Overall Rating: 7.5
Another very interesting installment that continues an incredible streak of high peformance in our ratings - 14 episodes and not one that falls below a 7 on our 0-10 scale...to START a franchise? I'm not sure such consistently excellent television has ever LED OFF a series before.
Spoilers under the cut.
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Plot Synopsis:
Somalia: As planned, Demitri, Janice, Vogel and Simon join a team of CIA security officers posing as Red Panda relief workers - they're here to inspect the towel of doom for clues about the threat of more FlashForwards and about the ring leaders of the conspiracy. They are quickly ambushed by a pack of gun-toting locals led by an english-speaking war lord calling himself Abdi. He immediately executes their Somali translator and shortly thereafter, his interrogation of the group leads to the deaths of just about all of their security detail as he tries to force them to reveal their real purpose here. Demitri and Vogal stage a very believable squabble to distract the guards and they manage to incapacitate them and steal their guns. However, Abdi has an armored truck with a gun turret and he manages to prevent the task force from escaping in their helicopter (and execute most of his men for failing him).
After the task force is safely at gunpoint again, he reveals that in his youth, he was herding sheep outside of town when the crows all dropped dead. he returned home to find everyone unconscious, saw a black camel (a sign of death in his tradition) and assumed everyone had been taken by the devil. He fled, but his people believed he'd been touched by the hand of God and thus feared him (because he survived the blackout). On the day of the current FlashForward, he saw himself speaking before a great crowd and interpreted his vision to mean that he was going to lead the last war in Soamlia and slaughter his enemies to become its military dictator. Janice, however, realizes that the words "better angels" come from a speech given by Abraham Lincoln. She theorizes that he was actually urging his people to unite and stop the fighting, not rallying an army to war. She shows him the MOSAIC website and he buys into the idea that his destiny might be different than he believed.
With his cooperation, they head off to investigate the tower. Inside, they find all of the equipment Simon expected - but the tower was built a year before Simon believes he created the theoretical model. Confused, they search further and find a chessboard (D. Gibbons - a.k.a. Dyson Frost's calling card), and hidden underneath it, a series of video tapes which reveal that the Somalian villagers experienced a two-week shift in consciousness when they blacked out. Further exploring reveals a pit underneath the tower in which all of those townspeople, including our war lord's mother, were executed to keep the secret. Furious, Abdi tries to kill Simon and is shot dead by Vogel - another FlashForward has been prevented. In a last second twist, Dyson Frost has a message on his tapes for Demitri (taped in 1991, he somehow knew Demitri would find this place!)...to be continued. (d'oh!)
The Benfords: Olivia still wants to leave town and head for Denver - two hospitals there need surgeons and there's an FBI field office that Mark can transfer to to escape the dangers foretold in their FlashForwards. Mark can't bring himself to leave the investigation - he believes he is absolutely critical to solving it and refuses to leave, even though he knows it may cost him his marriage.
Meanwhile, he asks Olivia to question their daughter Charlie about what she saw in her FlashForward. Recall - she said "D. Gibbons is a bad man" - so there is reason to believe she might know something that can help the investigation. What she tells them, however, doesn't help much...it only adds a layer of confusion. She claims she saw two men in suits talking outside their home - one gets off the phone and says "Mark Benford is dead." This is why she's been so terrified all along.
Bryce/Nicole: As Bryce and Nicole continue to bond, Bryce battles the pain and nausea of his chemotherapy and tries his best to hide it from her. She reveals that she wants to go into med school and study to become a a psychiatrist. He reveals to her that he has cancer when she starts making plans to work with him twelve years from now and sweetly gives her his lucky calculator.
Also of note, Janice misses her window to conceive a child because she's on this sojourn to Somalia and Demitri very seriosuly offers to help her get pregnant on time. It is unclear whether she accepted the offer or not.
Writing: 7.0
I must say, I enjoyed the reference to Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address and the way in which that address was used to move the plot. There were several other nice moments (such as Demitri's impromptu propositioning of Janice and the exchange between Bryce and Nicole about her med school plans and his lucky calculator), and of course, on the grand scale, they really do an amazing job keeping the plot moving at a nice clip and keeping the audience on their toes. There's something classically awesome about the discovery of the mass grave beneath the tower in Somalia, and the cliffhanger-style conclusions continue to keep us ready for next week.
I must say, however, that despite the larger picture continuing to be exciting and well done, the dialogue and character-building was considerably weaker this week and that's curbing my enthusiasm just a bit. Mark and Olivia's marriage in peril shold be grabbing me more than it does. I think Olivia is not written all that well, though the popular reaction aroud FlashForward fandom that Olivia merits hatred seems overblown to me.
Acting: 8.5
Owiso Odera (Abdi) was very skilled. It's a shame they killed him off so quickly. His total indifference as he gunned down so many of his own people and the CIA security forces was in stark contrast to his very reasonable reaction to Janice's revelation about his destiny and the subsequent violent anger at the sight of his dead mother's skeleton. He's playing a man on the edge...and showing great range in doing it, so bravo! Christine Woods continues to shine and I'm really starting to appreciate Peyton List (Nicole) and Zachary Knighton (Bryce) as well.
Message: 7.0
This wasn't a terribly message-heavy episode. It was mostly a transition script designed to move the plot forward in a few necessary ways. However, I do continue to be impressed with the writers' portrayal of both Mark and Olivia as willing to do almost anything in the name of self-sacrifice for a greater good. It is unfortunate that they are prioritizing different things (Mark thinks the MOSAIC investigation is the greatest good that he must sacrifice his own happiness to pursue...Olivia thinks their marriage is the most important thing and is willing to sacrifice their lives in California and start over again to protect it).
I also enjoy that the writers have come down quite firmly on the side of their being no destiny - on the side of fighting for the future you want, not accepting the future you've been dealt. Vogel's decision to gun down Abdi to protect Simon (our most valuable scientific asset at present, despite his less than desirable personality) - prioritizing his investigation over Abdi's drive to unify Somalia - is just the latest example of people making small changes to prevent the future from playing out identically.
No Highlights Tonight - the script was a little soft, though there were a few nice passages 0 I just don't have the time or energy to get that into this review. My apologies. :)
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