Flash Forward ep5
Nov. 1st, 2009 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slowfoxWe get all political in this ep as the bulk of action ('cept for the girl-on-girl kissage action) decamps to Washington DC.
The FBI team, led by Stan, are trying to fight for continued funding for the Mosaic project, but are having to convince a highly sceptical senator who seems to have some personal history with Stan which isn't doing them any favours. Mark is called up to the witness stand as part of proceedings, and his inquisitors seem unimpressed with the vagueness of his recall of his Flash Forward.
When confronted by Stan later, Mark confesses that the lack of clarity is due to his being drunk at the time, which is unfortunate for Stan because he's put his entire career on the line on the basis of Mark's flash forward, and is now wondering whether he's been a bit premature in playing his ace against the President to call in a favour.
Y'see, Stan's got some dirt on the Pres, and turns down the opportunity to head up the Department of Homeland Security to pursue Mosaic... not at that time realising that he was basing his decision on a drunk man's 2'17" of staring at a noticeboard.
As part of the deal for continued funding of Mosaic, the President appoints the adversarial Senator as his Vice-President, which is slightly chilling, because in the Senator's flash forward, they see themselves as President. Yet we've also seen the President's flash, and surely he can't die and his successor be installed in the space of 137 seconds?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we learn that Janis is a lesbian, which would be fine if she didn't have to then chew through some of the most awful script with her date for the evening... that whole date/morning after set of scenes was toe curlingly bad for the complete implausibility of it all (c'mon, an FBI agent leaves her brand new date alone in her apartment the morning after their first night together, and practically begs her to go through all her stuff to check out her history in her absence?). OTOH, we do see that Janis can more than handle herself with demonstration of her martial arts proficiency,and she finds some incriminating looking towers in Somalia, scene of the earlier 'crow attrition' in '91.
I like Janis (not just because she's cute and geeky... honest) - I don't think her relationship with.. was it Maya? ... was portrayed at all convincingly, but she's still pretty cool and competent, so I hope that we get to learn more about her as the series continues. I also rather like Stan, with the pretty heavy insinuations in this episode that he's got more than a few skeletons in his closet, and Demetri's cool - except when singing karaoke.
Mentioning the karaoke, there's a firefight shortly afterwards where the soundtrack echoes the music from the bar, and that's kinda neat. One also wonders whether - Demetri aside - the others knowing that they're all alive 6 months from now means that they're prepared to take slightly more risks that would seem prudent in a gunfight. Just saying that if it'd been me inside a car that was attacked by RPG, I'm not sure I'd have made it out.
The ep ends with Janis in peril, and her girlfriend's present of a wheeled alarm clock drawing spirograph patterns on the tarmac with her blood.
This is still a looooong way from quality TV,but I'm also subscribed to, why, yes, another dog-walking podcast, FlashForcast.com, and listening to the people there analyse, hypothesise and criticise the show does get me a little more into proceedings.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-05 08:32 am (UTC)Yes, the perfect date was a little odd for it being their first date, when Janis is coming out with all these heavy lines. But I really like Janis, all the same, and she was pretty awesome in both the martial arts scene and the closing scene of the ep. :-)
Yeah, the discussion I've heard about this ep and the dual presidents was that in the current pres' flash forward, he was being told of... perhaps a court ruling that revoked his presidency, and obviously the same events were unfolding in his counterpart's flash forward with the corresponding perspective.
It still bugs me though that no one in the flashforward seems to be getting deja vu.
This is definitely something of a paradox, and I think it boils down to fate vs free will. Was it the future or a future that we saw?
Surely, now, everyone on planet Earth is going to be on tenterhooks at 6am/10pm/whenever on 29 April 2010?
Also, if the assassins after Mark in his Flash Forward are involved in The Bad Stuff, then surely they knew that by attempting to kill him at that precise moment...OH!!!!!
How about this? Lloyd, who is in some kind of platonic relationship with Olivia whilst also being involved in The Bad Stuff, realises that a hit's been put out on Mark, so he's on the phone in his Flash Forward to someone to trigger another blackout on 29 April that sends shockwaves back in time to warn Mark his life is in danger?
FF5
Date: 2009-11-05 01:03 pm (UTC)I've had more thoughts about the first date: it occurs to me that they were both going to the same martial arts class. So it's entirely possible that they've known each other for months, gradually got to become good friends, slowly realised how good they are together, then had to get over the that arkward hurdle of outing themselves to each other and then determining if it is a mutual attraction and only then been able to arrange an 'official' first date.
Looked at in that light it's entirely more plausible that the first date would be quite heavy. Not to mention why it broke the golden 'no sex until the third date' rule.
Loving the 'revoking the presidency' idea, perfectly solves the paradox.
... How about this? Lloyd, who is in some kind of platonic relationship with Olivia whilst also being involved in The Bad Stuff, realises that a hit's been put out on Mark, so he's on the phone in his Flash Forward to someone to trigger another blackout on 29 April that sends shockwaves back in time to warn Mark his life is in danger?
Ooo, liking this too. The reason Olivia's all glowing and happy is that she now knows that Mark will be safe and that she didn't betray him with Lloyd. Mmm, would like to think so, happy marriages disintegrating are just too depressing!
Re: FF5
Date: 2009-11-05 01:56 pm (UTC)Excellent point... although if they're so careful about coming out, who come they exchange kisses over dinner in the restaurant (other than to get ratings for the show?)?
I'm still spooling my Lloyd triggers a flash backward, not forward thing in my head... would he really risk so much death and destruction upon people simply to save Mark? Probably not :-/ But for a while there I was prepared to run with that concept...
Re: FF5
Date: 2009-11-05 02:09 pm (UTC)I do get the feeling that the flashforward will happen again, maybe in a more localised fashion?
Re: FF5
Date: 2009-11-05 02:20 pm (UTC)As you say, the fact that people aren't expecting the events they foresee is a bit of a paradox...