FlashForward: Yahtzee!

Welcome back to FlashForward, and hopefully everyone had a great Thanksgiving! This Thursday, we’re back to a different kind of turkey. Oh, I kid! I’m going to get letters, I just know it…
We open on that crazy foreign lady that called Demetri about his death. She’s in a super-nice corner office with windows everywhere and she’s busy watching the original A Christmas Carol. Nice work if you can get it. She’s got her own clue board thing on the wall and she looks disturbed as the camera pans to the skyline just as the ominous words about the ghosts’ visits are spoken. Hmmm. A little flashforward/Ghost of Christmas Future parallelism anyone?

Meanwhile, FBI mavericks Mark and Demetri have just landed in Hong Kong. Mark says it should be easy to find the woman, who was identified as a Western-educated Iranian. This is somewhat embarrassing, as someone on this site may have identified her as French in an earlier recap and again in the first draft of this recap. Mark is ignoring calls from FBI Director when suddenly he’s approached by Marshall, who at first I believe to be a character I should know but have simply forgotten about. But it turns out he’s actually an FBI liaison in Hong Kong.

Marshall wins FlashForward Trivial Pursuit by knowing every fact ever about Demetri, then says he knows exactly who they’re looking for and where to get her. But he reminds them that they’re in China and things have been tense between the two countries, because I guess that wackjob Congresswoman believed that nutjob Congressman about the Chinese causing the Black-Out. Marshall says basically, they just need to get right back on a plane and GTFO.

But who’s been the protagonist for ten episodes, Mark or this Marshall guy? Mark says that unless they’re being arrested, they’re not listening, then answers FBI Director’s call. FBI Director is mad that they hopped a flight after a direct order, but Mark makes it clear that they’re staying and says that he lied to Demetri about getting permission. How sweet! Demetri is like the new Aaron! He’s going to grow a giant beard and get really self-righteous now. FBI Director hurls a book into his TV is a fit of rage (likely at the taxpayers’ monetary expense).

Jump to Palo Alto, where some creepy-looking guy is making a major announcement about the Black-Out. He’s the director of the National Linear Accelerator Project (with a face like that, what else could he have been?) and off to the side, Simon is being a total jerk to Lloyd about how he better not put his shame and guilt into this speech. Yeah, nothing like remorse to make the public dislike you even more! Stay the course! The Black-Out was a good idea! Mission accomplished!

Simon and Lloyd are here as a result of the Hundred-Year Poker Game, and as you may recall, because Lloyd won they’ve decided to come clean. Lloyd does a lot of technical talk that FlashForward nicely shows us on big screens around the world so there’s something to look at while we ignore the science talk, and the gist of his speech turns out to be that they were trying to recreate the Big Bang and then the Black-Out happened. Predictably, people get mad. Shocked reaction looks from pretty much everyone in the cast, and a cut-back to Simon looking angry at Lloyd and creepy NLAP Director looking angry in general. He just makes the creepy science, he doesn’t talk about it, damnit!

Simon grabs the podium and reminds everyone that there’s no way they could have known what would happen, so all those deaths weren’t really their fault. Mark and Demetri, watching from the square in Hong Kong, are more concerned this means the end of Mosaic and all of their random joyrides around the world each week. Back at NLAP the creepy guy tries to cut them off but Lloyd steps in and takes full responsibility again, saying they deeply apologize for all the deaths. A woman in the audience stands up and actually starts shooting at them, but guards drag her away before she can hurt Lloyd or Simon.

Simon yells at Lloyd for taking full responsibility for the Black-Out, saying that it can’t be empirically proven that is was even all their fault. He storms out, decreeing an “all-out war” between himself and Lloyd. Yikes, they may have to resort to Chinese Checkers or even Parcheesi to decide things from now on!

FBI Director wants the scientists to be brought in for debriefing, but it seems they’ve both disappeared. Janis remembers hearing the name ‘Dylan Simcoe’ while she was in the hospital and finds that he is Lloyd’s son. She tracks down the address and she’s off to lean on the mentally-retarded son who just lost his mom, and maybe Lloyd if he happens to be there, too.

Zoe calls Demetri’s parents and leaves a message, asking them “one last time” to come to the wedding. This smells like racial social commentary to me, TVgasm readers. She says that in her flashforward she saw them there on the beach, so hopefully it’s this message that will convince them to come. Nothing like a little time paradox to get the best of your in-laws! Also, it looked like almost everyone at her wedding in the flashforward was wearing white. Don’t they do that for FUNERALS in some Asian countries? Hmmmm…. My suspicions come closer to be confirmed when a random secondary character asks Zoe if she’s attending another random secondary character’s MEMORIAL SERVICE later that day. HMMMMMMM. Five bucks says she’s Asian and they’re all in white.

Mark and Demetri are wandering the streets near that festival that the audio guys heard, and Demetri says they should check out the few locations where one could purchase a Persian newspaper or Iranian cigarettes. But instead, Mark leads Demetri to a Persian restaurant because, as he says, “Persian woman. Persian food. Yahtzee.” 1.) Hilarious, Mark. 2.) Is she Iranian or Persian?

Bryce is adding a message to the Mosaic website for Keiko, but then gives up. He notices Janis “surveilling” him (I think it’s just ‘surveying,’ without the ‘l’s) across the lobby and refuses to give her Lloyd’s info, but does do an impromptu check in with her after the whole “getting shot” thing. She says she’ll probably just give up on hoping to have that baby, but Bryce says that according to her flashforward she needs to conceive beginning on January, so go grab a man. This particular pick-up line rarely works outside sci-fi shows, and I speak from experience.

Commentators on television are discussing how many people Lloyd and Simon theoretically killed and what the repercussions should be. FBI Director is watching until Simon himself shows up! The Director asks if he’s here to turn himself in, but Simon says even if they were responsible, he’s not sure it could be construed as a crime! Oh, FlashForward, you better give me some answers tonight before your giant hiatus.

Back to the intrigue. FBI Director says that Simon probably shouldn’t have publicly admitted guilt, but Simon reminds him that, as everyone knows, a poker game is legally binding. He further says that he wants access to the FBI Mosaic files so that he can help them solve the case, but FBI Director says that he’s never going to deputize him, despite his qualifications.

Simon says that they’ll never get more Mosaic funding when someone has admitted guilt, so FBI Director needs his help to get to the real cause of the Black-Out. I thought we were blackmailing the president with a secret family in order to get funding? That’s not the sort of thing one just forgets. But FBI Director reluctantly says that he will look into some things and see what he can do about giving Simon some power. It’s only taken half the season, but Dominic FINALLY has a substantial role and I’m FINALLY able to resist calling him Charlie.

Over at the hospital, Janis intercepts Lloyd and asks him to come with her, for both of their benefit. Lloyd says his chief priority is his son and so he’s not interested, but Janis correctly points out that both he and his son would be safer in FBI custody. Lloyd refuses to listen and marches away from Janis, who only sighs and makes a silent vow to be the one who runs away to Hong Kong next time. Oh, the taxing life of a supporting character in the FBI.

Over in China, Mark and Demetri have cornered the Persian restaurant owner and are asking about a woman that might sometimes eat here. Racial profiling, what problem CAN’T you solve? They play the audio clip for the guy, but because in addition to being Iranian and Western-educated the mystery woman also sounds like she’s up to three packs a day, the guy says he would have remembered that voice and he doesn’t know it. He goes to fetch some desserts and Mark and Demetri share a look, indicating that while regular slobs like us might believe him, trained pros know he’s lying. Demetri goes to guard the door. Frankly, I would have been too excited about the desserts to pay any attention to the guy I was questioning.

Mark asks the guy to sit and makes it clear that they really, REALLY need to know this lady. Also, Mark is going to f him up if he doesn’t give him some info. Then Mark starts to talk about some Iranian guy that the FBI took from his home because they believed he had info, and then locked up for two years. I’m not sure if this is a present tense threat toward the restaurant guy or a past-tense cautionary tale, but either way the guy sings like a canary. Her name is Nadra (look at my track record with names, this is just a spelling GUESS) and she does come in on weekends and almost every night. Yahtzee indeed.

Over at the FBI, Simon is looking at those Somalian photos from way back when and just generally being an ass. He zooms in on the towers and says he designed them, and they’re some weird laser science thing. But it’s not possible that the structure is real, because the whole thing is theoretical. It’s time for Janis to put the smackdown on Simon, and she informs him that the towers are, in fact, real. You designed them in ’92, you say? Well, these pictures were taken in ’91! BAM! Also, shouldn’t they have more recent photos than EIGHTEEN YEARS ago? Are they still planning FBI missions around that pesky Berlin Wall, too?

So Simon is freaking out that someone else could have come up with his same idea before him, and also thinks it’s logically impossible because anyone with this brilliant and innovative an invention would have wanted to share it and get credit. But this guy, as Janis puts it, “fetishized his own anonymity.” Why does this show randomly have the best quotes ever? I’m going to be saying ‘Yahtzee’ all week, as well as several hundred more times in this recap. So they show Simon the picture of D. Gibbbons, that crazy chess-playing nut that blew everything up, and say they think it was probably him. Because of the whole ‘insane recluse’ part. Simon says he’ll do whatever he can to find him, and adds in a bit about squeezing his testicles. I’m not here to judge, Simon, just recap.

Lloyd is talking to a doctor about his son, but the doctor just wants to yell at Lloyd for the Black-Out thing. Dr. Olivia FINALLY appears in this episode to intervene and get Dylan into a safe, private children’s hospital. Way to stay out of his life, Olivia. Though I can’t really get down on her for helping an autistic kid.

Over at the memorial service that sadly does not follow my Asian theory, Zoe looks over and sees a white flower identical to the one from her flashforward. Suddenly, she realizes I was totally right! Her vision was likely a preview of a memorial service for Demetri. Her tearing up and Demetri’s death are sort of ruining my basking in a correct prediction, so let’s move on. Feel free to congratulate me in the comments section at your leisure.

Mark and Demetri have found the lady, but fortunately for her she remembered to bring her gang of Asian thugs to dinner tonight. I can’t COUNT the number of times I’ve left mine just sitting on the TV when I go out. They spring up but she tells them to relax and Mark and Demetri walk over to her. She tells them that it was a very bad idea coming to her and they’ve already set things in motion, but Mark tells her to can the “action-movie cliches” (translation from writers: don’t notice how much we stole this scene from many generic action movies). They want answers!

The woman says that Demetri’s death is the first in a chain of events she wants to avoid, but if she says anymore then it could all happen anyway because she told them. They keep pressing her, so she finally admits that Demetri will know his killer. And HE’S SITTING AT THE TABLE RIGHT NOW! It’s Thug #3! No, just kidding. IT’S MARK! Gasp!

They ask her how she could possibly know, and she tells them only A561984, the serial number of Mark’s gun. She says she knows that it will be the gun that kills Demetri, and they must know she’s telling the truth due to their interrogation experience. Presumably, a reason for the shooting will make itself clear. Because he’s THE MOLE, perhaps?

Mark and Demetri flip the table over and grab Nadra, then run outside where the entire Chinese population is waiting with guns. How will our heroes get out of THIS one?

Marshall arrives with a SWAT team and wants to know what’s up with the gun to the lady’s neck. She has her men lower their guns at Marshall’s order, then he tells Mark to release her. The police move in and arrest Mark and Demetri. FBI Director is going to break like two more TVs, at least.

Dr. Olivia gives Lloyd the transfer papers and is being a real sport about this whole ‘mass murder’ thing. She says it was very brave of them to come clean and she really can’t blame them for just being stupid. She then turns the flirt on and says that she was supposed to go to Harvard the same year as Lloyd, and even live in the building next to his. No way, that’s where his wife lived! No way, they would have met and gotten married! Lloyd gives her that one theory about how every choice that can happen does happen, so in some other universe they met and got married. Way to creep her out, Simcoe. Also in some other universe, Mark has already ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and fed it to him.

Marshall has taken Mark and Demetri back to the airport, and they call him out on not being FBI. Turns out he’s CIA (gasp!) and everything is way bigger than they think it is. Also, does he want to hit him? Do it Mark! Make it happen in THIS universe! Just then FBI Director calls. He’s just seen the security tapes of Mark ‘n Demetri’s Adventures at the Persian Restaurant, and he wants to congratulate Mark for officially changing the future. Meaning, no more job for Mark. He hands over his badge and gun to Demetri, and then says he is also no longer FBI. Sadly, he fails to pop Marshall in the face.

Also, Nadra is meeting with the chess-playing nut! Gasp a third time!

Zoe has gone to visit Demetri’s mom, and says that she understands now. There’s no way she would ever support Demetri marrying one of ‘her kind’ (a lawyer, of course), but she would never miss her son’s funeral. His mom says she saw the genuine love that Zoe had and she wishes that the marriage was the future, but Zoe says that it can be. They can change the future. How does FlashForward make me care so much about a depressive FBI agent who might also be a traitor? Damn you, emotional storytelling!

Mark is watching the end of A Christmas Carol in the airport and reflecting on his loss of job, and Demetri apologizes for his termination. Mark says there is no way he’ll ever kill Demetri. I also regularly tell that to my close friends and family during the Holiday Season. Well, to my friends anyway.

Nicole, making an appearance with five minutes remaining, gives Bryce one of those creepy/lucky Japanese cat statues. He thanks her and as she hurries away so as not to take up valuable screen time. Janis shows up and asks Bryce how to get started with the baby, not liking penises and all. Bryce recommends a sperm bank for her and she heads out to get herself a White Christmas. Hey-oh! I have to work blue once in awhile.

Olivia and Lloyd are helping Dylan into the ambulance, but he’s struggling and seems distant. This should be the end of all Olivia/Lloyd contact, and she asks if he believes in that one theory he mentioned. He just strokes her hair and thanks her for her help, but then Dylan starts screaming because the ambulance guys clearly have no idea what they’re doing. Olivia calls over a security guard, but the ambulance guys draw guns (who didn’t see THIS one coming?) and plug him in the chest, then grab Lloyd and drive away! Olivia is left holding the screaming Dylan, and we’re left on hiatus until March 4.

Can you believe it? No FlashForward for three months? Did you expect more from the midseason finale? What’s going to happen to Mark? And Lloyd? And more importantly, what are we going to start doing on Thursday nights?