I’m from the DC area and every time I go back, I am taken aback by the drivers on the Beltway and their reckless disregard for human life. But man, I never get guns pulled on me like our FBI friends did. Oh, wait -- let me do what this episode did and flash back within the episode.

So nearly all the series regulars have been compelled to come east to D.C. and testify about their flashforwards to the Senate Intelligence subcommittee. We also learn that -- as befitting a man of his obvious badassery -- FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance is not above throwing an elbow during a game of one-on-one hoops with his pal, the President of the United States. He is also not above lobbying for more funding for his office, as obsessive agents like Mark don’t come cheap, by holding the president’s past against him. More on that below.

We learn that President Peter Coyote has taken time out of his busy schedule of narrating Ken Burns documentaries to push for these hearings, in part because anything beats sonorously extolling the virtues of America’s parks for approximately 3, 472 hours and in part because he wants to prove that his administration has learned from the lessons of Katrina and 9/11. One of the lessons President Coyote learned: He would do well to appoint FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance as director of Homeland Security. The latter reminds him that Senator Joyce Clemente (D-Hell) would have an issue with this.

We find out that her issue with FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance has something to do with him having ferried $250,000 to President Peter Coyote’s mistress so she would disappear and take her Coyote cub with her -- after all, as John Edwards can tell you, the American public does not take to its national politicians fathering children outside their marriage.

So Clemente takes it out on Mark. In an uncannily accurate touch, the politicians are remarkably good at grandstanding without contributing anything useful to a public record.

We also learn that Mark’s last tumble off the wagon was prompted by a trip to D.C. and a stint testifying before Congress. If it was anything like his dressing-down by Clemente, I don’t blame him one bit. And if that doesn’t do it, his coworkers doing karaoke to “Sister Christian” just might. Anyway, Mark admits to FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance that his flashforward is sketchy because he was sloshed to the gills, and this really irks FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance.

(Does it irk him enough to text Olivia that Mark was drinking in his flashforward? We don’t know. It could have also been Aaron.)

Back in Los Angeles, Agent Gough’s handed over 18 years’ worth of satellite imagery to Janis, courtesy of Mr. Cheeto Dust’s extracurricular incursion. Once Janis manages to tear herself away from her gorgeous new girlfriend, she pores through the images and finds those funky, mysterious towers in Somalia.

And then, we finally work around to the point where we came in again. As Mark’s calling Janis to give her the good news about the funding, the car gets broadsided by an SUV simply teeming with Asian assassins. Then the car is blown up. Don’t worry -- the boys are all okay, and they manage to dispatch their would-be killers. Janis is listening to all this on the phone in when she’s set upon by two Asian assassins. She manages to take them both out -- BECAUSE SHE IS THE BADDEST BADASS ON THIS SHOW -- but she’s also been shot. As she slips into unconsciousness, she recalls her flashforward.