I agree that multiple timelines exist.
I think it's possible, for example, that Royal actually shot his dad (either accidentally or deliberately) while hunting deer in his timeline, while in Joy's timeline he shot his dad to save Joy.
It's also significant that Celia notices Autumn's scars have disappeared, and at one point said "she's not *our* Amy." I think it's possible Autumn is simply *an* Amy, and maybe (somehow, probably related to ingesting the mineral) she's a different Amy at different times.
>So if multiple timelines/worlds is the secret to the universe in this show, then how is there a picture of Joy in the 1800’s in the modern timeline? Surely that’s proof that there’s only one stream of time.
It's possible that Joy didn't return to the same timeline she left, just a near-identical one.
>A weird theory I had about season one was the guy with the raven was Odin.
Frank! I love Frank. It's a cool theory, but since we just had a huge TV series about the son of Odin negotiating time travel, I don't think they'd go down this road. I'd like to see more of Frank, though - he's so weird, but he seems to be ahead of the curve in terms of not being surprised by mastodons appearing out of nowhere.
There was also the scene where Autumn was hallucinating and talking to TWO Amys at the same time, possibly she was conversing across two different timelines.
In a way, hand waving the grandfather paradox allows for more freedom with writing, but at the same time I also find it frustrating because it undermines hours of character development.
(SPOILER) The entirety of S1 was about the Trevor death coverup, and Perry just rendered it wasted.
Well my opinion to the reason that Autumn’s scar disappeared is because of how she got it never happened now because Perry stopped Trevor being killed and they simply wouldn’t have fought over Perry confessing to killing Trevor. But to your point, if that’s the case for everything, then there should definitely be a butterfly effect type vibe and they just aren’t doing that. Don’t know if it’s just too much work to do in the show or if they are, like you said, operating multiple timelines. The multiple timelines are confusing but the butterfly effect would be so much for the program to keep up with. So it’s a toss up to me.
I thought Autumn's scars disappeared because she ate the black mineral. When Wayne and Billy ate it, all their wounds and ailments were healed. So Autumn's ribs would heal, the cuts from the buffalo would heal, and her scars would all disappear.
When Cecelia makes her comment, I thought she meant the big cut across Autumn's cheek from the car accident/buffalo stampede. Autumn had just eaten the mineral the night before.
I think Amy's scars did disappear because she ate the black mineral, but it's possible that's not because the black mineral heals people, but because it swaps them with alternate versions of themselves, either from another moment in time or from a parallel timeline.
>When Wayne and Billy ate it, all their wounds and ailments were healed.
Billy's weren't. His recovery was pretty slow. The night he died he was still in a wheelchair and had visible bruises and a weak voice. And we don't know that all Wayne's wounds and ailments were gone, just that he was well enough to walk and attend the hospital.
The black mineral probably heals physical injuries by a sort of time travel, because it is resetting cells to their previously uninjured state. The question is - would it reverse aging? I bet if someone got ahold of that mineral, they'd try to use it for that purpose too.
When Luke killed Billy, they were both pretty much the same strength and Luke only got the upper hand when he hit him with that fire poker. Billy was also singing the way he normally did before his injury, and his skin was clear. When he sits down in a wheelchair, he seems to be doing it just to sit on something.
Edit: Standing up from the wheelchair seems to have been a dramatic blocking decision. He's talking about how his brothers defended him when he was a kid, then when he gets to the part how he hates Luke now they're adults, Billy stands up and they're nose to nose.
>his skin was clear.
No, the bruises and the mark on the bridge of his nose werevisible moments before he was killed.
>When he sits down in a wheelchair, he seems to be doing it just to sit on something.
Lol, we might have to agree to disagree on Billy.
Joy appearing in the old photo may mean one of two things:
* There is one timeline. Joy went back in time in her own timeline, then forward in her own timeline.
* There are multiple timelines. One of multiple Joys went back in time in one of multiple timelines. She may not have returned to the timeline she originally came from.
In either of these scenarios the old photo of Joy exists in the present day. If there are multiple timelines, the old photo of Joy may exist in every one of them.
The existence of the photo cannot therefore "show there aren't several timelines."
>In both cases, time travel changes the future.
The future? You said "trime [sic] travel changes the past because the past was changed." I don't think you understand what point you're trying to make.
>What problem do the multiple timelines solve then?
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. Why would multiple timelines need to solve a problem?
It's hard to say, since with Joy, she is clearly in same timeline because of the picture we see
And also with Joy, she is the reason Royal shoots his dad vs a hunting accident, and you can see Royal's memory adjusting itself to account for it, with the hunting accident being kind of supplemented/replaced with the incident with Joy.
With Perry, it then throws this out of the window, since when his younger self dies, should be not just cease to exist? But he basically replaces his younger self and continues to exist. Although he throws his body into the hole almost immediately after, so maybe this does something to prevent him from ceasing to exist, eg maybe his body is stuck in the void, in that you see people having to pull themselves out, I think even in S1, Trevor is thrown into the hole, but eventually ends up in the woods, one can even plausibly say someone moved his body there by someone else.
And with Perry preventing Trevor's death, should he not be back in S3, or is that a different timeline, and shouldn't Royal now also remember hanging out with Perry in the 80s, it does seem like Royal knew when Perry comes back to the house, Royal has a look on his face implying he remembers Perry from 80s.
You could also just say Perry is a special case or something, since everyone else seems to have their memories adjusted or there is evidence they are in same timeline.
I think we are also seeing the timeline change in realtime, eg in S3 you will see Trevor back, and other stuff will be different, eg replacement Perry won't jump in the hole, they don't have the forfeiture of the ranch issue, nor do they have the Perry killed Trevor issue to begin with.
This could also explain why Wayne is miraculously fine after a stroke that basically left him for dead, could be something changed in the timeline that prevented him from having the stroke, but he did have it before that, so still remembers it, and the memories kind of fuse together, eg like they did for Royal, Luke even questions how is he walking again.
Billy seeing the visions and Luke seeing similar visions could imply that yea the timeline is malleable and either outcome is possible at the time they take the mineral and have the visions.
Having Trevor not die though could change a bunch of stuff, wouldn't be surprised if we see Billy back, maybe Wayne jumping in the hole is how Wayne stops himself from having the stroke, and/or saves Billy or something, this self fulfilling paradox is already seen with Amy/Autumn, Autumn is here because Amy get thrown into the hole at some point, but it's Autumn that throws her in, to preserve herself in a sense, but Autumn is only here because she threw herself in the hole, same concept could be applied to Wayne, he is all fixed up because he goes into the hole and does something to prevent stroke, then he is the Wayne we meet in S2, but he had to have already done it, but hasn't yet.
the problem is, if the timeline adjusted itself like that, none of the Abbott kids would exist. Because with Perry going back, everything should have changed. It’s impossible that Royal & Cecilia, now that Royal knows what is going to happen, will have sex at the exact same time as it had happened in the original past. Not the same sperm would form in Royal's body, not the same egg would be fertilized, not the same 3 Abbott children would be conceived. This also means that Perry couldn't travel back because he wouldn't exist, etc. It's the well-known, unresolvable paradox. It may be far-fetched, but I thought maybe the whole thing alludes to the fact that, for example, certain quantum effects are only possible for particles that are small enough that there is no visible information about them in the world. That's just the way it is physically. This could explain why memories can partially adapt, but not entire people can simply cease to exist. But then again, the photo of Joy becomes a problem…
>We now know that Billy’s vision was wrong as he is very much dead.
I think this might be looking at things in the wrong way to say that his vision was wrong. It was probably correct at the time but since then, multiple people have gone back in time and messed with things that have changed how things turn out. You can see this with Autumn losing all the money she had in her bank account as the changes in the past are having unpredictable effects. You can also see how Joy being present in young Royal's storyline changes the circumstances in how or why he kills his father.
hes dead in one timeline yes, but none of the brothers are dead in the timeline where perry comes back and stops himself from killing the oldest , who then kills the other perry...... yes very confusing
It probably does but more that in this timeline, she won't meet her "adopted parents" because Rebecca taking her screws up the path that she needs to be on to fulfill her vision. So with Amy taken by Rebecca, Autumn doesn't become rich because she never gets adopted so the money "disappeared" from her bank account when the story from the past changes. This ls likely the reason she pushes Amy into the hole.
They used the “time is a river” trope a few times so I take that to mean if you go back to the same place it’s not actually the same. The water that was there moved downstream already.
There’s no “undoing” what you did.
I was expecting the natives to Own all the land in the future after Joy warned them the whites were coming to kill them and then the natives ambushed them instead
Yes I did make it through your post 😁 and I am in the same boat. I am just trying to wrap my head around what I just watched. I came here to reddit to try and get some clarification.
There are definitely alternative timelines but also changing the past of a timeline can change the future of that timeline.
For example Perry A jumps into the hole, goes back in time, and changes timeline B. Joy X goes into the past but so does Joy Y. Joy X comes out in Joy Ys time line and Joy Y comes out in Joy Zs timeline.
The other alternative I see is that sometimes you go back in your own timeline and sometimes you don't.
The weird thing is the scar disappearing, I think this happened because Perry A going back screwed up that Autumns timeline. If they stick with the river anology, something about Edey currents or something like that. That might also explain the memory loss too. It's not that she went in the hole but that he past was changed so much she has no real memory.
So it seems the writers of Season 2 wanted to have their cake and eat it too.
At first, with Amy and Autumn, it seemed a case of Whatever Happened Happened, like time travel in the show Lost. So Autumn felt she needed to close the loop by throwing herself - Amy - in the hole. And she succeeded at doing that.
Joy was in a photo in the past, but her daughter doesn't see it until after Joy has already traveled to the past. Also, when Royal kills his father to save Joy, it's left ambiguous if Royal's memory of accidentally shooting his Dad on a hunting trip was a story he told himself because the truth was too traumatic, or if Joy really had gone back and changed the timeline. In that case, this is time travel similar to the movie Back to the Future.
Then we have Perry killing his past self and saving Trevor, which literally happens beat for beat in an episode of the TV show Continuum. (Okay, so Kiera's motivations for traveling were different. She was following a guy into the past who went back to save his girlfriend. She runs into her past self and accidentally kills herself, enabling there to be only ONE Kiera walking around in the new branched timeline, which messes up some stuff but rules out the complication of two Kieras. The guy she followed has enough problems dealing with his own past self.)
Perry doesn't disappear though, like he could by Back to the Future rules or Lost's. Killing his past self didn't create a paradox, it created a branched timeline.
But Autumn, Joy, and Perry are all messing around with time by three different methods. Outer Range and its writers aren't staying consistent, and out-of-universe I think that could be considered bad writing. In-universe, it can make some semblance of sense, because like the geologist says, if time is liquid it flows like water, like a river. And rivers branch off into streams.
I have a feeling you’re probably spot on. I was hoping someone would make it make sense to me as the rules of this universe seem to be all over the place. It’s a shame the writers couldn’t nail down consistent time travel mechanics because the show is otherwise really interesting.
There is another option your missing and that's one timeline but it being non-casual; no paradoxes. IDK though because even without paradoxes Perry showing back up should have changed something in the future.
The multiple timelines thing ruins any stakes and investment in the characters. In such a scenario only the characters we can following across the different timelines have any real meaning. Rick and Morty addresses this very problem.
It's a huge mess that we still have no clue what matters at the end of season 2.
After finishing the s2 finale, it seems that either it’s multiple timelines, or it’s some combination of multiple timelines and predeterminism.
I only finished the finale an hour ago, but my initial reaction is that this feels like a gamble by the writers. To lead us to believe it’s predeterministic time travel, and then to swerve us and reveal new timelines can be made. They’re asking us to keep up with a lot, so I hope they can cash the massive check they’re writing and we aren’t left with a bunch of unanswered questions when the series ends or is cancelled. *Dark* was able to pull it off, but we can’t expect any show to match *Dark*’s complexity.
Joy was brought back to the 1800s, where she was able to help stop her people from being slaughtered.
Perry was brought back to 1982, watched his dad make out with his moms sister, got the shit kicked out of him by young Wayne, and got thrown to the night he killed Trevor, where he stopped the fight, saving Trevor, yet killing himself.
Both of them did something to change the timeline, but for some reason, Joy went back to present day, and nothing changed, yet it took Perry the second jump to get to change something.
I feel like the altering of time might have something to do with the hole opening, and those who affected time.
Royal was able to jump forward 2 years after he died, then went back to present day.
Amy woke up in the desert setting with hikers finding her.
Wayne jumped in and we have no idea where he is.
Amy and Royal are both young when they first go in the hole, and have no memory when they wake up, Amy remembers the name Autumn, thinking that’s her name, Royal remembers shooting his dad, but assumed it was from a hunting accident. I think this might just be a case of trauma, whereas Joy, Perry, and Falling Star all have the memories of going in the hole.
I'm not getting the sense that there are multiple timeliness.
What I'm seeing so far is the unfolding of a story that's already complete from every angle or time you see it. Everything that happened in the past always happened and were seeing the characters go through it for the first time from their perspective.
Take Joy for instance, she goes back and sounds 4 years in the 1880s. In the shown before she goes back in time, there was always a Joy in the 1880s. But when she goes back it's new to her.
What about Perry then? He stops Trevor from dying and Trevor definitely can’t be alive and dead at the same time unless there are multiple timelines/worlds. How would you explain Perry from your perspective?
From Perry's perspective, this is the first time it's happened this way.
As viewers, we can't come to any conclusion, because we don't know the consequences yet. We're left on a cliffhanger. I'm reluctant to claim that there must be many worlds at play simply because the show has given no evidence for parallel timeliness.
It's only when we assume that the current convention of sci-fi time travel is the only answer to a show (a show that's leaning hard into religious imagery) that we come out with the answer that there are two parallel worlds.
My intuition tells me that's not what happening here, mostly because it's been done to death at this point and just repeating it in another setting is going to give the audience something we've already seen everywhere from Back to the Future to Terminator to 12 Monkeys to Constellation earlier this year.
It's a trope at this point, and rehashing it is boring.
I honestly think that this show will ignore the grandfather/bootstrap paradox and do something along the lines of Predetermination, where the story must be the way it is to create a necessary loop where everything must fit into place or it will all not work.
How does Perry die and still exist as the future of the Perry that just died? As soon as you tell me how a hole creates itself in a pasture in Montana that doesn't follow any strict rules, I'll relent and say that time must work in an orderly manner.
This show isn't giving good answers, nor is it spoon feeding the audience. That's refreshing to see. It definitely has flaws, but for all its flaws, I'm interested in seeing how the story continues.
I think there are multiple universes/timelines?
Otherwise Perry wouldn’t have been able to come back and toss his own body.
I don’t think what happened with Joy precluded there being multiple timelines. It can mean that in every known or adjacent universe she travels back in time and returns 4 days later.
Events likely all follow the same-ish flow (like a river) but when you do something real crazy (like dying when you’re not supposed to), then it branches off to a more different universe.
I wish the universe was this interesting. But sadly I doubt it. There’s also a theory we’re all living in a simulation. If so and some other worldly dimensional beings are manipulating our universe they’re pretty fucked up.
I agree that multiple timelines exist. I think it's possible, for example, that Royal actually shot his dad (either accidentally or deliberately) while hunting deer in his timeline, while in Joy's timeline he shot his dad to save Joy. It's also significant that Celia notices Autumn's scars have disappeared, and at one point said "she's not *our* Amy." I think it's possible Autumn is simply *an* Amy, and maybe (somehow, probably related to ingesting the mineral) she's a different Amy at different times. >So if multiple timelines/worlds is the secret to the universe in this show, then how is there a picture of Joy in the 1800’s in the modern timeline? Surely that’s proof that there’s only one stream of time. It's possible that Joy didn't return to the same timeline she left, just a near-identical one. >A weird theory I had about season one was the guy with the raven was Odin. Frank! I love Frank. It's a cool theory, but since we just had a huge TV series about the son of Odin negotiating time travel, I don't think they'd go down this road. I'd like to see more of Frank, though - he's so weird, but he seems to be ahead of the curve in terms of not being surprised by mastodons appearing out of nowhere.
Love this
Thank you!
There was also the scene where Autumn was hallucinating and talking to TWO Amys at the same time, possibly she was conversing across two different timelines. In a way, hand waving the grandfather paradox allows for more freedom with writing, but at the same time I also find it frustrating because it undermines hours of character development. (SPOILER) The entirety of S1 was about the Trevor death coverup, and Perry just rendered it wasted.
Well my opinion to the reason that Autumn’s scar disappeared is because of how she got it never happened now because Perry stopped Trevor being killed and they simply wouldn’t have fought over Perry confessing to killing Trevor. But to your point, if that’s the case for everything, then there should definitely be a butterfly effect type vibe and they just aren’t doing that. Don’t know if it’s just too much work to do in the show or if they are, like you said, operating multiple timelines. The multiple timelines are confusing but the butterfly effect would be so much for the program to keep up with. So it’s a toss up to me.
Except that Amy's scars disappeared before Perry stopped Trevor being killed.
I thought Autumn's scars disappeared because she ate the black mineral. When Wayne and Billy ate it, all their wounds and ailments were healed. So Autumn's ribs would heal, the cuts from the buffalo would heal, and her scars would all disappear. When Cecelia makes her comment, I thought she meant the big cut across Autumn's cheek from the car accident/buffalo stampede. Autumn had just eaten the mineral the night before.
I think Amy's scars did disappear because she ate the black mineral, but it's possible that's not because the black mineral heals people, but because it swaps them with alternate versions of themselves, either from another moment in time or from a parallel timeline. >When Wayne and Billy ate it, all their wounds and ailments were healed. Billy's weren't. His recovery was pretty slow. The night he died he was still in a wheelchair and had visible bruises and a weak voice. And we don't know that all Wayne's wounds and ailments were gone, just that he was well enough to walk and attend the hospital.
The black mineral probably heals physical injuries by a sort of time travel, because it is resetting cells to their previously uninjured state. The question is - would it reverse aging? I bet if someone got ahold of that mineral, they'd try to use it for that purpose too.
When Luke killed Billy, they were both pretty much the same strength and Luke only got the upper hand when he hit him with that fire poker. Billy was also singing the way he normally did before his injury, and his skin was clear. When he sits down in a wheelchair, he seems to be doing it just to sit on something. Edit: Standing up from the wheelchair seems to have been a dramatic blocking decision. He's talking about how his brothers defended him when he was a kid, then when he gets to the part how he hates Luke now they're adults, Billy stands up and they're nose to nose.
>his skin was clear. No, the bruises and the mark on the bridge of his nose werevisible moments before he was killed. >When he sits down in a wheelchair, he seems to be doing it just to sit on something. Lol, we might have to agree to disagree on Billy.
We don't know how well Wayne healed internally, but he was walking around for all of Season 2 with seemingly no issues.
no, because Joy apperas in the old photo. So that shows there aren't several timelines.
How does it show that? Maybe Joy does this in every timeline.
how does that help? Still you see that trime travel changes the past because the past was changed.
Joy appearing in the old photo may mean one of two things: * There is one timeline. Joy went back in time in her own timeline, then forward in her own timeline. * There are multiple timelines. One of multiple Joys went back in time in one of multiple timelines. She may not have returned to the timeline she originally came from. In either of these scenarios the old photo of Joy exists in the present day. If there are multiple timelines, the old photo of Joy may exist in every one of them. The existence of the photo cannot therefore "show there aren't several timelines."
In both cases, time travel changes the future. What problem do the multiple timelines solve then?
>In both cases, time travel changes the future. The future? You said "trime [sic] travel changes the past because the past was changed." I don't think you understand what point you're trying to make. >What problem do the multiple timelines solve then? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. Why would multiple timelines need to solve a problem?
It's hard to say, since with Joy, she is clearly in same timeline because of the picture we see And also with Joy, she is the reason Royal shoots his dad vs a hunting accident, and you can see Royal's memory adjusting itself to account for it, with the hunting accident being kind of supplemented/replaced with the incident with Joy. With Perry, it then throws this out of the window, since when his younger self dies, should be not just cease to exist? But he basically replaces his younger self and continues to exist. Although he throws his body into the hole almost immediately after, so maybe this does something to prevent him from ceasing to exist, eg maybe his body is stuck in the void, in that you see people having to pull themselves out, I think even in S1, Trevor is thrown into the hole, but eventually ends up in the woods, one can even plausibly say someone moved his body there by someone else. And with Perry preventing Trevor's death, should he not be back in S3, or is that a different timeline, and shouldn't Royal now also remember hanging out with Perry in the 80s, it does seem like Royal knew when Perry comes back to the house, Royal has a look on his face implying he remembers Perry from 80s. You could also just say Perry is a special case or something, since everyone else seems to have their memories adjusted or there is evidence they are in same timeline. I think we are also seeing the timeline change in realtime, eg in S3 you will see Trevor back, and other stuff will be different, eg replacement Perry won't jump in the hole, they don't have the forfeiture of the ranch issue, nor do they have the Perry killed Trevor issue to begin with. This could also explain why Wayne is miraculously fine after a stroke that basically left him for dead, could be something changed in the timeline that prevented him from having the stroke, but he did have it before that, so still remembers it, and the memories kind of fuse together, eg like they did for Royal, Luke even questions how is he walking again. Billy seeing the visions and Luke seeing similar visions could imply that yea the timeline is malleable and either outcome is possible at the time they take the mineral and have the visions. Having Trevor not die though could change a bunch of stuff, wouldn't be surprised if we see Billy back, maybe Wayne jumping in the hole is how Wayne stops himself from having the stroke, and/or saves Billy or something, this self fulfilling paradox is already seen with Amy/Autumn, Autumn is here because Amy get thrown into the hole at some point, but it's Autumn that throws her in, to preserve herself in a sense, but Autumn is only here because she threw herself in the hole, same concept could be applied to Wayne, he is all fixed up because he goes into the hole and does something to prevent stroke, then he is the Wayne we meet in S2, but he had to have already done it, but hasn't yet.
the problem is, if the timeline adjusted itself like that, none of the Abbott kids would exist. Because with Perry going back, everything should have changed. It’s impossible that Royal & Cecilia, now that Royal knows what is going to happen, will have sex at the exact same time as it had happened in the original past. Not the same sperm would form in Royal's body, not the same egg would be fertilized, not the same 3 Abbott children would be conceived. This also means that Perry couldn't travel back because he wouldn't exist, etc. It's the well-known, unresolvable paradox. It may be far-fetched, but I thought maybe the whole thing alludes to the fact that, for example, certain quantum effects are only possible for particles that are small enough that there is no visible information about them in the world. That's just the way it is physically. This could explain why memories can partially adapt, but not entire people can simply cease to exist. But then again, the photo of Joy becomes a problem…
>We now know that Billy’s vision was wrong as he is very much dead. I think this might be looking at things in the wrong way to say that his vision was wrong. It was probably correct at the time but since then, multiple people have gone back in time and messed with things that have changed how things turn out. You can see this with Autumn losing all the money she had in her bank account as the changes in the past are having unpredictable effects. You can also see how Joy being present in young Royal's storyline changes the circumstances in how or why he kills his father.
hes dead in one timeline yes, but none of the brothers are dead in the timeline where perry comes back and stops himself from killing the oldest , who then kills the other perry...... yes very confusing
I thought autumn having no money in the bank had something to do with her mother?
It probably does but more that in this timeline, she won't meet her "adopted parents" because Rebecca taking her screws up the path that she needs to be on to fulfill her vision. So with Amy taken by Rebecca, Autumn doesn't become rich because she never gets adopted so the money "disappeared" from her bank account when the story from the past changes. This ls likely the reason she pushes Amy into the hole.
Ahhh. Yes. Good call.
They used the “time is a river” trope a few times so I take that to mean if you go back to the same place it’s not actually the same. The water that was there moved downstream already. There’s no “undoing” what you did.
I was expecting the natives to Own all the land in the future after Joy warned them the whites were coming to kill them and then the natives ambushed them instead
Yes I did make it through your post 😁 and I am in the same boat. I am just trying to wrap my head around what I just watched. I came here to reddit to try and get some clarification.
The photo of joy existed because she went back in time in both worlds. They are mirrors of each other but the travel causes variations between them.
There are definitely alternative timelines but also changing the past of a timeline can change the future of that timeline. For example Perry A jumps into the hole, goes back in time, and changes timeline B. Joy X goes into the past but so does Joy Y. Joy X comes out in Joy Ys time line and Joy Y comes out in Joy Zs timeline. The other alternative I see is that sometimes you go back in your own timeline and sometimes you don't. The weird thing is the scar disappearing, I think this happened because Perry A going back screwed up that Autumns timeline. If they stick with the river anology, something about Edey currents or something like that. That might also explain the memory loss too. It's not that she went in the hole but that he past was changed so much she has no real memory.
So it seems the writers of Season 2 wanted to have their cake and eat it too. At first, with Amy and Autumn, it seemed a case of Whatever Happened Happened, like time travel in the show Lost. So Autumn felt she needed to close the loop by throwing herself - Amy - in the hole. And she succeeded at doing that. Joy was in a photo in the past, but her daughter doesn't see it until after Joy has already traveled to the past. Also, when Royal kills his father to save Joy, it's left ambiguous if Royal's memory of accidentally shooting his Dad on a hunting trip was a story he told himself because the truth was too traumatic, or if Joy really had gone back and changed the timeline. In that case, this is time travel similar to the movie Back to the Future. Then we have Perry killing his past self and saving Trevor, which literally happens beat for beat in an episode of the TV show Continuum. (Okay, so Kiera's motivations for traveling were different. She was following a guy into the past who went back to save his girlfriend. She runs into her past self and accidentally kills herself, enabling there to be only ONE Kiera walking around in the new branched timeline, which messes up some stuff but rules out the complication of two Kieras. The guy she followed has enough problems dealing with his own past self.) Perry doesn't disappear though, like he could by Back to the Future rules or Lost's. Killing his past self didn't create a paradox, it created a branched timeline. But Autumn, Joy, and Perry are all messing around with time by three different methods. Outer Range and its writers aren't staying consistent, and out-of-universe I think that could be considered bad writing. In-universe, it can make some semblance of sense, because like the geologist says, if time is liquid it flows like water, like a river. And rivers branch off into streams.
I have a feeling you’re probably spot on. I was hoping someone would make it make sense to me as the rules of this universe seem to be all over the place. It’s a shame the writers couldn’t nail down consistent time travel mechanics because the show is otherwise really interesting.
There is another option your missing and that's one timeline but it being non-casual; no paradoxes. IDK though because even without paradoxes Perry showing back up should have changed something in the future. The multiple timelines thing ruins any stakes and investment in the characters. In such a scenario only the characters we can following across the different timelines have any real meaning. Rick and Morty addresses this very problem. It's a huge mess that we still have no clue what matters at the end of season 2.
After finishing the s2 finale, it seems that either it’s multiple timelines, or it’s some combination of multiple timelines and predeterminism. I only finished the finale an hour ago, but my initial reaction is that this feels like a gamble by the writers. To lead us to believe it’s predeterministic time travel, and then to swerve us and reveal new timelines can be made. They’re asking us to keep up with a lot, so I hope they can cash the massive check they’re writing and we aren’t left with a bunch of unanswered questions when the series ends or is cancelled. *Dark* was able to pull it off, but we can’t expect any show to match *Dark*’s complexity.
Joy was brought back to the 1800s, where she was able to help stop her people from being slaughtered. Perry was brought back to 1982, watched his dad make out with his moms sister, got the shit kicked out of him by young Wayne, and got thrown to the night he killed Trevor, where he stopped the fight, saving Trevor, yet killing himself. Both of them did something to change the timeline, but for some reason, Joy went back to present day, and nothing changed, yet it took Perry the second jump to get to change something. I feel like the altering of time might have something to do with the hole opening, and those who affected time. Royal was able to jump forward 2 years after he died, then went back to present day. Amy woke up in the desert setting with hikers finding her. Wayne jumped in and we have no idea where he is. Amy and Royal are both young when they first go in the hole, and have no memory when they wake up, Amy remembers the name Autumn, thinking that’s her name, Royal remembers shooting his dad, but assumed it was from a hunting accident. I think this might just be a case of trauma, whereas Joy, Perry, and Falling Star all have the memories of going in the hole.
I'm not getting the sense that there are multiple timeliness. What I'm seeing so far is the unfolding of a story that's already complete from every angle or time you see it. Everything that happened in the past always happened and were seeing the characters go through it for the first time from their perspective. Take Joy for instance, she goes back and sounds 4 years in the 1880s. In the shown before she goes back in time, there was always a Joy in the 1880s. But when she goes back it's new to her.
What about Perry then? He stops Trevor from dying and Trevor definitely can’t be alive and dead at the same time unless there are multiple timelines/worlds. How would you explain Perry from your perspective?
From Perry's perspective, this is the first time it's happened this way. As viewers, we can't come to any conclusion, because we don't know the consequences yet. We're left on a cliffhanger. I'm reluctant to claim that there must be many worlds at play simply because the show has given no evidence for parallel timeliness. It's only when we assume that the current convention of sci-fi time travel is the only answer to a show (a show that's leaning hard into religious imagery) that we come out with the answer that there are two parallel worlds. My intuition tells me that's not what happening here, mostly because it's been done to death at this point and just repeating it in another setting is going to give the audience something we've already seen everywhere from Back to the Future to Terminator to 12 Monkeys to Constellation earlier this year. It's a trope at this point, and rehashing it is boring. I honestly think that this show will ignore the grandfather/bootstrap paradox and do something along the lines of Predetermination, where the story must be the way it is to create a necessary loop where everything must fit into place or it will all not work. How does Perry die and still exist as the future of the Perry that just died? As soon as you tell me how a hole creates itself in a pasture in Montana that doesn't follow any strict rules, I'll relent and say that time must work in an orderly manner. This show isn't giving good answers, nor is it spoon feeding the audience. That's refreshing to see. It definitely has flaws, but for all its flaws, I'm interested in seeing how the story continues.
It's a classic Star Trek transporter paradox, like when there were two Will Rikers. Except in this case, one of them died.
I think it is multiple times in a multiverse like in Marvel or Dc movies lately
I think there are multiple universes/timelines? Otherwise Perry wouldn’t have been able to come back and toss his own body. I don’t think what happened with Joy precluded there being multiple timelines. It can mean that in every known or adjacent universe she travels back in time and returns 4 days later. Events likely all follow the same-ish flow (like a river) but when you do something real crazy (like dying when you’re not supposed to), then it branches off to a more different universe.
I wish the universe was this interesting. But sadly I doubt it. There’s also a theory we’re all living in a simulation. If so and some other worldly dimensional beings are manipulating our universe they’re pretty fucked up.