Flash Forward, Episode 110: “A561984”

And now we come to the end of the first of half of “Flash Forward’s” inaugural season.  And we’ve come a lot farther in, what, 10 weeks? than I thought we would in terms of discovering who or what is behind everything.

I think it’s safe to say Lloyd Simcoe’s very public apology and explanation of what happened was in fact not what actually happened to cause the blackout.  His association with Simon seems to be crafted to allow Simon a public identity of sorts – one that conveniently works as a scientist/engineer for one of them Spallation SuperCollider thingamadoodles, which was used to provide a convenient “explanation” for what happened.

It’s pretty obvious Simon knows full well about the Somalian towers and was feigning surprise over their existence, saying he designed their type a year later than their existence would suggest (interestingly the closed-captioning said he designed them in the 2000’s while he actually said the 1990’s, a year after their construction.  Apparently a change in the shooting script at the last minute).  I would imagine Simon is in cahoots with D. Gibbons and The Persian Princess, Nhadra Udaya,  for their own motives, and decided to use Simcoe’s contraption and their experiments to provide a convenient scapegoat.  While we still don’t really know who they are or what they did, at least we can be reasonably sure now that Lloyd was not really involved except as a patsy.  Well, that and his kidnapping kinda tipped me off, too…

Mark continues to dive headfirst off the deep end by traveling with Demetri to Hong Kong in search of The Persian Princess.  How they found her – one woman in an entire megacity, even with their methods seemed farfetched but we’ll go with it.  It’s interesting that the CIA seems to be involved in at least investigating TPP and her gang of thugs, and seem to have an uneasy truce that allows them to “rescue” Mark and Dem from said thugs.  CIA man had a familiarity with TPP and she backed off at his request.   Is the CIA actually involved in the plot?  Do they have some kind of agreement with her behind the scenes?  We’ll see.

So now Mark’s out of the FBI and will apparently be continuing the investigation on his own.  Is this in line with his future?  In his flash he saw himself in his own office, in front of the Fox Mulder Memorial Tackboard of Conspiracies ™ and attacked by baddies with star tattoos and Nixon masks (or so they always remind me).  Does this mean he eventually breaks back into the FBI to investigate things that night?  Or will he now move out to more spacious and presumably more secure digs?  And will Demetri continue to assist him in preventing his own death?

Speaking of Demetri and dying, his fiancee discovers the true meaning of her own flash – that she was indeed at his funeral and not their wedding.  Nice to have things validated, though I doubt she would agree.  The scene between her and Demetri’s mother seemed too much like one that would be on LOST with Mr. or Mrs. Paik, Sun’s parents, so it seemed odd to me.  On the other side of the world, TPP reveals to Demetri that Mark will be the one to shoot him.  Not sure this whole plotline is terribly interesting, to be honest.  I understand the whole “marching inexorably to destiny” kind of thing, but we see now that the future can be changed so all bets are off.  If Demetri wants to live to see his wedding all he has to do is quit the Bureau (or take an extended leave), take his fiancee with him to Hawaii, Barbados, Monaco or Nepal for all I care and quit the whole dang business.  Once the date passes, he should feel safe to return.  The more Demetri digs for ways to avoid his own murder simply by trying to arrange the chess pieces on the board, the more I get frustrated he doesn’t just stand up and walk away.

So here we are, waiting till next March to see what happens next.  Will they pretend a lot of time has passed?  How will they account for the progress in everyone’s lives after the life-changing events of this week?  Presumably Janis will visit the sperm bank and come back three months pregnant.  Olivia will be taking care of Lloyd’s son and I assume Mark will still be around.  He’ll likely be already drinking, or just on the cusp of it.  No telling the progress of Aaron and his daughter, though they may already be heading out to Afghanistan with a flashback explaining how that came to be.  I’m not sure I really like this big a hiatus in a show that relies on its continuous storytelling, but nothing we can do about it.

So what is Simon’s group, really, and why did they cause the blackouts?  Honestly, at this point I have no idea.  It wasn’t an accident, and it doesn’t seem to be an evil mad scientist/overlord bent on world domination.  Obviously these people wanted to achieve something with the blackout-causing incident but I am having a hard time speculating on its purpose.  So the first test knocks the world out for 2-1/2 minutes, killing hundreds of thousands of people.  Presumably from paranoia alone if it happens again it might not kill quite so many people but what if next time it lasts longer?

Or is their motive something else?  Profit?  Ransom, threatening to hold the world hostage if all the governments don’t meet their monetary demands?  Or do they borrow a page from the old Twilight Zone textbook of the time-stopping watch and go around pilfering people’s pockets while they all sleep?  Or maybe their ultimate goal is to knock everyone out for enough time that they can go by and paint big mustaches with Magic Markers on everyone’s face in the world.  I have no idea.

Hopefully by the time the finale rolls around sometime next spring, we’ll have a better look.  Until then,

See you in a Flash!

Barry