Continuum - Minute to Win It

After breaking Lucas (Omari Newton) out of his psychiatric prison ward, Liber8 puts him to work creating a series of bank heists using mind-controlled suicide bombers gathering confidential information, blackmail material, advanced technology, and secret patents on companies who will shape the world to come. As Carlos (Victor Webster) continues to struggle with the latest implications of time travel, he and Kiera (Rachel Nichols) attempt to stop the latest robbery.

In the episode's B-story, Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen) discovers Mr. Escher (Hugh Dillon) was his father when Alec inherits the man's company PIRON and all the cutting-edge technology which comes with it. Escher's death, and the company falling into Alec's hands represents yet another big departure from Kiera's timeline. Although he initially decides to simply sell the company, Alec is soon swayed by PIRON's current projects which are far more advanced than research anyone else is doing. The discovery of his parentage also means getting into Escher's personal files and learning the hard truth about Emily‘s (Magda Apanowicz) which this version of Alec isn't prepared to deal with.


We don't get much from the second Alec other than his decision to make a play for Emily, revealing the truth about time travel and his dual existence to her, when the current version of himself spurns her. As she focuses her attention squarely on stopping Liber8 and getting the head of the Freelancers (Rachael Crawford) to agree to look into the murder of the other version of herself, Kiera tries to make sense of their latest plan forcing the conundrum of the two Alec Sadlers to be put on hold for at least another episode (or quite possibly never, as two Alecs might be necessary to undo the damage Liber8 has already begun to accomplish).

With Liber8 targeting the big businesses of tomorrow who help shape the corporate landscape Kiera's future seems very much in jeopardy. How exactly the Alec/Emily situation plays out should be interesting as "Minute to Win It" suggests the possibility of her disappearing with the Alec from the future who returned to save her life. The episode also includes scenes from Kiera's past and her early days working for the state where once again Continuum plays on ideas that the future Kiera is so adamant to save isn't as perfect as she wants to believe as we see her CMR taken over remotely to force the agent to kill an unarmed man simply to tie-up loose ends.