Flashforward episode 05 - Reviewed with great snark
I no longer remember joy.
(Now with screencaps!)
Oh boy! I have a confession to make, everyone. I have been on pins and needles since the last episode. Who is Dominic Monaghan? What did he mean when he said he and Lloyd caused the worst disaster ever? What was the meaning of that final, cryptic scene!
Well I don’t have to wait any longer, because I’m finally watching the next episode. Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I can’t wait! Let’s start this thing right now!
Okay first is the opening narration to explain to basic premise of the show. I can skip that part. I already know it’s the story of a man with the most glorious beard in the world and his adventures in grave robbing. Fast forward, pausing only briefly to gaze doe-eyed at Sadbeard’s beard. What a man!
Yes! Okay, here we go! Establishing shot over the Washington Monument and and the Capitol Building, with the helpful text of “Washington, DC” added in case we thought it was Vegas or something. C’mon! Get to Dominic Monaghan! I’m gonna pass out from anticipation!
All right, Joseph Fiennes and Chief Dolt are walking out of some building, and Joe is apparently suffering from strep throat or laryngitis or something. His Connor MacLeod growl is rapidly reaching Christian Bale Batman levels of hilarity.
He’s growling with Chief Dolt about something mysterious that they’re not supposed to tell anyone about. It must be the identity of Dominic Monaghan! Ohmanohmanohman! The suspense is killing me!
Joe pulls out his cell phone while he, Chief Dolt, Nulu, and Old Dolt all climb into a car together. He hits four buttons (thanks, foley artists!) and somehow that causes him to be instantly connected with someone. Or maybe Joe is just playing make-believe and is pretending to talk on a phone just like the big boys do. Either way, he tells the mysterious person with a 4-digit (3, actually, since he probably had to hit send. I guess he was calling 911 or 411) that he has some good news.
“The whole trip's been a disaster, but-- oh no!”
Before Joe can explain further, the car is rammed by a huge black SUV. Joe has barely enough time to cushion the others with the protective power of his pointy face, and so half of the car is turned into mangled wreckage. To make matters worse, that guy who plays a chinese mobster in any film or television show ever gets out of the SUV and pulls out a grenade launcher. He points it at the car while Nulu and Old Dolt try to get out, but they are too slow: Chinese Mobster Guy fires and the car blows right the fuck up!
Now if you haven’t been paying attention in previous episodes, you might think that everyone inside the car was instantly killed and their bodies burned beyond all recognition, as surely even if they’d managed to get out of the car, the resulting shrapnel and explosion would have killed them dozens of times over.
But for those of you who have been paying attenion, I’m sure you’re stroking your fake glued-on Sadbeard beard (you guys watch this show with your fake beard on too, right?) in knowing amusement. You know something these stupid bad guys don’t.
Explosions cannot harm Joseph Fiennes! His face is too pointy and his glower is too mighty!
So don’t worry, I’m sure Joe will be fine. But before we find out what kind of royal asskicking he lays down on the badguys (and, of course, who Dominic Monaghan is) we’re going to be doing some literary device that is far too overused in modern television flashbacking. See, it turns out that this episode started in media res, and now we’re going to go back and figure out why that guy who always plays the chinese mobster decided to foolishly use explosions on Joseph Fiennes.
We’re now 39 hours earlier. This is significant because of course 3+9=12, and Jesus had twelve apostles. Apostles can be rearranged to spell Let’s Soap. Communal soap is used in prisons. And prison is where I will wind up when I finally snap from watching too much flashforward! It all make sense now!
Joe, Nulu, and Old Dolt are hanging out in the bluest-lit hallway of all time, because the lighting director and director of photography on Flashforward knows of only two kinds of light: really blue, or really yellow. When you’re inside or you’re in Germany, things are really blue. When you’re outside in California or Somalia, things are really yellow. Red is of course reserved for flashforwards. Have you guessed the twist yet? What of green?
Green tint is for the Matrix! That’s right! Flashforward is actually a prequel to the Matrix! OMGOMGOMG!
Anyway, the three guys are apparently getting interrogated by other FBI guys concerning their visions flashforwards. They come to get Nulu’s statement, but he says he already told them in his affidavit that he didn’t see anything. They accuse him of being a dirty liar and take him out of the blue hallway for questioning.
It’s at that point that the director realizes they didn’t quite flashback far enough, so we flashback even further in time to when Joe and Old Dolt were strapped up to polygraph machines in order to make sure they weren’t lying about what they saw. At least, I think it’s a flashback. It’s very hard to tell. Maybe it’s a flash-sideways. Either way, the two guys are hooked up to polygraph machines, and Nulu is nowhere to be seen.
Now you might be expecting me to make some comment about how stupid it is to have a government agency rely on the notoriously unreliable and downright psuedoscientific usage of a polygraph machine to determine anything besides when someone clenches their sphincter, but you would be wrong. This is because government agencies routinely do rely on this bit of magic in real life. Makes you feel real safe, knowing such idiocy is being used to let liars and traitors easily beat the test and work their ways into key positions, isn’t it?
During the questioning, we get to hear Old Dolt’s vision flashforward for the first time. He was leaving the office for the night.
Very exciting stuff.
After the test, Joe gives Sadbeard a call. Sadbeard, it seems, is doing a bunch of handyman work at Joe’s place while he’s gone. Sadbeard makes an inappropriate comment about teaching Joe’s eight year old daughter “how to drive a stick” and, later tells Joe to try and find an AA meeting in Washington.
Olivia happens to overhear this part of the conversation, which -- judging from the blank look on her face -- has shocked her to her very core, or perhaps reminded her that she wants to have a hot pocket for breakfast. It’s kind of hard to tell with Olivia.
Back in Washington, Nulu and Old Dolt are worried that someone is going to take all their Magic Website funding away, because apparently the Senate is concerned that trusting the random and unscreened stories of anyone on the internet might not be the best investigatory tactic.
This has got Chief Dolt bothered, so he plays some basketball with that guy who always plays a high-level government bureaucrat in every television show ever. In this show, his name is Dave. Dave the high-level government bureaucrat. Dave assures Chief Dolt that they won’t be losing their funding, but he’d better watch out, because Clemente is chairing the Senate hearings.
Oh no. Not Clemente!
Before we’ve all caught our breaths regarding this stunning Clemente news, we’re back in California. Lady Dolt is taking a karate class in an old abandoned warehouse somewhere. She and her male partner kick and hyahh! at each other for a while, but it’s Lady Dolt who wins the day. Her opponent seems pretty cool about it, however, and after the match he compliments her on her skills and asks if she might want to go to a movie with him.
She says she’s busy, and when she leaves she turns to her girlfriend (not that I’m implying she’s a lesbian, of course. A woman can kick ass on a television show and not be a lesbian, right?) and says, “What a douche.”
Hey, come on now, Lady Dolt. Yeah you were kind of an ass to the perfectly polite and nice guy who did nothing more than graciously accept the fact that he got beaten by you and then very cordially asked you out on a date, but you’re not a douche. That’s being a little hard on yourself. You’re a jerk at the very most.
Mac, I think she was calling the guy a douche, not declaring herself to be a douche for how she treated him.
No, Brain. See, this is why I don’t let you make any decisions when I’m dealing with girls. You don’t know how to talk to them. Why would she possibly call a guy who was nothing but nice to her a douche? That doesn’t make any sense.
Oh gee, I dunno, maybe because the writers are foreshadowing how she’s gay, and as we all know, gay women, by definition, hate all men ever, especially really nice ones who ask them out on dates?
While you are one-hundred percent correct that all gay women hate men universally (and are also members of a softball or field hockey team), I still don’t think that makes any sense because Lady Dolt couldn’t possibly be gay. She’s a tough woman on a primetime show that can kick ass. She just doesn’t fit the mold, man! She couldn’t be gay.
I guess you’re right. Sorry, Mac. I’m going to go back to pouring molten steel against your sinuses.
Okay, Brain. Stay classy.
Boy, sometimes he can be so naive.
Anyway, after her karate class, Lady Dolt is at FBI headquarters. Young Dolt shows up and hands her a flash drive full of satellite images, so Lady Dolt gives it to the little boy who is apparently her assistant. I’m not sure why this youngster is working as an assistant in the FBI, but there he is. Lady Dolt explains to him that he’ll be looking for anything relating to crows dying or people losing consciousness. Now get to it, lad! And while you’re at it, find something new to wear besides that womany pantsuit!
Lady Dolt accepts the drive from Young Dolt. Little Boy Assistant looks on.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Chief Dolt, Nulu, and Old Dolt are in the White House Press room waiting for an address by the President. But wait, what’s this? The President is none other than high-level government bureaucrat, Dave!
President Dave tells the press that the Senate hearings are going to redirect funds and maybe get rid of some idiotic website-based investigations non-producing investigations. He’s asked to share his vision flashforward. We the audience see that he was woken up in the middle of the night to the threat of “something happening.”
Ah, now that’s Braganian writing at its finest. “Mr. President! Mr. President! Wake up! Something has happened!”
That’s almost as shocking as finding out that Clemente was chairing the Senate Hearings. I’m still trembling over that one.
In California, Olivia confronts Sadbeard about finding out that Joe is going to AA meetings. She wants to know if he’s having a hard time with this whole “Time is a meaningless concept, there is no free will, fate is immutable, that which was will always be” rigmarole.
Sadbeard assures her Joe is an untrustworthy alcoholic who will drink whenever he damn well feels like it, and if Olivia can’t trust Joe, then who can she trust? Some loving father of an autistic (and therefore superpowered) boy? Pff!
Then it’s back to Washington (I’m getting whiplash from all this back and forth) where Chief Dolt is offered the position of head of Department of Homeland Security. He worries that Clemente might try to block his appointment, but President Dave assures him that the dreaded Clemente has bigger fish to fry.
Speaking of frying fish, we next direct our attention to a restaurant, where Lady Dolt is on a date with...
WHAAAAAAA? Another lady! B-b-b-but, ladies can’t date ladies! That’s just backwards! It makes no sense! Ladies are supposed to like fellas! I tell you, this is the kind of shocking development that those of us who exist in 1967 just can't expect to see on our televisions.
Well I guess I have to hand it to Brannon Braga. He’s bucked Hollywood convention by having a hot lesbian on his show.
Back in Washington, the Senate Hearings have begun. A parade of other agency officials appear to testify as to what they think caused the Blackout. Aliens! The Chinese! Anything but crows! The list goes on and on.
After the hearing, Chief Dolt is on the phone to his dubbed-in wife, when suddenly he is accosted by the dreaded Clemente. Fire pours forth from her flaring nostrils as her hooves beat a rhythm of suffering against the earth as she walks. Her twisted, malformed body creaks and drags its way ominously up to Chief Dolt. When she opens the toothless maw that is her mouth, the death cries of a thousand infants issues forth, causing grown men’s hearts to burst, women to collapse into seizures, and children to transform instantly into random body parts of Rush Limbaugh.
“Noooo!” Chief Dolt screams as the Clemente comes ever nearer. “Stay back, foul creature of darkness and agony! Stay back! I, with all of my powers of being in the FBI demand it! Stay back!”
“Ahhhh,” Clemente hisses. “Chief Dolt. My longtime nemesis. I shall never forgive you for that ‘thing’ that you did to that girl that shall remain mysteriously unspecified until such time as the plot demands it be revealed. Know ye that it is I who shall destroy you, child of man! My powers grow ever stronger as the time of prophecy draws nigh! For in my darkest vision flashforward, I witnessed my grandest triumph: becoming the President of the United States of America! Soon all shall bow down before the majestic horror that is: CLEMENTE!"
“God, noooo! Let it be not true! Let it be not true!”
Just as Chief Dolt is about to collapse into a quivering pile of jelly, the Clemente is driven off by the power of Joseph Fiennes’ pointy glare. He arrives just after the Clemente has left, and commiserates with Chief Dolt.
“I sure wouldn’t want to be in the Clemente’s sights,” he growls. “You poor damned bastard.”
Later, Chief Dolt is giving his own testimony to the Senate committee, but aside from Clemente throwing a few insults his way, they don’t want to talk to him. They want to talk to Joseph Fiennes, and order that he give testimony the next day. Wow, that’s almost as unproductive as a real Senate committee hearing. Way to go with the realism, Brannon!
The next day, Lady Dolt is making breakfast for her one true love, the woman she just went on a date with for the first time last night. Does she have a name? Probably not, so let’s just call her Ratings. Lady Dolt tells Ratings to stay in her apartment for as long as she likes, and then they make plans to go on another date later that night.
Another thrilling scene brought to you by Flashforward! Hold onto the edge of your seat as two people make tentative dinner plans! Don’t look away for even a moment lest you miss one single second of coy grins and shy glances to the floor! It’s a nonstop thrill ride as two girls kiss!
Okay, that last one might actually work.
After that, it’s back to Washington where Joe is being grilled by Joyce Clemente. Her powers are so great that she can actually get the nameplate on her podium to read “Sen. Jane Clemente.” I can only assume that Jane Clemente is her mild-mannered persona, while Joyce Clemente is her true form.
Or maybe someone in the Pantheon of Lazy Writers forgot to tell the prop department that they’d changed her name. Whoops. (PS: Thanks HDTV! You make nitpicking so much easier)
Joe explains all about the incredible crow lead that only his agency could have possibly found, and about how some masked gunmen are going to try and kill him in six months. This is made all the more entertaining because it appears that Joseph Fiennes is either about to cry or is having some rather serious digestive problems while he gives his testimony. I’ve never seen a guy whose glower has a glower. What a talent.
"Must...force...eyebrows...LOWER!"
Back in California, Lady Dolt, Young Dolt, and Little-Boy-In-Pantsuit are following up on their satellite images, and soon they spot some strange towers in the images. Oh man! Finally! I can’t wait for them to immediately go to Somalia and find out what that is!
Oh wait, back to the Senate Hearing first. Okay. That’s cool. Still plenty of time to deal with smokestacks, Dominic Monaghan, that guy who blew Joe and Nulu up a few episodes ago, and of course the chinese mobster guy who blew everyone up at the beginning of the episode. Just hang in there, Mac. Answers are coming.
Joyce nee Jane Clemente grills Joe about why his vision flashforward is all disconnected and hazy. What possible reason could there be for why his vision flashforward, arguably the one with the greatest possibility for answers, would be so hazy? And don’t say lazy screenwriting. That doesn’t count.
During this badgering, Chief Dolt throws a tantrum and storms out of the room. He’s not going to stand for his agent being intelligently questioned and made to answer for legitimate concerns like why he helped free a Nazi or why the FBI is resorting to numerology and guesswork to further their investigation. Clemente has gone too far!
I should also like to point out here that the establishing shots of the Capitol Building always show it with massive structural damage about half of it. This structural damage was nowhere to be seen in the flyover establishing shot in the beginning of the episode, so clearly in that 39 hour time difference the entire building was fixed.
Or they forgot to do their CGI damaging to the stock Washington, DC footage they used in the beginning of the episode. Whoops.
After the questioning, the Dolts back home call the Dolts in Washington and let them know about the smokestacks in Somalia. Being unable to send a team there thanks to the funding questions they’re arguing about in Washington (it all makes so much sense now!) they decide to send the images to forensics for analysis.
Here’s my vision flashforward of twenty days from now:
“Hey guys, it’s me, Paul from forensics. I used forensics to forensically analyze your satellite images, and I forensically determined through forensics that those are definitely pictures of Somalia, and when I used my forensics on them I was able to forensically determine that there are also pictures of large towers in the image. Forensics out!”
Right after that, Chief Dolt calls Lady Dolt and asks her for a mysterious favor. She is apparently great at time management for she is immediately seen meeting up with Ratings for her date. After a little small talk, Ratings drops the bomb on her.
“I mosaic’d you,” she says, awkwardly trying to make it sound like people would use the word mosaic like they currently use google. “You know, that website that you set up for people to make up lies about their visions flashforwards? Well shockingly enough, I, as a normal human being, used it for my own purposes! I know it’s totally unexpected, but I just couldn’t help myself. Anyway, I know you’re going to be pregnant in five months, so here’s hoping we get married and get you artificially inseminated?”
“Wow,” Lady Dolt says in return. “You suck. I hate you temporarily! Get out of my life for a brief period of time!”
She does, and we turn our attention to Chief Dolt. He’s visiting some woman named Renee. She acts what will surely be confusingly suspicious of his arrival once we learn that she’s actually likes him, and then her young son rushes into the room and leaps into Chief Dolt’s arms. Oh I know! I bet we’re supposed to think that’s Chief Dolt’s son! Aww, how quaint. Brannon Braga’s trying to trick us, everyone. Gather ‘round close, but try not too think too hard or you might scare him away and he’ll hit the reset button.
Before we can learn anything more about Renee or her son, the scene switches to Chief Dolt in the oval office with President Dave. Chief Dolt hands him a picture of President Dave embracing Renee.
Oh man! You totally got me, Brannon. No, seriously, you got me. I promise, you totally tricked me. You’re such a good writer/creator! Who’s a good writer/creator? You are! Yes you are! Yes you are! Thassa good boy.
Turns out President Dave had an affair with the woman and Chief Dolt helped him to cover it up, so now Chief Dolt is going to blackmail President Dave into using his super Presidential Powers to stop a Senate Committee hearing somehow.
From there we move onto a karaoke bar, where Joe, Nulu, and Old Dolt are partying. Well, Old Dolt is singing, Nulu is getting drunk, and Joe is seeing if he can perform a world-record sextuple glower. It’s really quite a thing to behold. In fact:
”If I try hard enough I can glower back through time to the moment of my own birth!”
AND
Print out this picture and put it on a hat or t-shirt. As long as you wear it, you will be immune from harm by explosives. Police department bomb squads have been using this pointy face for years to protect their technicians, and now you have the secret too.
Anyway, Chief Dolt shows up mainly to call Joe an idiot for choking during testimony, then immediately storms out again. Normally I’d say that was rude, but you have to understand that Chief Dolt is very busy. He had to go from the Senate Hearings to Renee’s house to the White House to the karaoke bar and then to who knows where else, all in one night. So he walks in, calls Joe a dummy, and then walks out again. You can’t blame him for that.
Joe, for his part, glowers for a bit and then follows him, demanding to know why Chief Dolt didn’t back him up.
“Because!” Chief Dolt yells angrily. “I could very easily tell you that I was leaving to try and find leverage to save all of our jobs, but instead I will yell at you for something that was not at all your fault in order to pad out the remaining time in this episode! Grrr! You suck, Joe!”
”That pointens my face!”
Eventually Joe gets tired of getting yelled at and reveals in his loudest growl yet, “I can’t remember anything because I was loaded! Waaaahhhh!”
I think we’re supposed to be very shocked by this, but I’m just going by the music. Nulu and Old Dolt arrive, but Joe and Chief Dolt pretend like nothing’s happened. Chief Dolt lets everyone know that their funding is secure, and all is well.
That night in Joe’s house, Olivia gets a text message from a mysterious stranger. I’m losing track of how many mysterious strangers there are in this show, so let’s pretend it was from the guy who blew Joe right the fuck up. No, the first guy who blew Joe right the fuck up. The second guy (chinese mobster guy) hasn’t actually happened yet.
Anyway, the message says “Joe was drinking in his flashforward” and boy that just makes Olivia very upset. Or cold. Or maybe kind of hungry. Olivia’s not easy to read. She tries to send a return message, but the number is blocked. Dun dun dun!
And with an establishing shot of the Washington Monument and a perfectly rebuilt Capitol Building, it’s clear that we’ve circled back around to the beginning of the episode. The mysterious thing that Joe and Chief Dolt were talking about the beginning turns out to be Joe being drunk in his vision flashforward. Only this time we’re treated to an extra thirty seconds of them looking at a television that happens to be tuned to the local ABC news. The newsanchor explains that Jane/Joyce Clemente has been picked to be the next Vice President, thereby keeping her evil self from blocking funding from the FBI and making sure that the prophecy of her being president will come true.
So at a valet station at 1:30 AM in front of a karaoke bar in Washington DC, they have a television that’s tuned into ABC, which is also for some reason playing the local news instead of reruns of Oprah or infomercials?
Okay, makes sense to me. I just can’t understand how I missed it when this scene first aired at the top of the episode. If only I’d been paying attention to it then, I wouldn’t have had to worry about how Chief Dolt would manage to get funding for his investigation. Boy, I’m usually much more attentive. I’m a little embarrassed. It’s almost as if that one scene that would have made the entire episode a waste of time was simply skipped over at the beginning, but that couldn’t be, because that is stupid, lazy, and makes the entire in media res completely unnecessary.
Particularly since I still don’t know who the hell the chinese mobster guy with a grenade launcher is.
The scene then switches to Lady Dolt walking home from a grocery store. She gets a phone call which she picks up after two rings, and it turns out to be Joe on the other end. He’s calling from the beginning of the episode!
So the person Joe called that required four key presses on his phone and picked up instantly on his end was Lady Dolt, who picked up on two rings on her end? Thassa good continuity!
While she’s talking to Joe, the whole SUV ramming thing happens again, and everyone gets re-blowed the fuck up. And let’s understand, this is not a tiny explosion. Huge fireball, the entire car blown to bits, the whole nine yards. There’s no way anyone but the possessor of the most pointy of glowers could survive that.
At the same moment, another apparently Chinese guy runs out of nowhere and tries to shoot Lady Dolt. She uses her karate to snap his neck (harsh), but winds up getting a bullet in her gut when a second attacker shows up. She pulls out her gun and shoots him in the back, then collapses.
Back in the parking garage, all four of our Dolts are miraculously unharmed, thanks to the power of Joseph Fiennes’ ability to deflect fireballs with his face. The four of them all jump out of the flaming wreckage of the decimated car and use their guns to kill all of the attackers while inappropriately ironic music plays (we learned about that last episode, you’ll recall.)
The SUV full of heavily armed gunmen quick flees under the plinkety-plinking bullets of the Dolts and their dinky little service pistols. I guess the grenade launcher only had one shot loaded and the guys with the sub-machine guns are really squeamish about shooting people who just survived a massive explosion.
And finally, Dominic Monaghan shows up with the mysterious man who blew up Joe and Nulu in the second episode. They question Charlie about who D. Gibbons is, and then fly to Somalia to check out the smokestacks. Everything is solved and the show is over forever, the end!
Mac?
Yes, Brain?
I... You know what? Never mind. You’re exactly right, that’s totally what happened.
I know it did. It’s not like the episode would end on another cliffhanger with Lady Dolt bleeding to death in the middle of the street when there are like four other cliffhangers it never resolved. That’s just silly.
Of course it is, Mac. Of course it is.
Well that’s it for this episode everyone, I’m off to bask in the resolution of all of those dangling plotlines.
And I’m off to punch the inside of your skull like it was a slab of meat and I’m Rocky Balboa.
Until next episode, everyone!
(Now with screencaps!)
Oh boy! I have a confession to make, everyone. I have been on pins and needles since the last episode. Who is Dominic Monaghan? What did he mean when he said he and Lloyd caused the worst disaster ever? What was the meaning of that final, cryptic scene!
Well I don’t have to wait any longer, because I’m finally watching the next episode. Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I can’t wait! Let’s start this thing right now!
Okay first is the opening narration to explain to basic premise of the show. I can skip that part. I already know it’s the story of a man with the most glorious beard in the world and his adventures in grave robbing. Fast forward, pausing only briefly to gaze doe-eyed at Sadbeard’s beard. What a man!
Yes! Okay, here we go! Establishing shot over the Washington Monument and and the Capitol Building, with the helpful text of “Washington, DC” added in case we thought it was Vegas or something. C’mon! Get to Dominic Monaghan! I’m gonna pass out from anticipation!
All right, Joseph Fiennes and Chief Dolt are walking out of some building, and Joe is apparently suffering from strep throat or laryngitis or something. His Connor MacLeod growl is rapidly reaching Christian Bale Batman levels of hilarity.
He’s growling with Chief Dolt about something mysterious that they’re not supposed to tell anyone about. It must be the identity of Dominic Monaghan! Ohmanohmanohman! The suspense is killing me!
Joe pulls out his cell phone while he, Chief Dolt, Nulu, and Old Dolt all climb into a car together. He hits four buttons (thanks, foley artists!) and somehow that causes him to be instantly connected with someone. Or maybe Joe is just playing make-believe and is pretending to talk on a phone just like the big boys do. Either way, he tells the mysterious person with a 4-digit (3, actually, since he probably had to hit send. I guess he was calling 911 or 411) that he has some good news.
“The whole trip's been a disaster, but-- oh no!”
Before Joe can explain further, the car is rammed by a huge black SUV. Joe has barely enough time to cushion the others with the protective power of his pointy face, and so half of the car is turned into mangled wreckage. To make matters worse, that guy who plays a chinese mobster in any film or television show ever gets out of the SUV and pulls out a grenade launcher. He points it at the car while Nulu and Old Dolt try to get out, but they are too slow: Chinese Mobster Guy fires and the car blows right the fuck up!
Now if you haven’t been paying attention in previous episodes, you might think that everyone inside the car was instantly killed and their bodies burned beyond all recognition, as surely even if they’d managed to get out of the car, the resulting shrapnel and explosion would have killed them dozens of times over.
But for those of you who have been paying attenion, I’m sure you’re stroking your fake glued-on Sadbeard beard (you guys watch this show with your fake beard on too, right?) in knowing amusement. You know something these stupid bad guys don’t.
Explosions cannot harm Joseph Fiennes! His face is too pointy and his glower is too mighty!
So don’t worry, I’m sure Joe will be fine. But before we find out what kind of royal asskicking he lays down on the badguys (and, of course, who Dominic Monaghan is) we’re going to be doing some literary device that is far too overused in modern television flashbacking. See, it turns out that this episode started in media res, and now we’re going to go back and figure out why that guy who always plays the chinese mobster decided to foolishly use explosions on Joseph Fiennes.
We’re now 39 hours earlier. This is significant because of course 3+9=12, and Jesus had twelve apostles. Apostles can be rearranged to spell Let’s Soap. Communal soap is used in prisons. And prison is where I will wind up when I finally snap from watching too much flashforward! It all make sense now!
Joe, Nulu, and Old Dolt are hanging out in the bluest-lit hallway of all time, because the lighting director and director of photography on Flashforward knows of only two kinds of light: really blue, or really yellow. When you’re inside or you’re in Germany, things are really blue. When you’re outside in California or Somalia, things are really yellow. Red is of course reserved for flashforwards. Have you guessed the twist yet? What of green?
Green tint is for the Matrix! That’s right! Flashforward is actually a prequel to the Matrix! OMGOMGOMG!
Anyway, the three guys are apparently getting interrogated by other FBI guys concerning their visions flashforwards. They come to get Nulu’s statement, but he says he already told them in his affidavit that he didn’t see anything. They accuse him of being a dirty liar and take him out of the blue hallway for questioning.
It’s at that point that the director realizes they didn’t quite flashback far enough, so we flashback even further in time to when Joe and Old Dolt were strapped up to polygraph machines in order to make sure they weren’t lying about what they saw. At least, I think it’s a flashback. It’s very hard to tell. Maybe it’s a flash-sideways. Either way, the two guys are hooked up to polygraph machines, and Nulu is nowhere to be seen.
Now you might be expecting me to make some comment about how stupid it is to have a government agency rely on the notoriously unreliable and downright psuedoscientific usage of a polygraph machine to determine anything besides when someone clenches their sphincter, but you would be wrong. This is because government agencies routinely do rely on this bit of magic in real life. Makes you feel real safe, knowing such idiocy is being used to let liars and traitors easily beat the test and work their ways into key positions, isn’t it?
During the questioning, we get to hear Old Dolt’s vision flashforward for the first time. He was leaving the office for the night.
Very exciting stuff.
After the test, Joe gives Sadbeard a call. Sadbeard, it seems, is doing a bunch of handyman work at Joe’s place while he’s gone. Sadbeard makes an inappropriate comment about teaching Joe’s eight year old daughter “how to drive a stick” and, later tells Joe to try and find an AA meeting in Washington.
Olivia happens to overhear this part of the conversation, which -- judging from the blank look on her face -- has shocked her to her very core, or perhaps reminded her that she wants to have a hot pocket for breakfast. It’s kind of hard to tell with Olivia.
Back in Washington, Nulu and Old Dolt are worried that someone is going to take all their Magic Website funding away, because apparently the Senate is concerned that trusting the random and unscreened stories of anyone on the internet might not be the best investigatory tactic.
This has got Chief Dolt bothered, so he plays some basketball with that guy who always plays a high-level government bureaucrat in every television show ever. In this show, his name is Dave. Dave the high-level government bureaucrat. Dave assures Chief Dolt that they won’t be losing their funding, but he’d better watch out, because Clemente is chairing the Senate hearings.
Oh no. Not Clemente!
Before we’ve all caught our breaths regarding this stunning Clemente news, we’re back in California. Lady Dolt is taking a karate class in an old abandoned warehouse somewhere. She and her male partner kick and hyahh! at each other for a while, but it’s Lady Dolt who wins the day. Her opponent seems pretty cool about it, however, and after the match he compliments her on her skills and asks if she might want to go to a movie with him.
She says she’s busy, and when she leaves she turns to her girlfriend (not that I’m implying she’s a lesbian, of course. A woman can kick ass on a television show and not be a lesbian, right?) and says, “What a douche.”
Hey, come on now, Lady Dolt. Yeah you were kind of an ass to the perfectly polite and nice guy who did nothing more than graciously accept the fact that he got beaten by you and then very cordially asked you out on a date, but you’re not a douche. That’s being a little hard on yourself. You’re a jerk at the very most.
Mac, I think she was calling the guy a douche, not declaring herself to be a douche for how she treated him.
No, Brain. See, this is why I don’t let you make any decisions when I’m dealing with girls. You don’t know how to talk to them. Why would she possibly call a guy who was nothing but nice to her a douche? That doesn’t make any sense.
Oh gee, I dunno, maybe because the writers are foreshadowing how she’s gay, and as we all know, gay women, by definition, hate all men ever, especially really nice ones who ask them out on dates?
While you are one-hundred percent correct that all gay women hate men universally (and are also members of a softball or field hockey team), I still don’t think that makes any sense because Lady Dolt couldn’t possibly be gay. She’s a tough woman on a primetime show that can kick ass. She just doesn’t fit the mold, man! She couldn’t be gay.
I guess you’re right. Sorry, Mac. I’m going to go back to pouring molten steel against your sinuses.
Okay, Brain. Stay classy.
Boy, sometimes he can be so naive.
Anyway, after her karate class, Lady Dolt is at FBI headquarters. Young Dolt shows up and hands her a flash drive full of satellite images, so Lady Dolt gives it to the little boy who is apparently her assistant. I’m not sure why this youngster is working as an assistant in the FBI, but there he is. Lady Dolt explains to him that he’ll be looking for anything relating to crows dying or people losing consciousness. Now get to it, lad! And while you’re at it, find something new to wear besides that womany pantsuit!
Lady Dolt accepts the drive from Young Dolt. Little Boy Assistant looks on.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Chief Dolt, Nulu, and Old Dolt are in the White House Press room waiting for an address by the President. But wait, what’s this? The President is none other than high-level government bureaucrat, Dave!
President Dave tells the press that the Senate hearings are going to redirect funds and maybe get rid of some idiotic website-based investigations non-producing investigations. He’s asked to share his vision flashforward. We the audience see that he was woken up in the middle of the night to the threat of “something happening.”
Ah, now that’s Braganian writing at its finest. “Mr. President! Mr. President! Wake up! Something has happened!”
That’s almost as shocking as finding out that Clemente was chairing the Senate Hearings. I’m still trembling over that one.
In California, Olivia confronts Sadbeard about finding out that Joe is going to AA meetings. She wants to know if he’s having a hard time with this whole “Time is a meaningless concept, there is no free will, fate is immutable, that which was will always be” rigmarole.
Sadbeard assures her Joe is an untrustworthy alcoholic who will drink whenever he damn well feels like it, and if Olivia can’t trust Joe, then who can she trust? Some loving father of an autistic (and therefore superpowered) boy? Pff!
Then it’s back to Washington (I’m getting whiplash from all this back and forth) where Chief Dolt is offered the position of head of Department of Homeland Security. He worries that Clemente might try to block his appointment, but President Dave assures him that the dreaded Clemente has bigger fish to fry.
Speaking of frying fish, we next direct our attention to a restaurant, where Lady Dolt is on a date with...
WHAAAAAAA? Another lady! B-b-b-but, ladies can’t date ladies! That’s just backwards! It makes no sense! Ladies are supposed to like fellas! I tell you, this is the kind of shocking development that those of us who exist in 1967 just can't expect to see on our televisions.
Well I guess I have to hand it to Brannon Braga. He’s bucked Hollywood convention by having a hot lesbian on his show.
Back in Washington, the Senate Hearings have begun. A parade of other agency officials appear to testify as to what they think caused the Blackout. Aliens! The Chinese! Anything but crows! The list goes on and on.
After the hearing, Chief Dolt is on the phone to his dubbed-in wife, when suddenly he is accosted by the dreaded Clemente. Fire pours forth from her flaring nostrils as her hooves beat a rhythm of suffering against the earth as she walks. Her twisted, malformed body creaks and drags its way ominously up to Chief Dolt. When she opens the toothless maw that is her mouth, the death cries of a thousand infants issues forth, causing grown men’s hearts to burst, women to collapse into seizures, and children to transform instantly into random body parts of Rush Limbaugh.
“Noooo!” Chief Dolt screams as the Clemente comes ever nearer. “Stay back, foul creature of darkness and agony! Stay back! I, with all of my powers of being in the FBI demand it! Stay back!”
“Ahhhh,” Clemente hisses. “Chief Dolt. My longtime nemesis. I shall never forgive you for that ‘thing’ that you did to that girl that shall remain mysteriously unspecified until such time as the plot demands it be revealed. Know ye that it is I who shall destroy you, child of man! My powers grow ever stronger as the time of prophecy draws nigh! For in my darkest vision flashforward, I witnessed my grandest triumph: becoming the President of the United States of America! Soon all shall bow down before the majestic horror that is: CLEMENTE!"
“God, noooo! Let it be not true! Let it be not true!”
Just as Chief Dolt is about to collapse into a quivering pile of jelly, the Clemente is driven off by the power of Joseph Fiennes’ pointy glare. He arrives just after the Clemente has left, and commiserates with Chief Dolt.
“I sure wouldn’t want to be in the Clemente’s sights,” he growls. “You poor damned bastard.”
Later, Chief Dolt is giving his own testimony to the Senate committee, but aside from Clemente throwing a few insults his way, they don’t want to talk to him. They want to talk to Joseph Fiennes, and order that he give testimony the next day. Wow, that’s almost as unproductive as a real Senate committee hearing. Way to go with the realism, Brannon!
The next day, Lady Dolt is making breakfast for her one true love, the woman she just went on a date with for the first time last night. Does she have a name? Probably not, so let’s just call her Ratings. Lady Dolt tells Ratings to stay in her apartment for as long as she likes, and then they make plans to go on another date later that night.
Another thrilling scene brought to you by Flashforward! Hold onto the edge of your seat as two people make tentative dinner plans! Don’t look away for even a moment lest you miss one single second of coy grins and shy glances to the floor! It’s a nonstop thrill ride as two girls kiss!
Okay, that last one might actually work.
After that, it’s back to Washington where Joe is being grilled by Joyce Clemente. Her powers are so great that she can actually get the nameplate on her podium to read “Sen. Jane Clemente.” I can only assume that Jane Clemente is her mild-mannered persona, while Joyce Clemente is her true form.
Or maybe someone in the Pantheon of Lazy Writers forgot to tell the prop department that they’d changed her name. Whoops. (PS: Thanks HDTV! You make nitpicking so much easier)
Joe explains all about the incredible crow lead that only his agency could have possibly found, and about how some masked gunmen are going to try and kill him in six months. This is made all the more entertaining because it appears that Joseph Fiennes is either about to cry or is having some rather serious digestive problems while he gives his testimony. I’ve never seen a guy whose glower has a glower. What a talent.
"Must...force...eyebrows...LOWER!"
Back in California, Lady Dolt, Young Dolt, and Little-Boy-In-Pantsuit are following up on their satellite images, and soon they spot some strange towers in the images. Oh man! Finally! I can’t wait for them to immediately go to Somalia and find out what that is!
Oh wait, back to the Senate Hearing first. Okay. That’s cool. Still plenty of time to deal with smokestacks, Dominic Monaghan, that guy who blew Joe and Nulu up a few episodes ago, and of course the chinese mobster guy who blew everyone up at the beginning of the episode. Just hang in there, Mac. Answers are coming.
Joyce nee Jane Clemente grills Joe about why his vision flashforward is all disconnected and hazy. What possible reason could there be for why his vision flashforward, arguably the one with the greatest possibility for answers, would be so hazy? And don’t say lazy screenwriting. That doesn’t count.
During this badgering, Chief Dolt throws a tantrum and storms out of the room. He’s not going to stand for his agent being intelligently questioned and made to answer for legitimate concerns like why he helped free a Nazi or why the FBI is resorting to numerology and guesswork to further their investigation. Clemente has gone too far!
I should also like to point out here that the establishing shots of the Capitol Building always show it with massive structural damage about half of it. This structural damage was nowhere to be seen in the flyover establishing shot in the beginning of the episode, so clearly in that 39 hour time difference the entire building was fixed.
Or they forgot to do their CGI damaging to the stock Washington, DC footage they used in the beginning of the episode. Whoops.
After the questioning, the Dolts back home call the Dolts in Washington and let them know about the smokestacks in Somalia. Being unable to send a team there thanks to the funding questions they’re arguing about in Washington (it all makes so much sense now!) they decide to send the images to forensics for analysis.
Here’s my vision flashforward of twenty days from now:
“Hey guys, it’s me, Paul from forensics. I used forensics to forensically analyze your satellite images, and I forensically determined through forensics that those are definitely pictures of Somalia, and when I used my forensics on them I was able to forensically determine that there are also pictures of large towers in the image. Forensics out!”
Right after that, Chief Dolt calls Lady Dolt and asks her for a mysterious favor. She is apparently great at time management for she is immediately seen meeting up with Ratings for her date. After a little small talk, Ratings drops the bomb on her.
“I mosaic’d you,” she says, awkwardly trying to make it sound like people would use the word mosaic like they currently use google. “You know, that website that you set up for people to make up lies about their visions flashforwards? Well shockingly enough, I, as a normal human being, used it for my own purposes! I know it’s totally unexpected, but I just couldn’t help myself. Anyway, I know you’re going to be pregnant in five months, so here’s hoping we get married and get you artificially inseminated?”
“Wow,” Lady Dolt says in return. “You suck. I hate you temporarily! Get out of my life for a brief period of time!”
She does, and we turn our attention to Chief Dolt. He’s visiting some woman named Renee. She acts what will surely be confusingly suspicious of his arrival once we learn that she’s actually likes him, and then her young son rushes into the room and leaps into Chief Dolt’s arms. Oh I know! I bet we’re supposed to think that’s Chief Dolt’s son! Aww, how quaint. Brannon Braga’s trying to trick us, everyone. Gather ‘round close, but try not too think too hard or you might scare him away and he’ll hit the reset button.
Before we can learn anything more about Renee or her son, the scene switches to Chief Dolt in the oval office with President Dave. Chief Dolt hands him a picture of President Dave embracing Renee.
Oh man! You totally got me, Brannon. No, seriously, you got me. I promise, you totally tricked me. You’re such a good writer/creator! Who’s a good writer/creator? You are! Yes you are! Yes you are! Thassa good boy.
Turns out President Dave had an affair with the woman and Chief Dolt helped him to cover it up, so now Chief Dolt is going to blackmail President Dave into using his super Presidential Powers to stop a Senate Committee hearing somehow.
From there we move onto a karaoke bar, where Joe, Nulu, and Old Dolt are partying. Well, Old Dolt is singing, Nulu is getting drunk, and Joe is seeing if he can perform a world-record sextuple glower. It’s really quite a thing to behold. In fact:
”If I try hard enough I can glower back through time to the moment of my own birth!”
AND
Print out this picture and put it on a hat or t-shirt. As long as you wear it, you will be immune from harm by explosives. Police department bomb squads have been using this pointy face for years to protect their technicians, and now you have the secret too.
Anyway, Chief Dolt shows up mainly to call Joe an idiot for choking during testimony, then immediately storms out again. Normally I’d say that was rude, but you have to understand that Chief Dolt is very busy. He had to go from the Senate Hearings to Renee’s house to the White House to the karaoke bar and then to who knows where else, all in one night. So he walks in, calls Joe a dummy, and then walks out again. You can’t blame him for that.
Joe, for his part, glowers for a bit and then follows him, demanding to know why Chief Dolt didn’t back him up.
“Because!” Chief Dolt yells angrily. “I could very easily tell you that I was leaving to try and find leverage to save all of our jobs, but instead I will yell at you for something that was not at all your fault in order to pad out the remaining time in this episode! Grrr! You suck, Joe!”
”That pointens my face!”
Eventually Joe gets tired of getting yelled at and reveals in his loudest growl yet, “I can’t remember anything because I was loaded! Waaaahhhh!”
I think we’re supposed to be very shocked by this, but I’m just going by the music. Nulu and Old Dolt arrive, but Joe and Chief Dolt pretend like nothing’s happened. Chief Dolt lets everyone know that their funding is secure, and all is well.
That night in Joe’s house, Olivia gets a text message from a mysterious stranger. I’m losing track of how many mysterious strangers there are in this show, so let’s pretend it was from the guy who blew Joe right the fuck up. No, the first guy who blew Joe right the fuck up. The second guy (chinese mobster guy) hasn’t actually happened yet.
Anyway, the message says “Joe was drinking in his flashforward” and boy that just makes Olivia very upset. Or cold. Or maybe kind of hungry. Olivia’s not easy to read. She tries to send a return message, but the number is blocked. Dun dun dun!
And with an establishing shot of the Washington Monument and a perfectly rebuilt Capitol Building, it’s clear that we’ve circled back around to the beginning of the episode. The mysterious thing that Joe and Chief Dolt were talking about the beginning turns out to be Joe being drunk in his vision flashforward. Only this time we’re treated to an extra thirty seconds of them looking at a television that happens to be tuned to the local ABC news. The newsanchor explains that Jane/Joyce Clemente has been picked to be the next Vice President, thereby keeping her evil self from blocking funding from the FBI and making sure that the prophecy of her being president will come true.
So at a valet station at 1:30 AM in front of a karaoke bar in Washington DC, they have a television that’s tuned into ABC, which is also for some reason playing the local news instead of reruns of Oprah or infomercials?
Okay, makes sense to me. I just can’t understand how I missed it when this scene first aired at the top of the episode. If only I’d been paying attention to it then, I wouldn’t have had to worry about how Chief Dolt would manage to get funding for his investigation. Boy, I’m usually much more attentive. I’m a little embarrassed. It’s almost as if that one scene that would have made the entire episode a waste of time was simply skipped over at the beginning, but that couldn’t be, because that is stupid, lazy, and makes the entire in media res completely unnecessary.
Particularly since I still don’t know who the hell the chinese mobster guy with a grenade launcher is.
The scene then switches to Lady Dolt walking home from a grocery store. She gets a phone call which she picks up after two rings, and it turns out to be Joe on the other end. He’s calling from the beginning of the episode!
So the person Joe called that required four key presses on his phone and picked up instantly on his end was Lady Dolt, who picked up on two rings on her end? Thassa good continuity!
While she’s talking to Joe, the whole SUV ramming thing happens again, and everyone gets re-blowed the fuck up. And let’s understand, this is not a tiny explosion. Huge fireball, the entire car blown to bits, the whole nine yards. There’s no way anyone but the possessor of the most pointy of glowers could survive that.
At the same moment, another apparently Chinese guy runs out of nowhere and tries to shoot Lady Dolt. She uses her karate to snap his neck (harsh), but winds up getting a bullet in her gut when a second attacker shows up. She pulls out her gun and shoots him in the back, then collapses.
Back in the parking garage, all four of our Dolts are miraculously unharmed, thanks to the power of Joseph Fiennes’ ability to deflect fireballs with his face. The four of them all jump out of the flaming wreckage of the decimated car and use their guns to kill all of the attackers while inappropriately ironic music plays (we learned about that last episode, you’ll recall.)
The SUV full of heavily armed gunmen quick flees under the plinkety-plinking bullets of the Dolts and their dinky little service pistols. I guess the grenade launcher only had one shot loaded and the guys with the sub-machine guns are really squeamish about shooting people who just survived a massive explosion.
And finally, Dominic Monaghan shows up with the mysterious man who blew up Joe and Nulu in the second episode. They question Charlie about who D. Gibbons is, and then fly to Somalia to check out the smokestacks. Everything is solved and the show is over forever, the end!
Mac?
Yes, Brain?
I... You know what? Never mind. You’re exactly right, that’s totally what happened.
I know it did. It’s not like the episode would end on another cliffhanger with Lady Dolt bleeding to death in the middle of the street when there are like four other cliffhangers it never resolved. That’s just silly.
Of course it is, Mac. Of course it is.
Well that’s it for this episode everyone, I’m off to bask in the resolution of all of those dangling plotlines.
And I’m off to punch the inside of your skull like it was a slab of meat and I’m Rocky Balboa.
Until next episode, everyone!