Flash Forward Season One Part Two

Hi Flashforward fans!    

Due to a glitch in software on a computer I was using, I wasn’t able to bring you the entire recap of season one, so I’ve decided to add season one, part two.  This recap takes you all the way up to the most recent episode “In The Garden of Forking Paths”.

BETTER ANGELS

Posing as Red Panda humanitarian relief workers, Vogel, Demetri, Janis and Simon chopper into the Ganwar Region of Somalia. A hail of gunfire erupts. The team has no choice but to surrender as the attacking gunman close in. The leader of the group, Abdi, shoots the team’s translator. He’s not needed. Abdi speaks English.

Abdi tells a tale of how foreigners came to his village when he was a boy. They claimed to have built five towers to provide electricity. This was not the case. After being out in the fields tending to the goats, Abdi returned to find everyone in town collapsed on the ground. His mother was there, too. Abdi believed everyone to be dead, as he saw a black camel – a harbinger of death. Abdi ran and, when he returned, all bodies were gone.

Abdi doesn’t buy the Red Panda cover story and has the chopper pilot executed. Our team attempts a daring escape that goes south. Abdi gets the information he seeks from a man on the team’s security detail. Then he kills him. Again, it’s because this man is no longer needed.

On the day of the global blackout, Abdi saw himself as the leader of Somalia giving a speech about the Better Angels. It’s from Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address. The Better Angels speech was about unity. To convince Abdi that his prophecy was a flash forward shared by others, Janis shows him the Mosaic Collective website. A posting from a man who heard Abdi’s speech says that he saw him wearing his mother’s necklace. This was at a peace conference. Janis says, “Your destiny is to stop the war, not start one.”

The team heads into the last remaining tower with Abdi. Inside, Demetri finds a chessboard that hides a VHS tape. The video shows testimonials from the villagers about what they saw in their flash forwards in 1991. One of the people on the tape is Abdi’s mother, still wearing her necklace.

The next message comes from a man who most definitely was not a member of the village. It’s D. Gibbons. He says, “The preceding interviews from Test Group B confirm that the subjects uniformly experienced a consciousness shift two weeks into the future.”

Simon finds access to a tunnel. They discover a linear accelerator, one of five that created a perimeter around the village. A burst was released in 1991 as part of a beta test for the global blackout. Abdi wasn’t in the village at the time. That’s why he stayed awake.

They also discover a chamber filled with skeletons. It served as a mass grave for executed villagers. Abdi finds his mother’s necklace around one of the skeletons. He blames Simon for all that has happened. Abdi is about to kill Simon when Vogel shoots him in the back. He’s dead. His vision of Better Angels is now also gone. Janis says, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Back in the States, Bryce’s cancer is taking a toll on him. He tries to hide his illness from Nicole, who reveals that she’s thinking about going to medical school. Bryce gives her his good luck calculator and eventually comes clean about his cancer.

Mark has accumulated more info on D. Gibbons/Dyson Frost, but he still has no idea why Charlie mentioned him after her flash forward. He wants her to chat with a child expert at the FBI, but Olivia convinces him to let her talk to their daughter first. Olivia also wants Mark to consider a move to Denver. Though he’s a big fan of the omelet, Mark knows that a move to the Mile High city means the end of his Mosaic investigation. Olivia doesn’t have a problem with that. Mark does.

When Olivia asks Charlie about her flash forward, she says Dylan overheard his dad talking about D. Gibbons on the phone. But that’s not what has Charlie so upset. She also heard fireworks. When she walked up to the back door, she saw two men wearing suits, one of them being Agent Vogel. After finishing a phone call, Vogel said, “Mark Benford is dead.” That move to Denver is looking better and better. Olivia wants a yes or no answer. Mark can’t give her one. Olivia believes this may be the start of how they drift apart.

Thousands of miles away, Janis is feeling sad about another flash forward never coming true. She’s thinking of both Abdi’s legacy and her future baby. The window of time for conception is closing. It’s not like she can make a baby while stuck in Somalia. Demetri begs to differ. After all, he’s a man…she’s a woman… These are desperate times. When Janis asks about Zoey, Dem says that odds are he won’t be around in a few months. But it would be nice if Janis’s baby was.

As Demetri packs up items from the tower, he watches the D. Gibbons portion of the videotape again. When Simon enters, Demetri lets the videotape run past its presumed ending. But it’s not over yet. There’s another recording of D. Gibbons. This one is personalized. D. Gibbons says, “Hello, Demetri. My name is Dyson Frost and I am recording this message in 1991. Got your attention, didn’t I?” Sure did.

QUEEN SACRIFICE

Charlie is upset that Mark is moving out of the house. She gives her daddy a friendship bracelet to replace the one she thinks he lost. Charlie says, “It’ll keep you safe from the bad guys until you come back home.” Let’s hope so because it’s what Mark was wearing as assassins were hunting him down in his flash forward.

Mark, Demetri and Wedeck watch the video that Dyson Frost recorded back in 1991. Frost says that if they are watching this tape then the global blackout was a success. He also reveals that he’s had hundreds of flash forwards. In nearly all of his futures, he ends up dying on March 15th, just like Demetri. It would seem their fates are on a collision course. The message ends with Frost saying the next move belongs to Mark Benford

Mark follows a lead to identify one of Frost’s former competitors in a chess club. He also cracks a code from another message Frost left them from 1991. It’s a phone number to a prepaid cell phone. Mark leaves a message for Frost before heading off to San Francisco to meet his old chess partner. But they arrive too late. This man from Dyson Frost’s past is dead. He took two bullets to the head just before they arrived.

Mark and Vogel hatch a plan to flush out the mole in their office. The team is sequestered in a conference room as FBI headquarters is swept for bugs. A micro-transmitter is discovered inside Mark’s computer keyboard. Someone with access to his office planted it there. It could be anyone in the conference room.

While interviewing Janis, Mark wants to know just what she was doing during the 13 unaccounted personal breaks she’s taken since the blackout.

In addition to her trips to the fertility clinic, Janis admits that she’s been checking up on a fellow agent: Marcie Turoff.

Marcie has a brother who’s very sick. She’s been paying for his expensive health care. Tough to do on a government salary.

Video surveillance footage reveals that Marcie signaled her handlers on days key information was leaked. When Marcie realizes she’s been exposed as a traitor, she grabs another agent’s gun and blasts her way out of the building. She makes her way to the ground floor where a man on a motorcycle is waiting to help her escape.
They speed around the perimeter of FBI headquarters. Janis comes out of a side door firing her gun and striking the driver several times. The bike crashes into the fountain area. As Marcie runs, Janis gives chase and subdues her in the water. The mole has been caught.

Keiko Arahia is still in the United States searching for the man in her flash forward: Bryce Varley. She reads “Power English” books as she frequents the sushi restaurant where they had been seen together. Keiko puts her mechanical engineering skills to use by fixing cars for a tough guy named Emil. Keiko hardly fits in with the other illegals in Emil’s charge, but she can turbo-charge an engine with the best of them.

After Nicole accompanies Bryce to his chemotherapy treatment, he offers to treat her to dinner. As they chat outside the restaurant, Bryce leans in and kisses Nicole. She pulls away, knowing that he’s destined to be with Keiko, who is just a few feet away having dinner with Emil. As Bryce leaves a message for Nicole the next day, an immigration van speeds by. Again, Bryce is so close to Keiko. She’s inside the van, having been arrested for working without a proper visa.

While out at an amusement park with Charlie, Olivia notices a strange man following them. The stranger identifies himself as Special Agent Crowley. He says Mark assigned him to be their security detail. Later, Olivia gets another surprise when Lloyd visits her. He and Simon believe that the formula he wrote in lipstick on the mirror may have been for some kind of protection against the blackout. Olivia remembers a reference to an anesthetic which makes Lloyd realize that QED stands for Quantum Entanglement Device.

Now that the mole has been exposed, Dyson Frost believes it’s time he and Mark Benford meet. He’ll be in touch. Down in the parking garage, Janis tells Simon that the autopsy on his Uncle Teddy reveals that the CPR Simon gave him was quite aggressive. She knows that Simon murdered him to send a message to the folks who were pulling his strings. Janis says, “Message received.” Simon realizes there were two plants inside the FBI. No one would ever suspect the second mole is Special Agent Janis Hawk.

LET NO MAN PUT ASUNDER

When Marcie is asked who recruited her to be a mole in the FBI, she says that information will be revealed in due time. That’s because in her flash forward, Marcie was incarcerated. She tells her attorney that she’s indispensible to the FBI until she tells them who recruited her.

The Director of the FBI orders Marcie to be extradited to Washington for further questioning. With March 15th just three days away, Demetri asks Marcie for details on his imminent murder. She claims that all contact with her handlers was done cryptically. Marcie has nothing to offer other than to say Demetri is supposed to die in Los Angeles. She says, “Look, you’re gonna die in three days and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

Mark convinces Demetri that the best thing he can do is get out of town. But Demetri isn’t going anywhere until he and Zoey are married. They’ll tie the knot in a church and then zip off to Hawaii for a honeymoon that will extend way past March 15th. At his impromptu bachelor party, an inebriated Demetri tries to talk to Janis about that night in Somalia. She cuts him off by telling him that she’s pregnant just as the cab he’s in pulls away.

The next day, Demetri is at home getting dressed for his wedding when…WHAM! He’s knocked out with the butt of a gun. We’re assuming this is Mark’s missing firearm, since the man standing over Demetri’s unconscious body is Dyson Frost.

Vice President Joyce Clemente wants Wedeck to do an “off the books” investigation into Jericho. In her flash forward, Clemente believed that Jericho had done some things that threatened national security. Mark tells his boss that he looked into Jericho at the request of Aaron, who recently went off the grid.
Wedeck tracks down Aaron, who is planning to go to Afghanistan to rescue Tracy. Wedeck wants to know what Tracy has on Jericho. He’ll help Aaron get into Afghanistan and provide him with enough firepower to get out. But he’ll be on his own if things go south. Aaron says, “I saw myself with my daughter. We were together in Afghanistan and she was alive. God help anyone who stands in my way.”

Charlie and Dylan conspire to meet for a play date at the park. Olivia didn’t know Lloyd would be there and vice versa. When Charlie gets hurt, Lloyd is a source of comfort as Olivia tends to her. Later that night, Olivia shows up at Lloyd’s place to thank him for his help. Lloyd has a phone, so he wonders why she didn’t just call. These two had very strong feeling for each other in their flash forwards. They can’t fight those feelings now. As a tear streams down Olivia’s face, she leans in and kisses Lloyd. It looks like their vision is coming true.

When Demetri doesn’t show up for his own wedding, Mark looks for clues at his partner’s home. He calls Olivia, who is busy working a game booth at Charlie’s school carnival. On the outskirts of the carnival, Dyson Frost sits in the front seat of his blue sedan. In the backseat is an unconscious Demetri.

At the carnival, Olivia promises Mark that she’ll give Charlie a kiss for him. That’s if she can find her. As Olivia yells out for her daughter, Charlie sits on a bench enjoying some cotton candy. A man takes a seat next to her. We know this man to be Dyson Frost. He’s also been called D. Gibbons. And, as Charlie knows from her flash forward, D. Gibbons is a bad man.

IN THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS

It’s March 15th, 2010. D-Day for Demetri, who is strapped to a rigged chair in an abandoned warehouse. Across the room, a motion-activated device aims Mark’s gun at Demetri’s chest. He moves, he’s dead.

Charlie is questioned about her encounter with Dyson Frost at the carnival. Her conversation included a discussion about Dr. Seuss books. Frost’s favorite story is “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” He gave Charlie a picture to give to her dad. It’s of a portrait of “Oedipus and the Sphinx” by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. On the back, there’s a message for Mark. He’s to go to Union Station if he wants Demetri back alive.

Suspected terrorist Alda Hertzog instructs Zoey to get her a hearing in front of a judge if she wants info on Demetri’s whereabouts. We flashback six months before the blackout to learn that Alda is in cahoots with the mystery man who visited Lloyd Simcoe during his kidnapping in Revelation Zero. His name is Hollinger and he introduces Alda to Dyson Frost, who works out of the warehouse that houses Demetri in the present day. Hollinger says Dyson Frost is the man who engineered something called the Raven River Experiments.

In the present, there’s a massive blackboard set up behind Demetri in the warehouse. Frost explains that the lines on his blackboard are “The Garden of Forking Paths.” They represent all the possible futures that follow each critical decision he’s made. One of those paths leads to March 15th, the day he and/or Demetri will die.

Undercover FBI agents work surveillance as Mark waits for Frost in the middle of Union Station. A young boy delivers a backpack with a picture of Demetri and a cell phone. Frost calls Mark saying he wants to tell him when and why the next blackout will occur. First, they need to meet. Alone. Mark must follow all of Frost’s instructions or Demetri will die. The clock is ticking. The race to save his partner is on.

Mark takes off through Union Station. He ditches the phone and his gun in a restroom trashcan. There’s a secret panel that leads to the outside. Mark makes his way to a car Frost left for him. FBI agents give chase, unsure of what’s happening. But they’re too late. Mark is in the wind.

Zoey manages to wrangle a hearing for Alda Herzog. It doesn’t go well. Alda doesn’t mind. She never expected to win. She tells Zoey that in her flash forward she heard they found Demetri’s body in a Building 7 somewhere. As Alda is being led out of the courtroom, an explosion rocks the room. A window smashes open. Alda dives outside. The hearing she desperately wanted was all part of a planned prison break.

Mark speeds out of city limits to remote desert area in the Antelope Valley. There’s less than 90 minutes before the gun aimed at Demetri automatically discharges. Dyson Frost makes his way across the open terrain, gun drawn. Mark siphoned some gasoline from the car into his water bottle. He takes a swing, spits in Frost’s face and quickly subdues him. The time for games is over. Mark only wants to know one thing. Where’s Demetri?

Frost tells Mark that he already knows where his partner is. He gave Charlie all the answers. Frost says, “In the end you’re gonna be saved by the lady you see every day.” Frost is about to tell Mark something very important until he realizes they are not alone. BANG! A gunshot from a long-range sniper rifle hits Frost. He’s down. The shooter, the recently-escaped Alda Hertzog, escapes once more.

Mark desperately tries to get information from Frost before he takes one last dying breath. But Frost is gone. Mark discovers blueprints in his backpack. There’s no time to analyze them. He needs to find Demetri. The GPS in Frost’s car shows that he’s been to Ingres Street. Ingres is the name of the artist who did the Oedipus portrait. It can’t be a coincidence.

Time is running out for Demetri as Mark races to the address of an abandoned army depot. There are dozens of buildings at the location. Demetri could be in any one of them. A call to FBI Headquarters lets Mark know that his partner is in Building 7. With only minutes to go, Mark finds Demetri, but he can’t stop the timer. He’ll have to move the gun. That means Mark’s hand will be on the trigger if it fires, as predicted.

Frost said he gave Charlie all the answers. The Dr. Seuss “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” reference is a clue as to which wires to pull. With no time to spare, Mark disengages the lock to slowly move the gun upward. The scope beam edges up Demetri’s body. TICK, TICK, TICK. BANG, BANG, BANG! Time’s up! Three shots are fired, each one striking a photo of Demetri attached to the blackboard behind him. Thanks to Mark Benford, March 15th is now the day his partner lived.

The homeless man who was killed by Dyson Frost with Mark’s gun is the same person who sent Olivia the text message saying that her husband was drinking in his flash forward. An autopsy suggests the homeless man was a savant. Agent Vreede hopes Olivia will be able to identify the corpse, but she’s never seen him before.

This concludes my recap of the most recent episodes.  Stay tuned for the next recap of next week’s episode! As always I appreciate your feedback.

Ceramicat