It’s hard to quantify why I have such love for Flash Forward. On the one hand they’re offering up another show full of mysteries that I know can’t be solved immediately. But then again the show doesn’t appear to be interested in stringing the viewer along with brand new, seemingly irrelevant, theories and ideas. Instead each new revelation is actually an answer to the bigger question about the flash forward, while simultaneously opening up new avenues for the investigation to go.
Tonight’s episode of Flash Forward was remarkable for a few smaller reasons. It’s the episode full of little touches, but you’re left feeling slightly unsatisfied afterwards. Not that this should be a condemnation of this style of program. On the contrary, it’s a bit like being an adult and able to buy some Halloween candy ahead of the holiday. You get a taste of the big event yet to come on your own terms.
I’m increasingly convinced that events in the flash forwards can be changed, but that to do so will require extraordinary means. As the story lines evolve we continue to see that no matter what, this future is coming to be. Dylan’s “escape” from the hospital to go to the home he’ll have in the future put all of the family players together finally. It also put fully into motion a series of events that will lead to an eventuality that has been observed during the blackout.
And that’s where the opening bit with Dominic Monaghan comes in. That wasn’t throw away character development filler. Oh no, all of that 8th grade science talk (the double slit experiment? Come on, we were doing that as kids) has a deeper meaning in the show. And I think that what this episode set up was the dual eventualities of everyone’s future. The act of seeing the future has made that future a reality, but it doesn’t have to be.
We don’t have any more of the rules of how this works, but I’m confident that the pieces that’ll lead to altering what people saw during their flash forward will show themselves in the coming weeks. Everyone is busy now trying to avert the future, or continue along to make it happen. In either case they are doing the things that will make the vision a reality simply because that’s what they witnessed.
Extraordinary measures are going to be taken, and that means Flash Forward has its claws deep inside me.
