spunkybean - FlashForward 1-8 - "Playing Cards with Coyote"

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FlashForward 1-8 - "Playing Cards with Coyote"

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Written by EJ Fedde

Friday, 05 March 2010 11:00

Previously on FlashForward: Al killed himself rather than be indirectly responsible at some point in the future for the death of a woman he’s never met. Suddenly, the future isn’t set in stone. It was a good episode. Oh, also Aaron came home to find his deceased daughter waiting for him.

So, I’m having a hard time with Dominic Monaghan’s character. He doesn’t seem like a “Simon” to me. Usually, I’d just use his character’s name from Lost, but we already have a “Charlie”. I find that I keep referring to him as Dom, so I’ll just stick with that. Unless I remember to call him by his character’s actual name, which doesn’t seem likely.

We open with Celia getting a letter – it’s Al’s last words. Aaron beams over his sleeping daughter. Demetri fidgets while looking at Mark’s bulletin board. Then we see Celia surrounded by reporters – she’s clearly telling her story and showing Al’s letter. Then we see a newspaper with the headline “The Future Can Be Changed”. I feel like that would warrant an exclamation point, myself.

Mark and Olivia are sharing quality time in a hotel by the ocean. Nicole looks out over the water. Bryce obsessively sketches the Japanese girl. Lloyd and Dylan play cards. Janis comes back to work, to a round of applause. Do they have to open every episode with a musical montage? It’s like the beginning of every episode is the end of every episode of Rescue Me.

Lloyd watches the news, where talking heads discuss how Al’s suicide opened up the future for everybody. He’s sending an e-mail to several people, and we can see the subject line is “WE HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY”. All-caps, Lloyd? Really? Way to end up in the Spam folder, bro.

Janis goes into Stanford’s office with a letter. He tells her that if it’s her letter of resignation, he’s rejecting it. She tries to explain, but Stanford says he needs her. She’s been thinking about Al, and now she wonders. Should she lean into her future? Should she fight it? Can she even have a child now? Stanford reminds her that Al’s death proves that their choices still matter.

Lloyd is doing more card tricks for Dylan in the hospital when Dom walks in. Dom starts giving him crap, right in front of the kid. Dylan totally ignores Dom, even when he tries to do a funny voice, and it kind of cracks me up. Hey, it turns out that Dom wasn’t on Lloyd’s e-mail list, and it had to be forwarded to him. Weird detail, that. He’s not convinced that they caused the Blackout, but Lloyd says it’s the result of their experiment. He wants to go public.

In the Benford Love Shack, they exchange gifts while partially clothed. They are very happy about their second chance, but a phone interrupts them. It’s Demetri – he wants Mark to get online to see some video they received from Barstow. Somebody recorded a shooting with their cell phone, and the shooter has three stars tattooed on his arm, just like the gunman in Mark’s flash.

Back at the office, Demetri gives Mark the basics. The victim is an aeronautics engineer, and the murder looks like a robbery. Janis has enhanced images from the video. And Mark is freaked out by those three stars, but he thinks it’s a good lead. If they can put him away now, he’s not going to be able to attack Mark on April 29.

Meanwhile, Olivia opens her present from Mark – it’s the lingerie she’s wearing in her Flash Forward. I should be alarmed, but mostly I’m paying attention to Sonya Walger in lingerie.

At Aaron’s house, Tracy wakes up screaming, and I realize just now that she’s Kris from the ABC Family show Wildfire. I used to go out with somebody who made me watch that show, and now I’m bitter toward Tracy. We also see that she’s lost her right leg, just below the knee, and has to wear a prosthetic. Aaron tries to get her to talk about it, but she doesn’t want to. He demands to know what happened to her – if she wants him to keep her a secret, she has to start being honest with him. Also, he mentions that his Flash takes place in Afghanistan, so he’s got a weird four months ahead of him.

Back at the hospital, Bryce is giving Olivia patient updates. Specifically, on Dylan Simcoe who is still not well enough to go home. Lloyd and Dom interrupt to question her diagnosis. Dom thinks Dylan is well enough that Lloyd can take a few hours away from his bedside. Olivia agrees, and when she leaves, Dom asks Lloyd if he’s sleeping with her. Hee. Bull in a China shop, this guy. Dom challenges Lloyd to a game of Texas Hold ‘Em to decide whether or not they come forward. That seems wise and responsible, right?

Janis, Demetri, and Mark head to the home of three-star murder witness, only to find that the LAPD is already there. The roommate of the actual witness was gunned down, execution-stile. Professional work, except for the part where they shot the wrong person entirely.

Dom and Lloyd play poker at a professional table, and recapping poker is insanely boring. It is pretty funny that they’re talking about what they did right in front of the other players, and Dom assures them that “mass murder” is a “Manchester figure of speech. I’m not going to recap their hands though, unless something important happens.

Mark and Co. bring Ingrid the eyewitness in for questioning. She recounts what she saw – an altercation in the alley, finally two guys shoot the third after slapping him around a bit. The victim gave them something, but she didn’t see what it was. She can vaguely describe what the assailants looked like, at least.

Poker! They discuss fate vs. free will, with Dom taking the “fate” side. You know, a lot of this show is taken up with people arguing. That’s also hard to recap. Dom seems to be winning the game at this point.

Nicole is spacing out at the hospital, imagining herself being violently drowned. Olivia tells her that it’s going to be OK, and then a giant floral delivery “for the quintuplets” arrives. I like how they pretend this is something we know about.

In Aaron’s home, Tracy talks about how her Humvee was attached by Jericho – a military contractor. Like Blackwater, really. Since they work for the military, she can’t trust the military now, and that’s why Aaron can’t tell anybody that she’s alive. Two weeks before the incident, she saw Jericho wipe out a village without provocation, so she assumes that she’s in their crosshairs. We see her crawl to safety after the rocket attack, and it’s pretty grisly.

Mark drives over to Aaron’s and meets him in the truck – Aaron can’t trust anybody but Mark with the news that Tracy’s alive. He shows Mark a cell phone picture, and then sums up all the stuff that we just saw. That night, Mark tells Olivia that if somebody’s formerly impossible vision looks like it’s going to happen, maybe that means the vision are set in stone. Olivia assures him that they can change things. You know, I love this show, but I feel like I’ve seen this discussion about a million times by now.

Stanford’s office. Mark and Co. try to sell him on the idea of using the eyewitness as bait to try to bring out the killers. Also, Mark is pretty sure they have a mole in the FBI, since in six months, trained killers are going to be able to just walk into his office. Hey, where’s Vreede? I’m not suggesting he’s the mole, but that guy just comes and goes. He’s probably my favorite supporting character, though. Somehow he’s important enough to go to DC for the Mosaic hearings, but he doesn’t get invited to the regular meetings?

Back at Aaron’s, Tracy is being snotty about the lack of alcohol in the place. Oh, I just thought of something – the guys who shot up her Humvee in the scene where they ripoff Iron Man are with “Jericho”. In Iron Man, the weapons system Tony is showing off in the desert is called…. Jericho! I’m sure that means nothing, but I’m happy with my association. He explains to her that he told Mark about her, and she freaks out. She has no reason to trust Mark. Aaron tells Tracy more about his Flash – he leaves the bunker and there’s a dude outside who tells him “the account has been verified”, and Aaron hands him an envelope. Tracy figures it’s the guy who saved her life, and I’m not going to try and spell his name unless the Flashes come true. Al died to save Celia, but also to diminish the possibility that I will ever have to learn the names of characters who haven’t appeared in the present yet. Thanks Al!

Al and Demetri are on stakeout, keeping an eye on Ingrid the eyewitness and Janis. They’re in Ingird’s pet store, and Ingrid says that in her Flash, she’s blonde and working at the Bronx Zoo. Sounds like Witness Protection to me! In the car, Mark and Demetri are hilariously bitchy to one another, while Demetri talks about dying for the hundredth time. Ingrid then offers Janis a free cockatiel, which she turns down. Oh, come on, birds are awesome. My parakeet Senator Daltrey died last fall, and if somebody offered me a free bird, I’d take it! Then there’s a noise which startles everybody. Janis goes to investigate, and then the lights go out. Mark and Demetri move in on their position. They spot a guy with three stars on his arm – Mark yells “Freeze”, and there’s a gunshot.

When we come back, the cleanup guys are already sweeping the scene, tattoo guy is dead on the floor and Demetri’s the one who shot him. Unfortunately, they can’t interrogate a dead guy, and so Ingrid is still in danger. Janis tells her they’re putting her in witness protection, totally stealing my idea.

Back at the card table, and Dom is in the lead. Dom smack-talks Lloyd, and finally agrees to make it winner-take-all. Always a good move when you’re way in the lead. Dom’s got four of a kind , but Lloyd has a straight flush and he takes it. He then tips the dealer with all the chips. After, Lloyd admits that he used his new facility with card tricks to tilt the odds. Hee.

Mark thanks Demetri for having his back, but Demetri wonders if the plan was to arrest the guy or if Mark planned to kill him all along. Considering Demetri pulled the trigger, I think he’s getting a little overly dramatic here.

Later that night, Janis and Stanford are working late. She’s got a slightly less blurry photo of Suspect Zero, and there’s a visible ring on his finger. Stanford wants more enhancement, so they can use that ring to identify him. I sense product placement from Josten’s in our future…

Mark returns home, where Olivia is folding laundry. Mark says he killed a man tonight, and suddenly I think I misinterpreted all of the dialogue as to who shot Tattoo Guy. I’m confused. And hungry. But he says that what he did was change their future with that act. Olivia seems authentically touched that he’d kill a dude instead of just not drink.

And then we see a dude in a truck hand off a case to another guy. Both men have three stars tattooed on their arms. Another guy with tattooed arms walks past. One of the many tattooed men brings the case to, I kid you not, magician Ricky Jay. Ricky opens the case, and it’s got six rings in it. Rings that look like the one Suspect Zero was wearing. Ricky’s upset, because there were supposed to be seven.

He quotes an unnamed colleague of Robert Oppenheimer’s, who said after the first atom bomb test: “What a foul and awesome display. Now we are all sons of bitches.” Then he shoots the guy who brought him the case, and he walks off. Well, that was a weird ending.

Next week… Sigh. It’s an episode that’s heavy on Bryce. Nothing against the guy, but he’s not exactly riveting. But, you know, you should still read the recap.

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