I had the impression she opened a bunch more stubs using an earlier start point (2028). From the future, she can manipulate them to avoid the antics that have occurred in hers. Either that, or she can insert herself into her original stub at an earlier time (why not?).
She also seemed to think she’d convinced Cherise to leave her stub alone, but the after-credit scene indicates that Lev now has the same goal.
As best I can work out, with a bit of help from Reddit:
Flynne wants to avoid Cherise speeding up the Jackpot in her stub (stub A), and knows the reason for Cherise doing that is because of the data in her head. Therefore she decides to have herself killed.
But, in order to continue the fight in the future, she creates a stub (stub B) from shortly after her first visit, but before any of the Klept/RI stuff got into full swing. No one from the future will have the coordinates of this stub and therefore not be able to influence it (except perhaps indirectly).
This Flynne will not know any of these details, but will still be able to access the future (since she still has the headset). Since the future peripheral is still in Lowbeer’s possession, she will be able to fill Flynne in on the events and perhaps enable her to take a different, winning path.
A couple things I’m skeptical about:
I’m also skeptical about the shooting. But as for Cherise, I’d say, yes, with Flynn dead she would call of destroying the stub. She was the most upset we’ve ever seen her when she thought she’d have to trash all the research being done there.
Thanks.
Yeah, I was a little disappointed as well. Playing with all the different stubs brought to mind the downward path of Westworld after season 1, where things just got too convoluted. The “reboot” of Flynne’s timeline is analogous to the Westworld characters being recreated in new bodies - if that can happen anytime, it lowers the stakes for any one timeline or character.
I don’t think this was a fatal error - there are a lot of good directions it could go in season 2. But there are also bad directions. We’ll see.
After reading up a little, I THINK I understand the plan a bit more.
So many questions come about. The biggest one is one that seems to happen a LOT in time travel shows. Somehow the past and the future are running in parallel. “Hey, our enemies timeship landed in Manhattan on July 3rd, 1776, we need to get back there ASAP to stop them!” Instead of maybe, going back to July 2nd, waiting for them, and shooting them as they come out of the ship…but we’ll handwave that one away since it’s so common.
Creating a stub seems like it should be incredibly complex. How it’s reduced to simply picking up a pocketwatch in the lobby of a dungeon and touching a spot on a screen…really? And then just crushing the stopwatch prevents anyone from finding the coordinates? In all this time, they’ve forgotten the idea of event logging, etc?
Those coordinates…they seem like they must be pretty complicated, but I didn’t see anyone write them down or anything. How TF does Lowbeer know what they are? And I would have to assume if you find a peripheral being controlled from the past, you can somehow back-trace them to their coordinates.
So now we’re either going to deal with a season 2 with 2 stubs running (one where Flynne died, the other where she didn’t) which is going to make for a diluted story given how much time there is, or a Season 2 where stub #1 is just not relevant anymore and we just pretend like the copies of everyone from the original stub are still the same people that they were before.
The show was neat up until this final episode, but the reset-button makes for a weak resolution to season 1 and they will have a lot to make up for in season 2 to make up for this cheap end to season 1.
This actually makes sense in the story universe. Establishing a stub isn’t really time travel, it’s a data connection to another timeline. Once that connection is established, the two timelines continue running in parallel at the same rate. When one day passes in the future, one day also passes in the stub. If you tried to go back a day in the stub, that creates a new stub - you can change what happens in that second one, but the first stub continues without changes.
I agree with the rest of your complaints/questions. Maybe Lowbeer and Flynne did all the complicated prep work for creating a stub before Flynne attacked the RI location, so Lowbeer already knew the coordinates? I don’t know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I prefer thinking that to “a wizard did it.”
I can picture the writers thinking “so we make two stubs, and it will be this great puzzle where viewers aren’t sure which timeline is which and don’t know if this is Stub A Connor or Stub B Connor, and then when things slow down, we can create another stub and mix things up again.” It probably sounds fun when you’re drawing it up on a board with lots of pins and string connecting everything, but it’s pretty miserable to watch.
I think you missed a couple of things:
Flynne must have created the stub from a previous point. The silo explosion is already inevitable in stub A, accelerating the Jackpot. She wanted to avoid that.
Lowbeer doesn’t need to know the coordinates of the new stub. Flynne’s headset in any stub can connect to the future. Lowbeer already has the peripheral, so she just needs to wait for Flynne B to connect.
Flynne B, having been created in the past, probably hasn’t even encountered Lowbeer yet. But she has the headset and is going to connect at some point, at which point Lowbeer can fill her in.
If it’s already unavoidable, there was no reason for her to have herself killed. The whole reason she had herself killed was to avoid the need for the silo explosion, which would wipe out her community.
Cherise can un-do her silo explosion plotting with a few more mercenaries or by giving local LEOs more info on what the group is planning so they can prevent it.
This is an interesting point that raises more questions. What would happen if Flynne A and Flynne B connected at the same time (assuming she’s not dead). Or, more likely, what would happen if Burton A and Burton B connected at the same time? Sounds like a lot of chaos could ensue there.
As I mentioned above, I don’t think this is the case, I think she branched the stub far enough along to know who Lowbeer is, and that she wants to ally with her. Otherwise why would she trust this random woman she just shows up in front of?
Well, maybe. But she certainly can’t do that in Stub B, since she doesn’t have the coordinates.
“The peripheral you have called is not available. Please try again later, or leave a message.”
Lowbeer is pretty random to start with. Flynne seemed to put a lot of trust in her almost immediately. She does seem pretty persuasive.
That’s implied to be some sort of unexplained neural hack that’s part of Lowbeer’s toolkit. Remember Ash (or maybe it was Ossian) telling Lev not to lie to her, then adding that it might not even be possible to do so? In the source novel, Netherton finds himself telling her the truth, to his own surprise; it seems to be part of her powers as a Met Inspector.
I haven’t gotten around to watching this yet, but I see that it has been unrenewed for season two.
Makes it hard to start watching these sorts of shows, that reasonably have multi-season arcs, knowing that you’ll fairly likely never know what the rest of the arc is.
So common now that I’m more surprised to have story fully told than not.
Well in this case maybe someone can tell us what the source material had happen anyway. Spoiler box for those interested in reading the book maybe?
Not necessary. The show used the same characters and some of the same premises - stubs, peripherals, the Jackpot - but the story in the book is almost completely different. Flynne witnesses a murder in future London - Aelita’s, as a matter of fact - and that kicks off the whole conflict. Cherise, the Research Institute, Lowbeer’s daughter, and Bob are all original to the series; the Big Bads of the novel aren’t even in the series at all.
Which is to say, no idea what the showrunners had in mind next. The Gibson novel is worth reading, though.