Flashforward 8-10 (spoilers)

[ewx]

Episode 8

Where were we? The blue hand guys were busted but we’ve not yet found out any more about the hits on the primary cast. Noh’s finally owned up and Al Gough killed himself to ensure his vision doesn’t come true. Aaron Stark’s daughter Tracy appears to have turned up, looking pretty well for someone who’s supposedly dead.

The newspaper headline of “The Future Can Be Changed” is a good way of emphasizing what’s on peoples’ minds. It seems to have put Mark and Olivia back on track with each other.

Names on Lloyd Simcoe’s email: ...no, didn’t get them. Sorry l-) Myhill is probably one of them (from Simon and Lloyd’s conversation). Simon’s analysis that causing mass death qualifies one for godhood suggests a rather grim pantheon! The emphasis of Simcoe’s card tricks did make me think that his prestidigitation was going to turn up later though I’d not expected it to be in the same episode.

“I called 911 but they put me on hold” - is that remotely likely? There are some reports suggesting that response time for emergency calls made from cellphones can indeed be pretty poor. Parovsky/Perowski/???’s activities are surely involved in the flashforward somehow.

I see that the NSA have magical image-enhancement technology, normally it seems to be available to local police forces too...

The rings delivered by the three stars guy have an α on; suspect zero was probably wearing one of them. Did he willingly transmit them to Parovsky? Perhaps the three stars guys are form the Jericho PMC? If so then the village Jericho took out almost certainly had something to do with the bigger picture. (Benford’s character thinking that there could only be one person with a three star tattoo is rather ridiculous.)

Episode 9

So Bryce was suicidal because he has cancer. I do believe actually that’s a (admittedly rather minor) loose end tied up. Presumably the victim of his, er, car-park rage saying he was “dead” was supposed to be ironic. It looks rather like he and Keiko meet in the restaurant because ... they seems themselves meeting in the restaurant, though.

Aaron’s slow-burning alcohol disagreement with his daughter was much better done than Noh leaning on Levy for a copy of his own telephone conversation.

It’s a pleasing symmetry between Keiko’s and Bryce’s quests to find each other. Bit of a blunder not to spot each other on the same plane though.

Episode 10

Interesting that they mostly refer Nhadra Udaya as “Persian” and only occasionally as “Iranian”. To be honest I don’t know what the preference among Iranians is, though I’d certainly picked up the impression that “Iranian” was the usual name used by Westerners. Didn’t quite get the Iranian lady’s name, anyway.

Simon Campos’ denial of NLAP’s involvement contradicts his opening gambit to Dylan several episodes back that they were responsible. It was good to see him taken down a peg, anyway. Given this is a time travel story my guess would be that someone used his design in their time machine, but independent repreinvention would be another possibility.

Simcoe’s introduction of the Many Worlds Hypothesis is presumably meant to make us suspect that the flashforwards may be representations of alternative futures: something that could explain how Gough generated an inconsistency (recalling that Noh’s inconsistency with his fiancée has now been undermined by her actually paying attention to her vision).

Noh being shot with Benford’s gun, assuming pace the above that it’s safe to trust to the reliability of the visions, has two possible explanations at this point: one is that someone else did it, Benford having handed over his gun, and the other being that Noh is the mole and Benford discovers this (having recovered his FBI status by at some later point in the plot).

Benford’s gun’s serial number is A561984. Noh’s badge number is 4587.

Characters

Name	Actor	Description	Notes
Mark Benford	Joseph Fiennes	FBI agent	Husband of Olivia Benford Father of Charlie Benford Colleague of Demetri Noh
Aaron Stark	Brian F. O'Byrne	AA-goer	Confidant of Mark Benford
Tracy Stark		Soldier	Was thought to be dead
Nicole Kirby	Peyton List	Student	Babysitter for the Benfords Japanese speaker, helps out Bryce
Olivia Benford	Sonya Walger	Doctor	Wife of Mark Benford Mother of Charlie Benford Apparent future lover of Lloyd Simcoe Colleague of Bryce Varley Operated on Dylan Simcoe
Demetri Noh	John Cho	Junior FBI agent, apparently doomed	Colleague of Mark Benford Fiancé of Zoey Andata
Zoey Andata		Gabrielle Union	Fiancée of Demetri Noh
Bryce Varley	Zachary Knighton	Formerly-suicidal doctor	Colleague of Olivia Benford
Lloyd Simcoe	Jack Davenport	(Self-described) annoying parent	Father of Dylan Simcoe Apparent future lover of Olivia Benford Apparently unwilling co-conspirator of Simon
Dylan Simcoe	Ryan Wynott	Injured autistic child	Son of Lloyd Simcoe Saved by Olivia Benford
Charlie Benford	Lennon Wynn	Winsome child	Daughter of Mark and Olivia Benford Saw D. Gibbons in vision and didn't like him
Stanford Wedeck	Courtney B. Vance	Assistant Director FBI LA Field Office	Boss of Mark Sanford and Demetri Noh Former fixer for the current president
Joyce Clemente	?	US Senator	Political opponent of Stanford Wedeck
Janis Hawk	Christine Woods	FBI agent	Girlfriend of Maya Pregnant in her flashforward
Al Gough	Lee Thompson Young	FBI agent	Would have killed Celia had he lived, but suicided
Celia ?	?	Mother	Would have been killed by Al Gough
Keiko Arahida	Yûko Takeuchi	Robot researcher at Nakahara	Seen by Bryce in his vision?
Maya			Girlfriend of Janis Hawk
Alda Hertzog	Rachel Roberts	Terrorist
Nhadra Udaya	Shohreh Aghdashloo	Spook	Sheltering D. Gibbons Learned of Demetri Noh's death
D. Gibbons	Michael Massee	Obscure hacker/bomber	Telephone interlocutor of suspect 0 Killer of Pigeon local cop
Suspect 0		Awake during the flashforward	Telephone interlocutor of D. Gibbons
Simon Campos	Dominic Monaghan	Sinister guy on phone	Tells Lloyd Simcoe they're responsible for the “greatest disaster in human history” (presumably the flashforward). Uses expertise in QM to pick up women on trains.
Old-looking bloke		Ring collector	Has six out of seven α rings
“Reynaud”	Jeff Slingerland	Blue Hand organizer

Comments

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

I love your Flashforward reviews :) Seriously good observational skills. Have you heard when the 'mid-season break' ends, by the way? I'm feeling a bit bereft.

Simon Campos’ denial of NLAP’s involvement contradicts his opening gambit to Dylan several episodes back that they were responsible.

Hmm, yes, that was strange. I wonder whether Campos was happy pretending he was clever enough to kill so many people until Simcoe insisted on admitting this to everyone - which obviously had serious repercussions for his reputation. After the admission, I suppose it was in his best interests to believe that he wasn't responsible after all, and so to help to find out who was... That's the best I can come up with at the moment, in the interests of playing along with the possibility that contunuity errors are non-existent!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Hum, they did say but I've forgotten. A bit of googling suggests it could be March next year.

I think you've got it right about Campos: he's happy to take credit for his actions and exploit his skills when it works in his favour (getting a job with the FBI, picking up women on trains) but the moment he might have to take responsibility for something bad: he wasn't there, it was like that when he found it, etc... I think the test for the scriptwriters is: can they turn this somewhat unpromising individual into a genuinely interesting character, or is he doomed to remain a dark mirror to Lloyd Simcoe?

I'm glad you like the reviews l-)

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Hum, they did say but I've forgotten.

Ooh, who said? I watched the whole of the end credits of episode 10, and then the Flashforward documentary afterwards, just to try to find out, and they didn't say anything on either of those. I'm not sure I can wait until March!

can they turn this somewhat unpromising individual into a genuinely interesting character, or is he doomed to remain a dark mirror to Lloyd Simcoe?

I must say, I'm starting to like Campos. If he proves to be slightly more multidimensional, he could even turn out to be more interesting than Simcoe (who turned a bit mopey and stupid in episode 10 - it's not as if he's spent very much time getting to know Olivia, so the bit where he acted as though he had deep feelings for her that he couldn't admit to seemed a bit forced; nevertheless it's clear from all the hype that Simcoe is going to turn out to be an important one).

[ewx.livejournal.com]

My memory says the announcer said so after the end of the episode, but I could be completely mis-remembering or even have invented the memory some time after having googled to answer the question. Who knows!

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I thought that Persian and Iranian weren't synonymous?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Historically “Persia” has been the more common name in the West since (AFAIK) Achaemenid times, with the official name of the country (i.e. as perceived from outside) being definitely established as “Iran” only in the last century. Wikipedia thinks the former is more common in cultural contexts and the latter political.

Persia (name) - The two names in the West.

(“Persia” derives originally from a region of Iran; “Iran” on the other hand derives originally from an ethnic distinction. So one could construct etymological objections to either, supposing one believed in that sort of thing.)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persia_%28name%29#The_two_names_in_the_West) ()