FlashForward 1-14 “Better Angels”
Now, since I write these recaps as I watch, it’s entirely possible that this will be explained in the very near future. But at this point, I’m not committing to either verse. People with assault rifles shoot the ground in front of our little band. Vogel makes their translator explain that they are aid workers with Red Panda, there for humanitarian purposes. As he starts, the leader shoots the translator dead. He introduces himself as Abdi Khalif and informs them that he speaks English.
Abdi leads them into a building. He recognizes Dom from the press conference about the Blackout. Abdi punches him and says he didn’t cause the Blackout. God did. The guys keep up the Red Panda story, but Abdi doesn’t believe it. They are there for the towers, just like “the others”. When he was a boy, people came in to build those towers and said they would give the village electricity. Hey, Abdi was that boy we saw months ago who returned to the village to find everybody passed out! In the flashback, he’s startled by a camel. That camel is not affected by the Blackout. And given that the kangaroo has come back a couple of times, I’m going to assume that’s significant.
To make his point, Abdi has his guys execute the helicopter pilot. He demands to know the real reason why they’re here, and if they don’t answer, they will die.
At the hospital, Bryce vomits lavishly into a public toilet. He runs into Nicole and scatters her meager belongings. He notices an “Organic Chemistry” textbook, and she admits that she’s taking some pre-med classes. Bryce has a coughing fit, which concerns Nicole.
In Somalia, Vogel refuses to break cover, though Janis and Demetri think they should. Vogel tells Demetri that he’s going to die anyway, so it doesn’t matter where. Demetri decks him, but then they turn around and attack the guards. Nice move! A guy we don’t know shoots the guys guarding the helicopter, and one of them fires a rocket at a nearby structure as he falls. There’s a firefight, which Abdi breaks up when he rides in with an armored jeep and a roof-mounted machine gun. He kills his own guys because “They have failed me. But you will not.”
Mark arrives home and Olivia calls out that lunch is ready. He notices some real estate listings on the table, and Olivia is pretty sold on the idea of moving. If they don’t live in the house where her Flash takes place, then what they saw won’t be their future. By the way, the lunch that Olivia has made for him includes the biggest hamburger I have ever seen. It’s seriously the size of Mark’s head. Mark changes the subject to Charlie and what she saw. He thinks it’s time to press her for specifics – the investigation can’t proceed without her information. Olivia says she’ll try talking to her about it.
Abdi lectures our heroes about US aid to Somalia, and Janis turns it right back at him. Ooh, spirited political discussion! Abdi threatens one of the unnamed guys, and he reveals that they’re CIA agents. Demetri comes clean about the Blackout and why they’re in Somalia. Abdi indicates that the people in his village died during the original Blackout – the bodies disappeared from the Village and all but one of the towers was gone. And then when the actual Blackout happened, he saw himself as a lauded leader who would win his war. He demands supplies and arms from the CIA and then shoots the unnamed guy. Dude means business, I’ll give him that.
Vogel and Janis argue over whether they can meet Abdi’s demands, and since this an unsanctioned trip, they can’t call the home office to help them. Abdi returns and points a rifle at Dom and asks “Which will it be?” Janis jumps in by telling him that what he saw was wrong. This goes over as well as you’d expect. She points out that his “Better Angels” reference comes from Lincoln’s inaugural address. He provides a laptop, and she shows him Mosaic. She finds a post from someone who saw Abdi speaking at a UN peace conference. The posting matches up with his memory, and he realizes that his destiny is to bring peace.
Charlie is Wii Bowling when Olivia goes to talk to her. She tells Charlie that she needs to be brave and talk about her Flash. Charlie says if she tells her, something bad will happen. Olivia finally convinces her, and we see the bit we’ve already seen – where she lets Dylan have a cookie from the jar. It turns out, Charlie and Dylan could hear Lloyd’s phone call, where he talks about D. Gibbons being a liar. Dylan spells out “D. Gibbons is a bad man” with magnet letters on the refrigerator. That seems a little anticlimactic, really.
But there’s more. She hears fireworks, so she goes to the back door. There are two men in suits (one of whom looks a hell of a lot like Vogel, but it’s hard to tell). One says “Mark Benford is dead”. Oh, man. The fireworks, I assume, are people celebrating the moment of the Flash Forward arriving, by the way.
Olivia tells Mark about Charlie’s Flash, and Mark assures her that it won’t happen – he doesn’t die in his Flash. They actually argue about whether they should argue about moving away from all this, which means this is a discussion they have officially had too many times.
Back in Somalia, Janis tells Abdi again that the people in 1991 blacked out, and didn’t die. Seems like he would have noticed that one way or the other by now. He explains that the 66:6 on the tower is actually from the Koran: “Save yourself and your families from a fire whose fuel is men and stones”. He painted it as a warning to stay away from the tower. Dom’s a little freaked out to see that the thing he designed as a theoretical exercise has been in existence for 18 years.
Abdi leads our heroes into the tower. Dom confirms that it’s exactly what he developed. Demetri finds a chess board and a video tape. The video shows the villagers from 1991 describing their visions and confirming that they came true. D. Gibbons appears on the video, explaining that their consciousness was shifted two weeks into the future.
They go below ground in the sub-basements, and Dom is fascinated. The towers created a beta-test version of the Blackout with a limited perimeter. Then they come across a room full of skeletons – after they were tested, the villagers were executed. Abdi finds his mother’s body and takes the necklace that he’s wearing in his Flash. He blames Dom for what happened, and he reverts back to violence and puts his rifle to Dom’s head. Vogel shoots him dead, and that’s one more vision that won’t come true. Janis is especially shaken by this.
In the Benford house, Olivia wants nothing more than to leave it all behind. Mark still can’t agree – it’s his job to stop the next Blackout. She thinks this disagreement is what causes the end of their marriage.
In Somalia, Janis and Demetri talk at night. Demetri’s happy that he’s this much closer to dodging the proverbial and literal bullet, but Janis is convinced she’s not going to have that baby. Remember, she wants the baby she saw in her Flash, and it’s coming time to conceive. Janis’ hatred of penises aside, it’s pretty clear that one of the guys on the Somalia trip is going to father the baby she’s already named Willa. Demetri even suggests it, and Janis has a good laugh. As do I, especially at this part – Janis: “I’m gay.” Demetri: “I will make you gayer.” Ha!
Dom and Vogel talk – Abdi’s guys gave Dom a rifle for fixing their TV. Dom talks to Vogel about his fake vision. And then we see Vogel’s. Remember, I write as I watch this show, so I totally deserve some points here. Vogel is outside the Benford’s house telling another man “Mark Benford is dead”. He only tells Dom that he was doing his job. Hate Vogel!
We return to the hospital, where Nicole is putting together 100 packs of graham crackers. She promised a kid she’d do it if he held still for his X-ray. So far, she’s up to 46, and somewhere JJ Abrams offers up a pack just to get them to the magic number. Bryce gives her his lucky calculator, which got him through medical school. They talk and flirt a bit, and he starts to tell her that he has cancer.
Demetri’s watching the D. Gibbons video. The video turns to snow for a bit while Demetri taks to Dom, but then the picture comes back. D. Gibbons says the following words: “Hello, Demetri. My name is Dyson Frost, and I’m recording this message in 1991. Got your attention, didn’t I?”
Oh, snap!
Where do you go from there? The preview has Janis punching a guy so hard that it looks like his head explodes, and Stanford begins the mole hunt. I think we can agree this will be a good’un.
