FlashForward

Episode Report Card
Sobell: B+ | 243 USERS: B
YOU GRADE IT
'Cause You Gotta Have Faith-Faith-Faith
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

Four weeks before the blackout: a doctor is pointing at bodily scans all, "There, and there, and there, and there." Then the perspective shifts so we see Bryce standing next to said doctor, and Bryce confirms that a) his cancer has returned and b) it's metastasized. To make matters even worse, Bryce now has cancer in his liver (odds of surviving more than six months: Not Good), but on the bright side, it's not in his lungs or bones. Yet. And the worst news of all: Bryce's cancer is Stage IV and it's especially resistant to treatment. The doctor levels with Bryce: "We're running out of options."

Bryce numbly stumbles to his car. Behind him, a driver impatient for his spot dogs his steps, first honking the horn, then shouting, "Come on!" The guy skids away. Bryce appears not to notice any of it. He gets behind the wheel of his car, still dazed, which explains why he hits a cherry-red convertible as he backs out. The driver gets out, ready to dispense the (self-)righteous wrath of the aggrieved yuppie, and because this guy is not what we'd call "observant," he misses the fact that Bryce is wearing a shocked, thousand-yard stare. Bryce then shifts from the "denial" portion of his diagnosis to the "anger" portion, and rams the convertible a few more times before taking off. Bryce gets out of his Jeep and begins stumbling off to ... um, call for a ride? Anyway, as he walks off, the other guy yells, "You are so dead, man! Did you hear me? You're dead!" And honestly, that was what pushed me over to Bryce's side, because it takes a doucheknob of uncommon insensitivity to scream that sort of aggrieved threat in a hospital parking lot.

Two weeks before the blackout: in Tokyo, a charming Japanese woman in business drag is practicing her smile before a mirror. She is very obviously about to go into a big meeting -- something the exposition hurries along by having a guy run into the bathroom and asking Keiko Arahida to hurry up, as everyone's waiting for her. She then walks into a conference room and we see her explaining her qualifications to the waiting crowd of men: "I started by trying to assemble a robotic hand, as a teenager in my parents' house. I barely got the servo part working, but it was a start. I was hooked. I got my undergraduate degree as a mechanical engineer at the University of Tokyo, then a master's degree in biomedical engineering and robotics." Silence in the room. Then someone leans forward to ask Keiko her role models and we find out they're Marie Curie, Jane Goodall and Jimi Hendrix. "I play guitar. It's one of my hobbies, along with salsa dancing. I was first in my class at the university. Nakahara is the best robotics firm in Japan. I think I would be a perfect fit here," Keiko concludes.

FlashForward