TV Review: FlashForward 1.13 – “Blowback”

Episode: FlashForward 1.13 – “Blowback”
Original Air Date: March 25, 2010

Screencaps from burgundy_shoes.

Now it’s getting good again. What did I say last week? I want more follow-up on all of the littler personal mini-dramas and subplots, and that is what we got this week! Spoilers going forward.

I get it that Zoey is upset and freaked out that her man might die really soon. If I were her, I’d be freaking out too. So I understand her fervor. She shows up at Mark’s house accusing him and questioning him about how he could possibly end up being the one to kill Demetri, and then when Mark suggests that maybe Demetri is the leak, she flips out.

Then she shows up at the Mosaic office, serves them with papers allowing her access to information and she’s going to lawyer away Demetri’s death somehow. She is all crazy and making no sense and claiming that any info could be the piece she needs to save Demetri’s life. At first during this episode, she is annoying me. Real bad. But towards the end I understand her better, and I think her freakout is a real, expected emotion.

Her whole approach to all of this is just frustrating me! I know it’s morbid, but I want Demitri to die. I know that’s awful, I do, but I want all of the flash forwards to come true. I need for there to be some kind of validity and purpose for this massive blackout. I want the visions to mean something and to carry some weight.

At the very end of the show, what do we see? The gun is missing, nail in coffin! You are so done, Demetri, sorry.

Aaron was in jail fifteen years ago? Did we know that already, or is this our first time finding out about that? (Insert gripe about the mid-season hiatus and how it’s hard to remember details and make connections.) After a couple flashbacks we see that Aaron’s daughter is regretting a lot of her choices now. What’s her plan? She’s supposed to bring her dad to Afghanistan and that will close the loop on this Jericho thing she’s gotten mixed up in? For some reason, this subplot is a little hazy to me. I get that Jericho is a corrupt agency, involved with the military, and they want Tracey. But other than that, I’m not really tracking all the details.

Regardless of my own interpretation, Jericho gets what it wants this week. Tracey gets kidnapped, all taped up and in a box. Aaron draws the connection real quick, and goes to get some vigilante justice against the dude who sold out his daughter’s whereabouts. For all my confusion on this subplot, the awesome fighting this episode was abundantly clear.

Hand to hand knife fight sequence while “Black Betty” rocks out as the background jam = outstanding!! That was a pretty graphic fight for network primetime, kudos! The fight is just the tip of the iceberg. Aaron is going full speed into this Jericho stuff, the whole power outage at the kid’s birthday party move was pretty sweet. He makes a call referring to the situation with Tracey’s friends as “escalating.” That was a hilariously awesome understatement. As Mike’s taped up body swings down and the little girl screams, I am very okay with Aaron’s craziness. He’s lost it, totally off the deep end.

Janis wants her baby. In her condition, it is beyond implausible that any fertility clinic would go ahead and help her conceive. But, just like Demetri’s death, I need Janis to get knocked up. I want these visions to be actualized!

Lloyd and Mark are on a whole new level. This is getting genuinely interesting to me now. I like that Mark made Lloyd do a walkthrough of his vision. The details are blurry in all the most scintillating places. In Lloyd’s vision, you really couldn’t see clearly who was in the bed with him. Now I’m starting to think that maybe Lloyd doesn’t have an affair with Olivia (Mark’s wife). Given Olivia’s doctor-patient relationship with Lloyd’s son, and the fact that he’s been to their home before, I could see some weird scenario resulting through that connection. The kid gets discharged from the hospital, and so Olivia and Mark offer to take him and his dad (Lloyd) in. That’s my prediction now. The whole tone of Mark saying he wants to work with Lloyd and that they need to help each other out, strengthens my guess.

A part of me does want Lloyd and Olivia to hook up. That’s just so scandalous! But, I also like my houseguest theory. It would be a way to keep Mark and Olivia’s marriage intact and help preserve the validity of the flash forwards. It’s a bit more clever than having some cheesy explanation that’s just a quick fix, and much more clever than the notion of flash forwards just being “possible” versions of the future. That seed planted last week has really annoyed me, and I just hope the show’s writers do not take such an easy way out. If they just pick and chose, it’s going to render the whole concept of the visions pointless. Ugh!

Overall, this week’s episode picked it up for me. More action, lots of focus on the juicy personal plots.

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars