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Soooo … that happened.
Zoey goes to get information about Demetri's possible death from Alda -- whom prison has made even more attractive, as it does -- and Alda tells her that unless there's a hearing to determine whether or not Alda's going to be charged with something, Alda will not talk. Zoey does arrange the hearing by lying about Alda's pending appendicitis, then Alda engineers an escape. She throws Zoey a bone by saying that in her flashforward, she heard that they found Demetri's body in "building seven."
Demetri is, of course, imprisoned in a fiendishly complicated chair where, if he moves, he'll be shot by the gun (which will be fired off by … an arrow? Whatever, the whims of mad geniuses are beyond my ken.) and there are laser pointers, and behind him is a massive diagram detailing all the possible futures that Dyson Frost has seen. He calls it "the garden of forking paths." He tells Demetri, "In almost every future, I don't live past today. Seventy-eight percent of the time, you end up killing me … the point is, once we've glimpsed it, the future wants to happen. It gains weight. It's like atmospheric pressure bearing down, and if we want to escape that pressure, we have to do something drastic." Hence the crazy and elaborate schemes to kill Demetri -- or not really kill -- Demetri. It turns out that Dyson wants to fool the future into happening by presenting the possibility to killing Demetri, yet allowing them both to live.
While Demetri gets to sit in his silly chair and contemplate his mortality, his coworkers try to find ways to get him back. They are thwarted by Dyson Frost's clever feints. Only Mark gets special instructions on getting to Demetri. He eventually makes it out to Antelope Valley and meets up with Dyson Frost. Sadly, the meeting is cut short by Alda killing Dyson Frost (it is sad -- poor Frost is not so much evil as he is lonely and mad from what he knows), but Mark hops in Dyson Frost's car and manages to find the location. But he has to call into the office for help, and Janis is the one who points him to building seven. Nice work, mole!
Mark enters into the building and manages to fight a bad case of nerves to recall Dyson Frost's conversation with Charlie about the collected works of Dr. Seuss, then invokes the timeless rule of "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" to disarm the elaborate gun-firing machine and save Demetri's life. Hurray! Hurray! (However, when Demetri stands up, he triggers a spraying arm that wipes out all the information on the big board depicting the garden of the forked paths. Win some, lose some.)
Now that that plotline is winding down, the show introduces a new complication in the form of a raving savant who appears to be hop-skipping through flashforwards all on his own. This raving savant, Gabriel, was friends with the homeless dude who got shot one episode ago -- both of them are linked to the "Raven river experiments" that Dyson Frost also alluded to, so it looks like we're about to embark on a plot to answer to the question "Who caused the flashforwards and why?"
Want more? The full recap starts right below!When last we tuned into Flashforward, Dyson Frost -- the man, the legend, the supercooled vacuum cleaner with extraordinary sucking action -- had succeeded in abducting Demetri the day before he was due to be murdered. This was largely due to the FBI getting all in a tizzy about Demetri's pending quickie-nuptials and not, say, anticipating Demetri's possible abduction. How fortunate they're not in the crime-prevention business.
And now, this episode begins by reminding us that on October 6, the planet blacked out for two minutes ... blah blah blah. You know, if you're seventeen episodes into the series, it is probably a bad sign if you're still refreshing viewers on the basic premise. Then again, one of the most hilarious things about the late and unlamented Tru Calling was how the episode would, around the halfway mark, recap everything that had just happened. Clearly, the writers on that show had decided, "If you're brain-damaged enough to want to watch this, we're betting you're brain-damaged enough to have no short-term memory left. We're here to help you."
The episode begins with a close-up on Demetri's perspiring face, and we soon zoom out to see what brought on the flop sweat: an elaborate set-up involving red laser beams (aimed at Demetri's forehead), what looks like one of Green Lantern's trick arrows and Mark's gun aimed at his forehead. We zip very quickly to a blackboard behind Demetri that is covered in a diagram that is colorful, complex and apparently related to all the possible timelines Dyson Frost has seen, then we see that Demetri is barefoot and the platform on which his chair is mounted is pressure sensitive.
We revisit the big board o' possibilities again and see that Dyson has laid out the season's arc in white chalk, and recapped it with admirable brevity: Dec 15: Hong Kong à Keep distance àCan't help à Jan à Somalia à Kill Pat. 9 à Queen Sacrifice à Lathe à L.B.C. à Carnival à March 15, 2010 - Demetri dies à Zoom Car à Antelope Valley.
At FBI HQ, everyone's changed out of their tuxes and bent to the task of finding Demetri. Mark is trying to interrogate his daughter regarding her chat with Dyson Frost the evening. It is not going well and Wedeck steps in, calmly saying, "Charlie, sometimes closing our eyes helps us remember more. You want to do that with me?" He makes a show of squeezing his eyes shut, and Charlie follows suit. Wedeck continues to gently question Charlie, and she spills a detailed narrative. The two are sitting on a bench at the carnival...
Dyson Frost: Hello, Charlie. They make a mean cotton candy here, don't they?
Charlie: I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.
Dyson Frost: I'm not a stranger. If I were a stranger, would I know your name? I work with your daddy, and I hear that you are a big reader. Do you like Dr. Seuss?
Charlie: Yeah.
Dyson Frost: Me too. You know, my favorite is "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish."
Charlie: That one is for little kids.
Dyson Frost: (chuckles) Well. Maybe. You know, even grown-ups can learn from that book, 'cause Dr. Seuss has all the answers.
Charlie: I like Horton.
Dyson Frost: Horton? Oh, that's a good one too. I mean, Horton's a trooper -- he had faith to carry his mission through to the end, even when others doubted him. You know, Charlie, I need you to do something for me. (Opens a satchel, hands her a picture.) I want you to give this to your daddy. It's very important. Bye-bye.
I put down the whole exchange because it was striking how this guy is apparently a natural with children; it humanizes him in a way, and I like that Dyson Frost is not just some one-dimensional eccentric evil genius. And also, why did Mark and Olivia never drill their kid on how to sniff out a liar? Charlie will apparently hang with anyone who pretends to know her parents.
Anyway, back in the present, Mark flips over the picture Dyson gave him; there's a note reading, "If you want Demetri back, Union station. Main concourse. March 15. Noon." Well -- Mark has some place to be.
Then there is an awkward Benford family mini-reunion over by the elevator, and once again Wedeck saves the day by coming by and asking Charlie very soberly if she'll help him by eating the jellybeans in his office. This will give Mark and Olivia some alone time to not talk about how Olivia's flung herself at Lloyd. Wedeck is awesome, and he is my Number One Reason for tuning into this show, but he can't possibly save every excruciating Mark-and-Olivia scene, can he?
Meanwhile, Zoey's meeting with Alda in prison. Alda is, of course, her usual charming self and Zoey points out "The only reason I agreed to represent you is because you said there was more that you weren't telling us. I know you don't care if Demetri lives or if he dies, but I think that you do care about getting the hell out of here." Alda points out that indeed, she does -- why is why she's not saying a word: "Get me a hearing and we'll talk. I've been held here for five months as a material witness and I haven't been charged with crap." Zoey protests that she's doing her darndest, and Alda's like, "I should think you have extra motivation today. Get me the hearing."
The FBI's all prepping for the Union Station. Vreede's contribution is to tell us that the painting Dyson Frost handed to Charlie was "Oedipus and the Sphinx," by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Who says a fine arts education doesn't come in handy? Anyway, Mark wonders, "Why Oedipus? Why a carnival? Why Dr. Seuss?" "Dyson's in love with his mother," Vreede shoots back. Ha! Mark is not amused and goes into a boring rant about how the message to Oedipus Rex is that fate is unavoidable. Everyone's like, "So how do we know that our rescue efforts aren't foreordained to kill Demetri?" and Mark rolls his eyes all, I AM THE ONE MAKING UP THE NARRATIVE HERE. ME ME ME ME ME.
Meanwhile, Demetri focuses on staying perfectly still so he doesn't fidget himself into an execution.
We then flash back to six months before the flashforward -- so, April of 2009. Alda is tricked out in a Matrix-style leather trench and one of the blond goons who tortured Lloyd is taking her to a warehouse, explaining, "The man you're about to meet -- he's brilliant but eccentric. We had to fake his death in order to remove him from the public eye, and he's been ... difficult ever since." Alas, "we" have to rely on him because "there are only a few people on Earth who understand the physics involved in all of this. He's one of them. Just know that if he gets too unmanageable, we may ask you to take care of him." Alda does not look like her idea of "taking care" of someone involves any genuine concern for their well-being. The two enter the warehouse -- atmospherically-lit, of course -- and Dyson chides them to be careful of the dominoes. We see a massive arrangement laid out on the floor. Dyson asks, "Who's your friend, Henninger?" and Henninger introduces Alda with "Dyson helped us engineer the Raven River experiments?" Dyson explains that "helped us" translates in Factcheckese as "Came up with them all by his brilliant self." The point, however, is that few people who participated in those experiments are still alive. The three chitchat about the pending October 6 experiment -- which Dyson will be tracking worldwide with waveform stations -- and Dyson concludes, "If Simcoe and Campos find their dark matter, then we're on our way." Henninger asks if the QED is ready, and Dyson tosses a ring at Henninger. Then he lets Henninger know that he's on to his death-threat-y ways. As Henninger and Alda prepare to take their leave, Alda asks what the deal is with the dominoes. Dyson explains, "This is my garden, and the white [dominoes] chart the path of my escape." Alda chuckles dismissively, "That makes no sense at all." "It does if you live in my head," Dyson replies. He sets the dominoes in motion.
We then get a shot of Demetri sitting, with the giant blackboard behind him, and it is surely no coincidence that it looks like the same layout of the domino maze. Dyson comes in and cautions him, "If you move too much, the gun will fire." Then he talks to Demetri about the massive chart behind him: "I call it the garden of forking paths. All those lines! They're futures that branch off of each critical decision I made. For me, it started back in the '80s, at a place called Raven River. We engineered hundreds, maybe even thousands of flashforwards. Sometimes we jump 20 minutes, sometimes we jump 20 years." The camera pans to some of these alternate paths, all of which appear to end with the same symbol: a zero with an "X" through it. Dyson continues, "Every time we jumped, we saw a different possible future. Take the day of the blackout: had we failed, a different path would have opened up. We succeeded, so we moved on to the decision point."
In other words, this mad genius is saying, his life has basically been like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, one where he's had no problems flipping ahead to see what happens if he does follow the Troll King down to the throne room on page 23. Dyson sa
ys, "March 15 -- the most important fork of all." Demetri asks, "My murder." "No!" Dyson says with an air of cheery lunacy, "Our murder! You see, the thing is, Demetri, in almost every future, I don't live past today. Seventy-eight percent of the time, you end up killing me!" Demetri wants to know why and Dyson chuckles, "Stupidity, self-defense, bad luck -- I could construct a hundred scenarios. The point is, once we've glimpsed it, the future wants to happen. It gains weight. It's like atmospheric pressure bearing down." Hear that, everyone? It's the writers telling all of us who ask about free will to shut up.
Demetri asks why Dyson went to all the bother of an elaborate death trap chamber, and Dyson explains earnestly, "I'm attempting to conform to the future as closely as possible while still allowing for the possibility that we both might live! I want to come in from the cold, and you're my insurance." In other words, Dyson's trying to outthink the universe. Pretty sneaky, guy! Demetri does not appreciate the desperate genius behind this idea -- and who can blame him, as he's the one all cramped in a chair with a gun aimed at his cabeza? -- and tells Dyson, "You're insane." Dyson's nervous energy dissipates and he says quietly, "Most oracles are, you know? They see the future, and the knowledge ends up destroying them." Demetri strains against the chair, shouting for Dyson to come in from the cold and share what he knows, and Dyson comes back, all cheery exposition gone: "Careful. I don't know what will happen, but in all likelihood, one of us will die today." He takes off, Demetri shouting impotently in the background.
And now, Mark's at Union Station. The rest of the series regulars are in a surveillance van outside. Mark tensely glares at passersby for a few minutes, then a whole lot of nothing happens.
Then -- since this Will-a-beloved-series-regular-live-or-die? plotline is apparently not enough to hold our interest -- Olivia quizzes the rest of the folks in the operating room on whether or not anyone uses halothane anymore. The anesthesiologist shrugs, "In developing countries maybe, but here it's been replaced by newer agents." When Bryce asks why Olivia's so interested, she mentions Lloyd's interest and Bryce gets all gossipy about their renewed connection.
Still curious how Mark's doing? You'll have to wait, because it's time for Alda's hearing. Zoey lied about Alda's possible appendicitis in order to get the hearing -- unethical, sure, but I can't say I wouldn't do the same in the same situation -- and the hearing is pretty much a nonstarter. However, the real point was not to get Alda a favorable hearing; it was just to get her to the courthouse where the window-washing arm of her shadowy employers happens to have been waiting for her. A few well-placed explosions later and Alda is escaping from custody. Before she goes, she tells Zoey her one possibly-relevant piece of useful information: Demetri's body will be found in "Building Seven."
Meanwhile, poor Vreede's stuck chasing a dead end in the Dyson Frost investigation -- literally. He has to identify the poor John Doe who got shot in the last episode, and he prevails upon Olivia to help him. Why? Because it was this John Doe who sent Olivia the text about Mark being shnockered in his flashforward. Therefore, Vreede reasons, Olivia must have some connection to the stiff. Olivia is skeptical of this line of reasoning, but agrees to head down to the morgue.
And now, Mark's contact comes by: a young boy bearing a Superman backpack. He explains, "Some weird guy paid me $50 to give you this," then hands over the backpack. Mark opens it: there's a photo of Demetri -- alive but glowering -- and a mobile phone, which begins ringing. Dyson's on the other end. He orders Mark to be quiet, as this will prevent him from verbally passing along any information to the rest of the FBI team, and after threatening to kill Demetri if Mark doesn't play nice, adds, "I want to come in. I'll tell you when and why the blackout will occur. I want to help you, but because I've parted ways with my associates, they're going to do anything to insure that you don't bring me into custody." Mark promises "we can protect you" -- yeah, now that there's only one mole around to shoot up the joint, the odds of workplace homicides have dropped by 50% -- and Dyson tells him to shut up. "If you understand, say 'Figueroa.'" When the FBI surveillance team picks it up and assumes it's Figueroa St. Having sent the team on a wild goose chase, Dyson then sets Mark on a wacky chase of his own -- but not before having him say "Pico" (pronounced, as all Angelenos know, as "peek-oh") to further confuse the FBI. They're now going to stake out the intersection of Pico and Figueroa.
Mark then sprints to the men's room, tosses his phone and his weapon, jumps into a ventilation shaft where there's a Zoomcar access card waiting for him, then shimmies through the ductwork until he's running through a standpipe, then up to the waiting Zoomcar. Once he finds the car, he lets himself inside. A phone immediately starts ringing, and it's Dyson. He begins giving Mark driving directions. Mark zips off, leaving Janis in the dust. He ultimately heads to a remote location in the Antelope Valley and begins sprinting toward his meeting place with Dyson.
Meanwhile, Vreede and Olivia are hitting a dead end on their John Doe, as he had no dental records, no fingerprints, no identifying scars. The only thing distinctive about the man is that he had a huge hippocampus, which indicates he could have been a savant. Olivia's all, "Well, that's all well and good but I have to go now." Vreede shoots her down by reminding her that she is somehow connected to the dead man -- they just don't know how.
Mark sprints to his meeting place with Dyson in the scrubby hills. He happens to be holding a water bottle filled with a yellowish liquid. That's new. Dyson comes strolling out and greets Mark with an expansive gesture -- "So here we are again, Mark. Time for you and me to save the world." Mark gives him a glower that plainly communicates "Demetri first, world second." Dyson cocks a gun at Mark and gives him an unhinged grin. He says, "Most of my associates wanted you dead months ago, but I resisted because I wanted to see things through to this day." Mark wants to know, "Why me?" "Because I don't trust the rest of the FBI," Dyson drawls, "Nor should you." Mark protests that they found the mole and Dyson hisses, "You think that makes you safe? You have no idea." He tosses cuffs to Mark and tells him to put them on before they continue chit-chatting. Mark asks if he can have some water first. Dyson doesn't see why not. Mark takes a sip, bends down to put on the cuffs -- then stands up and spits in Dyson's face. And it's not water! He had siphoned some gasoline from the car. That's got to sting. Mark quickly disarms Frost and cuffs him, and Frost shouts frustratedly, "This is not the way it's supposed to play out."
And right in the middle of this tense confrontation, we cut to ... Zoey, losing her cool all over Janis and Wedeck. Janis hustles off to chase down Building Seven leads while Wedeck works his mojo and gets Zoey to shut her babbling yap. Oh, Wedeck, I wish you had your own show. Or that you roamed the airwaves getting annoying people to stop their yip-yip-yipping on other shows.
Back to Mark flipping out on Dyson, who is in turn protesting, "You already know where Demetri is! I gave Charlie all the answers!" Mark screams, "What in the hell are you talking about?" and starts frogmarching Dyson toward the car, saying, "We're running out of time." Dyson wails, "I know! The whole world is!" This actually penetrates Mark's self-righteous fury and he looks at Dyson, who gasps, "But in the end, we're all going to be saved by the lady you see every day." Mark is all, "Who in the what now?" Dyson pleads, "Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you --" "Move!" Mark commands. Dyson then spots a motorcycle behind one hill and says, "Someone followed you here." Mark's all, "Nuh-uh," but then he catches sight of the cycle. Right then, Alda shoots Dyson. Oh, no! I LIKE Dyson. He's a tragic figure, yet entertaining. It would have been awesome to keep him around matching wits with Simon and Lloyd. Alas, he dies while gasping, "I did what I did for a reason." Mark drops the body, picks up Dyson's satchel, finds photos and diagrams we'll doubtlessly be seeing more of later, then finds a Zoomcard. He takes off to find Dyson's wheels.
Once there, Mark checks the GPS to see where Dyson's been recently, and recalls Vreede's art lesson earlier -- Ingres was the painter. What do you know, there's an Ingres street where Dyson was recently. Mark presses the GPS to give him directions and speeds off.
It's Elvin from the Cosby Show! And he's all grown up and playing a neurologist now. Dr. Ebbing is there basically to exposit on savants -- "Some of my patients are like human video cameras, compelled to record staggering amounts of information." I am recapping this only because the Anvils of Future Plots are falling thick and fast, and this is prologue.
Mark has arrived at the Ingres Street location with four minutes to spare. He runs around the abandoned army depot bellowing Demetri's name at the top of his lungs. Concurrently, Wedeck and Janis are trying to get a lock on Mark's location. Mark helps everyone by calling in to Wedeck and shouting where he is. And this is where building seven comes in handy -- now all they have to do is tell Mark which unnumbered building is building seven. Janis produces the information, and Mark bursts into the warehouse. Demetri gives him the rundown: "There's a rig with your gun in it, and I can't move. You have about two minutes and change to do something." And it's an impressive rig. Mark reasons that he can't stop the timer, but maybe he can move the gun. Demetri's not really feeling the hope right now and he indulges in a gloomy moment of conceding his fate to that importunate bitch, Predestination.
Mark remembers the "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" clue Dyson dropped and reasons that's how he'll pull the wires to disengage the gun. There's a tense little moment where Mark does his little sequence, moves the gun by millimeters, and then --
The gun fires repeatedly and Demetri twitches. But it's because the gun fired behind him and into the
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mug shot pasted to his death day on the garden of forking paths. Subtle! Symbolic! But it's March 15 and Demetri's still alive! Demetri quavers, "You think it's safe to stand now?" They decide to find out the old-fashioned way -- through experimentation. Once Demetri's off the pressurized chair, another machine whooshes to life and washes the garden away. Mark says sardonically, "You gotta love this guy. Even in death, he manages to screw us." I sort of hope there's a copy of the garden somewhere online. I want to see what the might-have-beens are.
Vreede and Olivia are feeling kind of deflated about how they chased down a phone book while Mark saved the day, but they're going to salve their pique with sweet, sweet caffeine. Olivia goes to order and the sartorially-challenged man behind her says, "She'll have a small soy latte, no foam, extra shot. Half sugar, half aspartame. Okay, now you say your thing." Olivia is all, "Come again, O oddly-attired free-range barrister?" The guy prods her to "Say it, say the thing you were going to say!" and Olivia asks, "How do you know my drink order?" And the guy says, "Yeah, that's what you say. I say, 'I have stood behind you in this line many times. You always order the same way.'" He then flashes a pleased smile, obviously relieved to have walked through this interaction as it's supposed to go.
But here's the twist: Olivia's never used this coffee cart before, and the guy -- who really looks like an awesome parody of a hipster with the trucker cap, 1970s-era ski jacket and sweater vest -- struggles to convey what he's means: "I have stood behind you here, in this spot, on this day, many times." Dozens of viewers across the country shout, "Good God, woman, he's alluding to flashforwards! You've starred in his!" The man continues, with a smile, "You always order the same way. My name is Gabriel. You deserve a break today." Olivia begins backing away from Gabriel. Vreede tries to insert himself, but Gabriel insists, "It's about the Raven River experiments! That's what my friend wanted to talk to you about, only he's dead now and it's up to me." Then Vreede steps off script by asking Gabriel to come talk to them, and Gabriel freaks. More than he already has, I mean. He runs off with the warning, "The dominoes are falling, Olivia!"
Those of you who approve of Zoey and Demetri get a shot of them playing snugglebunnies, while Wedeck, Janis and Mark survey the remains of the garden. The one thing Mark remembers, as nearly all the branches led to it: "December 12, 2016: THE END." "The end of what?" Wedeck wonders. Well, let's hope we find out before the probable end of the series in May.
In the meantime: Hurrah! Demetri's alive! Let us all rejoice! (And I will sit here alone, quietly mourning poor oracular Dyson Frost.)
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