FlashForward, 1x22, “Future Shock”

Episode Title: Future Shock
Writers: Timothy J. Lea and Scott M. Gimple
Director: John Polson
Originally Aired: 05/27/2010
Grade: A-

All things considered, I didn’t think this was a terrible finale. There were a few things that bothered me—namely the resolution to the Nicole/Bryce/Keiko triangle, which I’ll get to later—but overall, I thought this was fairly suspenseful and exciting (for this show, anyway), and I could finally see how the story could have continued past the first season.

I was upset a few episodes ago because I felt that having both Olivia and Zoey try to convince their men to abandon social responsibility in favor of family sent an unintentionally biased gender message. I think the writers redeemed themselves by having Janis choose to continue the mission with Simon and Demetri over going to the hospital to check on her baby. And speaking of Janis’s baby, it being a boy was actually sort of neat. For all we know, Dem might not have been the father in the flash-forward in which the baby was a girl, which could have an impact, and a baby’s sex is kind of a dice roll anyway, rather than something that’s influenced by our choices (although females are statistically more likely).

I was less pleased with what the writers did to poor Bryce. This episode and the previous one have managed to turn Bryce from a character I generally liked into a complete douchebag. If I’d been drinking something, I probably would have spit it out when he told Nicole, “I know it sounds crazy, but I love her.” Yes, Bryce, you sound positively delusional. You don’t love someone you’ve never actually met! You love the idea of her, and the fact that you’re still alive because a 137-second glimpse of meeting the woman for the first time interrupted your suicide attempt. You do not love Keiko, because you don’t even know Keiko.

I was equally disgusted by Nicole being rescued by her very own Bryce. Instead of believing that Bryce belonged with the beautiful, caring girl that he actually knew and had developed a meaningful friendship with, we’re supposed to buy that he was better off chasing after someone he “loved” but didn’t know, and as for poor Nicole, it’s all okay because hey, Nicole has Ed, who is probably just as stupid as Bryce. Riiiight. I’m a pretty romantic person—seriously, that 2005 Pride and Prejudice adaptation with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen makes me all swoony—but the resolution to the Nicole/Bryce/Keiko storyline didn’t make me swoony; it made me nauseous.

But back to things I did like: Simon and Dem ending up at NLAP together! Because they’re the only main character who didn’t see the future in the premiere. With everyone else, I had at least some idea of where their stories were going. With Simon and Demetri, I was completely in the dark, which created some nice tension.

Simon didn’t manage to stop the blackout, but he seemed to be trying to change something, and I’m guessing he succeeded. Perhaps he pushed the flash-forward further into the future than intended, or perhaps people saw flashes from multiple points in time—2015 was featured prominently, but we also saw what looked like Demetri and Zoey getting married, which I’d assume would happen before 2015.

And finally, Mark was caught between a fiery explosion and a hovering helicopter that was poised to go down when the blackout hit. For him to survive, the people in the helicopter would have to be wearing QED rings. That seems a likely scenario given that an unconscious Janis was wheeled away by Hellinger’s QED-wearing lackey.

Other Stuff

-Oh hey look, Tracey is alive… and wow, that storyline really went nowhere, at least this season. Maybe it would have gained some momentum next season if the show hadn’t been cancelled.

-When Olivia and Lloyd starting kissing around 9:40 and then it cut away to another scene, I remembered that they were both in their undies in their flash-forwards and started praying that they wouldn’t decide they had time for a 15-minute quickie. I’m beyond thrilled that the writers didn’t go there.

-I couldn’t make much sense of Mark code-breaking with the red thread, but I really didn’t try too hard.

-Mark’s shootout with the masked gunmen was very FPS. So much so that I’d have a hard time believing it wasn't an intentional homage to that video game genre.

-It was probably accidental and perhaps unavoidable, but the editing made it seem like time stopped while the world was unconscious, as if the bomb politely waited until the blackout was over to finish exploding.

FlashForward, 1x21, “Countdown”

Episode Title: Countdown
Writers: Lisa Zwerling and Seth Hoffman

Director: John Polson

Originally Aired: 05/20/2010
Grade: B+

I was initially annoyed that Mark was pathetic enough to give in to the drinking aspect of his flash-forward, but then again, I’ve never been cursed with seeing my future. Who knows, I might be all, “Fuck it, fate—you win,” too.

I started out ambivalent about Zoey, but these post-hiatus episodes have definitely made me dislike her. The writers tried to make her conversation with Dem about the baby daddy Somalia fiasco somewhat nuanced—she was more upset that he didn’t share her faith that he’d survive the 15th than she was that he’d slept with Janis—but I still came out of it feeling annoyed with her.

The logical part of me knows that’s fucked up, because I think any woman would be upset at finding out her fiancé fathered his first child with another woman (lesbian or not) while they were together. And yet my irrational side feels like she should have been able to recognize that a) what happened between Janis and Dem was biology, not chemistry, and b) Zoey and Dem are not one, singular individual. He’s allowed to feel differently about things than she does, especially when he was the one who was supposed to be murdered. I know she got slapped in the face with something completely unexpected, so really, her saying, “I’m going away by myself to sort through this shit, and then we’ll see” is perfectly reasonable. And yet I still hate her!

And I’m also thrilled that with her in Hawaii, the chances of them getting back together in the next episode are slim. The show is canceled, so I can happily spin my own tale in which they don’t get back together and he finds a non-lesbian version of Janis who totally gets along with the real Janis. Yay!

Not only did this episode cement my (probably irrational) dislike of Zoey, it also made me start to dislike Bryce, whom I’ve never had much of a problem with, Keiko-obsession aside. And of course, it was the Keiko obsession that undid him for me.

Yes, Nicole not telling Bryce that Keiko was in an immigration detention center was a bit selfish. I mean, how dare she deprive Bryce of his obsession?! The way Bryce talked to Nicole, it was like he somehow thought that if Nicole had let him know Keiko was being detained, he would have magically been able to get her out. Seriously, it came off like he thought that Nicole had left her in there to rot when she had the means to get her out. Which she didn’t. I'm sure that from Bryce's point of view, the only reason Keiko was in L.A., and thus rounded up by ICE, was to find him, and okay, so that assumption would actually be correct, but Keiko would have been detained whether Bryce was able to get in to see her or not.

Also, Bryce knows that Nicole saw herself getting drowned in her flash-forward, so him ditching her was even more of a dick move than Nicole wanting to keep Bryce to herself. How’s he going to feel if she turns up dead on April 30th? Somehow I don’t think he’d just be like, “Whatever, that selfish bitch deserved it for keeping me from my beautiful Japanese true love Keiko, whom I technically just met.”

I’d be worried about the tragic fate of Tracy and Aaron, but they saved that “Tracy diiiiied” scene for the very end, which indicates to me that she’ll miraculously revive in the first few minutes of the finale. That’s generally how these things work, right?