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
and there is some pre-commute canoodling, which is both sweet and impressive, as that implies Janis has enough of a handle on time-management to not have a morning rush out the door. Oh, wait, I wrote too soon: her alarm goes off and Janis dithers about how she can never set it right and oh, no wonder she's always late. She's off to the office, but tells Maya she's welcome to "eat food, rifle through my stuff. Just lock the door when you leave." Maya makes a tentative date for the two of them at the Merton gallery later that evening.And now, Mark's testifying. He fills everyone in on what they know so far (Suspect Zero and his crazy friend, the crows dying ... you're all familiar with this), and second-banana senator asks, "You're investigating this because you had a vision you're investigating this?" Well, yes. Clemente would like to know "What led you to assume your investigation amounted to anything?" When Mark points out that his vision shows two people after him, presumably for what he will know, Clemente repeats incredulously, "Six months from now, masked gunmen are going to burst into your office in a secure federal building and try to kill you?" Mark steadfastly contends that's what he saw.
Janice rolls into the office, endures a bit of hazing over her date from Lady Extra and Agent Gough, then finds out that the satellite imagery has something very interesting: a set of towers, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
Mark's grilling continues. Clemente shrewdly notes that Mark doesn't seem to have a very firm grasp on the details of his own flashforward -- odd, given the specificity others have demonstrated with theirs -- and hammers him for a while on this. We see Mark's flashforward (again) and it's finally clear why it's so blurry and disjointed: Mark is not only "drinking again," he is completely pickled. She concludes that it's sort of irresponsible to go ask for millions of dollars "based on somewhat murky flashforwards." And honestly, I am sure that Clemente's only going after Mark to damage Weddick, but if a little responsible financial oversight happens as a side effect, is that so bad? Anyway, Weddick is so furious at Clemente's dressing-down of Mark, he snarls, "How dare you?" and storms out.
The next shot is of Vreede and Demetri flanking Mark as they walk down a hall. Weddick is still MIA. Vreede is sympathetic to Mark, but Demetri points out, "When you hear it laid out like that, it does sound kind of questionable. Like we consulted the psychic network for clues or something." Mark wryly thanks Demetri for his support, and Demetri insists that "It sounds nuts: dead birds, D. Gibbons, doll heads --" "China, that's starting to sound pretty good right now," Vreede interjects. Mark's like, "So it was a mistake to mention the dolls' heads," but before the others can razz him too much more about it, Janis calls with news of what she and the west coasters have found in the satellite footage. She shares it with him over some presumably speedy and secure network: in the five months prior to the 1991 blackout, a starfish-shaped cluster of towers went up in Wajid, Somalia. Very curious, eh? As Janis says, "It's the last thing I'd expect to see at a place that doesn't even have indoor plumbing." So the images are now headed to the FBI forensics department, and they'll also come in handy for putting on pressure to send an investigatory team into the area.
Weddick finally departs the Capitol at sunset -- no word on whether he's been reading the paper in the bathroom this whole time -- then pulls out his phone and tells Janis, "I need you to do something for me right away."
The Merton gallery. Janis comes in, Maya and she exchange embraces, and then Maya hands over a bag with something she picked up because it made her think of Janis. That something: one of those alarm clocks on wheels that rolls around the room and tells you to wake up. Awww! Cute! Then Maya keeps the relationship moving at the speed of light: "I Mosaic-ed you ... it's way better than Google stalking. I saw that five months from now, you'll be, you know, pregnant. And as talented as I may be in the bedroom -- " "Yeah, that'd be pretty impressive," Janis admits. "Maybe [the baby] is ours," Maya suggests. Not helping the situation any, she adds, "For what it's worth, I think you're going to be a great mom." That is not what Janis needed to hear. She tells Maya, "This isn't a me/you thing, this is a me thing, and I haven't even figured out what I'm going to do. You know what? I don't think I can do this right now? I'm sorry. Really sorry." Janis leaves the gallery. AS SHE SHOULD, because Maya seems like the type of person who spent all day writing "Mrs. Maya Hawk," "Maya and Janis Hawk," "M. Hawk" over and over. Or, if she's at work, maybe piping it as coulis on hapless diners' plates. AFTER ONE DATE. Run, Janis!
Back in DC, we see Weddick knocking on a townhouse door. A woman opens it with "Hello, Stan. It's been a while." He tells Renee hello, asks if he can come in, and then, when he sees a small, pajama-clad boy, says happily, "My man! Hello, my man!" He picks him up with a huge hug. GRAAAH! Weddick has a secret family!
And then, Weddick's back in the Oval Office, knocking back cognac with the president and referencing their shared history with "A long way from $2 beer night at Geno's." You know, if he's such a pal of the president's, you'd think Weddick would be like, "So! Guess what Clemente saw in her flashforward?" President Peter "Dave" Coyote admits, "My first term was a bitch. I could've used you then. I couldn't bring you in. But I can now." Weddick is not swayed by sweet talk of cabinet positions. He lays down a picture of Renee sitting on President Peter "Dave" Coyote's lap and says, "I'm not here about the job." President Peter "Dave" Coyote says bitterly, "So no more boy scout. How'd you find her?" Weddick points out, "I was the bagman who paid her a quarter of a million dollars to disappear. Only she didn't go far. She's living with the boy -- right here in Georgetown." Weddick adds that he found this out via Mosaic, and President Peter "Dave" Coyote gets a look on his face that suggests he'll make it disappear like Yahoo did Geocities. (For what it's worth, Renee Garrigos will be living in Puerto Rico six months hence.) President Peter "Dave" Coyote remarks casually, "You know what I liked about having you around, Stan? You weren't just comfortable in the mud. You enjoy being there." My, what smug talk from a man who evidently paid his mistress and mother of his child $250,000 to disappear. (But how relieved am I that this isn't Weddick's secret family?) (And how relieved should President Peter "Dave" Coyote be that Renee Garrigos is no Rielle Hunter?) Weddick says coolly, "Clemente is going to cut off the funding unless you stop her, so stop her. And the negative goes into the shredder." President Peter "Dave" Coyote points out that Weddick can only "play this card" once. The president is dumb: if Weddick is as dirty and ruthless as Clemente and Coyote seem to think, there's nothing stopping him from having Renee murdered and linking the hit to the president. A murdered mistress and a cover-up is a lot worse than a live, secret family. Anyway, Weddick's sure he wants to play his card: "Now's all I got." He lets himself off.
We see President Peter "Dave" Coyote look at the photo, then pick up the phone and tell someone on the other end, "I've got a problem I need you to take care of."
Cut to the "Moderne" bar, where Vreede is rocking the hell out of a karaoke version of "Sister Christian" -- oh, the time has come indeed! I will gladly be the only one to say, " ... Okay." Demetri is drunkenly cheering him on with, "Do it! Do it, old man!" Looking as though he's regretting every single minute he's ever spent sober, Mark grouses that he hates karaoke. He tells Demetri to maybe slow down the drinking, and Demetri tells him, "I've got five months to live. I think I'm entitled to blow off a little steam." Or take the harmony in "Sister Christian," which he actually does. They're motoring! Yeahhhhhhh, motoring!
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