goff is killed in 1996, Julie is still dead. Goff wasn’t the Nightingale, and Raimy learns that the hard way.
To be honest, I haven’t really been paying attention to the rules of how these time changes are working beyond the big implications. Raimy saved her dad, and now her mom is dead. Raimy put her dad onto Thomas Goff, Thomas Goff went on the run, and so on and so far. As for the little eccentricities of the time changes, I haven’t really noticed any until this episode. After Goff is killed in 1996 and disappears from under Raimy’s gun, Raimy still has bruises on her face from the fight with Goff. If he died in 1996, wouldn’t that fight not have taken place in this new reality? Or does it have something to do with how the times are running parallel with each other so that whatever happens before a change has actually happened, at least for Raimy, until the moment it doesn’t actually happen?
Nightingale is still out there. More changes to come next week.
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Rating: 8/10
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