FlashForward: No, We Couldn’t

It’s no wonder FBI Director always looks so mad!We open in Washington, where our fearless FlashForward investigating team has apparently had a highly unsuccessful mission. They’re talking about how this has been a waste of their time (damn you for dropping us in the middle like this, FlashForward! I just can’t stand the dramatic irony!) and when they finally get into the car they are immediately sideswiped by another car.

But this is more than just random negligence, readers. Three guys jump out with guns. So, these are either members of the Asian mafia or FlashForward fans concerned that we have too many characters. One of them makes a strong case for the latter by using a freaking ROCKET LAUNCHER to blow up the car, presumably killing Mark, Demitri, and the FBI Director. Main titles.

FlashForward then pulls a “39 Hours Earlier” trick and takes us back to the team’s arrival in Washington. Remember how Alias used to do this and it was really cool, and then they started to do it every single week so that Jennifer Garner was constantly getting maimed before the opening credits? Man, that was a good show.

Anyways, Washington has decided to give lie detector tests to the team to verify that they were telling the truth about their flashforwards. I guess this seems like a good step, but maybe a little late? And not, say, BEFORE they decided to let Mark head up the investigation force and run rampant with the FBI budget? So Mark gets to tell his flashforward story AGAIN (I bet he’s the worst guy to be stuck with at a party) and we also get the flashforward of the black guy who is not FBI Director or Ray, but also apparently on this show now. He was at work alone and then left the office. RIVETING.

Aaron has a phone call with Mark and encourages him to look into AA meetings in Washington, which Dr. Olivia accidentally overhears. Why does she looked so shocked? Shouldn’t that make her happy?

FBI Director is playing basketball with a guy bearing an extreme resemblance to Tom Delay, who in my favorite/least favorite moment of the episode describes the Mosaic hearings as “Congress masturbating to the sound of its own voice.” Really gives new meaning to the term ‘caucus,’ I guess. FBI Director asks Tom Delay to push to get him more funding, but when he hears who’s chairing the investigations he goes dramatically silent. Hmmm, sordid backstory, anyone?

Janice, in her personal quest to develop a personality, kicks some guy’s ass in a martial arts dojo. He attempts to ask her out on a date (because I guess nothing turns him on like submission) but that would require too many facial expressions for her and so she refuses.

Back at the bureau, Ray delivers the satellite images of Somalia that he presumably hacked from the CIA website. He and Janice go over the whole thing about the crows for those of you that missed the last few episodes or my fabulous recaps.

Cut back to Washington again. The press conference is beginning, and America gets a little blast from the past when it sees the president portrayed by an old white guy who is not a socialist. Kidding! But seriously, a white guy as president? Why is our culture always such a lofty dreamer?

So FBI Director has a stare down with the president, and I’m guessing this is where the whole “sordid past” thing comes into play. He talks about central committees for flashforward fall-out and electing a new Veep, and then someone asks him about his own flashforward. Apparently all world leaders have decided not to share their flashforwards, but a little third-person omniscient action reveals to us viewers that he had a vision of being woken in the night because something was happening. FBI Director continues to look disturbed.

Back at the ranch, Dr. Olivia is talking to Aaron. She’s worried about Mark traveling and possibly drinking, and she wants to know if he’s been hitting the sauce. She knows that his willpower tends to weaken when he’s traveling and tired, but Aaron thinks she has nothing to worry about. He further reclaims his own “do what you gotta do” TERRIBLE advice/consolation award by reminding Dr. Olivia that Mark is an alcoholic, so he needs no special occasion to go Borneo. Shockingly, this does not improve her mood. He mutters something else about just having to trust him. I say this as someone highly socially inept myself, but Aaron is a terrible person to talk to.

Time for a little background with Mr. President. He feels bad for the way things previously went down with FBI Director, but thinks maybe this is the time to make everything better. He wants to make FBI Director the DIRECTOR OF HOMELAND SECURITY. So, wait, is that post just currently vacant? Was the previous Director forced into resignation following the flashforward aftermath? I feel like there might have been a story there, too.

Oh, hey, Janice is gay. This is revealed casually at a dinner with this other girl, whom we learn a.) is a chef b.) had a flashforward in which she is wearing a wedding ring and c.) is on a date with Janice. So I guess Janice’s flashforward is a smidge more shocking. Janice is actually displaying personality (I know! I was shocked too!) and she and her mystery woman are sufficiently adorable.

Back in Washington, Senator Joyce Clemente (FBI Director bad blood) is holding a hearing to get to the bottom of the flashforwards, and proposed ideas include aliens, chemicals, and the Chinese. What are three things you should try to avoid? Hi-oh! Continuing the themes of extreme exposition, Senator Clemente approaches FBI Director during a break and asks how he sleeps at night, after what he did to “that poor girl” and claims that if she could have proved it she would have been president. Also, she saw herself as president in her flashforward. This is one scary bitch, TVgasm readers. And what could FBI Director have done to some random girl? That could possibly be more shocking than things that politicians do to random girls every day?

At the hearing, FBI Director explains Project Mosaic, but Clemente slams them for their unorthodox approach. She wants to hear from Mark himself, if he does indeed make up Mosaic’s entire foundation. Clemente is still a bitch, but this is not an unreasonable request.

Janice is making breakfast with her new girly, and they’re still making out and stuff. Jesus, Janice, you don’t need to make up for four episodes of blandness all at once.

Mark tells them about the two awake guys, and also the “crow attrition.” Which would be an excellent name for a rock band. They start to grill him about his actual flashforward, and Clemente continues to be a bitch about why Mark thinks he’s even going to be successful, and then ridicules the part about the gunmen. I wish actual politics was this exciting; whenever I turn on C-SPAN they’re hearing from the secretary of some regional wildlife preserve or the founder of a local citizen’s organization or something.

The FBI beta team finds out about Janice’s date, but she asks that they resume work on the satellite images. And then they see that crazy giant tower thing! Go Janice, go! I know you’re not great with phallic items, but you can do this!

Back on Joyce Clemente’s $25,000 Pyramid Game, now she wants to know who Mark might have possibly been speaking on the phone with in his flashforward. Maybe. And now she’s mad that he only has weird flashes of visions and not a linear and clear structure. Cause he was hitting the booze, you uptight bitch! Not wanting to enter his alcoholism into the official record, he just sort of awkwardly shifts around. Clemente’s denouncement of the FBI’s “voodoo” tactics drives FBI Director to storm out of the room, which kind of makes me feel bad for saying basically the same things about the FBI’s careless tactics for four recaps.

Janice calls them up and shows them the towers in Somalia. They were built right around the time of the crow blackout and they were all done secretly and by hand. This is a damn good lead, so it’s too bad you’re all getting rocket-launchered at the end of this episode.

The Pyramid Game is over and we’re back on Janice’s Dating Show. She meets her girl at an art gallery and her girl (does she have a name yet? How do I keep missing these?) tells her that she Mosaic-stalked her and doesn’t know how the whole Janice-getting-pregnant thing is going to work. But MIA thinks that she’ll be great, so it’s no problem. Janice, however, is freaked out that Mia is getting up in her business and also that she’s been displaying so much emotion in a thirty-minute period. She wants to break up. Heartbreaker!

FBI Director has a secret family. The twists just keep coming!

Now he’s back in the Oval Office with the president. He’s got a picture of the Pres with that girl, so I guess it’s actually Mr. Not Barack with the secret family. FBI Director will continue to keep quite about the girl as long as the President keeps Clemente off his back, and they make a deal.

The rest of the team is hanging at a karaoke bar, and Demetri is getting wasted because he knows he only has a few months to live. He and that other unnamed guy are singing drunken karaoke when FBI Director shows up and yells at Mark for doing a terrible job on the stand. Mark reveals that he was crazy drunk in his flashforward, and FBI Director is even more angry that Mark let everything ride on a drunken vision. Oh, man, if I had a nickel. But then he grabs a shot and calls a toast. They’re going to get their funding after all.

Dr. Olivia is having problems with her new alarm system when she gets a text. Mark was drinking in his flashforward! Uh, what? She tries to text back, but the number is blocked. That was pretty crazy.

Senator Clemente has been nominated to the Vice Presidency. An old white guy with a woman as the VP? This show gets crazier every week.

We’re back to the Asians with the rocket launcher. Mark had been on the phone with Janice, and as soon as the car blows up two Asian guys also attack her on the street. She takes one down in a pretty badass way, but then a second one shoots her in the side. As she’s going down, she pulls her own gun and takes him down. This has been quite the breakout episode for Janice! Lesbian sex AND an Asian gang? It’s like she’s in the world’s worst porn film.

Ah, but fear not! Our intrepid heroes managed to leap from the car mere seconds before the explosion, and they come out with guns blazing. There’s a big gunfight set to “Like a Rolling Stone,” which would not be out of place in a Tarantino film. The Asians manage to speed away, and Janice lies dying in the street, confused because she had a flashforward.

That? Was a good episode. Is Janice gone for good, just when I was really starting to like her? Why are these Asians going crazy? Is this really a ploy by the Chinese like weirdo Senator thought? How did Inglorious Basterds rank among other Tarantino films? And, uh, where THE HELL was Charlie???