The crux of the episode concerned a political hearing in the Senate about the government's response to the blackouts, chaired by Senator Joyce Clemente (Barbara Williams), a derisive skeptic who has a bad relationship with Agent Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) and ridicules his office's "Mosaic Project" and wants block the multi-million dollar funding his team need to continue their investigation. It doesn't help that the expensive undertaking is based solely on the flashforward that Benford (Fiennes) experienced; full details of which he can't remember because he was inebriated at the time, although to admit as much would damage his credibility even further.
We also get to meet President Dave Segovia (Peter Coyote*), who has a close relationship with Wedeck because he aided his succession to the presidency by covering up an indiscretion with a woman called Renee Garrigos six years ago (paying her $125,000 and getting her out of town). Wedeck's efforts got Segovia into the Oval Office, to the chagrin of his competitor Senator Clemente, hence her animosity toward Wedeck. In a fun dramatic turn, Wedeck decides to play dirty to keep Mosaic up-and-running, so he tracks down Renee and blackmails the President with photographic evidence of their affair, and forces Segovia to push his financing through the Senate.
In supporting stories, the Mosaic investigation gets hold of 18-months worth of satellite footage over Somalia (supposedly the scene of a blackout test in 1991), and they notice the sudden construction of five bizarre towers in the desert. I wonder if those towers are still there? Hopefully a trip to Africa is in order. It seems likely these towers sent out some kind of "pulse" that causes blackouts, so were towers used in 2009's global blackout or has the technology progressed beyond their need?
The main character-based storyline focused on Agent Janis Hawk (Christine Woods), whom we learn is a closeted lesbian engaged in a healthy relationship with a woman called Maya (Navi Rawat). Suddenly, Janis' bewilderment that her flashforward showed her heavily pregnant getting an ultrasound makes more sense. Maya herself discovers the truth of her girlfriend's vision by searching the Mosaic online database, and the couple ponder what it could mean for their relationship. Do they decide on artificial insemination? Or does Janis have a drunken fling with the hunk at her martial arts class?
The whole episode was actually a flashback to 39 hours earlier, as the teaser showed Mark, Wedeck and Demetri (John Cho) being attacked in their car by a gang of Chinese assailants carrying sub-machine guns and RPGs. The story actually did a very good job of making you forget this attention-grabbing teaser, so by the time of its encore at the end of the episode, it still came as a surprise. It was just a shame the director (Prison Break's Bobby Roth) thought it necessary to totally undercut the drama by playing a karaoke tune over the top!
Still, I found it slyly amusing that the CIA earlier blamed the Chinese for the blackout (as they only suffered 0.5% fatalities, as most of their population were asleep), and while that seemed an utterly ridiculous, xenophobic theory... this episode later gave us Chinese assailants as the show's first boogiemen. Even stranger, they may have been sent to assassinate Wedeck on the orders of the President, no? But perhaps not, because some Chinese men also attack Janis in the street, leaving her shot and bleeding out on the road, as a novelty alarm clock gift from Maya painted circles in her blood. Would the President have ordered a hit on all of Wedeck's team? That doesn't seem likely to me, so I'm more inclined to believe someone within the government heard about Wedeck's funding success and sent in the heavies. Maybe Senator Clemente? It was also fun to hear that her flashforward showed her as President -- but was she lying to unsettle Wedeck, or is she a more dangerously ambitious character than we expect?
Overall, "Gimme Some Truth" was definitely the best episode of FlashForward yet, certainly in terms of giving us juicy drama that felt compelling and pushed the story along in a fresher way. Maybe there's a correlation with the fact the Benfords were somewhat along for the ride, with Courtney B. Vance and Christine Woods shouldering most of the narrative. The latter was especially good, making Janis far more plausible, interesting and likeable away from the office -- where she was just the cute, practical, power-suited FBI chick cliché. Oh yes, and a mystery texter reveals to Olivia that her husband was drunk in his flashforward -- and the only person who knew that was Wedeck, yes?
There could be hope for this series yet; I'm actually excited about the next episode. Did everyone else get a kick out of this?
26 October 2009
Five, 9pm
written by: Dawn Prestwich & Nicole Yorkin (story by Barbara Nance) directed by: Bobby Roth starring: Joseph Fiennes (Agent Mark Benford), John Cho (Agent Demetri Noh), Brian F. O'Byrne (Aaron Stark), Courtney B. Vance (Agent Stanford Wedeck), Sonya Walger (Dr. Olivia Benford), Christine Woods (Janis Hawk), Barry Shabaka Henley (Agent Vreede), Lee Thompson Young (Agent Al Gough), Omid Abtahi (Bureau Agent), Talia Balsam (Surgeon General Anita Ralston), Emerson Brooks (Connelly), Michael Cavanaugh (SETI Chairman Warren Moore), Peter Coyote (President Dave Segovia), Nilson De Macena (Tae Kwon Do Instructor), Scott Kelly Galbreath (Jim), Mieko Hillman (Renee Garrigos), Frank John Hughes (Press Secretary), Christopher Mack (Little Boy with Renee), Micole Mercurio (Maureen), Michael O'Neill (Director Keller), Navi Rawat (Maya), Mel Rodriguez (Oscar Obregon), Amy Rosoff (Marcie), Michael J. Silver (Randy), Glynn Turman(Senator Noland), Michelle Tuzee (Broadcaster) & Barbara Williams (Senator Clemente)
* Best known as the dad in E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial; the suburbs of which look suspiciously similar to those being used as the Benford's neighbourhood to me.
