Lucy Preston

**Lucy Preston** is one of the main characters and the main female protagonist of NBC's *Timeless*. She is portrayed by Abigail Spencer.

## Background

In the original timeline, Lucy was born in the year, 1983, to Carolyn Preston and Benjamin Cahill. However, most of her life, Lucy was told that a man named Henry Wallace was her biological father. She later had a younger sister named Amy.

For most of her life, Lucy studies to become a historian. However, Lucy nearly quit going to college and intended to tell her mother that. She suddenly found herself in a near-death experience and thought she was going to die in a drowning car, but a mysterious figure rescued Lucy before she fully drowned. Ever since then, Lucy had a fear of closed spaces. Every time she goes into the Lifeboat she feels like she is back in the car again and can't get out,

Later in her life, Lucy became a college history professor, working in her mother's department and wants to follow in her mother's footsteps, but is not sure if that is what she wants to do with her life. She is constantly denied tenure by the college committee.

## Throughout the *Timeless* Universe

* Season 1
* Season 2

Lucy works as a history professor in her mother's department. However, she is unsure if she wants to follow in Carol's footsteps.

One day, Lucy is giving a lecture about President Lyndon B. Johnson. However, after the lesson, Lucy learns from the chair of her mother's department that the committee is cancelling yet another tenure meeting. She angrily tells the chairman that she has been "busting her ass off" for tenure and storms off. Lucy goes home, where she finds Amy looking over their mother, Carol, who is diagnosed with lung cancer. The two sisters take a break from watching over their mom and have a drink, where Lucy reveals to her younger sister what happened at work today. Amy insists to Lucy that she should go somewhere where she is wanted and insists that her sister can make her own future, rather than following in their mother's footsteps. Later that evening, Agent Kondo from homeland security shows up and escorts Lucy to Mason Industries, where she meets Wyatt Logan and Agent Denise Christopher, who expresses her condolences to Lucy about her ailing mother. Christopher reveals to Lucy and Wyatt that they have summoned them to go after terrorist named Garcia Flynn, who seemingly killed his wife and daughter and stole a time machine to the day the Hindenburg crashed. Lucy nearly declines, but Christopher tells Lucy that they need her to be on the team. Lucy goes to comply with Agent Christopher's request and dresses into 1930s garb. Going into the time machine, Lucy and Wyatt meet Rufus, who is their third teammate and their pilot. Entering the day the Hindenburg crashed, they enter a New Jersey town's local tavern, where Lucy and Wyatt ask a bartender if he'd seen a man named Garcia Flynn, but the Bartender shoves them off. They learn from Kate that Flynn was there earlier and went to help with the landing of the Hindenburg. The team head to where the Hindenburg will land, where Lucy spots Flynn and follows one of his followers. However, the follower corners Lucy and attacks her, but she is saved by Wyatt and Rufus. Lucy looks out the door, and much to her horror, Flynn saved the Hindenburg when it lands.

The trio are found by a group of Nazis, who immediately arrest the Lifeboat team. Through her conversation with Wyatt, Lucy learns that he is widowed since the murder of his wife, Jessica, and says that Kate reminds him of his late wife. They later escape when Wyatt uses her underwire bra as a lock pick and sneak onboard to the Hindenburg, where they find a bomb planted by one of Flynn's men. Lucy and Rufus go to the cockpit and pose as the Anarchist Black Cross, claiming they have a bomb on this plane and orders them to land to await further demands. However, the Hindenburg sets itself on fire after one of Flynn's men accidentally fires a bullet after Kate saved Wyatt. During the skirmish, Lucy is confronted by Garcia Flynn. Terrified, Lucy tells him that he is a sociopath who murdered his own family, Flynn tells her that it all depends on her point of view. Knowing she never met him before, Lucy asks him how he knows her name. Flynn reveals that he knows a lot about her and shows her a diary that she is going to write in the future. He tells her to ask them why she was chosen for the mission and who Rittenhouse is. Wyatt goes to save Lucy, who Flynn holds hostage and goes to fire at Wyatt. However, Kate stands in between Wyatt and takes the bullet, killing her instantly. The team returns to 2016, to find the timeline relatively unchanged. However, Lucy comes home, but sees her mother alive and well, she is engaged to a man, and her sister is erased from existence. (Pilot)

Six weeks after the events of season one, Lucy is with her mother and Emma Whitmore in the year 1918 to find Nicholas Keynes, Lucy's great-grandfather. To prove her loyalty to Rittenhouse, Lucy had to kill a soldier against her will. Believing her friends are dead, Lucy later plans to blow up the Mothership, with her and her mother in it. However, Wyatt and Rufus later rescue her and Lucy returns home.

Following Jessica's betrayal, Lucy and the others from the Time Team trying to save Jiya, who has been kidnapped by Emma and Jessica. Rufus and Connor fixes and charged the time machine soon as possible and enough so Lucy, Wyatt, Rufus and Flynn can all head to 1888.

When they arrive in Chinatown, they track down the photo studio where Jiya had the photo taken. A little Chinese girl greets them and tells them that the photo was actually taken three years earlier, and she claims not to know Jiya. This is because the Time Team isn’t the only group looking for her– Carol, Nicholas, Emma and Jessica are hiding behind a backdrop, holding the girl’s father at gunpoint. They want Jiya, too.

The little girl signals to Wyatt that something is happening behind the backdrop, but before the Time Team can take action, Emma throws a curve ball and shoots both Carol and Nicholas! Now she’s in charge of Rittenhouse, because she has the time machine. She and Jessica make a run for it, and Lucy rushes to try to care for her dying mother.
Once it’s clear that Jiya is in danger, the little Chinese girl admits to knowing her and tells the Team that they can find her in the nearby saloon where she lives and works. Rufus goes to Jiya, Wyatt takes off after Jessica and Flynn chases Emma.

Flynn and Lucy are about to have some kind of moment, but it gets stopped before it starts. They all go to the saloon to join Rufus and get Jiya.

Lucy is furious. She grabs a gun and takes off after Emma, ready to kill her. She shoots and shoots, hitting Emma and knocking her down. Lucy is hysterical and not ready to just kill, so it takes her a while to muster the determination to pull the trigger with the gun pressed to Emma’s forehead. When she does, there are no bullets left and Emma seizes the opportunity to fight for her freedom.

They have a major brawl, in which Emma yells at Lucy for having willingly abandoned her Rittenhouse role. Wyatt comes running, and Emma gets away, leaving Lucy bruised and bloodied.

Wyatt and Lucy find a moment together in a quiet corner. He expresses his guilt about messing things up with her and causing Rufus’ death. She assures him that he did what Rufus wanted by getting Jiya home safe. Then Wyatt tells Lucy he loves her. He tells her she doesn’t have to say anything, but that Rufus had wanted him to admit it and he should have told her a long time ago.
She doesn’t say anything, and Flynn witnesses their moment with a look on his face that suggests that he has feelings for Lucy.

Just then, the alarms sound. Everyone comes running in time to see the Lifeboat arrive, but a fancy, upgraded Lifeboat. The door opens, and out come Braveheart-looking Wyatt and Lucy. They look like warriors. The whole room is dumbstruck–especially Wyatt and Lucy. 2023 Lucy and Wyatt explaining that they are from 2023 and that the only chance of stopping Rittenhouse lies with saving Rufus. The future Lucy gives her past self her journal as a guide, while the future Wyatt reveals Jessica's manipulations. The future Lucy and Wyatt depart in the team's Lifeboat, leaving their own more advanced version for the team's use. Emma sends Jessica to activate their last sleeper agent during the Gold Rush of 1848. After following Jessica to 1848, Wyatt realizes that, to save Rufus, Jessica has to die, undoing all of her actions. At night, Flynn slips off and travels back to 2012, where he kills Jessica on the night she originally died. Flynn returns the Lifeboat to 1848 and watches his family from a distance one last time before dying from the side effects of time traveling within his own timeline. With Jessica gone, Rufus returns and rescues the team from the sleeper, having no memory of ever being dead. Shortly after returning to 2018, the reunited team is forced to travel to the Hungnam evacuation of Christmas 1950, where they barely escape a trap set by Emma, using a helicopter pilot she bribed. After their departure, Mason and Denise discover that the team dies there when the Chinese Army massacres a nearby village. As the team attempts to save a pregnant woman while returning to the Lifeboat, Denise makes a deal with Benjamin Cahill to capture Emma. Denise arrives with Emma and the Mothership to rescue the team. Emma tries to make a deal with Lucy for her freedom in exchange for saving Amy, but Lucy refuses and Emma is killed by Chinese soldiers as everyone escapes. With Rittenhouse defeated, Lucy abandons her search for Amy and resumes her relationship with Wyatt, while Jiya and Rufus resume their own relationship. The Mothership is destroyed, but Denise chooses to spare the Lifeboat in case someone ever reinvents time travel. In 2023, Lucy is teaching history again and has two daughters with Wyatt, named after Flynn and Amy; Rufus and Jiya run their own company together. In order to keep history on track and ensure the formation of their team, the team makes one final trip to 2014 to start Flynn's mission against Rittenhouse. At night, a young girl works on plans for a time machine, suggesting that their adventures aren't over yet.
## Physical appearance

As described by Wyatt, Lucy has brown hair and brown eyes. She is approximately thirty-three years. Her hair is also mid-length. However, it appears to have grown out a little bit in season 2. Since she goes to different parts of time, Lucy mostly wears skirts and dresses. However, when they went back in "The Murder of Jesse James", Lucy changed into pants in order to travel better.

in the first two episodes she wears a shade of red.

## Personality

Lucy, suffers from claustrophobia after having nearly drowned in a car accident while she was in college. Aside from history, Lucy is fluent in French.

## Relationships

### **Family**

* **Flynn Logan** (daughter ; with **Wyatt**)
* **Amy Logan** (daughter ; with **Wyatt**)
* **Carolyn Preston** (mother)
* **Benjamin Cahill** (father)
* **Ethan Cahill**(paternal grandfather)
* **Nicholas Keynes** (maternal great-grandfather)
* **Mrs. Cahill II** (paternal grandmother)
* **Mr. Cahill I** (paternal great-grandfather)
* **Mrs. Cahill I** (paternal great-grandmother)
* **Amy Preston** (maternal half-sister; original timeline)
* **Henry Wallace**(stepfather; original timeline)

### **Friendships**

* **Rufus Carlin**
* **Jiya**
* **Denise Christopher**

### **Enemies**

#### **Emma Whitmore**

Lucy does not get along with Emma, who hates Lucy and Carol because they were born into famous Rittenhouse families.

## Possessions

* **Lucy Preston's diary****:** Sometime in the future, Lucy will write a journal that contains information on her adventures in time travel. It is revealed through dialogue that an older Lucy had given it to Garcia Flynn in his own mission.

## Etymology

* The name "**Lucy**" is of English origin and is derived from the Latin element,  *lux*, translating to "light" .
* The surname "Preston" is of English origin, meaning "priest town."
	+ Her last name comes from Bill S. Preston Esq, a character in *Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure*.

### Aliases

* Nurse Jackie, gives this alias to one of the sergeants for them to find Garcia Flynn.
* **Juliet Shakesman**, used in "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln" and gave the alias to Robert Lincoln.

## Trivia

* According to her grandfather, Lucy bears a strong resemblence to her great-grandmother, Ethan Cahill's mother.
* The relationship between Lucy and Wyatt is dubbed "Lyatt."
* Lucy knows how to speak in French.
* Colby Lemmo was a stunt double for Abigail Spencer for the role of Lucy Preston.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln"
2. ↑ "Pilot"
3. ↑ http://www.behindthename.com/name/lucius
http://www.behindthename.com/name/lucia
http://www.behindthename.com/name/lucy
4. ↑ https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Abigail-Spencer-Interview-About-Timeless-42553687
5. ↑ "The Red Scare
6. ↑ "Stranded"