Journeyman: Game Three

By Heather Cee
If you thought Journeyman was going to mine big, angsty, dramatic gold from the San Francisco earthquake of ’89, you may have been puzzled to find a different enchilada altogether last night. And that’s what keeps impressing me: this show has subtle curve balls to throw our way. No pomp, no swelling music – just a simple slip of the tongue or casual comment in conversation sends things spinning in an entirely new direction.

Take, for instance, Livia (not O-livia, as I’ve called her the last few recaps – apologies). We have another revelation – she was traveling before she met Dan. And, somehow, a cosmic pause button was punched so her traveling stopped while they were together, until that fateful flight. When Livia lets this information slip, Dan barely has the wits to process it through his disorientation, but guaranteed the audience let out a collective, “Whaaaaa?”

And now the theories begin to take shape – was Dan Livia’s “target soul” all along, there to make a difference in his life? Or was Dan always a latent traveler, and is he meant to save Livia in some way? Did Livia jump from elsewhere into Dan’s timeline for a spell and, if so, where is she originally from? And while Dan is plopped repeatedly into the same day and year this time around – something that had never happened before – why is Livia always there, too? Can she actually control the when and where of her traveling, as long as it’s within Dan’s timeline? Does that mean Dan’s working his way up the traveling ladder through the individuals he’s saving, racking up some good karma and special traveling privileges in the process? Or will they both ultimately work in the lives of Dan’s family – Katie, Zack, and Jack?

We also learn Dan is a recovering gambling addict and he’s forced to relive some painful memories when his “assigned” target, a lawyer with a gambling addiction, has reached rock bottom and is on the verge of suicide. Complicating matters is Dan’s obligation to try and warn San Francisco that an earthquake is imminent – because who wouldn’t? – though his efforts, as Livia points out, are useless. Even an attempt to save the sister of his editor at the paper is thwarted, though he discovers later that hers is a meaningful death, meant to propel his boss into recovery for his drinking problem.

And Dan’s complicated love life takes on new dimension as Livia and Katie discover the truth about the other – after Dan withheld his wife’s identity from Livia and lied to Katie about seeing familiar faces in his travels. Not helping is Jack, who continues to be an ass, lying in wait to scoop Katie in his comforting arms when the time’s right. And trust Katie to ask Dan the logical question – what happens if you die in another timeline?

Dan doesn’t know. We don’t know. But I’ll keep watching to see him figure it out.

Heather Cee has been writing for music sites for several years but genre media is her original fandom. She’s a History major dropout, loves music, Batman, and the color green, and thinks Laura Roslin is the most kick ass woman on television. She currently works as a website editor in Tucson, Arizona, where she lives with her husband and a ridiculous amount of CDs, records, books, and DVDs. One day she hopes to own grown-up furniture and pants other than jeans.

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