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
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.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.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!So the episode begins by telling us "On October 6, the planet blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. The whole world saw the future." Really? I'm not sure we knew this -- prior episodes have been pretty stingy with the premise.
Then we spend the next minute rehashing the last four episodes -- apparently, the people writing this show worry that the viewers have been blacking out for 2:17 intervals and are therefore missing all the character motivations that have been revealed thus far -- and then finally, we get to the new stuff. The FBI gang (dude division), is in Washington, D.C., where they're eschewing the striking sight of the Lincoln Memorial at night in favor of hanging out in a parking garage, and Mark is busy insisting to FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance that "What details I do remember, I remember clearly." As do we all, Mark, what with having seen them approximately 50 times in the past four weeks.
"Fabulous. Now just keep your mouth shut. You tell anyone else about this, we are DOA," says FBI Boss Dude Courtney B. Vance (AKA "Weddick," which is how I'll refer to him from now on unless you send me a message imploring me to bring back the overlong title). Mark looks puzzled, but moves on. He calls Janis to tell her that "Well, the whole trip's been a bit of a disaster," but there is good news. We don't get to find out exactly what that is because Mark's expository dialogue is rudely interrupted by a shiny black Chevy Ginormica SUV plowing into his car.
The Ginormica disgorges a quartet of snappily-dressed Asian assassins, and Demetri and Agent Vreede do the slow-mo dive-and-dodge-the-bullet thing where they elude certain death. The FBI sedan blows up, and ... scene.
Zip! It's 39 hours earlier. After a sunny, throwaway shot of the Capitol building (dome under construction following some incident, quite possibly flashforward related), the camera zooms to the bowels of some federal building where Weddick is complaining that yes, he understands why he has to go testify in front of Congress, but he really doesn't see the need for the FBI gang (dude division) to be hanging around this dreary standpipe at zero-dark-thirty a.m. Vreede opines that "this whole thing is one big Chinese fire drill." Without interrupting his study of his shoes, Demetri protests, "hey!" Vreede asks, "Is that inappropriate for the workplace?" Demetri replies, "No, no, no, it's cool. I know how you old people are." The bonhomie is cut short by some dude in a suit asking for "Demetri Fordis Noh?" Demetri says, "What do you want me for? I didn't see anything. I told you in my affidavit, man." Ah, but the suit guy thinks Demetri might have been lying. (Interesting point, and one I hope is explored as a subplot: people lying about their flashforwards for fun and profit.)
As Demetri goes in for his lie-detector test, we see Mark fiddling with his shiny seven-year chip.
Cut to Mark verbally recounting his flashforward -- "I was alone. I didn't think there was anyone else in the building" -- and then, we see Vreede saying the same thing. The lie-detector operator -- whose pallor suggests that the only light source he's exposed to comes from the screen he's reading, and he is therefore a) vitamin-D deficient and b) perilously close to being called Agent Smeagol by his peers -- seems intrigued by this. But Mark and Vreede's flashforwards diverge: Mark's hanging in his office, while Vreede is headed for the security exit. Mark recounts seeing the creepy mask people while Vreede claims not to have seen anyone else. Agent Smeagol asks Mark, "Did you recognize the men?" "I did mention they were wearing masks, right?" Mark replies. (Good one, Benford.)
Later, Mark's calling Aaron, who's at the Benford residence to fix Mark's alarm system and provide unsolicited homilies regarding the perils of being away from his AA meetings. The scene's also handy because Mark exposits that Weddick's testifying before Congress and Mark's there to help Demetri with "document support" because he is the one who dragged the L.A. office into the Mosaic caper by virtue of his "I saw it, therefore it has to happen!" nattering in re: his flashforward.
Meanwhile, playing the gravediggers to Mark's Hamlet are Demetri and Vreede; Demetri is lugging a box of documents up the Capitol steps and explaining to Vreede that it's "evidence. Weddick thinks he'll need it for his Senate testimony. He's afraid they're gonna take away our funding, in which case Mosaic is dead in the water." Vreede changes the subject with "I've never seen Weddick with a stick so far up his ass." Well, that might be because your name isn't Mrs. Weddick and what happens in the bedroom stays there, nosy parker. Demetri replies, "[Weddick] hates D.C. He used to live here -- apparently, it left a bad taste in his mouth. If you ask me, he's a dude with something to prove."
And apparently, he's proving it on the basketball court, as Weddick happens to be waxing the boards with Peter Coyote. Once the game is done, there is some small talk about the hearings. Weddick is concerned, but Peter Coyote dismisses his worries with, "Relax. This is Congress masturbating to the sound of its own voice." So, things snapped back to normal after the flashforward? Is that the point here? Weddick reveals that he's worried about losing his funding, and makes a hard pitch for Mosaic. Peter Coyote further spoils Weddick's mood by revealing that "Clemente's chairing these hearings, remember?" After an awkward pause, Peter Coyote asks, "You didn't know that?" "You think I'd set foot in D.C. if I did? ... All right, I would have. Because this is that important, Dave!" Weddick says. Peter "Dave" Coyote laughs dismissively and says, "The trusty boy scout is funny, coming from you." Oh, game two is ON.
And now, time for us to fly 3000 miles to the west and watch Janis wipe the floor of her dojo with some random guy. A sultry brunette watches appreciatively. Once the match is over, Janis is back by the woman's side, which makes the subsequent "Hey, I know you kicked my ass and I find it really hot, so let's go out" exchange all the more cringeworthy. Janis shoots the guy down. After he leaves, we hear her say to her lady friend, "What a douche." Amusingly, the closed caption reads, "What a mangina."
Cut to Janis back in the office, apparently weathering the fallout of having mentioned an upcoming date, as some random female coworker is practically panting, "What's his name? More importantly, does he have a brother?" The girl talk is interrupted by Agent Gough, who is handing over a USB drive with 18 years' worth of satellite imagery from southern Somalia, courtesy of the CIA. Janis can't wait to start poring through it in order to find anything that relates to the crow die-off in 1991, or can substantiate the alleged mass loss of consciousness. Off goes Lady Extra to begin the data sifting.
Meanwhile, back in DC, the FBI gang (dude division) is waiting in the White House press room along with reporters and various other hangers-on. Weddick would like to know where Mark is. Demetri tells him that Mark's back at the hotel: "He said photo ops make him constipated." "Tell him to get in line," the unsympathetic Weddick replies. He does not add, "And consider adding more greens to the diet. Fiber is your friend!" On Demetri's other side, Vreede is gloating, "I wish my fifth-grade teacher could see me now. Always said I'd either end up dead or in prison." "There's still time, my friend," Demetri replies. (Hee.)