Episode Report Card Sobell: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Free Will is for Suckers
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 04.15.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Let's get the inconsequential plots out the way first.
In the most entertaining B-plot: The current VP -- soon to be president, if the accuracy of the flashforwards is anything to go by -- taps Wedeck for a discreet probe into Jericho, reasoning that since someone in his office was running database queries on the subject, surely there's some local interest in watching the "Blackwater? What is this 'Blackwater' of which you speak?" security firm. And thus does Wedeck end up assisting Aaron on his field trip to Afghanistan. This is so Aaron can bring back the intel that presumably helps the walls of Jericho come tumbling down.
In the B-plot we have all seen coming for month: Olivia and Lloyd have chemistry out the yingyang. After Charlie sets up a playdate with Dylan, the two adults end up reconnecting, and later, Olivia swings by and they end up lip-mashing. The flashforwards made them do it!
Now, on to the main event: Demetri and Mark spend the episode running around in Dyson Frost's footsteps -- he's murdered a homeless guy with Mark's old FBI gun, and there's some connection between Dyson and the victim but this show isn't going to tell us what, of course -- and trying to get Marcie to talk about why she's a mole. Neither quest is particularly successful. And then Demetri and Zoey decide to get married the very next day, only Demetri gets groomnapped by Dyson Frost, and the episode ends with Dyson at Charlie's school fair. Because… whatever. The guy is a creepy mastermind, and he loves baroque plans and, honestly, he should just get out of the way and let me know if I can go back to fretting about the fates of Kemil and Brycole.
Also, remember how Janice alluded to being a mole last week? You would be the only one, then.
Watch this episode here, discuss it in our forums, then see what we think the cast should do if FlashForward gets cancelled.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Two years before the blackout... We're in the LA office where Mark Benford and his hair accessory are busy lecturing a huge clot of new agents on the glory and wonder of working for the FBI. Standing in the very front of the group: Al Gough (we miss you!), Janis, Marcie and Demetri. Mark says, "Today won't be the most important day in your career as an FBI agent. That day is somewhere down the line. You won't see it coming. It sneaks up on you. It'll most likely be an anonymous moment, a crossroads where you're asked to do something, make some kind of personal sacrifice for the good of someone else, and that person may never know your name, or see your face, or even understand what you did." The camera swoops in on Gough standing and listening intently. This show! So subtle! Mark finishes, "But you'll know. And isn't that why you're here, after all? Because you can be counted on to do the right thing at the right time, every time." We land on Demetri.
Then all the new agents are comparing assignments. Demetri originally had Vreede and Gough had Benford, but Demetri begs for a switch because "He's a legend. He's done it all!" And because Gough's a good guy, he does switch. Janis sighs that she's in analysis, but Marcie mopes that she has it worse, as she's reporting to Janis in analysis. "How can that be -- I scored higher than you?" she wonders. Janis is like, "In one category," then tries to cheer Marcie. Gough awkwardly exposits that they've been a team since Quantico, and Marcie -- determined to throw a pity party now that she's decorated for it -- mopes, "What am I, the mascot?" Janis consolingly says, "You're our captain. You'll outpace all of us, I'm sure of it." I really dislike how they're shoehorning in all this back history now, like Marcie's been there all along. It doesn't sync up with any of the prior episodes.
In the present, a somewhat bruised Marcie is about to be interviewed by Mark and Demetri. She looks determined not to say anything. And she sort of sticks to that, in that she says nothing of substance. She doesn't know who tried to blow up the guys in DC. Demetri gets heated, and Mark gives him a time-out from talkies -- after all, Demetri's only got three days left, so why spend them looking at Marcie's sullen mug? -- then collars Janis for help. She either feigns disbelief or is genuinely surprised by this.
So Janis takes a run at Marcie, first by asking what her duties were (Marcie basically did weekly dead drops), and who recruited her. Marcie says only, "I was approached by a man three months before the blackout hit. He asked if I wanted to be a part of something big. You think I sold out my friends and my country, but you don't know me." Janis moves an eyebrow a millimeter to indicate her surprise and says almost mockingly, "Why don't you enlighten us?" Marcie replies, "Come on. Don't you remember my flashforward? [Pause.] No, you don't. Because neither of you ever bothered to ask me what I saw."