Episode Recap: Causality

Now that Cassie and Deacon have returned and Cassie and Cole both know they’re the parents of The Witness, some big changes are afoot. Since the team now knows that the facility will be destroyed within a year, they have to act fast. Meanwhile, Cassie and Cole decide that until they know what to do about the fact that The Witness is their son, they’re not going to tell Jones about it. With all of these things going on, Jones is a little at a loss for what’s next. And that’s where Jennifer Goines comes in with a pretty incredible plan: they're going to steal "The Word of The Witness."

You remember that thing - the insane giant map of everything that happened to The Witness and the causality of events? The plan is to splinter back to 1989, steal it from the back of a painting at an art auction, splinter it back to make a copy, and then return it where it was – in the back of a painting called “Constance” that Olivia bought at auction.  It’s a plan that avoids causality problems – except also – it means that since Cassie and Cole are the ones stealing the map, they have to find some time to remove any mention of themselves as the parents of The Witness.

So. The gang heads back to 1989, Jennifer and Cassie go to the auction house to see if they can get a sneak peek at the painting, while Cole and Deacon have a heart-to-heart/fist fight at the Emerson Hotel bar. The problem is that in the process, Jennifer and Cassie have changed the past.  Since the auction house thinks that Jennifer is her mother and bidding on the painting, they give a heads up to the other interested party – yep, Olivia. And that gives her a bloody nose in the future. So, timeline changed, team. 

Now that the timeline is changed, the gang works fast to update their plan. They’re going to sneak in early to steal the painting and for that they’ll need a Trojan horse. They sneak Cassie and Cole into the warehouse inside one of Jennifer’s father’s classic cars. It works, but Cole is having a really hard time reconciling his feelings about all of this. Not only did he kill Ramse recently, Cole just found out his son is the man who started the apocalypse. Is their son looking to wipe out humanity because of Cole's genetics or because he wasn’t around? And Jones is having problems of her own - the facility will be destroyed in a year (remember, we saw that in Season 3, Episode 4), so rather than abandon the place, she's working on a plan even she thinks is crazy. 

Meanwhile, back in the 80's - Olivia has arrived at the auction house. That's not how it went the first time around, but this is what's going down now. So - Jennifer, posing as her mother, just starts bidding on items. That means the auction house has to call for an extra line of credit. And that brings the attention of Leland Goines. Jennifer’s father. Who happens to be out and about with tiny child-sized Jennifer Goines. Causality problems like crazy, team.

Meanwhile, backstage, as Cassie tries to find a way to remove evidence of her motherhood, the painting is delayed, so to buy more time, Deacon stages a fake hold-up, which causes Olivia to send her goons into the back. Cassie and Cole are able to defeat the goons BUT the auction house manager has made off with the painting. Determined like crazy, Jennifer Goines clonks the house manager on the head, gets hold of The Word of The Witness makes a copy and even gets to tell her father off and give little Jennifer some smart words of advice.

Jennifer manages to make a copy of The Word of The Witness and get it back into the hands of Olivia, solving the causality problem! When she gets it back to Jones, it turns out that Jennifer had discovered Cassie and Cole’s secret, and in photocopying the map, blocked that information with her handprint. She’s a good egg, that Jennifer Goines. As the team starts looking into some of the events on the map, they find 1953. Turns out, that’s where things got really interesting.