FlashForward: “Gimme Some Truth”
By Tiffany Vogt
Oct-28-2009
This article may contain spoilers.
Following the premise, “What if it happened before?” Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) enlisted fellow FBI Agent Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) to contact a hacker to get CIA satellite imagery on Somalia from December 1990 – and they got just what they needed: photos showing several tall pylons in the middle of nowhere in Somalia. However, before they can run down this lead, the team is called to Washington, D.C. to answer to a Senate Intelligence Committee who is vetting each intelligence branch to determine which one should run point on the black-out investigation. It wants to consolidate money and data under one government branch. Thus, the FBI has to justify its Mosaic investigation or they could lose their funding.
With an admonishment from Stanford Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), “Just keep your mouth shut. If you tell anyone else about this, we are DOA,” Benford must hide what he saw in his flashforward vision about his drinking. For once anyone hears that he was impaired at the time, it casts doubt on the credibility of the FBI’s entire investigation. But, at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, everyone subjected is to lie detector testing because the “CIA believes this was a targeted event designed to bring about the collapse of our government.” Despite passing the lie detector test, Mark is asked to testify before the committee and, while subject to cross-examination before the committee, he revealed that he was investigating crow attrition (the mass death of crows) as a sign that the black-out was not an isolated incident and may have happened before. He was also forced to reveal that he saw masked gunmen coming to kill him in his vision,
which he felt validated the Mosaic investigation as it must have yielded fruit or why would anyone want to kill him. But when asked, “Why is everything in your recollection so hazy and disjointed?” Mark could not give an adequate answer as to why he could not remember more than 30 seconds or so, when everyone else could remember in startling clarity every moment of their 2 minute and 17 second visions. He only continued to state that the Mosaic investigation is a way to construct a picture of what the world will look like in 6 months and it has proven more reliable than theories that the black-out was due to the work of aliens, pharmaceutical companies, or China.
Unbeknownst to Mark, Senator Joyce Clemente (Barbara Williams) had a personal ax to grind. As she reminded Wedeck, if only she could prove what he did 6 years ago, she would be the President of the United States. But then she cryptically said, “If you sit by the river long enough, you’ll see the bodies of your enemies float by,” and shared that in her flashforward vision, she saw herself as President. It was chilling as she said, “As impossible as that may be, it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?” But it was also prophetic.
For Wedeck is friends with President Dave Segovia (Peter Coyote) and he knew that by playing the right card, he could secure their funding and make this Senate investigation go away. So when the President told Wedeck, “The Chinese view chaos as opportunity and the black-out gives me a chance to pay you back” and offered Wedeck the Director of Homeland Security position, we knew that this was when Wedeck was going to play his card. The President had a deep dark secret: a mistress who bore him a son. After Wedeck blackmailed him into making the Senate hearings disappear, the President said, “So no more Boy Scout. How did you find her?” Wedeck simply replied, “Well, I was the bagman who paid her a quarter of a million dollars.” To which the President coldly remarked, “You weren’t just comfortable in the mud – you enjoyed being there. You can only play this card once you know. Are you sure you want to play it now?” Wedeck
quietly replied, “Now is all I’ve got.” And just like that, Clemente’s vision came true. She got the Vice President nomination which opened up after the prior V.P. was killed during the black-out. And the Senate inquiry screeched to a halt as the FBI was selected as the branch to receive the investigative funding and to run the primary investigation of the black-out.
In a telling bit of foreshadowing, when asked about his flashforward, the President said the he was following the example of other world leaders and not revealing what he saw. He also reminded everyone that it is time to be “thinking about the present, not the future – we have too much to do.” However, we saw that the President had been woken up by a Secret Service agent who said, “Mr. President, sorry to disturb you, but something is happening.” What exactly did the President see? That is the real story yet to be revealed.
What Worked
The opening and closing scenes of the episode were riveting. Watching the simultaneous attacks on Mark, Demetri (John Cho), Wedeck, and Janis (Christine Wood) while on opposite sides of the country was a thrilling adrenaline rush. It was perfectly executed and perhaps a lethal strike. While Mark, Demetri and Wedeck were under attack and a rocket propelled grenade blew up their car in the parking garage, Janis faced her attacker and managed to efficiently defend herself until she was shot and left lying in a pool of blood on the street. It was gripping and nerve-wracking. The cliff-hanger ending was particularly well done.
Also surprisingly handled was the conversation between Janis and her lover, Maya (Navi Rawat), who asked her, “Do you date guys too? I Mosaic’d you. It’s way better than Google-stalking.” For Maya had seen what Janis had posted about seeing herself pregnant in 6 months. After Janis was shot, we are left to wonder whether her vision will come true after all.
What Didn’t Work
While it had to come out sooner or later, it felt clumsy the way Olivia (Sonya Walger) found out that Mark had been drinking in his flashforward. It was entirely too convenient to have Aaron (Brian F. O’Byrne) hanging around their house and she just happened to overhear him on the phone with Mark reminding him to go to an AA meeting while in D.C. Then later Olivia just happened to receive a text message from an unknown caller which read, “Mark was drinking in his flashforward.” Given how Olivia reacted, it felt a bit like she was looking for excuses to make her flashforward vision come true. Maybe the future is not yet set in stone and it needs a little push perhaps?
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
‘Gimme Some Truth’ teleplay was written by Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin with story by Barbara Nance, and directed by Michael Rymer. ‘FlashForward’ stars Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Gabrielle Union, Courtney B. Vance, Gina Torres, Jack Davenport, Brian F. O’Byrne, Peyton List, Christine Woods, Zachary Knighton, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Wynott. ‘FlashForward’ airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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