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FlashForward

Episode Report Card

Sobell: B | 1466 USERS: B-

YOU GRADE IT

Well, Hello, Dollies

By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 2009.10.01

In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

To say that some people are not adjusting well to a post-flash universe would be an understatement. Eighteen agents have resigned from the FBI, the National Guard's come in and begun assisting in the clean-up of Los Angeles, and Charlie's tried to go AWOL at school because she refuses to share her flashforward with anyone.

Olivia meets Lloyd Simcoe, the man of her vision, and both of them lie about never having clapped eyes on one another (his flash is somewhat different than hers, but in both he's shirtless and hanging out in stately Benford Manor). Then Charlie reveals that she saw Dylan in her flashforward, and yet another sign of a pending Simcoe/Benfield merger reveals itself.

Deirdre Gibbons is the D. Gibbons of Benford's flashforward. She comes into the FBI because her flashforward specifically name-checks both Mark and Demetri. Since Demetri is vested in the idea that the flashforwards aren't to be trusted, he's fairly hostile to any and all leads in this investigation, including the cupcake-bearing Didi. His skepticism appears well-founded, as Didi is somehow linked to a person of interest in Pigeon, Utah, via a cloned copy of a credit card. So Noh and Benford head out to Utah to find the person of interest, while away the time debating the merits of predestination, and notice a warehouse which ties in nicely to the burned doll of Benford's flashforward.

While investigating the warehouse, they notice a really creepy staircase decorated with dolls all strung up in nooses, then head into a room where some total nutjob attempts to blow them up. Said nutjob does a respectable job of it, too, deploying all kinds of elaborate homemade explosives and killing the local officer who was tagging along with Demetri and Mark. (She had matter-of-factly told the men that she didn't have any flashforward, so that's just more fuel for the I'm-a-dead-man-walking dread Demetri's trying to ignore.)

The net benefit of this incident: the melted-doll photo is now in existence. And it occurs to Demetri and Mark that maybe other people are investigating the flashforward too. And thanks to the melted cell phone retrieved from the doll factory ruins, Janis is able to determine that their "D. Gibbons" (note: not the cupcake maker) made a call 30 seconds into the flashforward -- and he called the dude who was wandering around Comerica Park.

Later that evening -- or early that morning -- Janis talks Demetri into posting his lack of a flashforward on Mosaic, asking for information pertaining to his death, and within moments, Shoreh Aghdashloo has called and she tells him, "I'm sorry -- there's no delicate way to say this, but on March 15, 2010, you're going to be murdered." (Although since it's Shoreh Aghdashloo delivering the bad news, the blow is softened considerably by dint of being delivered in a velvety purr.)

And finally -- a moment of levity in the show! FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance admits that his flashforward involves him chillaxing in a bathroom stall, then goes on to admit that the flashforward hit when he was also in the bathroom, and when he came to, he had to haul a colleague out of the urinal and give the poor guy mouth-to-mouth. I'm thinking the "B" stands for "-biotics, anti, get on some right away, sir." Also, Vance gets off several great lines over the course of the episode.

Want more? The full recap starts right below!

Hey, remember how seemingly every human being on the planet blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds, most of those people saw the future, then everyone came to and wondered what in tarnation happened? No? Then permit the opening scene to give you a refresher:

There's this planet, see? And somewhere on it -- wait, California! -- children have modified the "Ring around the rosy" playground game so it alludes not to the bubonic plague but to the flashforward. The only child not laying down and pretending to "see" her flashforward is Charlie Benford. When the children crowd around her and induce her to tell -- "That's the rule!" one boy insists, flashing forward to a lifetime spent rolling around naked in printouts of Robert's Rules of Order -- it turns ugly. Charlie throws down with the martinet-in-training when he goes after the stuffed doll she was holding, and when a teacher chides her with "You know we don't hit when we're at school," the agitated little girl rips free from her teacher and sprints out of the playground.

She passes a crossing guard -- who's just sitting there all "If it doesn't inconvenience a driver or pedestrian, I ain't interested" -- and continues tearing down the sidewalk. Then, to evade her teacher, she runs into the street, narrowly avoiding getting hit by two separate cars and is stopped only when she reaches a military blockade. The LAUSD truancy office has an insane budget, y'all.

We cut to downtown Los Angeles -- some of the buildings are still smoking -- and see more military helicopters, and this is how we learn that the National Guard has rolled in to help keep order. Disappointingly, the next shot is not of some talking head on cable news hysterically insisting that this was all part of the president's sinister plan all along, he swears it by his flashforward. (Or of some Newsmax columnist exulting, "Finally! They listened to me! The coup is imminent!")

Instead, FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance throws down some folders on a conference table and announces that six more agents have resigned, bringing the grand total up to 18 in the three days since the flashforward. He rallies the remaining troops by reminding them that while the peasants are allowed to cower in superstitious terror, the FBI "has a responsibility to put all that aside, because we're the ones people look to when their world goes to pieces." A soigne woman enters the room and claps. She's such a gifted communicator, you can feel the contempt radiating from the gesture, but since she clearly thinks her audience is too dim to appreciate such subtle talent, deputy Homeland Security secretary Anastasia Markham also comments, "Wow. It was certainly worth taking military transport from Washington to hear that little speech." FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance introduces her to everyone, but the subtext plainly reads, "Oh. You." Markham is not thrilled that there is apparently an FBI field office "which appointed themselves solely responsible for investigating the blackout." Mark points out, "If there's another office or agency that had a vision of this investigation and has more information than we do, let me know and I'll send 'em our case file." He's saved from being killed by the gorgon's stare when his mobile phone goes off -- trouble down at Charlie's school.