FlashForward 1-15 “Queen Sacrifice”
1991 Dyson also knows about the firefight in Utah, because he’s had hundreds of Flash Forwards. “In nearly all of my futures, I end up dying on March 15th, like you, Demetri.” Wait – “nearly all”? So he’s had conflicting versions of his own future? Well, that’s interesting. Dyson says the next move is Mark’s, and nobody knows what to make of it. Mark tells the others that there’s going to be another Blackout, and this is the first Demetri has heard of it.
Dom and Lloyd go over some of the components they brought back from Somalia, and they talk about science. Dom is thrilled that it indicates the Blackout isn’t their fault, since Dyson flashed in 1991, before their experiments began. Of course, he already knows this, but he can’t let Lloyd know. Turns out, Dom also brought back the formula that was written on the mirrors in Lloyd’s Flash. He thinks it’s a formula to protect against another Blackout. There was also more on the mirror that he couldn’t see – if only there were somebody whose Flash was in the exact same room and might have seen it from a different angle… oh, right.
Mark tracked down an old reference to Dyson Frost in a chess tournament. He tell Demetri that he called Ian McKinnon, the guy Frost beat, but Ian wouldn’t talk. Dyson won with a bold move called a “Queen Sacrifice”. They look for a code in his tournament moves, and find that each move took either 2 or 4 seconds. It’s Morse Code – 2 seconds is a dot, 4 is a dash. Well, at least they’re playing fair with the viewers now…
Anyway, the Morse Code spells out a phone number. Mark calls it, and the message is “Well done. Leave a message.” Mark tells the voice mail that it’s Dyson’s move now.
Hey, it’s Keiko! She’s at the Japanese restaurant in LA, trying to learn English and watching for Bryce. She’s very poor, so they offer her a job. She turns it down, because she’s looking for a new beginning. And also, she’s a robotics engineer. She sees somebody who might be Bryce, but isn’t.
And there’s Bryce, hooked up to an IV. It looks like he’s getting ready for a session of chemotherapy, and Nicole is hanging out. She finally convinces him that they should try to have some fun, and he offers to buy dinner.
Mark and Demetri arrive in San Francisco where “some guy from the chess club took two in the head”. Yep, Ian McKinnon was murdered at an outdoor chess game. Oh Ian, we hardly knew ye. Mark explains it all to Vogel later, including his theory that the mole is inside their office. Yeah, Vogel’s not the guy you should be sharing with.
The next day, Vogel leads a team in to the FBI building and begins confiscating cell phones and rounding people up. Stanford and the others take it as well as you might expect. Seth McFarlane returns to this show to ask why they can’t look for the mole on their own, and Stanford reminds him that one of them is the mole and would probably not be very helpful. Take that, stupid Seth McFarlane! Mark’s the only one who’s in the clear.
Vogel finds a bug under the “M” key in Mark’s office. Well, that answers that. Vogel lectures Mark about security, because he’s a dick, and then wonders who planted the bug. I hope it’s Seth McFarlane, since I don’t really need to see him on the show anymore.
Mark and Vogel head into the room where the rest of the Task Force is being detained, and Vogel announces that Demetri is the first one they’re going to question. Mark explains that he needs the mole to think that he suspects everyone. In the detainment room, Seth McFarlane talks about how he hasn’t given them his personal passwords because he’s using his work computer to play an online RPG. Hey, Officer Dave Brass from Oz is in the room, too! I’m suspicions of him, ever since he screwed over Busmalis. Dom and Seth talk about the RPG for a bit, and then Mark comes in to announce Vreede is their next suspect.
Kieko walks down the street and sees a big group doing that thing where they make their cars bounce. That’s a thing, right? I know you can do it in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, so I assume that came from somewhere. She is amused and fascinated, and asks one of the mechanics if she can take a look at how the hydraulics work. She wants to pimp his ride!
We see Janis being interrogated, and Mark says she’s got a lot of unaccounted for personal days since the Flash. These have been her trips to the fertility clinic – at least most of them. She explains that she’s been checking into people on her own time, and it turns out that Marcy has a half-brother they didn’t know about. (I know that we’ve seen Marcy before, but hell if I can remember when. When she appeared in this episode, she seemed familiar. That’s all I’ve got right now.) He’s dying in a very expensive facility right now, and Marcy is somehow paying for this care.
You know, I feel like this premise would work better if we’d gotten to know all of the possible suspects. Seth McFarlane had two lines in the premiere, I can’t even remember when we’ve seen Marcy, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time Dave Brass has been on the show. We’ve got three people we don’t know, so we’re not going to care if they’re the mole.
Olivia and Charlie are out on the Boardwalk with rides and games, and Charlie’s sad that her dad isn’t there. They get on the Ferris Wheel while sad music plays. That was a weird scene.
Demetri reports to Mark that Marcy did, in fact, declare the existence of her sick brother on her application, though Janis said she didn’t. Demetri says it was an easy miss, because of the way they process files. Mark tells Demetri that he moved out because of what he and Olivia saw in their Flashes, and you know Demetri hates it when anyone takes action that increases the probability of their Flash.
Now it’s Olivia and Charlie on the Merry-Go-Round, and Olivia notices a creepy looking guy lurking around. They run through the park, but the guy catches up to them – he introduces himself as Danforth Crowley, and says he’s been assigned to her security detail.
Keiko’s got a job at a garage now, and she’s confident she can use her advanced knowledge of robotics to fix cars. The mechanic who hired her announces that she will be treated with respect, and I’m just now noticing his neck tattoo. As Todd Barry says of neck tattoos, “Hey, you forgot to not do that.”
Olivia calls Mark to thank him for the security detail, and as she’s leaving the message, Lloyd shows up and says they need to talk. She really doesn’t want to talk to him. He asks her exactly what she saw in her Flash, and she confirms she saw part of the formula written on the mirror. She remembers that a chemical formula for an anesthetic was on the mirror, and writes it down for Lloyd. Lloyd puts it together that the “QED” he mentioned was a “Quantum Entanglement Device”, and I’m pretty sure they’re just making it up at this point. Olivia leaves him with his discovery.
Keiko tells Neck Tattoo about her Flash, and how she goes to the restaurant to wait for Bryce every single day. She asks what he saw, and he only answers “something different from you”. She thanks him for the job and they toast with ridiculously tiny cups.
Bryce and Nicole approach the Japanese restaurant and they talk about the hypothetical Keiko. Nicole suggests she might be a Mogwai, which is really funny, especially since she’s just trying to make fun of Bryce’s fear that Keiko only eats sushi. It’s cute. He talks her out of eating sushi, and then kisses her. They’re both kind of shocked that it happened, and she’s a little offended.
The next day, Keiko’s back at the garage and then a police squad busts in – they identify themselves as “I.C.E.”, which I initially heard as “I.C.P.”, which really would have taken it in a weird direction. They bust Neck Tattoo for employing illegal immigrants, and then round up all the illegals, including Keiko. Bryce calls Nicole’s voicemail and starts to apologize again for kissing her, but then says he’s glad it happened. The ICE truck drives right past him at this point.
Back at the FBI, Mark and Demetri are going through Marcie’s records, and Mark says the other Mosaic members have been detained for 36 hours now. That just seems ridiculous! They watch surveillance footage of Marcie, and Mark figures out something’s wrong because she’s adding sugar to her coffee. Again, this would be a better reveal if we knew Marcie.
Anyway, every time video Marcie adds sugar, the time stamp corresponds to a date where information was leaked. Sugar in her coffee was a signal to her handlers. Marcie sees them from across the hallway and knows the jig is up. She grabs the gun off of the armed guard, shoots the guard, and then shoots Seth McFarlane in the neck. She takes out some more no-names and then makes a run for it, with Mark and Demetri in pursuit. Once she gets outside, somebody on a motorcycle picks her up. Janis comes out a different exit and gets ahead of the motorcycle, shoots the driver over and over, which sends the motorcycle right into the fountain. Marcy tries to make a run for it, but Janis jumps in the water and beats five kinds of crap out of her. Janis is awesome. Well, that mystery is solved!
Once things have calmed down, Dyson Frost calls Mark and congratulates him on solving the mole problem. That guy’s so creepy. Dom hits on Janis in the parking garage, and Janis uses this opportunity to point out inconsistencies in Ricky Jay’s autopsy, and she calls him out. In fact, she says that he killed Ricky Jay to send a message. Well, message received. Dom puts it together – there are two moles, and one of them is Janis. Wait, we can’t have that! I just said she was awesome!
If you saw that one coming, you are a liar.
Next week, Demetri has three days to live! See you then!
