By Sobell
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 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.)