Episode Report Card Sobell: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT When One Hand Washes the Other …
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.22.2009
ddick sits down and promptly gets into a fight with Mark. Benford's pissed because Weddick went storming out of the hearing, Weddick's pissed because Mark wasn't exactly a star witness. Weddick goes huffing off again, past Vreede and Demetri, who happily sing, "How does it fe-eeel?" as he storms by. (They've moved on to "Like a Rolling Stone.")So Benford brings the fight to Weddick: "Why didn't you call for a recess? You could have spoken up!" Weddick not unreasonably asks, "And said what? There's a perfectly good explanation why you're having trouble remembering something the rest of us have lasered into our brains? See, this is my own damn fault: Clemente is just asking you questions I should have asked you weeks ago, but I didn't. Because I trusted you. And I went with this whole Mosaic thing in the first place because I believe in you, Mark." Mark deflects with, "And I've gotten you results," but it's a dodge, both men know it, and Mark finally has to admit that the reason he can't clearly remember his flashforward was because "I was loaded, okay!" Weddick looks terrified -- both at the revelation that one of his best agents will be poaching his own liver in hooch and at the realization that he's staked his ace card to a project based on the recollections of a future drunk. Mark blahblahs about how he never wants to drink again, but Weddick's shellshocked: "I put my entire career on the line based on your flashfoward, and now you're telling me you were impaired when you had it? I don't know what I'm doing anymore." (I really love Courtney B. Vance's performance here. Yes, Bambi Fiennes is doing a fine job as someone who's trapped in layers of self-loathing, but Courtney B. Vance is just devastating as someone who's just become horribly aware of how vulnerable he is.) Vreede and Demetri come in, asking if everything's okay, and Weddick shakily says, "Everything's fine. Why don't you buy yourselves a couple of rounds on me? It's celebration time." Vreede asks what they're celebrating, and Weddick says quietly, "I got us our funding." He drains his drink as Mark sits there looking remorseful. Boy, this is going to be a fun flight home: two hungover agents, one AD barely containing his simmering rage and Mark.
And then, Los Angeles. Olivia gets an anonymous text telling her that Mark was drinking in his flashforward. Is it Aaron or is it Weddick? Or did Demetri and Vreede hear Mark yell? I look forward to finding out who's dropped the dime.
And now, it's the capital, at night, where we came in. Mark is busy insisting to Weddick that "What details I do remember, I remember clearly." "Fabulous. Now just keep your mouth shut. You tell anyone else about this, we are DOA," Weddick replies. We get a new detail: President Peter "Dave" Coyote, AKA "President Segovia" just announced his VP nominee: Joyce Clemente. This is an evil-genius move (Weddick got his funding, but look who's giving it out), and I can't wait to see if Weddick uses Joyce's presumed flashforward against her or to influence the president. Weddick weighs on the deal with, "Everything's a tradeoff. This town's your ultimate 'can't get something for nothing' place."
Back in L.A., Janis is enduring one of the universe's little jokes -- a woman wheeling screaming baby in a stroller as Janis walks home. Her phone rings, and it's Mark, with the conversation we saw earlier. Then -- boom! The Chevy Gigantica hits the car, the Asian hit squad disembarks, the FBI gang (dude division) scrambles to escape their sedan before it's incinerated.
Janis hears all of this, but then she gets distracted as she's beset by two Asian assassins of her own. Janis handily takes out the first guy -- while in high heels, no less -- but the second one shoots her in the stomach and she drops on the ground next to her groceries and that little rolling alarm clock. But before she passes out, she manages to shoot (and kill) the guy who plugged her.
We then cut back to D.C., "Like a Rolling Stone" kicks into high gear, and the FBI gang (angry dude division) unleashes leaden hell: "Dammit, we're not getting the deposit back on the rental car! Do you know how many forms we'd have to fill out?"
But here is the thing I'm curious about: Everyone is shooting because, presumably, they had flashforwards* and so they're confident today is not the day they're going to die. So what is the point? We didn't see any dead hitmen, so they all live to kill another day. I would have really liked to have seen one person die and for it to rattle everyone else as they realized that the future's not guaranteed.
Janis is down, eyes staring up at the sky as that little alarm clock does wheelies through a rapidly-expanding pool of her blood and chirps "It's time to get up." As she gasps in pain, she recalls her flashforward and the moment she learned the fetus is a girl. We zip to the flashforward, where Janis is struggling to compose herself. Back in the present, Janis is struggling to breathe.
Aaaaaand -- done. Will she survive? Will Maya use this as an excuse to re-enter Janis's life? Who dispatched the Pacific Rim Posse? Stay tuned.
(* Demetri excepted)