Timeless postmortem: How will Flynn's actions affect the team?

WARNING: The following contains spoilers from season 1 of Timeless. Read at your own risk!

David Rittenhouse may be dead, but with his son still alive, Flynn’s (Goran Visnjic) mission isn’t over — and having taken Lucy (Abigail Spencer) with him, the TimeTeam isn’t done either.

Still, not all hope is lost for the heroic trio. According to showrunners Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, Wyatt (Matt Lanter) and Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) will be “rabid in their desire to get [Lucy] back,” and the Rittenhouse problem is far from over. Below, Kripke and Ryan talk the midseason finale’s surprises.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So Flynn’s taken Lucy. Where to and why now? What are the biggest questions we should be asking before the rest of the season?

SHAWN RYAN: We can’t say [what happens next] — we want [fans] to be rabid and show up for our winter premiere!… [The big questions are], what will the ramifications be of having killed David Rittenhouse and letting his son get away? For Flynn, we’re starting to sympathize with and see his point of view, but he has gotten pretty angry about things and now he’s got Lucy and has taken her to places or times unknown.

How do Wyatt and Rufus react to this?

RYAN: They’re going to be rabid in their desire to get her back, and you know, every single Lifeboat trip they’ve gone on has been all three of them together, and now this is their first trip back with an empty seat. That’s not going to sit well with the two men in the group.

Tell me about putting together this piece of the Rittenhouse puzzle.

ERIC KRIPKE: We felt like there’s a core philosophical difference between Flynn and our heroes. They both have a dawning realization that Rittenhouse is really dangerous, but they’re still protagonist and antagonist, and that’s important to define. The difference is a question of method. Flynn is willing to go for it every time, and we talk a lot about it the writers’ room. The classier people in the room talk about the difference between MLK and Malcolm X. The nerds in the room, like me, talk about the difference between Magneto and Professor X… You might be sympathetic to each other’s aims and have a complex relationship, but ultimately, our heroes believe in protecting innocent life, and Flynn doesn’t. Our heroes would never get on board with killing an innocent boy, but Flynn is obsessed enough that he would. The kid was a way for us to really accentuate the conflict between Flynn and our heroes.

How important will Rittenhouse continue to be, especially now that the butterfly effect has to take place?

KRIPKE: What we’ll find is that because Rittenhouse has multiple followers… We really break this season down to two parts, one which is what Rittenhouse is and unveiling what they believe and what they’re setting out to do. The second half of the season then starts to pivot to the second big question about Rittenhouse, which is, why do they care so much about these time machines? We’ll learn what they want to do.

And why make David Rittenhouse, a real historical figure, be the evil mastermind?

KRIPKE: Yeah, this is probably the guiltiest I’ve felt as a writer because there really was a guy named David Rittenhouse who in charge of the U.S. Mint and by all accounts was a totally lovely guy, and we have immortalized him as one of history’s great villains. I just have to say, our drive to always touch on history was too good to pass up. He was right there and he was so real and he knew Benjamin Franklin, so you know, it was too delicious to pass up on.

RYAN: Until you get haunted, so we’ll see.

Timeless returns in January.