FlashForward 1-5 – “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”
Now, his explanation is intercut with footage of Janis being rushed to the Emergency Room where Olivia is the attending, so that makes it hard to recap. Point is, and Dom doesn’t use the standard explanation, that there’s a cat sealed in a box with a poisonous isotope. It has a 50% chance of killing the cat, and until you open the box, it’s both alive and dead. You change the results by observing it. Strangely, this is Dom’s idea of flirting. I guess that’s just Modern Love.
Olivia and Bryce are sealing Janis up after a successful surgery, then she calls Mark and leaves him a voice mail. She hasn’t been able to get through, and that’s filling her with a Sense of Doubt. She looks again at her mystery text about Mark drinking in his Flash.
In Dylan’s room, Lloyd is doing card tricks and trying to talk seriously about their plans for once they leave the hospital – Lloyd wants them to go live in Palo Alto, but Dylan keeps saying ‘No’. Bryce wanders in and asks if Dylan is ready to go trick-or-treating, but Lloyd forgot to get him a costume. Oh, maybe he can go as his favorite Star Wars alien – Hammerhead! Dylan just keeps repeating “It’s my house, too”.
Mark, Stanford, Demetri, and Al all arrive at the hospital. Mark heads off to find Olivia, who’s sleeping on the couch in the break room. He assures her that everything’s OK, but she needs to let everybody know about Janis. She does so, and Stanford thanks her. He sends everybody home, but Demetri refuses. He finally convinces Al to help him go out and find the shooter.
Olivia checks out Mark’s injuries, and wants to know what happened. Mark tells her about the attack, but does not mention what an awesome scene it was. Olivia says that they have to stop thinking about their Flashes and the future, and they need to enjoy the present, the time they have together. Mark agrees and, brother, That’s a Promise.
Al and Demetri swing by the morgue to see the two guys that Janis managed to take out. Demetri’s really Under Pressure, and Al is starting to worry about him. Al thinks he should rest up – Al knows about Demetri’s Flash. The doctor shows them, through a UV scanner, that one of the shooters had LASIK, and I have to believe that’s something you can tell with the right instrument. Demetri notices instead a stamp on the guy’s chest – a blue hand. Mark mentioned a Blue Hand when trying to recall the board in his Flash. They’ve got a lead!
In the hospital, Bryce and Lloyd accompany Dylan on his trick-or-treating. The poor kid is dressed like Flava Flav. Dylan is all sulky, which is understandable. Lloyd asks Bryce if Olivia will come by so they can say good-bye before they go. Bryce says she will, but he’s probably all distracted because he’s thinking about his China Girl.
Mark and Stanford chat in a hospital break room. Stanford apologizes for all the yelling of late, and Mark accepts without any particular warmth. Meanwhile, Demetri and Al try to figure out where the assassins came from – Demetri thinks it’s important that right after Mark talked about D. Gibbons and the crows outside of the office, people started trying to kill them.
Janis wakes up and immediately starts giving Mark crap. That’s about par for the course. At the same time, Demetri and Al debate what Mark’s “Baltimore” clue means. Since they were attacked in DC, Al assumes it refers to the City in Maryland, but Demetri thinks it could be Baltimore Street, which is near where Janis’ shooting took place. It makes sense, but Al is pretty sure that Demetri is just trying to prove the Flashes wrong. Finally, he agrees it’s worth taking an hour to check out.
At night, there are trick-or-treaters running wild. Charlie is watching that weird cartoon again, by the way. When they finally go out, Aaron is dressed like a Jedi, and Mark has buck teeth and an eyepatch. Honestly? He looks pretty funny. And then they stop dead when they see the kangaroo. The one from the pilot! He’s just hopping through the neighborhood, calm as can be. I love that kangaroo.
In the hospital, Lloyd goes to Dylan’s room and finds that he’s missing. Where is he? God Only Knows. Lloyd asks security to help find his boy. Then we see Stanford in Janis’ room. Stanford talks about the miracle of childbirth, and then Janis’ monitor goes crazy. Olivia rushes in and says she needs to go back to the OR.
Back on the train, Dom and the train girl are all naked and intertwined. She talks about her Flash – she’s going to be in Times Square, celebrating the moment of the Flash on April 29. I love that detail – people really would do that. You know there’d be Dancing in the Streets. Dom talks about his Flash, and we see that he’s choking the life out of a very large man in a dimly lit hallway. Well, that kills the mood.
Lloyd and the security guy spot Dylan on the security monitors in a feed from hours ago. We then see Dylan getting on a bus. The bus driver demands a fare, but a creepy-looking guy talks him out of it. This dude’s got a neck tattoo, so I’d listen. Dylan recites an address, and the bus driver decides to take him rather than get stabbed in the face.
Al and Demetri are driving around, looking for leads, but so far, Everything’s Alright. They talk about Janis, and they’re worried, but Al says she had a Flash, so she has a future. Way to be sensitive to ol’ Dead Man Walking, Al. While all this is going on, Olivia is planning a riskier course of surgery, in order to save her uterus. Suddenly, Demetri spots a skeletal blue hand on a stop sign.
Dylan arrives at the Benford house, where Nicole is handing out treats. He just walks in without a word, and heads to the cookie jar, he finally tells her “It’s my house, too”. Meanwhile, Mark and Aaron wrap up the trick-or-treating, but then Mark spots some guys wearing the masks he saw in his Flash. That would seem more significant if it weren’t, you know, Halloween. Still, Mark leaves Aaron with the kids and starts chasing the three masked men, off on another Brilliant Adventure.
Al and Demetri get the idea that the Blue Hand on the sign is pointing to something, while Mark continues to chase and the Bowie song that gives the episode its title kicks in. Mark finds himself in a cemetery, and finally tackles on of the guys, who turns out to be a sobbing teenager, who thinks he got busted for a prank. Yeah, they got those masks at the 99 cent store.
Mark arrives back at home, where Nicole is freaked out about the mystery boy. She called the hospital, since Dylan was still wearing his bracelet. Mark tries to figure out how Dylan got there, and then we see Dylan’s Flash. He’s in the house, and Charlie offers him a cookie – “It’s your house, too” she says. Dylan then reads the address off of a magazine subscription label. You know, we haven’t seen Charlie’s Flash yet, but we know at least part of it now. Of course, at some point in hers, she realizes that “D. Gibbons is a bad man”. In fact, Charlie comes into the room now, and she and Dylan greet each other like old friends. Then Lloyd arrives, and while he’s happy to have his boy back, he also realizes that the house is kind of familiar, and his Flash kind of clicks into place for him. He recognizes the Benford name, and asks how Mark is related to Olivia, and it’s awkward. Then Olivia comes home, and it’s just crazy awkward. Man, with all this relationship drama, I’m Glad I’ve Got Nobody.
This scene is really kind of awesome, especially because Aaron and Nicole are still hanging around awkwardly. Lloyd tries to talk about what an uncomfortable situation it is, but Mark has a simple solution. He boots Lloyd right the hell out of the house, giving the Brit a good reason to be Afraid of Americans. Hilariously, the two shake hands after all this, and they both act like the other one has a fresh turd in his palm.
Following the trail of Blue Hands, Demetri and Al end up at a house. The doorknob’s been tampered with, so they kick it in. The house is mostly empty. There are some bottles and sheets strewn around. And then they find dead bodies covered in sheets, at least one of which has a hand that’s been painted blue.
In the hospital, Stanford brings some flowers to Janis – they have a card from Maya. Janis tells Stanford that because of the damage from the bullet, it’ll be almost impossible to get pregnant. And she’s crying, even though she says that she never really wanted a baby. It’ll be OK, Janis. Know why? Because You’re Young.
Back at the Benford house, Mark is passive-aggressiving all over the place. I love this – he’s mad at Olivia about something that, per a Flash Forward, she is going to do. But he doesn’t think it’s fair for anybody to hold his future drinking against him. It seems awfully realistic, actually. That’s how people would react, I think. Mark is really mad – he wants to know what their relationship is like, or if she’s already cheating on him. Olivia turns it around and asks if Mark is hiding something, and he reluctantly admits that he was drinking in his Flash. And the power in the argument changes just like that, especially when Mark tells her not to punish him for something he hasn’t done yet. This is a really nice scene, especially when they try to talk to each other like adults, but can’t get past all the weirdness of the Blackout. (And yes, that was a track off of Bowie’s Heroes album, so it counts!)
In the Murder House, Demetri can’t see how the guys that tried to kill Janis are linked to this house – it definitely seems like a very different kind of thing. Al brings Demetri something – it’s connected to the Rutherford Case, which is what he was discussing with the woman whose name I can’t remember during his Flash Forward. It’s a case that doesn’t exist yet, but one of the passports they found is for a Scotsman named “Ian Rutherford”. The plot thicks, in a reference I love to use but nobody ever gets. We also see more of Al’s Flash – a bird flies into the office window, and we get a shot of it, twitching brokenly. Then we see Al leave the room to take a phone call, and he starts crying. Poor Al is feeling unexplained Sorrow, I bet.
Lloyd returns Dylan to his hotel room, where Dylan talks about the awesome day he had before he fell asleep. Meanwhile, Mark fidgets sadly in his kitchen, while Olivia sits on stairs looking absolutely shattered. In the office, Demetri pores over the Blue Hand file, while Al goes through information on Ian Rutherford and cries. Stanford stands watch at Janis’ bedside. Lloyd finally leaves the hospital, heading for his car, and then nearly has a heart attack when he sees Frankenstein in the back seat. Ha! It’s actually Dominic Monaghan in a rubber mask. Dom wants to know why Lloyd disappeared – they have to talk. Lloyd: “Our experiment killed twenty million people, Simon. What more is there to say?” I don’t know. Maybe, oh, Sorry?
Next: We go inside the Blue Hand club, and learn more about Aaron. It’s a good one, folks! Also, I will abandon the David Bowie references, and That’s a Promise.
