Episode Report Card Sobell: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Thinking Out of the Box By Stepping off the Ledge
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.05.2009
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.)
Next 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" next 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