It's an episode where we're asked not to laugh when Simon (Dominic Monaghan*) asks Lloyd (Jack Davenport) to play Texas Hold 'Em poker to decide whether or not they should tell the world their experiment resulted in the blackout that killed 20 million people. The script tried to make it feel weighty and dramatic, by equating it to Gods playing games to decide mortal's fates, but it just didn't wash. It was just a silly idea. Even worse, after Lloyd wins he immediately admitted that he cheated with sleight of hand, but Simon lets the win stand? Huh? Re-match, surely.
Aaron's (Brian F. O'Byrne) "dead" daughter Tracy (Genevieve Cortese) is back and very much alive -- though minus half a leg -- with a story about witnessing a US contract army called Jericho slaughter an Afghan village, prompting the blue-on-blue attack on her Humvee that forced her into hiding these past few years. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to guess that Jericho** are probably the burly soldier-types with three-star tattoos that Mark (Joseph Fiennes) and Dem (John Cho) spend this episode trying to catch, but FlashForward thinks that it does.
Questions of free will vs. determinism were bandied around, as the whole world has latched onto Al's suicide as irrefutable proof the future can be altered or avoided. But, y'know, some people still act like it can't be changed, or choose to believe that it can't, because otherwise there's no drama. Here, Mark decides to shoot a tattooed man he thinks may be one of the mask-wearing goons that stormed the FBI building in his flashforward; and Janis (Christine Woods) researched sperm donors to fulfill her prophecy, despite her injuries making childbirth nigh impossible.
It's becoming a struggle to review this show now. Interesting things do happen, but they're usually followed by something counteractively stupid. The premise is robust enough to keep me interested to see how things develop, but I'm beginning to hate how the FBI agents tend to be waiting around for leads to fall into their laps. And when they are actually investigating things through traditional means, it's never very plausible -- here, we're supposed to believe a monochrome security camera from the other side of a football stadium would have enough resolution for image experts to enhance details on a suspect's ring? No, sorry, even 24 would struggle to make that fly.
Still, most episode build towards a scene or moment to keep you on the hook like a dumb trout -- here, a bearded man received a box of rings and shot the delivery man dead. But there's a certain irritation about how FlashForward generally just reiterates the dilemma at the core of the show's premise ever week, in slightly different ways. I'm getting bored of this speculation about what the future will bring, and I'm not sure I care that much now -- particularly since Al has proven the future isn't fixed, and it seems very likely that this Jericho outfit basically used Simon and Lloyd's technology to black everyone out for a few minutes. I don't know why they'd do that, but that's my gut feeling right now. Maybe it was a weapons test to K.O enemies on the battlefield that went wrong, or the military tested a way to see the future in wartime and got more than they bargained for? Who knows. I just suspect that Simon and Lloyd aren't the real villains, they just feel culpable because they designed the "atomic bomb", so to speak.
Overall, FlashForward still has some merit to it, but it's incredibly inconsistent and frustrating a lot of the time. Mark must be one of the most vexing "heroes" on television, too; he only ever seems concerned for his marriage, which feels very selfish, until you remember that there isn't any other incentive to find the culprits behind the blackout for him. Sure, he wants to avoid his vision coming true -- but, hey, why not just avoid the FBI building on 29 April next year? The future can be changed, after all -- we know this with certainty now. As I suggested very early on in FlashForward's run, maybe if there was firm intel that another blackout was being planned, we could feel some the impetus behind this investigation as the clock ticks towards F-day.
16 November 2009
Five, 9pm
written by: Marc Guggenheim & Barbara Nance directed by: Nick Gomez 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), Dominic Monaghan (Simon), Ryan Wynott (Dylan Simcoe), Genevieve Cortese (Tracy Stark), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Ingrid Alvarez), Mark Famiglietti (Mike Willingham), Julio Oscar Mechoso (Detective Rick Malchiodi), Dominic Rains (Kahmir), Erika Ringor (Harriet), Creagen Dow (Billy), Cory Blevins (Neil Parofsky),Bo Kane (High Roller #1), Sam Ingraffia (Dealer), Kent Shocknek (Hansen) & Philip Palmer (Campbell)
* Lord knows how someone so peculiar-looking wooed Lost co-star Evangeline Lilly a few years ago, but I'm glad this means I have a shot with Yvonne Strahovski. Once I star in a blockbuster epic wearing furry feet and become world-famous. Are The Hobbit auditions still on..?
** Co-creator Brannon Braga loves his US private armies, as one featured heavily in 24's seventh season. If Jon Voight turns up as the mastermind behind all of this, we can lay creative insolvency at his door.
