All right, FlashForward, your little ploy to re-interest me worked. You pulled back the melodrama and character-based revelations, and laid out some pretty detailed regular drama. Things begin with a literal bang, as the car Benford, Noh, Wedeck, and Vreede are in is attacked in a parking garage by an SUV of Asians with large weapons. And then we go back 39 hours.
Polygraph tests are being given to all agents. Congressional hearings are being held to appropriate funds to the search for the cause of the blackout, seen over by Senator Joyce Clemente, who has bad blood with Wedeck. Wedeck feels that this will be the death of the Mosaic Project, so he buddies up to the President of the United States in a game of pick-up basketball. The two are old friends, and the incident with Clemente has left a mark on their past as well.
At the hearing, psychedelic drugs are ruled out as a cause, though alien intelligence is not dismissed. One man seems to think China, due to their .5% fatality rate during the blackout, has something to do with it. He's given enough screentime to make it a possibility. Soon, Wedeck takes the podium, and Clemente immediately digs her nails into the possible frivolity of the Mosaic Project, and when he mentions that it's pretty much all based on the sketchy flash forward of Mark Benford, she demands that he be the one she talks to, which worries everyone.
As it happens, Mark does end of stammering his way through the thing unconvincingly, balking at a barrage of questions pondering the reason behind his wavering memory of his flash forward, which was because he was drunk, if they haven't beat that over the head enough. Wedeck storms out, frustrated with the goings on.
In what will end up being a very important plot element, Agent Gough gains access to 18 years of satellite coverage over Somalia. He and Agent Janis Hawk go through the sped up footage until they find the progressive construction of five large towers just outside of a thinly populated town in the desert. The towers are spaced out in the shape of a pentagon. Something tells me exact measurements separate each one. Surely this is going to be what seals the funding, right?
But that's not the only thing important happening with Janis. We find out she's a lesbian. She goes out on a very forward first date. Things really go well between Janis and Maya. They spend a night together. When Janis leaves the next morning, she comes back to find that Maya looked her up on the Mosaic Project and saw that Janis foresaw herself months into a pregnancy. Janis feels betrayed and ends things right then and there.
Meanwhile, Olivia Benford gets her security system fixed by Mark's AA sponsor, Aaron. There have been a couple of hints at Mark's sobriety thus far, and Olivia, after learning that Mark shared her flash forward with Aaron, asks if he thinks Mark will drink again. Aaron is vaguely comforting. Near the end of the episode, someone texts her to say that Mark was drunk in his flash forward, reassuring her fears. Her attempt to...text the guy back...reveals it was made from an unknown number. How awful to have to spend a few seconds of my time, after a billion and seven viewings of similarly predictable situations where the phone is used using vocal cords and robotic operators, we have to read about it.
Back to Wedeck and the President. The President reveals his flashback was of him in bed with his wife, and a presumed Secret Service agent running in saying something is wrong. Apologetic for the faults of their past, he offers Wedeck the position of Head of Homeland Security. There's a small amount of mystery as to what Wedeck does in the rest of the episode, and what he and Clemente refer to in a heated talk, but I'll just say it now. Wedeck paid $125,000 to one Renee Garrigos six years before, to get her out of town.
Now, pushed into a corner, Wedeck snags a photo of Renee and the President holding each other in a happy pose, and uses it as blackmail to get his funding the dirty way. So wait, a head of state that cheats on his wife? Ah, but maybe it's because it's an old, white model, and not the jazzy new one. Anyway, it boils down to Clemente, the White House candidate six years ago, having this information, and Renee's absence leaving her high and dry, thus the animosity towards Wedeck. She tells him (truth or not?) that she saw herself as President in her flash forward. And wait a minute, who was the President calling after Wedeck confidently left the Oval office?
Chances are, he called out the very un-ninja like assassins who attacked the agents' car in the opening minutes of the episode. The car is shot with a small missile, and explodes while all the guys are still saying, "Ohhh shiiiii.." yet they all soon pop out of nooks and crannies, guns blazing. I got the feeling that it conveyed the men fought with less forethought and fear than they might have without the belief of their flash forwards. Noh particularly, who just stands behind the car's flames and goes all Travis Bickle. All is fine for these guys, but what of Janis, who was speaking to Mark just as the car was 'sploded? She had her own attacker suddenly. After a brief handfight, they exchange shots, and Janis takes one in the side. She lays, bleeding out on the sidewalk, intercut with her flash forward, letting us know she's going to have a girl. She still had her eyes open during the fade-out, so she'll be back.
Good stuff, and done with less exposition, as the trend has been. They still have to get those same old descriptions of things in for new weekly viewers, but it's better. It just makes me yearn for Veronica Mars telling me what we already know. Next week looks juicy with big picture business. I'm still loyal as a viewer and reviewer. I like the subtle dropping of additional information added onto already established things, allowing new connections to be made. It's less obvious than in most shows, because misdirection isn't always its purpose. Anyway, that's that for another half a fortnight.
