What Happened To Flynne In The Peripheral’s Future Timeline?
The Peripheral is yet to explain Flynne Fisher’s status in the future timeline, but through hints and clues provided thus far, her fate cannot be good. When Chloë Grace Moretz’s Flynne Fisher realizes her video game simulation is actually London 70 years ahead of her own timeline, she asks the question anyone would ask in such a wild situation: « what happens to me? » The Peripheral’s future characters know everything from the date Flynne’s mother dies to the size of Corbell Pickett’s underwear (probably), but no one will give Flynne a straight answer on her own ending.
Answering – or, indeed, not answering – Flynne’s question, Wilf Netherton explains, « There’s information to a certain point, but after that point, the records become rather spotty. » Wilf’s line implies all traces of Flynne and her family suddenly vanish somewhere between 2032 and 2100. This ties into Aelita’s tease from The Peripheral episode 1 – « If I assured you that you’d likely no longer exist in, like, another decade. » Putting the clues together, it seems likely that Flynne and her family will become victims of the apocalyptic Jackpot event that happens around The Peripheral’s 2042, and Wilf and Lev are desperately trying to avoid alarming or distracting their new friend by dancing around the fact her world only has ten years left.
Future Flynne Isn’t Necessarily Dead In The Peripheral
Wilf’s remark about « spotty » records implies that nobody in the future knows for certain what became of Flynne Fisher. If the Jackpot was as devastating as The Peripheral has suggested, cataloging every single death would prove nigh on impossible. Moreover, the future’s Research Institute can only access the past via its computer systems, so if the Jackpot knocks out Earth’s technological framework, the 2100 past-prodders have no means of discerning what truly happened during that dark period. All Wilf can know is that, after a certain point in time, Flynne Fisher is never heard from again.
In that case, an older Flynne could still be alive during the future timeline in The Peripheral. Granted, she would be more than 90-years-old, but with the medicine and technology available in the future, her survival is certainly plausible. The older Flynne might have disappeared off-grid, taken a new identity, and laid low. Wilf is almost certainly correct in assuming Flynne died during the Jackpot, but until he provides the same kind of irrefutable proof he used to convince Flynne her mother would die, a slim chance of The Peripheral introducing a wrinklier version of Flynne in the 2100 era remains.
The Peripheral Has Already Rewritten Flynne’s Future
Whatever Flynne Fisher’s future should have been in The Peripheral, her destiny has already been altered. When Aelita first made contact with the Fishers and brought Flynne into the future via peripheral, she created a separate stub timeline, the future of which is unwritten. When Wilf, Lev, and the villainous Research Institute further involved themselves in Flynne’s 2032 life, they each pushed her path further away from its original course.
Even if Flynne fails to stop the Jackpot happening in her timeline, her knowledge of the future (and, assuming she eventually learns the truth, her knowledge of the apocalypse itself) gives prime-Flynne’s chances of survival a much-needed boost. On the other hand, Flynne has made powerful enemies in both timelines since The Peripheral began. Perhaps this version of her dies before even reaching the dreaded Jackpot.
The Peripheral continues Friday on Amazon Prime Video.
