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
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