Providence Falls Episode 1 Recap: What Is The Department Of Destiny?

Historical romances that span across a few afterlives inadvertently promote the idea of soulmates—people who look for and find each other in every lifetime. It makes sense that they end up with each other happily, but what happens when someone has stolen you from your assigned soulmate in a lifetime? The pieces do not fall into place, and it may lead to dangerous results. According to the “Department of Destiny,” this needs to be fixed in a later lifetime. Providence Falls is a humorous addition in the genre of historical romances, as Liam O’Connor is assigned to unite Cora McLeod with her destined lover, Finn Welsh, as Liam had prevented her from being with him in an earlier lifetime in 1844 Ireland. Let’s take a look at the first episode—“Chance of a Lifetime”—and track Liam’s success (or not!).

Spoilers Ahead

The episode starts with a flashback of Liam and Cora escaping from a group of people chasing them. After Cora promises to be by Liam’s side, she falls down a cliff and dies in the 19th-century timeline. It is apparent that they were being chased for falling in love—and their forbidden romance set the trajectory of their life and death. In the modern day, Cora McLeod is a police detective in the city of Providence Falls, Oregon, who is trying to solve a jewelry-store robbery where three jewels were stolen. She spots a necklace that looks exactly like the one that she had worn in the past, and it triggers some vague resonances in her. We have Finn Welsh, a DA who is trying to woo Cora in this timeline.

Meanwhile, Liam wakes up in a stark white room with Samael and Agon—two representatives of the Department of Destiny—and immediately asks for Cora. They inform Liam that Cora has been dead for 200 years, and he was stuck in Limbo. Since Limbo is closing down, he has one last task of uniting Cora with Finn, since he had stolen her from him in the past, disrupting the course of things and leading to Cora’s death. Once he fulfills this job, he will be shifted to heaven for eternity—a lucrative offer. Agon also tells him that there are seven people on the earth now who are connected to Liam’s past, and he may have some memory gaps while he navigates his task. Agon and Liam land in 21st-century Ireland, where Liam becomes the partner detective to Cora. Although Liam and Cora start off on the wrong foot, due to Liam’s disassociation with modern-day customs, there is an undeniable spark between the two. However, Liam has to focus on his task—so he tries to include Finn in social situations to make his job quick and easy. Liam meets more characters from his past—Meredith, an old married lover who is into Liam and married to John Brody in this timeline too. Soon, Liam begins to feel that history is starting to repeat itself. 

At a police ball, Liam anticipates that he will be implicated for John’s murder, just as he was in the previous timeline, but this time with his visions, he tries to avoid it by steering clear of Meredith’s house. Meredith and Liam go for a drive, and when they return, they find John on a date at the house. The police begin to question Liam, but it is Cora who is able to present an alibi. A little kid who Cora volunteers for claims that Liam was seen at the petrol pump, which implies that Liam is innocent. At the end of the episode, Cora confesses to liking Liam, essentially echoing the past. The jewelry store affair is also resolved by the end of the episode, as Cora finds out that the store owner had done the robbery himself to claim insurance money and then sell off the jewels illegally. 

Cora and Liam belonged to two different economic rungs and societal positions in the past, Liam being a rogue thief and Cora, the daughter of an aristocratic family. Cora fell in love with Liam when he broke into her castle and she held him at sword point, threatening to scream if he did not do as she said. We realize that Liam was there for Cora’s jewels. In this timeline, things are not quite the same—Liam and Cora belong to the same social strata, and they are trying to find the jewel thief. It is safe to say that some things have changed, but what is unmistakably there is the spark between the two. Cora starts off with the edgy, self-sufficient voice just as she did in the past, and Liam wants to submit to her authority. However, in this timeline, Liam’s goals have shifted—while in 1844 all Liam wanted was to be with Cora, in this one, he knows that they are fated to be apart. 

Liam has been programmed by Samael with a “zap” sensation every time he touches Corato to keep him “focused” on his goal. However, it seems like history started to echo itself despite the barriers in place. The Police Ball is the finest example of it—since Liam remembers being at a similar ball with Cora on the same night that Meredith’s husband died. Cora gave him her mother’s pendant on the night, asking him to start a new life by selling it off. Liam has a flashback of this, as well as John’s murder and him being implicated in it, and decides to change the course of the story. It seems like in Liam’s case, visions and hallucinations may become a major trope in the series in solving crimes and mysteries. Liam acts rapidly and removes Meredith and himself from the household, leaving room to be proved innocent. It does work to his benefit, and by the end of the episode he is proven innocent because of his whereabouts away from the location of the murder. So, it would be safe to say that the event-based history is definitely changing in this timeline. However, what still does not seem to change is Cora and Liam’s dynamic—no matter what happens, Cora and Liam’s hearts keep finding their way to each other. These are two ill-fated lovers, who perhaps will find heaven in a lifetime with each other, strong enough to say no to an eternity in heaven.

The Department of Destiny in “Providence Falls” is less of a celestial realm and more of a bureaucratic office from which people are either sent to heaven or hell. Their mandate seems to be simple—they are the keeper of fates without intervention and keep reality in balance with the archives. Straying from fate, as Liam did in 1844 by falling in love with Cora, has implications for a lifetime; it throws one off from fate’s path, and the department is in charge of fixing such anomalies. It is an intricate game of cause and effect played through the centuries. Samael is God’s angel, and Agon is their assistant who does the menial tasks. In Liam’s case, Agon has also accompanied him to the earth to make his journey a little easier. While Samael operates like a stern senior case manager who’s had to deal with too many romantics wrecking the system, Agon is still learning to do that. Samael has no patience for “feelings” that might cloud the “fates” at hand. To be on the safer side, he enforced a no-contact mechanism—the zap—on Liam. Samael may play a pivotal role in keeping Liam and Cora apart in this timeline.

Agon, on the other hand, is a little loose with his rules with a mischievous streak. He is already sold on the idea of Cora and Liam after watching their past memories on an old desktop computer, and I would not be surprised if he is secretly shipping them. He does not really relate to his boss and seems more interested in accompanying Liam in his endeavors. If Samael is the one keeping Liam away from Cora, Agon has the potential to become the perfect “wingman” (pun intended) and spurn fate once again. While Agon may be at risk of losing his job, one thing is for sure: Liam and Cora will not be kept apart from each other. This makes me wonder, what does being soulmates mean? Is there a hidden logic about how these soulmates are assigned? While Cora seems to have a fair and workable connection with Finn, it is not as electric as the one with Liam. Did Samael make a mistake in assigning soulmates? After all, the library looks huge, and workers are only human, even if they are angels!