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The first interesting thing the episode does: point out that the people who didn't have flashforwards have their own website, too -- one that acknowledges that they're already ghosts (www.alreadyghosts.com). Since these folks are linked to Janis's assault, the FBI Squad, Dude Division, decides it's time to infiltrate the local L.A. chapter. They're aided by MI6 agent Fiona Banks, as her flashforward showed her investigating this. So she's sort of like the British version of Mark, with the whole "I'm working on this now, because the future said I will be."
So, Mark, Demetri and Gough go to a Blue Hand meeting, where the first thing they have to do is play Russian Roulette. Gough totally pwns the game and gets handed the spare bullet for his troubles – "Your ticket in." (The bullet reads, "Not today," which is a nice cosmic up-yours to whatever force will wipe out the Blue Hand-ers before April 29.) So then they walk into a really pretentious party and bust it up, and their interrogation gets them pretty much nowhere, as their lead suspect learned from the Alda School of Interrogation Answering. The only point to that whole scene was to have someone talk about how the flashforwards are proof of an immutable future. Mark and Demetri accept this; Gough does not.
Bryce and Nicole re-meet cute, as Nicole is now volunteering at the hospital and Bryce is the lucky so-and-so designated to show her the ropes. We learn that Nicole is fluent in Japanese, on account of living in Okinawa as a child. She is therefore able to help Bryce decipher a missing part of his flashforward -- the kanji character behind the girl he's been sketching, which translates to "Believe."
While that's going on, Lloyd and Olivia have an awkward little talk, wherein Lloyd thanks Olivia for her work with Dylan and assures her that he has no intention of putting the moves on her.
Demetri finally comes clean with Zoey after she calls him on being "checked out ever since I got back from Seattle." It's not clear whether he's doing it because he really loves her, or because he really loves living in their sweet, sweet loft (honestly, this place combines the eye-rollingly-removed-from-reality comfort levels of a typical Nora Ephron set with DWR's inventory and somehow ends up tasteful), but whatever. Zoey hears him out, and is all, "You're not ruining my wedding by showing up dead."
Aaron gets Tracy's old pocketknife from a military pal of hers, and he's ecstatic, because he had seen the knife in his flashforward, and now this is proof that his vision is going to come true. But Mike (the military pal) says that the vision isn't possible, on account of him having watched Tracy getting blown out of a Humvee when they were under attack. Except Aaron walks into his house and… Tracy's there?
It would be the episode's big cliffhanger, except this time, it's not. Mystery women popping up in people's houses is really not that significant compared to the real point of the episode: Gough decides to blow the blue-handers' theory that this is all pre-ordained. His flashforward alluded to him doing something that somehow resulted in another person's death, so in his effort to keep the woman alive and to demonstrate that the flashforwards are not carved in stone … Gough kills himself. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried like a baby during that scene. This is going to be a soggy recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode starts with a slender, dark-haired woman crouching at the edge of a huge, gorgeous fountain. She's got two boys, and they're preparing to pull two toy sailboats from the fountain's pool. Then, they're walking to her car. As this is going on, we hear Agent Gough's voice: "Dear Celia -- I don't know your last name, and I don't know where you live, but I know you have two young boys -- twins, I believe. And I know you didn't have a flashforward. I understand how terrifying that is, and how powerless you must be feeling. But I want you to know, you are not alone." Celia's put her kids in the car and found a note under the driver's-side windshield wiper: One side has a picture of a blue hand and an URL: www.ALREADYGHOSTS.com, while the other has the scribbled message "We know you are one of us."
As is Demetri, who quickly closes his laptop when Zoey comes into the room. "Emailing your other girlfriend?" she asks. He replies, "No, we broke up. This is just porn." Demetri, I am going to miss you and your sense of humor if Agent Shoreh Aghdashloo is correct about her flashforward. And I will miss these fleeting glimpses of your loft, because it is pretty much Exhibit A for the message that indeed, crime can pay when you are the attorney trying to get the criminal off the hook. Anyway, Zoey's got wedding-invitation proofs on the brain, and she natters on about these for a while, but I'm distracted from the Zoey-Demetri banter by the thought that with all the money these two clearly have laying around, neither one of them thought to hire a wedding planner and have him or her sweat all those details? What is the point to being a DINK couple (dual-income, no kids) if you can't fling money at someone who will either handle the invites for you or give you the tough love necessary to hammer home the message that nobody will give a crap about what your invitation looks like, so long as they're invited. Anyway, the minute Zoey leaves, Demetri opens up his laptop and we see that he's hanging out on alreadyghosts.com.
Then we zip to Mark and Olivia's House of Recriminations, where she is telling Mark about how she'll be home late from work that night, so please don't go concluding that she's really off humping Lloyd instead. Mark repeatedly insists that Olivia doesn't have to explain, but given how pissily he's brushing his teeth -- and truly, someone is irritated when it comes through in the ol' Colgate routine -- it looks like Olivia certainly has to. Mark passive-aggressively adds, "I trust you." Olivia snaps back, "Good! I trust you too!" then leaves the bathroom before Mark can see that her pajama bottoms have spontaneously combusted. Mark continues flossing petulantly.
And now, the most joyless elevator ride before work ever: Demetri is complaining about how he can never say the right thing around Zoey anymore, Mark is busy brooding about how "things have changed. It's a whole new world," and Gough has to bring the reality check by reminding Demetri that back in his single days, the special agent Noh would pass out on Gough's couch after an all-night Madden NFL binge. Fortunately, the subsequent smack-talking jostles Demetri into some semblance of a good mood, and after Gough accuses Demetri of cheating, the other man replies, "What you call cheating, I call 'finding a way to change the game,' my friend."
The three men are now hanging out in the morgue with the bodies from last week's Blue Hand investigation, and we learn that all three people killed themselves. Gough asks, "Who arranged the bodies and covered them with the sheets that night?" The coroner adds that all three people had been drinking, and the female in the bunch also had Ecstasy in her system. We learn that the recently deceased are: Jason Martinez (aged 37, married with two children); Diana Davis (-of-kin still at large); and Ian Rutherford (aged 25). He was a British national reported missing from a cargo vessel in Long Beach, and he is also mentioned (via file) in the Rutherford investigation that Gough will be working on in London April.
Mark asks, "Your Rutherford case?" and Gough nods as he recalls his flashforward: sitting there with Agent Fiona Banks looking over files until a bird crashes into the window. He tells Mark, "Here we go."
And now, your plotline that can be summed up in one paragraph: Aaron meets up with a former comrade of Tracy's, Corporal Mike Willingham. Mike hands over Tracy's pocketknife (she had handed it to Mike with instructions that Aaron was to have it if something happened to her) and tells him how Tracy got mangled and, presumably, killed after their Humvee was attacked. The point to the story is to hammer home the point that Tracy's gone to join the platoon invisible, but at the end of the episode, the grieving Aaron walks into his house to find ... Tracy, apparently back from the dead. Normally, this Lazarus act-cum-cliffhanger would be the OHMYGODOHMYGOD!-type ending that closed out a recap, but the main plot is actually a bigger deal. Sorry, Aaron! See you week as you begin calling friends and starting each conversation with the riddle, "Who has two thumbs and recently had a kid rise from the dead?"
So! Back to the main episode. The FBI Squad, Dude Division, is sitting around in a conference as Weddick asks, "Why do a copy machine salesman, a librarian and a Scottish journalist all decide to get together to shoot themselves?" Fiona Banks walks into the room and asks, "Because print is dead?" Ha! It's funny 'cause it's true. Anyway, MI6's finest is fresh off the plane from London because she saw the Rutherford report and knew she'd be working the case in six months, so why not start working ahead now? Demetri tells everyone, "I cross-referenced [the suicides'] visions on Mosaic. It turns out they're all ghosts ... people who didn't see anything in their flashforwards, that's what they call themselves." Banks asks, "So none of them had visions and now they're all dead. Am I the only one who finds that disturbing?" Demetri does too. He then hips everyone to alreadyghosts.com. Gough notices the site's mission statement: "The blue hand: no limits, no fear. A places where ghosts can gather to embrace the inevitable." Weddick is frankly incredulous: "You've got to be kidding me. A death club?" "Like a book club, with bullets," Mark quips. Using the logic that some blue-hander shot Janis, therefore all blue-handers need to be investigated, Weddick sics the team on the book-club-with-bullets. And, O happy coincidence, the Los Angeles-based event (as hosted by Dr. Maurice Raynaud) is that very evening! As to when and where? The website shows a clock ticking and orders, "Tonight, go downtown and check the time."
Gough and Banks are now working the Rutherford case -- a situation that is only moderately weird when Gough recites file details he remembers from his flashforward. Banks laughs uneasily and apologizes with, "I never expected to be working on this case so soon." "The dominoes seem to be falling into place, don't they?" Gough replies. Banks then steers the conversation into metaphorical territory and we go riding over the speedbumps of symbolism as she says, "I remember ... the bird. When it hit the window, I literally felt my heart skip a beat. Then you had the phone call ... after you left, I looked out onto the ledge. I looked over. I wanted to help it, if only to end its pain, but I couldn't. That was the worst part. There was nothing I could do to stop it." Gough gives Banks a long, appraising look. As her phone rings, she absently asks Gough what his flashforward phone call was about. Gough replies, "It was my attorney." When Banks is all, "Attorney what now?" we see more of his flashforward: it turns out Gough has an attorney because ... he killed someone? Did nobody in the FBI office have a flashforward (or lack thereof) that hasn't thoroughly messed them up? Anyway, Gough lies to Banks that everything was fine.
Demetri's putting on his going-undercover clothes and looking sharp, but his fine appearance will not
cool Zoey's red-hot temper. She stalks into their loft and ambushes him: "You don't have any idea why I'm mad, do you?" No, he does not. Because in a day filled with death cults and whatnot, viewing wedding invitation proofs just sort of slipped his mind. Demetri apologizes, explaining that work was a big buffet of nuts, but Zoey reminds him that she's got a pretty demanding job as well, yet she managed to get to the printer on time. Demetri apologizes some more, but Zoey's had it: "It's not about the invitations, Dem. It's about you and me, and the fact that you've been checked out ever since I got home from Seattle." Demetri points out that he's been slammed since the blackout. Zoey rebuts, "That's been your excuse for everything -- why you are late coming home, why you don't feel like talking, why you shut your computer every time I walk in the room. It's like I don't even exist!" Demetri protests, "That's unfair --" and Zoey rolls right over him with "What's unfair is being in love with someone. That's unfair." Not really. It's unfortunate, but it's not unfair. However, Zoey still wins on style points. As Demetri does the slow-burn thing, Zoey protests that "I don't want you to apologize. I want you to want to be here. Talk to me. Just be honest about whatever's going on." This goads Demetri: "You want me to be honest? The more you jump down my throat, the less I want to be here. How's that for honesty?" He stalks out, leaving Zoey in a worse state than when she walked in.
Meanwhile, at Our Lady of the Mood Lighting Memorial Hospital, Olivia's giving Nicole a bit of a volunteer orientation, and while I get that this is part of Nicole's ongoing effort to rack up the good-girl points before her presumed death-by-drowning in April, I am distracted because I am wondering about the Benfords' childcare logistics. We know that Mark is going to have to work that night because of the blue hand thing, Olivia's at the hospital, and so, apparently, is Charlie's primary caretaker. So who's watching young miss Benford? Aaron? Lloyd and Dylan? I feel like this should be explained. Anyway, Bryce comes in right then, and Nicole gives him a look like So, is there a Mrs. Dr. Bryce?, then remembers her do-gooder mission and checks her libido. Olivia orders Nicole to shadow Bryce ("He'll show you the lay of the land") and takes off, possibly because she's asking the same questions I did about who's looking after Charlie. Nicole and Bryce's small talk is interrupted, as an elderly Japanese patient wanders over to the nurse's station, puts down a beautiful arrangement of sweet peas, and gives the nurses whatfor. Unfortunately for the lady, she's making her points in Japanese, and nobody happens to speak the language.
OR DO THEY? Nicole glides on over and conducts a brief and soothing conversation; the little old lady walks off with a "thank you," and Nicole schools us all by explaining, "Sweet peas symbolize good-byes in Japanese culture. It's considered a bad omen to give them to the sick."
Meanwhile, Mark, Demetri and Gough are heading for downtown L.A. They're walking through a suitably gritty block, and Demetri looks at Gough -- who's in a white shirt, tie and v-neck sweater -- to ask, "Is that a cardigan?" Gough protests that he was going for the Average Joe look. Mark chimes in with, "Back off, Dem. That jacket? Ridiculous." Demetri scoffs, "Says the FBI agent in a Police t-shirt. Good going." (Heh -- I know it's a concert shirt, but you have to admit: it's sort of like John Belushi in the "College" sweatshirt.) The three of them see a blue clock projected on a building's wall, and Mark whispers, "Go downtown, check the time." As the three men head toward the building, Mark adjusts his jacket so "Police" is no longer showing. (Again: heh.)
to the sliding metal door on the building, another blue hand (skeletal bones visible) is spray painted. Mark knocks and when a bouncer-type silently slides the door open, Demetri says, "We're, uh, here for the meeting?" Mark adds, "Ah, uh, Dr. Raynaud's invitation." They all get stamped with the little blue hand, then walk down a long, poorly-lit hallway. It's all very David Fincher-esque, with the music all "We're like Nine Inch Nails in the 1990s, only not!" and the clammy green lighting, and all we need is a shot of Kevin Spacey making a collage out of underwear model pics where he's cut off the heads, and it'll be Se7en all over again. Boring! It's time for a new aesthetic of evil -- I propose office parks with fluorescent lighting and cube farms as far as the eye can see. That is a truly soul-shriveling environment; I dare any eyeliner-wearing boho poser to swan about all "I wallow in depravity and eeeeeeeeevil" to a fax machine and the receptionist's cubicle.
Alas, we are stuck in the 1990s definition of "gritty and morally murky," so of course there's a creepy little test administered before the boys can join the fun. Someone who looks like he bought his William F. Burroughs costume on the half-off rack at the Halloween Superstore slams down a pistol and it soon becomes clear: in order to enter, one or all of the boys will have to play Russian roulette. Mark is taken aback at the prospect, but Gough is all, "Check this, motherf***ers" and clicks the pistol under his jaw. Nothing happens. Demetri immediately decries the whole tableau as a sick joke, so the off-the-rack ghoul opens the pistol's chamber. Out pops a bullet. Ghoul hands it over with "Your ticket in. Welcome to the Blue Hand, gentlemen." Gough looks at the bullet: it reads "Not Today."
While I applaud the "giving the finger to fate" sentiment, alas it appears to be an imaginative deviation from a set piece in debauchery. As the boys enter the main Blue Hand area -- replete with half-naked women writhing around, tired little bondage scenarios, etc. -- Demetri chides Gough regarding the Russian roulette gambit, and Gough points out, "Unlike the rest of these people, I know I'm going to be alive in six months. Bullet or no bullet, there's no way I was going to die tonight."
Mark chats up some "edgy" bartender (circa 1999) and asks about Reynaud; we find out that the Reynaud changes with each gathering and "you'll know him when you see him." Oh, please tell me Reynaud is like some sort of Wicker Man and each gathering ends with human sacrifice! (Wait. Is it wrong to root for that?) Mark finds the matchbook with "the blue hand" and recalls that it'll be on his board in six months. He pockets it just as the bartender answers Gough's polite query about what they do with some pseudo-edgy twaddle about there being no limits and no fear.
Back at Our Lady of the Mood Lighting Memorial Hospital, Lloyd has popped his head into Olivia's office. After a really awkward little moment where Olivia is searching for a polite way to tell him to am-scray, Lloyd sits down and assures her, "I really just came by to say thank you for everything you've done for Dylan." Olivia demurs with "He did all the hard work himself," but Lloyd persists, "Well, you saved his life, and in doing that, you saved mine as well. The very last thing I would want to do is ruin yours." Olivia tries to cut off the conversation again. Lloyd continues, "I understand this is really very awkward, so please just let me be perfectly clear: Nothing is going to happen between us. I would never do anything to come between you and your husband, despite what we may have seen and experienced." Olivia spits out, "Good." This conversation o-v-e-r so far as she's concerned. Lloyd gets up with the news that he and Dylan are moving back to the Bay Area, and Olivia's like, "I will push that hospital transfer through right now if it will get you out of my office."
In another part of the hospital, Nicole's telling Bryce she picked up some conversational Japanese when her dad was stationed in Okinawa, and when she returned to the States, she took classes. Bryce is like, "Super! Can I show you something?" He flips to the page in his sketchbook where he's got the drawing of the woman he saw in his flashforward. She has a kanji letter behind her, but Bryce doesn't know what it is or what it means. Nicole tells him that nobody recognized the character because it wasn't complete. She takes a pen and finishes the symbol, then tells Bryce it means "Believe."
Back at the Blue Hand ... debauchery, debauchery, debauchery, blah blah blah. To the agents' credit, at least they're not doing the typical thing where TV law enforcement types stare at these tedious tableaux with mouths agape. Mark dismisses the whole thing as pathetic, but Demetri points out that if you've been handed a preliminary notice of your death, who can blame you if you dream of spending your last days dressed like the prisoners in Abu Ghraib? Maybe you'll get lucky and find your own personal Lynndie England. Then an alarm sounds, people drop the whips and nipple clamps, and everyone converges on a central point chanting "Reynaud, Reynaud ..." We see some thirtysomething guy in a suit come out and flash his blue palms. The bartender whispers to Demetri, "They represent a portal -- a gateway from one understanding to another. The blue hand marks a surrender to the inevitable." Good lord, these people are insufferable, what with the perversion-in-a-can and the pseudomystic twaddle. If I had six months to live, the last thing I'd want to do is waste my time hanging out with these mopey ponces. Reynaud whips out his gun, makes like he's going to play Russian roulette ...
... And that's when Mark and Demetri decide to announce that they're FBI. Mark tackles
Reynaud, Demetri and Gough manage to contain the masses with their paltry two guns until the shock troops arrive, and Reynaud protests, "I want this to end!" Mark hisses, "Not today. Not today."
Back in the FBI meeting room, Demetri is explaining the Reynaud nom de plume -- the original Dr. Maurice Reynaud discovered "Reynaud's phenomenon," also known as "blue hands." He died in 1881. This guy's name is actually Jeff Slingerland, and he's an award-winning high school history teacher. Then the blackout happened and now he's in a book club with bullets. Jeff explains his actions with, "You know what Nietzsche said: 'Gaze at the abyss and the abyss also gazes into you.'" Mark asks, "Is that the kind of optimism that comes from not having a vision?" Oh, Jeff had a vision: "A bottomless pit of darkness and indifference, infinite in its nothingness, as if I never existed at all, and I never would again." We cut to Demetri, nodding in recognition, and see Gough, who looks really haunted. After Mark asks where the Reynauds find the ghosts, Jeff tells him, "We don't find them -- you do. There's no better place to go than your Mosaic site. Couldn't do it without you!" Demetri then decides to play Bad Cop, shoving Jeff's face into a photo of one of Janis's would-be assassins and threatens, "You better start talking or I'm going to charge you as an accomplice after the fact." Jeff points out that since he's effectively a dead man, Demetri's threats really aren't going to be terribly effective. (And on a side note: How awful and annoying would it be to live with someone who had a blackout? "I swear, if you don't empty this trash --" "Go ahead and threaten me! I'll be dead soon anyway. I don't care about your stupid trash!" Now I want to find out if there's a spike in divorce rates between ghosts and flashforwards, or if they're busy taking out big life insurance policies -- hey ... there's another tangent. What's going on in the insurance industries? Are thousands of claims adjusters frantically making notes to deny people coverage based on the claims files they were reading in their flashforwards? Inquiring minds want to know.) ANYWAY, the whole point to this scene is for Jeff to drop some philosophy on us: "It's all mapped out, don't you see? The script for this conversation has already been written. Whatever you've all seen is going to happen." Gough does not like that philosophical argument at all: "What if you're wrong? What if April 29 comes and goes, and you're still alive? What then?" Jeff looks uncertain for a moment, then asserts, "You can run, and you can hide, but you can't escape what's coming. No-one can."
Meanwhile, Fiona Banks has been working way late in a guest office -- seriously, there's an eight-hour time difference between London and the U.S. west coast, and speaking as someone who's made that round trip recently, I'm in awe of her stamina with being awake for 24 hours straight. Gough pops by as she's packing up, and the two commiserate over the craptacular hotels the FBI sets up for visiting agents. Gough asks, "You ever try dirty rice?" Banks asks, "Dirty rice? What, you mean like eating it off the floor?" Gough smiles -- hello, sunshine! -- and explains that it's his favorite dish, a Cajun one. He invites Banks over for some, "if you're feeling hungry at all." Banks demurs and Gough prepares to go. He turns in the door: "You know, I've been thinking about our bird. What if you taped the window? If you cover the window, the bird might not crash into it." Banks dismisses this with "It's a nice thought. I think it'll just crash into a different window." Gough says, "Maybe. But it's worth a shot." He takes his leave.
In Mark's office, Mark is sweeping something into an evidence bag while wryly remarking that at least Jeff isn't one to soft-pedal bad news. Demetri says, "Everybody deals with it differently, I guess. At least I don't have to deal with the uncertainty. That is the one good thing about knowing the exact date of your murder -- it gives you time to prepare." Mark's like, "March 15 comes around, you just gonna pack it in? Say your goodbyes, have a nice farewell dinner?" Demetri says that how he deals with it is his own business, and Mark rebuts that Demetri needs to deal with it by fighting his foreseen future. Demetri shouts for Mark to wake up, adding brokenly, "Look around you. Look around, man. Reynaud was right -- it's all happening, every single day. There's no way out. There's nothing you, I or anyone can do to escape what's coming."
And on that cheery note, Mark goes home to his wife (who, in an admirable fit of self-restraint, is not wearing a t-shirt reading, "ASK ME ABOUT HOW I AM NOT SLEEPING WITH LLOYD") and daughter. They watch the Squirrelio show together in the living room, and Mark, who is clearly still thinking about the whole "these flashforwards are inevitable!" argument, is overcome with tears. Olivia heads up to bed, and Mark hangs on the couch with Charlie, pulling her close.
We go to Gough in a tank and shorts -- hello, sunshine -- eating his dirty rice. He flashes to his phone conversation with the lawyer (the one where he brokenly says, "I killed her," then smiles as he takes another bite. Gough has made up his mind about something.
Demetri's brought Zoey a peace offering of cinnamon rolls and lays it all out: "I really do love you. I know I've been distant lately, but I didn't know how to tell you, or what to tell you. I didn't know what to do ... about my flashforward. I told you I saw myself on the beach at our wedding. That was a lie. I didn't see anything. Only darkness, nothingness. I didn't have a flashforward because I'm going to be dead. Tonight I met all these people just like me. No visions. They were just waiting to die. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be like that. I want to be here with you."
Zoey takes the news that her intended is going to die with remarkable poise. She simply says, "I know what I saw. The beach, our wedding -- I know you were there." Demetri tells her, "You've got to know how much I wanted that. I wanted to marry you, have a baby with you, grow old with you --" "It was a mistake. You made a mistake. There's no way of knowing for sure," Zoey insists. Demetri says he's pretty sure, and Zoey's like, "Whatever, doomsayer. I am going to drag us into our fantastic married life. We have two conflicting visions: we can choose which one we want to believe in." Demetri appears to cede the argument to her. For now, anyway.
Somehow, Nicole and Bryce have made it over to the artist's garret Bryce occupies when he's not busy sketching pictures on his hospital shifts. Nicole compliments Bryce on his portraiture, and instead of having a discussion over why a motivated and not-untalented artist is choosing a career in medicine over art (or even asking if Bryce ever considered getting into the medical illustration field) ... there's just a conversation about how Bryce is sort of smitten with this woman but he's also intrigued by the mystery. His flashforward involves lots of woodwinds and mysterious chimes, much like a Celestial Seasons tea commercial, and a Japanese woman doing the demure laughing thing. And since Bryce's flashforward is a series of images and impressions, he can't make heads nor tails of it. Nicole cajoles Bryce into putting his story on Mosaic.
Morning. As Gough walks into the office, he looks even grimmer than usual. The music gets stomach-knottingly ominous; Gough quietly walks through the office, and places a manila envelope on Demetri's desk. He deposits his suit jacket in his cubicle. Gough then heads for the stairs. He passes Demetri and Mark. When Mark asks if Gough's coming to the morning meeting, Gough says, "You two go ahead. Hey, Demetri? I left something on your desk. Can you make sure it gets into the right hands?" Demetri agrees. Gough walks alone; the camera and lighting turn him into a dark silhouette, all features blotted out by the light behind him.
The meeting goes on without Gough. Weddick is getting the 411 on the unsurprisingly nonhelpful Jeff. Ma
rk says, "My sense is that these people aren't killers. Just lost, aggressive nihilists." This gives me the opportunity to whip out my favorite Big Lebowski quote of all time: "Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." Thank you.
Demetri sidles into the meeting and sits down as Weddick berates Mark for his soft-pedaling of Jeff. Mark slides into a completely disposable monologue as Demetri -- and, by proxy, us viewers -- open the envelope Gough left. The inside has an envelope labeled "For Celia." There's a post-it attached for Demetri reading "Demetri, there is always a way out." Demetri reads Celia's note. We hear Mark say, "The guy's walking on eggshells every minute of the day, just waiting for the hammer to drop. Every day he wakes up wondering if today is the day, if today's the day his future catches up with him" and we see Gough getting into an elevator. We get his whole flashforward: Apparently Gough will be in an auto accident of some sort that causes Celia such severe injuries that she dies from her wounds and orphans her children. It's no wonder Gough's been looking so grim since he got his flashforward.
Gough makes his way to the roof and stands on the edge of the FBI building. In the meeting room, Demetri gets up and says urgently, "Stop! Stop!"
Gough looks over the edge. Demetri, Mark, Fiona and Weddick all sprint onto the roof. Mark begs him to come down -- "We can fix this" -- and Demetri points out that, as FBI agents, they can probably find Celia and make sure she's safe. Weddick says smoothly and calmly, "Anything you need, we can find a way to make it happen, son." Gough points out that his accident/actions can happen anytime, anywhere. He doesn't even know how. Demetri protests, "You're alive six months from now. You saw it!" "But if I'm not here --" Gough begins. He starts again, "If I'm not here, that means we can change things. What I saw, what you saw, doesn't have to play out that way. I found a way to change the game." He gives them a small smile. We see the bird fly into the window one more time, then Al Gough turns toward the street, spreads his arms, and falls.
His horrified coworkers see him at the same time we do: Al's crumpled body on the street. The music plays through a wordless scene: Demetri watching the EMTs pick Al's body up off the pavement (Weddick stands there, looking furious). Then Demetri reads Gough's letter to Celia: "Dear Celia -- I don't know your last name, and I don't know where you live. But I know you have two young boys -- twins, I believe. And I know you didn't have a flashforward. I understand how terrifying that is, and how powerless you must be feeling. But I want you to know, you are not alone. Your situation is not as hopeless as you might think. Our paths were meant to cross, but I didn't know how and I didn't know when. "
While Demetri's reading the letter, we see: Celia playing with her sons; Weddick alone in his office, shuddering as he sobs; Mark coming into his bedroom, grabbing Olivia and crying into her shoulder as he hugs her; Fiona Banks taping up the window of her office (and this is when I got all teary. All typos from this point on are due to my regrettable sentimentality.)
Demetri continues the voice-over: "But things have changed now. Things are no longer going to unfold as I had feared."
While this is going on, we shift to the people who had been eagerly awaiting their flashforwards -- Aaron in his truck and Bryce drawing yet another picture of his mystery lady.
Nicole walks by as Demetri VO's "My gift to you is your release from that dread."
We flash to Lloyd with Dylan, then to Dr. Hobbit, as Demetri VO's " ... from the feeling that you're no longer in control."
The letter concludes: "We will never meet. I will never know you. So live your life. Live every day. And know that the future is unwritten. Make the most of that." We close on Celia, putting her boys to bed. She smiles, and the light snaps off.
So! Gough's death is a total game-changer: he's just proven than you can act to subvert your own flashforward and someone else's. Will we see more strategic moves like this in the coming weeks? Will the office be totally normal and all "Al who?" episode. Stay tuned.
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