FlashForward: Refusing to Show Their Cards

The synopsis of this episode of FlashForward could arguably be written in a couple of sentences.  It would probably read something along the lines of “Agent Benford and his wife, Olivia, continue to test the reality of their futures so Mark offs a guy because he doesn’t like his tattoo.  Aaron hangs out with his paranoid dead daughter.  Simon and Lloyd play a friendly game of Texas Hold’Em throwing around meaningless millions.  Producers are confused and can’t make decisions.” This sort of review, however, wouldn’t do much good for a reader’s purposes and probably wouldn’t reflect well on the limited supply of creativity I continue to try and convince myself that I possess.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to discuss the weekly events when the events are coming on more of a bi- or tri-weekly basis.  At this point, it might be easier to discuss hypothetical reruns of the 1990 ABC flop Cop Rock.  Seriously guys, tell me with a straight face that watching a judge sing a final verdict wouldn’t cause some severe laughter. (Move over Glee, Cop Rock is coming to town) Unless Agent Benford wipes off that depressingly EMO stare he has made so famous and starts singing about his future in the booze cabinet, I’m going to start running out of entertaining material.

There were two and a half occurrences that were actually relevant for future episodes of FlashForward that we learned about this week.  First off we are introduced to Aaron’s daughter, Tracy (Genevieve Cortese) whom he believed to be killed in a military-related blast whilst at war.  We also learn about her conspiracy fueled story, believing the government (Or rather a secret ops unit called Jericho) to be involved in the shooting down of her vehicle because of the fact that she witnessed the same group slaughter innocent civilians in Afghanistan.  We can only hope that the producers decide to keep military opinions to a minimum with this new storyline.  Not only is Jericho connected to her shooting (I feel like we still don’t completely know Tracy’s story yet.  There’s something a little strange about her, and I’m not talking about the fact that she’s hopping all over the place on her one remaining leg), but apparently they are still trying to track her down to finish the job.

The second important, and I must admit, shocking revelation that the team has come to is that a mole in the division is tipping off the people who Benford and the rest of the group is after.  It’s difficult to really say who the mole could be, but here’re my two best guesses:

1. Agent Wedeck – The guy clearly has the worst excuse for a flash forward.  I think I would rather see nothing, implying that I might be dead, than watch myself on the bowl.  Either he’s lying or in a few episodes, Wedeck is going to be dealing with a bad case of aging bean burritos.  We can only cross our fingers…
2. Demetri – Again, he very well could be lying about his flash forward.  Especially since his fiancée watched them being married in her flash forward.  I’m pretty sure when the blackout occurred in episode one, he didn’t wake up next to Mark despite being right next to him during the crash.

I can’t honestly bring myself to include Janis because she got shot and that would be a pretty terrible, although committed, cover.  I don’t want to include Mark, because if he is involved then I will ultimately lose all imaginative respect for the writers and the show in general.  And besides them, I just don’t think we have enough information about any other person to include on this list so far.  However, I would place a month’s rent that we will soon add to this list.

And finally comes the half event that I would consider significant in any way.  The poker game between Lloyd and Simon is embarrassingly irrelevant, filled with pointless gab and artificial cockiness from Simon.  The important thing that comes out of this interaction, though, is that Lloyd wins the showdown (And for some reason leaves the money – Boy, do I wish that I was that dealer.  What are the odds he went and walked off with those millions right after flicking off every coworker and boss he had? I’m saying high) and thus the agreement with Simon to go public that they ‘may’ have caused the blackout because of their ‘experiment’.  We shall see…

Overall, the week was slow, but I’m managing to keep the faith that episodes in the near future will do well by us all.  Stay tuned.

Season 1, Episode 8: Playing Cards with Coyote (originally aired November 12, 2009)

For more on FlashForward, click here.

Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC and Ron Tom