MovieChat Forums > 11.22.63 (2016) Discussion > Jake doesn't have to kill Oswald...

Jake doesn't have to kill Oswald...

posted 9 years ago by mpiccolo55000
19 replies | jump to latest

He just has to alert Secret Service that there's a sniper intending to aim at JFK inside Dealey Plaza...they might think Jake is just a crazy person at first, but they'd probably at least stop or turn the motorcade around, search Dealey Plaza, and find Oswald there with his gun, at which point they'd apprehend him. Jake still saves the day, and doesn't go to jail...because you got to think that if Jake follows through with the plan to kill Lee Harvey Oswald before Oswald assassinates JFK, they're probably going to arrest Jake for murdering Oswald and conclude that they were accomplices in intending to kill the president, but their relationship soured, so Jake's going to serve multiple life terms for murdering Oswald and conspiring to assassinate the president...Plus, they're going to find out about him killing Frank back in Kentucky, and that whole thing with Sadie's ex is going to resurface. And since it's Texas, they're probably going to give him the chair or hang him. He'll never get back to the portal in Lisbon, Maine before police catch up with him...he probably won't even make it out of Dallas!

[–] lantzn 9 years ago

His biggest problem is that the past pushes back and more so the closer he gets to an event. Remember Bill seeing what he thought was his sister (dead) when he was waiting to see who shot Wallace in the arm. That was the past pushing back. If he relied on someone else, especially someone who doesn't understand this phenomenon they would fail. Jake has to go in fighting with everything he's got.

[–] mpiccolo55000 9 years ago

Maybe it's just the glasses (or my own poor eyesight), but you sort of look like Stephen King...or maybe Al Franken...actually, yeah, probably Al Franken...

I don't think Bill believing he saw his dead sister was the past pushing back...I think Bill was just a dimwitted country bumpkin who James Franco never should have trusted with the details of the mission. If Jake told Secret Service about Oswald, he wouldn't have to say he knew about it because he was from the future...he could just say that they were neighbors (which is true) and that he had overheard Oswald plotting JFK's assassination. I think Jake killing Oswald in place of Jack Ruby would have greater pushback than Jake alerting Secret Service agents. Of course, then, the story wouldn't be as dramatic...Jake waiting around for years in the early 1960s to tell some guy something would be sort of anti-climatic, wouldn't it?

[–] lantzn 9 years ago

I get the King comment a lot. Even from my wife.

[–] mpiccolo55000 9 years ago

Ha ha ha! You know you've got a problem when your own wife thinks you're Stephen King...that itself could be a Stephen King story...

[–] Blah84 9 years ago

I interpreted the incident with Bill as the past pushing back, and this conjecture was further bolstered by the part in the final episode when they're running to the book depository and see Harry's father and Sophie's ex-husband. The past was trying to throw them off their game just like it did to Bill.

Also, like the previous poster said, the past pushes back, so if he called the authorities and said something, some series of events would occur that would prevent that person from doing anything about it, especially since they weren't aware that they needed to expect the past to push back. Alternatively, the call could have gone to some official that wanted Kennedy dead and purposefully didn't do anything to prevent it. There could be many reasons that would be derailed. The only way to be sure was to stop Oswald himself.

[–] mpiccolo55000 9 years ago

I think you're right -- Bill was killed off because time was pushing back (plus Jake had driven him to the point of insanity).

Sure, time would push back if he contacted the authorities, but it seems that there are varying degrees of time pushing back, depending on how much you alter the past. Things were just going crazy when Jake and Sadie were running to Dealey Plaza to kill Oswald, because it was such a big alteration of American and world history. Since making a call or talking to someone isn't as big of an action as killing someone, Jake would have suffered some consequences, yes, but they wouldn't have been as grave as when he killed Oswald.

[–] Blah84 9 years ago

Personally I just think the past would have pushed back and made the call useless in the first place.

On another note: I wonder, in the world of the show, how many people have gone back and stopped the assassination, realized it made things worse, and went back to undo it. That's trippy.

[–] Rob-O-Cop 9 years ago

you're assuming that the secret service wasn't in on it.
If he did act alone then yes that might stop it but the whole thing with JFK (and something that isn't really delved into in this story much to its detriment, is the uncertainty of what happened. Was it mafia, CIA, Cops, Russians, etc.
The story is multi leveled but we're getting a pretty flat telling of it which spends most of its time on domestic dramas. What a wasted opportunity.

[–] mpiccolo55000 9 years ago

Nope. Just a crazy guy with a gun...there was nobody in the grassy knoll...

[–] Rob-O-Cop 9 years ago

don't go into the story writing business. I think you might fail

[–] mpiccolo55000 9 years ago

And you say that because you're in the business? A knowledgeable person from the industry, I presume?

[–] Rob-O-Cop 9 years ago

one doesn't have to be 'in the business' to realise your flat take on an incident surrounded in mystery is the dullest route. It's fiction, it can do what it likes. There is no time travel yet here we are watching a show about it, and you want to go with the official story even though there are so many mystifying unconfirmed details about it that have a large proportion of the experts and public confused. It may well have been a single shooter event, but because there is so much weird stuff surrounding it, and very little confirmation and evidence on the weirder details you want to go with the vanilla explanation? Why not shoot down the time travel aspect of it while you're at it.
But since you asked, yes I do work in the business. but better than that I'm a consumer of it too.

[–] MongoLloyd 9 years ago

so much weird stuff surrounding it

Which is exactly why the entire story is possible. How many theories are there about the JFK assassination? Cubans, the mob, the CIA, Lee Harvey Oswald on his own... and still, nobody knows for sure. People create these theories and people revel in the storytelling that ensues.

The what-if time travel device is pretty easy and cheap if you ask me, and I also think there are a lot easier ways to derail Oswald than what's depicted in this story.

.

[–] jryanhickey 9 years ago

Thanks Jake! I'm glad you could finally and definitely answer that question... Or you don't know what the hell you are talking about like everyone else.

[–] mpiccolo55000 9 years ago

You'll notice that I posted my OP four days ago, before the finale aired.

[–] marclev78 8 years ago

In the book, someone that had been told what was going on (kept vague to avoid spoilers) does actually phone the police with this exact information and they simply hang the phone up because they were already getting so many phoney death threats and figured it was just another one of those.

Haven't got to the final yet of the series, but in the book it was clear that if Jake didn't take things into his own hands there was no way to prevent the assassination.

[–] mpiccolo55000 8 years ago

I have since read the book (it comes highly recommended, by the way), and I don't recall that part -- and I finished it recently.

[–] marclev78 8 years ago

Minor spoiler, just in case things take a different course of action in the series:

When Sadie finds Jake gone on the morning of the assassination, Deke tries phoning the police but they don'tt believe him. Later, when Jake is being interviewed by the FBI agent, and he gets asked why he didn't phone in the information instead of trying to intervene himself, he tells the FBI agent that they tried exactly this and the information wasn't taken seriously.

While being interrogated:

"Sadie got alarmed when she found me gone from Eden Fallows. Deke did, too. So he did call the police. Not just once but several times. Each time, the cop who took his call told him to stop *beep* and hung up. I don't know if anybody bothered to make a record of those calls, but Deke will tell you, and he has no reason to lie."
Now Fritz was the one turning red. "If you knew how many death threats we had..."

[–] mpiccolo55000 8 years ago

You got me there -- I didn't remember that part, but now I do. Good memory! Can you really blame me for not remembering every detail, though? The book, as wonderful as it is, is as long as the Bible, perhaps longer.