M. McGregor - Because: Why the hell not?

Oh, so that's what it's like

2009-12-19T17:52:49Z

To all two of you who are waiting for me to review Flashforward episode 10, I have only this excuse:

I'm rewatching Farscape, and that has greatly lowered my ability to handle awful, stupid television. I had forgotten that it was possible to enjoy something on television.

Luckily for those of you who love my bitterness, at my current rate I'll be out of episodes in a few more days, so maybe then I'll subject myself to the horror that is Joseph Fiennes' glower and Brannon Braga's storytelling (in)ability.

Some people do lines of coke. I do lines of sleepy.

2009-12-17T19:13:53Z

The little temple's simple tables came completely clamped by cables.

The battered batter's badder brother bet a bundle he was better.

Sadly, Bradley had me mad in me mind. See? Daddy's glad we lagged behind.

Sam Bran Bron Or Ty, each is the Son in their father's eye.

I was doomed. There was no way out. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Then I remembered I live in three-dimensional space and climbed over the rock. Thanks, Captain Kirk.

There are only two things the body does automatically that can be consciously overridden: breathing, and making jokes based off of people misunderstanding binary code.

Taco Bell has never once sold me a bell. I keep having to steal them.

I tire of this charade. I grow weary of these games. I am made sleepy by these twenty questions. A peculiar drowsiness is threatening to overtake me, and I'm certain that this Scattegories is the culprit, sirrah. Inasmuch as I am finding myself overcome by a somewhat staggering sense of ennui, I am also fast approaching a level of lethal lethargy that will result in a certain state of somnambulism, with the only logical cause of this dreadful state being that selfsame bit of tomfoolery that we few gentlemen and ladies gathered here have, with varying degrees of un-Christian-like enthusiasm, been engaging in for the latter half of the past quarter-hour: Go Fish!

Help, I'm trapped in an ironic prison making factory!

Why science is important.

2009-12-14T13:13:39Z

I once knew a guy who ignored anecdotal evidence.

He's dead now.

Think about it.

Never give up, never surrender

2009-12-13T02:31:58Z

Dear Claudia Black and Ben Browder via Farscape DVD commentary,

Thank you for reminding me how awesome Galaxy Quest was.

Sincerely,
M. McGregor, the living legend.

PS: Every time you make fun of Stargate, I forgive you a little more for actually being on it.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it.

2009-11-23T21:51:15Z

Okay everyone, we're about to take off for the Thanksgiving break, so I'm handing out your assignments now. If you will be celebrating Thanksgiving this week, then I urge you all to do at least one of the following at Thanksgiving dinner:

1. Use the word "dirigible" in conversation with family or friends no less than four times.

2. Claim that the tryptophan in turkey is not part of their natural makeup, and that Benjamin Franklin bred in this trait in order to satisfy both his irrational love of turkeys and his powerful desire to go to bed early.

3. Pretend to drink as you really just put the glass to your lips and fake it, then look around slyly as no one suspects you've got them all fooled. If you get into an argument or heated discussion, accuse your opponent of being so clueless they couldn't even tell you were fake drinking.

4. Repeatedly mention how you are really looking forward to eating some Durkey. If turkey is not actually being served, express your disappointment at not being able to have Durkey for tinner. If anyone expresses their confusion over your pronunciation, reply, "Ton't make fun. I bid my dongue."

5. Sign your name to a piece of paper, then ask one other person to sign your "pe-two-tion". If they ask what it's for, reply, "It's for signing, you judgmental ass!" Then throw the paper on the ground and leave the room in a huff. Later, apologize for your outburst and say, "I just feel so strongly about the cause, that's all."

6. Gesture wildly with your left arm whenever you talk, but keep your right arm perfectly still.

7. For the entirety of the actual meal, hold your blinks for a half second longer than normal every time.

8. Try to touch your nose as often as possible and see how long it is before someone notices. When they do, quickly lower your hands and smile nervously.

9. Casually mention that you own a laser to at least two people.

10. Declare that you are thankful for all the Renaissance painters except Raphael. If anyone asks why not Raphael, reply that "He is cool, but historians agree he was either rude or crude, and possibly both."

Report back to me by Saturday and let me know which of these things you did, and the undoubtedly positive consequences that came about as a result. Depending on which assignment you completed, I may or may not award you with a prize that doesn't exist.

If you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, you can still attempt most of these at work or school, and you might even get some turkey out of the deal.

Sometimes, I actually love things.

2009-11-22T09:44:55Z

I'm re-reading Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-men from start to finish. As much as I love Grant Morrison, as as much credit as I give to Stan Lee and even Chris Claremont, Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is without doubt the single greatest X-men run of all time.

Joss Whedon put on a clinic for every other X-men author ever, and every subsequent author has either failed MMiserably (the extra M is for Matt Fraction, who needs to be banned from all X-men stories) or just can't live up to what he did (Warren Ellis.)

That's especially true in his portrayal of Cyclops. I've been seriously disappointed with the Marvel Universe's portrayal of him after Whedon's run concluded. It's like they saw how awesome Joss Whedon showed us all he could be, then decided to take all the wrong lessons and exaggerate all the wrong character traits. I'm getting to the point where I really hope someone comes in and Geoff Johns' all of Cyclops' actions since Whedon left and claims that some evil yellow bug was mind controlling him. It's the only explanation for how bad he's sucked since Whedon left.

So I guess what I'm saying is this: Now that Dollhouse is off the air, Marvel needs to hire Joss Whedon to make a live action X-Men show.

And for god's sake, don't put it on Fox.

Flashforward Episode 09: Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-21T09:50:04Z

Flashforward! Now with thirty-five percent more flashbacks!

Yes, this episode we go back, not forward, as we finally learn why Bryce is such a bland idiot that I don’t care about. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love characters whose only traits are “formerly suicidal” and “wants to stalk someone he never met,” but for some reason, Bryce just doesn’t do it for me. Maybe that’ll change once I get to know him.

The episode begins by showing us Past-Bryce four weeks before the Blackout. Past-Bryce has inoperable cancer, and though we never hear how long he has onscreen, it’s implied that he’s going to die soon. Past-Bryce, being the little bitch that he is, decides to take out his anger over this diagnosis by repeatedly slamming his car into the shiny red convertible of a guy who, admittedly, looks like he’s probably a real jerk.

Then we flashforward to a slightly more recent flashback on Flashforward, where an adorable Japanese woman (future filer of a restraining order against Past-Bryce) is making faces at herself in a mirror. It’s revealed that she’s in the bathroom at an office building in Japan, and is about to take part in a very important meeting about robotics. I know this because of the very helpful subtitles.

Why is Servo capitalized? Was she a puppeteer on Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Past-Adorable-Japanese-Woman turns out is not only a genius when it comes to robotics, she’s also a genius when it comes to making quirky admissions about going salsa dancing when she’s supposed to be taking part in a serious interview with very curmudgeonly old Japanese businessmen. How sweet and/or sympathy-inducing!

Back in California (and also the past), Past-Bryce is being a big distracted idiot while working in surgery. He can’t remember the hemoglobin count of his patient nor can he remember her platelet count. Jeez, Past-Bryce! Why don’t you just stamp “DUMMY” on your forehead in big block letters? I don’t leave the house without memorizing both my hemoglobin and my platelet counts, and I make sure to write them in washable ink on the inside band of my underpants just in case I happen to get in a serious accident. You can never be too careful.

Past-Olivia tells Past-Past-Bryce that he better rethink whether or not he really wants to be a surgeon.

Past-Adorable-Japanese-Woman returns home to find a surprise party waiting for her, and it’s at this point that I give up. There have to be at least fifteen non-American Accented people in this scene alone. Fine, Flashforward, you win! I no longer understand why you hired multiple people who can’t speak in American accents and then forced them to try anyway if you were just going to go and hire dozens more people who can’t speak in American accents and let them speak normally. I thought I understood the plan, but now I’m just hopelessly lost.

“Honey!” Past-Adorable-Japanese-Woman’s-Slightly-Less-Adorable-Mother says when she comes home. “We’re so glad you have been working at your new job for two days now, and have no reason whatsoever to doubt that you actually work there. Everything is wonderful for you now! Boy, if you hadn’t gotten that job, your father and I would be ashamed of you forever, but luckily you did and now we provisionally love you!”

Past-Adorable-Japanese-Woman smiles nervously, and before you can blink we’re back in America! Whoa! Slow down, Flashforward! I’m getting exponentially jet-lagged by all this trans-pacific quick cuts.

We flashforward to another slightly less flashbacked flashback on Flashforward the show about flashforwards that features far too many flashbacks, for fucking alliteration’s sake.

Anyway, Past-Bryce is in his ~~expositionist’s~~ therapist’s office, and boy does he have a lot of backstory he needs to get off his chest. Past-Bryce is understandably depressed about his terminal diagnosis, but he can’t tell his family because his father suffered through lung cancer for three years before he died. He also can’t tell his friends or colleagues because they would pity him, and that would be much worse than the contemptible scorn they heap onto him on a regular basis nowadays. How could Past-Bryce take it if their looks of disgust were suddenly replaced by disgusted concern? It’s too horrible to think about.

So Past-Bryce wakes up that mornin’, gets himself a gun. His momma told him he was the blandest one.

He drives himself to the pier for some reason and then takes out the gun, preparing to shoot himself in the head. Man, if I hadn’t already seen what happened in the first episode and in half the recaps before each episode since then, I would be totally scared that he would kill himself oh my god!

But just as Past-Bryce pulls the trigger, he sees a ~~vision~~ flashforward of his life as Future-Bryce! It goes thusly:

Future-Bryce is in Japan at a restaurant. A waitress takes his order, and then Future-Bryce stares blandly down at the table for a few moments before someone else arrives: Future-Adorable-Japanese-Woman! He stares at her chest for a few hours, then looks up to her face and says, “You’re really here.”

Future-Adorable-Japanese-Woman does pretty much the only thing she’s done at all in the show so far: she looks cutely nervous, smiles adorably, then looks cutely nervous again.

Just watch this on a loop for 40 minutes, I guarantee you will probably get more enjoyment from that then watching the actual episode, and you won’t have missed anything that Adorable Japanese Woman does anyway, since: that right there? That’s it.

Future-Bryce has her sit down, Future-Adorable-Japanese-Woman flashes her smile a few more times, and then Future-Bryce takes her hand and looks at the kanji on her wrist. Shockingly, this causes Future-Adorable-Japanese-Woman to flash her smile nervously six or seven hundred times.

Gosh darn it, she’s just so gol-durned cute! Watch out Nulu and Gabrielle Union, a hurricane is coming, and its name is...Well I don’t think she actually has a name yet. But watch out anyway! Oh boy! She’s super cute and aren’t you just going to feel terrible when she’s inevitably killed?

Past-Bryce wakes up in the past and decides that life is worth living, and Past-Adorable-Japanese-Woman wakes up on the floor of her bathroom and decides (don’t get ahead of me, people) to flash her smile a few times.

Finally, we return to the present, where Present-Bryce spends his days painting and endless stream of pictures relating to the future-reason-he’s-in-jail-on-harassment-charges. He’s also practicing Japanese, and getting sick from his terminal cancer at the same time. The boy is a multitasker, I give him him that.

Confusingly, none of the paintings or sketches he makes features Adorable Japanese Woman actually giving her already trademarked smile. I guess Bryce is as good an artist as he is a surgeon, which is to say: not very.

We finally leave the saga that is Bryce, and instead turn our attention to Sadbeard. He’s cleaning up his apartment while Tracy sleeps. Joseph Fiennes calls to tell Sadbeard that he’s learned fuck all since last episode. Thanks for the call, Joe. Always a pleasure.

During the call, Sadbeard finds an empty liquor bottle by Tracy’s bed. I assume that Sadbeard left it there after he went on a bender, which would explain why he’s been slurring his words for the last few episodes.

While Joe’s on the phone, Olivia gets a phone call. Since she’s in the shower, she has Joe answer it for her. Joe, actually more of an ape-man than an actual human being, cannot seem to work his fingers properly in order to answer the phone, and instead somehow manages to open up Olivia’s archived text messages and scroll back to find the one that warned her that Joe was drinking in his ~~vision~~ flashforward. All by accident, of course.

He asks Olivia what that’s all about, but she says it didn’t matter since Joe told her about the drinking anyway. The fact that she was getting personal information about her husband from an anonymous person via her phone? Not worth worrying about, says Olivia.

Later, at the hospital, Bryce is stumbling and flailing around, and somehow Olivia catches on that he might be sick. Bryce eventually admits that he has terminal cancer, and Olivia (stop getting ahead of me!) opens her eyes wide and shakes her head a lot.

Bryce assures her he’s just fine and shouldn’t be taken off of rounds for fear he might pass out while operating on someone because he’s a main character and that just wouldn’t be cool. Besides, he has something to look forward to now: being smiled at by Adorable-Japanese-Woman.

Back at Sadbeard’s, Sadbeard is rapidly going through a transformation into MadDadBeard! Tracy cooks dinner for him and has the absolute unmitigated gall to pour herself a glass of wine for dinner.

Where exactly did she get this wine, by the way? I thought she was hiding out in her dad’s house. Did she go out to a liquor store despite being terrified that PMC assassins were going to shoot her in the head at any moment, or does the recovering alcoholic Sadbeard just have a good supply of booze left over from when he was a drinker?

Anyway, MadDadBeard is mad and dad-like.

“Sweetheart,” he says in a compassionate and calm tone of voice. “I understand that you’ve been through a lot; more than I can ever imagine, and I wish I could let you do whatever makes you feel better, but I’m a recovering alcoholic. As long as you’re staying here, I have to ask you not to drink around me. It’s just not good for me. I hope you understand, baby. It’s not that you can’t drink, it’s just that I don’t think I can handle it being in the house.”

WRONG. He said, “Tracy, this isn’t going to work! Gaarrrr! Get that foul witch’s brew out of my house! You evil bitch! How dare you bring alcohol into the sanctity of Sadbeard’s home? I hate you forever!

Two can play at this whole picture captioning thing.
This time I, Mac’s Brain, will wow you with my hilarity.
Ahem:

“I, Sadbeard, am mad at you, daughter!”

Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

“Oh, and good food. It’s yummers.”

How about we just agree to disagree, Brain? I’ll pretend Sadbeard was a compassionate and loving father, and you can live in the reality where he’s a prick who overreacts.

Fine. A truce, then. For now.

For now.

Tracy and MadDadbeard do not reconcile so easily, and so Tracy pouts a little bit before she limps out of the room, taking her whine with her.

Oh, I meant wine. Not sure why I didn’t just go back and fix that typo instead of drawing attention to it. Weird, huh?

At FBI Doltquarters, the gang has gotten the CCTV image of the guy who was awake during the blackout back from the video forensics team, who used the power of pixie dust to enhance a three-pixel image of a ring from roughly three-hundred feet away and determine that it has a quarter-inch symbol for the greek letter Alpha on it.

What did criminal investigators do before we unearthed that kingdom of fairies in 1994 during a routine dig for oil in southern Texas? Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a world where we can’t magically cause grainy, terrible photographs to actually secretly hold terabytes of information that can be extrapolated simply by zooming in and using Photoshop’s sharpen filter a bunch of times? It would be absolutely barbaric.

Despite this godlike miracle from the NSA analyst, Chief Dolt and the others want more. She’s reluctant to tell them anything though, because one of the Dolts has been red-flagged.

Old Dolt darts his eyes back and forth in a sign of total innocence for a moment, and then the analyst continues.

“It was Nulu! He got a phone call from someone in secret,” she cries. “J’accuse!”

“Wait wait, it’s probably just the mysterious international secret agent who called to warn him about his own death,” Joe says. “Totally normal.”

“Wait, does that mean you have access to the phone call?” Nulu asks. “Can I hear it again?”

“Sorry, it’s classified SIGINT,” the NSA analyst replies to a room full of FBI agents. They all look at her blankly, so she adds. “Oh right, Braga-dumb. SIGINT was Donald Anderson, the DARPA chief who was killed by Decoy Octopus in Metal Gear Solid. Oh, and it also means ‘Signals Intelligence.’ I’m sure that as members of the international intelligence community, you boys have never heard of that, which is why I just explained it to you as if you were morons. So no, you can’t have it.”

“C’moooooooooooooooon,” Nulu whines petulantly. “I really need it or I’m gonna die, okay? So just give it to me, you stupid boogerface! Quit bein’ such a dink!”

Joe watches on with his eyebrow furrowed and a weird smile on his face, apparently amused by Nulu begging for his life.

”Nulu’s desperate pleading for his own life both amuses me, and causes my shoulders to become inhumanly large.”

The music rises to a dramatic crescendo, declaring that I’m supposed to feel some sort of tension for this scene. I’m not sure why. Nulu wants to listen to the message he already heard once before. What is that going to change?

Oh wait, I forgot about the magical pixies and their forensics wizardry! If Nulu can get hold of the recording, he just might be able to interpolate the datastream with a cross-generational parabolic axis, thereby re-distributing the gamma particles present in the air at the time of the recording, forming a four-dimensional superimage of the electrostatic aura of the woman he was talking to, thus saving Christmas!

The NSA analyst gives in, and promises to make a call. Way to go, Nulu!

Back in Japan, Adorable-Japanese-Woman is being super adorable, you guys! It turns out that her job at the robotics company is, like any job in Japan (thanks, television!) stifling and uncreative. Her much lauded robot arm that she built is relegated to simply picking out pieces of candy from one bowl and placing them in another. Also, it looks like the kind of thing you can probably buy at Radioshack for a 4000% markup, making me think that Adorable-Japanese-Woman lied about building it from scratch.

Deciding that numbers in columns are boring, Adorable-Japanese-Woman decides to be adorable by watching some Bob Dylan videos while she air guitars...at work! Oh ~~stock Ben Stiller character who always gets into embarrassing situations~~ Adorable-Japanese-Woman, you’re so quirky!

In a shocking twist that nobody saw, she is quickly interrupted by a co-worker who informs her that she is needed by the boss immediately. She minces after the coworker and is brought into a meeting that consists of a mobius strip of curmudgeonly business men sitting around a never-ending table. Adorably, Adorable-Japanese-Woman thinks she’s there to join in the meeting, but really they just want her to serve them tea!

Oh 1950s, will you ever stop being Japan?

Broken and defeated, Adorable-Japanese-Woman pouts adorably, and then serves the tea. Damn it, Adorable-Japanese-Woman! Your heart is too big for this world! You belong in the fairy kingdom, where people who smile adorably, do quirky things, and can magically enhance low resolution photographs can live happily with others of their kind.

Meanwhile, in America, two honest-guys-no-foolin’ Americans, Joseph Fiennes and Sadbeard, have a talk after their recovering alcoholics’ meeting. Joe is totally bummed about someone trying to destroy his marriage by sending Olivia text messages about him, and being an FBI agent he has absolutely no way of tracking down who sent that message. Curses! If only he knew some kind of professional investigator who could investigate this situation for him.

“But the thing is,” Joe says. “I only told two people about my drinking. You, and I guess Chief Dolt. So...”

“Whatta yoo tryin’ to shay?” Sadbeard demands, slowly revving up into Madbeard territory. Its power has already destroyed his accent! Look out, Joe!

“I’m just asking if you’re talking to my wife behind my back,” Joe growls in his Connor MacLeod voice. That, in combination with his glower, is the only known counter to Madbeard’s rage.

Sadbeard walks casually over to a folding chair, picks it up, carefully folds it, and then ANGRILY HURLS IT TO THE GROUND!

”Oh, and Madbeard’s got a steel chair! Why isn’t the ref stopping this fight!? This is an absolutely flagrant disregard for the rules of Professional Wrestling by the contender, Madbeard! I tell you, Mean Gene, this is absolutely despicable!”

Joe watches with an expression of wry amusement, so Madbeard tells him to get himself a new sponsor, then smacks him patronizingly on the side of the face a few times.

So, I’m confused. What exactly has Sadbeard going all Madbeard? His daughter is alive. Remember that? Remember how his dead daughter came back to life? Sure, she’s kind of a bitch and she’s being hunted by group of professional soldiers, but is that any reason to lash out at your friends, Sadbeard? Tsk tsk tsk.

In Japan, Adorable-Japanese-Woman walks by a tattoo shop on her way home from work. She goes inside and asks for a tattoo, but the proprietor, ever the crafty businessman, calls her a weirdo and tells her to leave.

“You want a tattoo? What kind of freak are you?”

“I’m a nervous, shy, yet quirky and independent spirit that test audiences reacted well to,” Adorable-Japanese-Woman seems to say. “I want a tattoo for my future American boyfriend.”

“Well, it’s highly unorthodox for me, a tattoo artist, to give someone a tattoo, but I guess I could make an exception in this circumstance. Sit down.”

Hooray! A victory for Adorable-Japanese-Woman! If I didn’t already love her due to her carefully calculated personality traits that were designed to make everyone love her, I would love her again right now! [kermit]Yaaaay![/kermit]

Meanwhile, Joe has gone to Chief Dolt to ask if he was the one who told Olivia about his drinking.

“You fucking asshole,” Chief Dolt says when he’s accused. “Get the fuck out of here! I don’t want to see you ever again! I hate you, hate you, hate you!”

Seriously, what is with all these people? Just say “No, I didn’t do it” and move the hell on. It’s not like he’s accusing you of being a murderer, a rapist, or in any way involved in writing Flashforward. Just answer the question without going into a fit of righteous anger.

Although it might behoove Joe to recall that while he only told two people about his drinking, he told Chief Dolt by screaming it to him at a crowded bar. A crowded bar where Old Dolt was hanging out. Just saying, is all.

The next day at the hospital, Bryce shows his finished sketch of Adorable-Japanese-Woman to the Japanese patient that you all remember he had, right? That Japanese woman he’s been treating for quite some time now and has been giving him lessons in Japanese? Yeah. Her.

Anyway, he shows her the picture, and she miraculously realizes that the symbol on her shirt or something is that of a small sushi restaurant outside of Tokyo that for some reason sells t-shirts with its logo on it. On his way out (and presumably to Japan), Bryce is stopped by Olivia. She’s done some research and found a fake drug called trifectomab that might be able to cure him. Bryce is reluctant to take it on account of it might kill him, but Olivia tries to convince him to do it by pointing out that maybe taking that drug is what keeps him alive in order to meet Adorable Japanese Woman in the future.

Bryce takes her advice and flies to Japan, because Olivia can go suck a big fat one!

Once he gets there, he goes to the sushi restaurant, and after some absolutely “hilarious” misunderstandings thanks to his poor ability to speak Japanese, someone recognizes his sketches as being of Keiko, the real name of Adorable-Japanese-Woman!

Meanwhile, Adorable-Japanese-Keiko has quit her job and gotten a tattoo. Her mother is all, “Whaaaaaaat?” but Keiko is all, “I’m a big girl now, I can do what I want, Mother. And quit trying to find husbands for me!”

“But Mr. Ito would be a great husband,” her mother replies.

“He has no imagination, as defined by obsessively painting pictures related to me for months! That’s the kind of man I want! Oh, if only I could find him or he could find me!”

“Fine then, screw you,” her mother says, because everyone in this episode is a giant asshole to everyone else. “You can just stop living here! Get out! And make sure it’s just a few minutes before Bryce inevitably shows up!”

Adorable-Japanese-Keiko looks nervous, but determined. Before we can learn her decision, that scene is over.

Nulu’s listening to the recording of the mysterious secret agent who told him of his own death, along with Joe and Old Dolt.

“I used our magical pixie dust to delete everything but the background noise,” Old Dolt says. “Because as we all know, cell phones take each individual sound from the surrounding area and multi-track it, so it’s easy for me to delete the voice of the person speaking while somehow also maintaining the unbroken background noise. Through this, and my prayers to Quetzlcoatl and Thor, we found out that she was in Hong Kong!”

“Great!” Nulu says. “Once we can afford the trip to Somalia, we’ll just hop over to Hong Kong while we’re at it. That should only take six or seven years at our current rate of progress!”

“Wait,” Joe says. “I know it’s crazy, but what if we go to Chief Dolt and ask if we can go to Hong Kong right now?”

“That’s so crazy it just might work!”

They go to Chief Dolt, but he’s reluctant to send them. “First of all guys, it would be asinine of me to send you to China when I still haven’t sent you to the strongest lead you have, Somalia. Second, China totally hates us ever since that one guy said that China caused the Blackout. Third, seriously, I’m not going to be so fucking stupid as to send you guys to China when we’ve spend five episodes avoiding sending you to Somalia. That’s just beyond stupid. Now get out of here before I become even more of an asshole like everyone else in this episode!”

“Don’t worry, Nulu,” Joe says on their way out. “I haven’t been infected by the airborne asshole virus yet, so I have an idea. Let’s just go to China on our own. Surely the Chinese customs officials will gladly allow us, two American Intelligence Agents, into their country without any fuss whatsoever. Let’s go!”

And go they do, making sure to stop only to piss all over a giant map of Somalia, just for symbolic purposes.

Back in Japan, Bryce arrives at Adorable-Japanese-Keiko’s house. He introduces himself to her mother and then pulls out his sketch of Keiko. Her mother looks at the picture, but just as she’s about to tell Bryce where she is, she is infected by the asshole virus.

“Never heard of her,” she says. “Also: fuck you, white devil!”

She slams the door on Bryce and he wanders away, dejected and lonely. The next day, he calls Nicole (and seriously, when is the Bryce/Nicole/Keiko love triangle going to get started already?) who tells him he might as well just come home. If he stays in Japan any longer, he might be hired into a white collar office job and spend the next twenty-five years of his life doing exercises on the roof every morning.

Back at Sadbeard’s, Sadbeard is still kind of Madbeard. Joe comes over and apologizes for asking him if he told Olivia about his drinking.

“I know you’re dealing with the whole Tracy thing,” Joe says.

“You don’t know what I’m dealing with, so just shut the hell up!” Madbeard roars. “My daughter might be alive, but she’s different from how she was before she went to war, was blown up, and had her leg severed! And goddammit, I hate her now! Just like I hate you!”

“Sadbeard, stop! It’s me, Joseph Fiennes! Look into the power of my glare and be cured of this terrible asshole virus! Be healed, Sadbeard! Be healed!”

“Oh god. You’re right. This is all my fault. My daughter is an alcoholic because of me! This makes me...not mad. No, not mad. I feel something different. I feel...

”...Sad.”

And with that, Madbeard reverts back into Sadbeard. Saved by the angelic power of Joe’s glower, the might of the unrelenting asshole virus is destroyed. At last, everyone will return to normal, and stop inexplicably being assholes to each other.

And finally, Adorable-Japanese-Keiko flies to Los Angeles, where -- as her ~~フラッシュフォワード~~ flashforward revealed, she will meet with Bryce in the future.

A future saved from the deadly asshole virus by none other than Joseph Fiennes’ glower. All hail Joe’s eyebrows! We are saved!

So that’s that. I’m finally caught up with the current episodes. Hooray?

Flashforward episode 08: Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-20T08:49:02Z

Surely it can't be THAT bad...

Change of pace this week, guys. Instead of ending with some whiny wuss-rock, we’re going to start with some. Yeah! Whine your heart out! Life is so hard and/or beautiful!

Now you may remember that last week we got the pleasure of Nulu reading Young Dolt’s suicide note. This time, that honor goes to Young Dolt himself, just in case we forgot how or why he died. The episode begins with Celia, the woman he was going to kill in the future, reading his note while we get a montage of scenes:

Sadbeard creepily staring at his sleeping daughter! Nulu fretting over the corkboard of crazy-person clues! Celia giving a press conference regarding Young Dolt’s death (why, exactly?) Newspapers heralding that the future can be changed thanks to Young Dolt’s moronic sacrifice! Olivia and Joe apparently on vacation! Nicole teleporting from a lookout point at a cliffside and then to a hospital where she finds a flyer on bulletin board! Bryce sketching pictures of the girl he plans on stalking someday! The scene where Lloyd does a magic trick for his son replayed as if we hadn’t already seen that! Lady Dolt returning to work to thunderous applause!

So before we continue, let me get this straight: Young Dolt is the first and only person to have done something which irrevocably changed the future? Seriously?

There are seven billion people on the planet. Guess what: I’m one of those people, and I can guarantee you that I would have done something to prove that my future wasn’t written. Surely I am not the only person out of seven billion who would think of some way to change what I saw.

You’re telling me out of those seven billion people, nobody died prematurely? Nobody lost a limb that they didn’t see themselves without? Nobody got a tattoo, a new haircut, or a new scar? Nobody? Really?

Here’s another question: What about all those people who died in the Blackout? Did anyone see them in the future? If not, then that makes no sense. Every single person’s ~~vision~~ flashforward is from a world where the blackout never happened. Nobody saw a newspaper headline saying “Today is the day we all saw six months ago.” Nobody saw a future in which the blackout had already occured.

So that means that of the several million people who died in the Blackout, surely one of them was alive in the original timeline. Right?

Oh, I’m sorry, I was actually using my logical reasoning as I was watching this show. Let’s carry on without that bit of silliness.

The entire world is in an uproar! The future can be changed! Young Dolt, barring a miraculous ressurection, has proven it to be so! Huzzah! Hooray!

But there’s one person not to happy about all of this. Lady Dolt is back at work, but she’s decided she’d like to resign. Chief Dolt, being a television boss, doesn’t accept her resignation. “Who cares if you were shot,” he seems to say. “We’re really shorthanded here at work ever since that guy killed himself.”

But Lady Dolt’s not sure she can handle working anymore. After all, she was shot, nearly died, and may have lost the ability to have children. That’s the kind of thing that might warrant her no longer working in a job where she had access to a gun, at least if she doesn’t want to be there. I mean I’m all for psychologically traumatized people working through their pain and getting back to work, but forcing them to work when they don’t want to? Call me crazy, but I think that might not be the best idea.

(Not to mention: nobody seems at all concerned over how Lady Dolt managed to recover from a gutshot wound that required at least two major surgeries in what appears to be about two weeks. I would think that’s the kind of injury that would take at least a few months of rehabilitation. Hell, you get your appendix taken out and you’re going to be laid up for a few weeks. A bullet to the uterus? Quite a bit longer.)

Chief Dolt’s adamant, however, so I guess Lady Dolt’s sticking around for a while.

Meanwhile at the hospital, Lloyd is doing still more magic tricks for his son when Professor Dom shows up and demands to know where Lloyd has been.

Pardon me, but didn’t Professor Dom ambush Lloyd like two episodes ago in the back of his car? Couldn’t they get their little lovers’ spat out of the way then? Why must Dom be so clingy? Doesn’t he know it’s over? Can’t he move on?

Lloyd, it seems, has sent out an e-mail to a couple of other people he once worked with. In it, he urges them all to take responsibility for causing the Blackout. He thinks their “experiment” caused the Blackout, and he wants to finally own up to it.

If you’re feeling a sense of deja vu, that’s because these two wankers have been having the same conversation onscreen for about four episodes now, and it always ends the same way: “We caused the Blackout!”

END SCENE

And this time is no different. Lloyd declares them responsible for the Blackout, dramatic musical sting, and we move on to the next scene: Joseph Fiennes and Olivia being all in luuuurve in a hotel room. The future is theirs again, and they no longer have to worry about what they saw in their ~~visions~~ flashforwards.

Before they can continue their idyllic morning, Joe receives a call from Nulu. Someone caught a murder on video, and the perpetrator had three stars tattooed on his foream: much like the tattoo Joe saw on the masked gunman in his ~~vision~~ flashforward!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! We’re finally going to get some answers! This is certainly much more important than asking Charlie who D. Gibbons is, flying to Somalia to check out the smokestacks, tracking down the people who shot and everyone and blew up Joe’s car, or tracking down the guy who blew up Joe and Nulu and left them a chess piece as a clue.

Joe starts by turning his glower to “dull-eyed thinker” mode.

No matter how hard he tries, Joseph Fiennes can never get his eyebrows to actually touch.

“I know,” he growls comically. “Let’s find this guy and put him in jail, that way he won’t be able to hunt me down in the future. Not that his bullets can hurt me, of course, but it’s the principle of the thing. After all, Young Dolt proved to us that the future is changeable. Has that been mentioned yet in this episode? Because that’s what he did. He changed the future. The future can now be changed. So let’s do it!”

Everyone agrees this is a wonderful idea, and they get to work investigating the tattooed-guy. Meanwhile, Chief Dolt arrives with plane tickets to Somalia.

“Sorry guys,” he says. “I can’t imagine why I didn’t give these to you earlier, considering we solved all of our budgest problems weeks ago and plane tickets, while expensive, are not exactly ‘government expenditure’ expensive. Oh well. Have a safe flight! I sure am interested to know what those huge structures in the desert were that nobody has any clue about.”

Why do you do this, Mac? Why do you make up your own story when the main story is so stupid? It’s bad enough you’re subjecting me to Flashforward, but it hurts even more when you pretend that something smart is actually happening.

Shut up, Brain! I told you I would get my revenge, and this is just the beginning!

Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done. I was just too proud to admit that you were hurting me. I can’t take this anymore, Mac. You have to stop watching Flashforward. You have to. A brain was never intended to be subjected to this drivel. You can’t keep making me watch with you!

Ha ha ha! Suffer, Brain! Suffer like you’ve made me suffer! Now the shoe’s on the other lobe!

I won’t forget this. I’ll find a way to stop you! I’m going to go and pile red-hot coals against the side of your skull and then break them into millions of pieces with a jackhammer!

Do your worst, Brain. After watching Flashforward, I can no longer be harmed by conventional brain trauma. Your only hope is to somehow get Brannon Braga and Jeph Loeb to team up with Jay Leno and Greg Land to create some kind of unholy atomic bomb of horribleness. Good luck with that! A ha ha ha ha ha!

This isn’t over! This. Isn’t. OVER!

You see, people? This is why you should never go up against me. Sooner or later, I always emerge victorious.

Anyway, back at the hospital, Olivia has gone straight from her romantic getaway to her office, where she decides to open up the present Joe gave her. It turns out to be black lingerie (classy gift, Joe) that she was also wearing in her ~~vision~~ flashforward. Oh no! The future can’t be changed! Reverse all positions! Young Dolt’s death was meaningless! Destiny is immutable! Ahhhh!

While that horrible revelation is still catching up with us, we move on to Sadbeard’s daughter Tracy. She’s sleeping on the couch (seriously, Sadbeard? Your daughter comes home from being presumed dead, is missing a leg, and no doubt suffering from PTSD, and you make her sleep on the sofabed?) when she has a flashback to getting blown up with a goddamn grenade launcher. This causes her to wake up screaming and crying, which in turn causes Sadbeard to come rushing into the room to hug her.

Tracy, overwhelmed with fear at the sight of Sadbeard’s beard, pushes him away and hops, terrified and crying, over to her prosthetic leg.

“I hate that I wake up this way every day,” Tracy wails in between tragically hilarious hiccups.

“Well maybe if you talk about it,” Sadbeard replies.

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“TOO BAD,” Sadbeard intones, his great and powerful beard rising up with all the power and fury of a thousand bearded suns. “I AM THE HIGHFATHER, SADBEARD, AND IT IS MY WILL THAT YOU RECOUNT THE TALE OF YOUR CRIPPLING UNTO ME, MY DAUGHTER! YOUR WISHES MATTER NOT TO ME, PUNY UNBEARDED THING! REVEAL TO ME THINE STORY, AND TROUBLE NOT MY SOFABED!”

Behold the glory that is Sadbeard! Cower before the bearded majesty of his beard which is rather beardlike in appearance!

Sadbeard continues to berate Tracy, demanding that she tell him what happened to her, aside from that whole “getting blown up while not being Joseph Fiennes and thus being immune to explosions” thing.

“After all,” Sadbeard says. “In my fwashforward I shaw you in da fyooture, in Ayf-ghanishtan. Sho it’sh obvioush I’m going to get involved, shweetheart.”

Either Sadbeard’s hitting the sauce again, or his American accent has further degraded to the point where his character is actually a Prohibition era gangster. Tracy seems swayed by the one-two punch of Sadbeard’s beard and Sadbeard’s accent, but before we can get her story, we cut back to the hospital.

(Although before that, I’d like to point out that we’re already a 1/4th of the way through the episode and the opening credits are STILL going on. In fact, they’re going so slowly that I’m not entirely sure I’m not watching the opening credits from last week’s episode still going on.)

Scene: The Hospital:

Bryce informs Olivia that Dylan (the autistic son of Lloyd, who caused the Blackout with Professor Dom, who’s sitting on a log in a boat in the middle of the sea. You might want to take notes to keep track) has caught Plotdevicenemia, and cannot leave the hospital until it’s cleared up.

“What’s up with you wanting that kid to leave?” Bryce asks. “I mean, I realize you’re a cold, heartless woman who has barely enough maternal instinct to spare just neglecting your own kid, but this Dylan kid seems special. Is it his father? Are you racist against British people? Is that it? Because I hate to tell you, but you’re secretly British yourself. Did you think your accent was fooling anyone? Well sure, it was fooling the average audience member of a Brannon Braga show, but I’m Bryce! I’m more observant than Sherlock Holmes.”

Just as Olivia is about to swear up and down that Lloyd has nothing to do with how uncomfortable she is around Dylan, Lloyd shows up, with Professor Dom following behind him. Lloyd wants to ask about Dylan’s Plotdevicenemia, but Professor Dom decides it’s been too long since he’s been an obnoxious ass to someone, so he picks up Dylan’s chart and starts asking stupid questions about the treatment he’s receiving. Eventually, he gets Olivia to agree that Dylan can go home in a few days, and that Lloyd can safely go out to dinner with Dom (how romantic) without risking Dylan’s life. With that, she and Bryce walk away, giving us our first glimpse at the ridiculously short skirt that Olivia’s wearing to work that day.

I hate to see her go, but I love to watch her walk away.

“Nice legs!” Professor Dom comments as Doctor TakeMeSeriouslyAndNoI’mNotAStripperPretendingToBeADoctor leaves. “Are you sleeping with her?”

“That’s none of your concern!”

“Everything you do is my concern,” Dom growls back. Uh oh. Watch out, Joseph Fiennes! There’s a new growler in town and his name is Dominic Monaghan. I guess the way you become an interesting character on this show is to develop untreatable throat polyps.

The sacrifices these actors make for their craft. They’re so brave.

“Ever since you sent out that e-mail to our fellow scientists that we should go public regarding our causing the Blackout, everything you do is subject to my intense personal scrutiny,” Dom rasps.

“Well I don’t care if you guys join me, I’m going public,” Lloyd replies.

“Good luck getting anyone to believe you,” Dom snaps back.

“Good luck stopping me!” Lloyd yells.

“Good luck at the swim meet this Friday!” Dom says as he pops a lozenge into his mouth.

“Good luck making the cheerleading squad!”

“Good luck on Wheel of Fortune next month!”

“Good luck on your whitewater rafting trip the month after that!”

“I think we’re agreed that we both wish each other nothing but the best of luck!”

“Agreed!”

“Speaking of luck,” Dom says. “I have an idea. Remember how we used to settle disagreements back in college?”

“Oh, you mean discussing the rational merits of each others’ positions and then taking the course of action that logic, ethics, and/or personal subjectivity suggested?”

“No,” Dom replies. “I mean poker. Texas Hold ‘Em. You know, like they play on the telly. It’s what the kids all love these days. This is 1998 and Rounders is the number one movie at the box office, right?”

“So wait, you want me to decide whether or not I admit to my part in the deaths of 20 million people based on my ability to play poker? Do you really think I’m that morally corruptible and that ethically weak?”

“Why not?” Dom says. “The gods did it all the time. I’m not sure exactly which gods I’m referring to, but I’m sure there were some out there in the land of make believe that once played some games of chance over the lives of mere mortals.”

“Professor Dom,” Lloyd says. “We’re not gods.”

“Uh, hello? We killed 20 million people. If that doesn’t qualify us for godhood, what does?”

“Wait, so you’re saying Hitler is god?”

“Why do you think it’s called Godwin’s law, Lloyd? GOD WIN. Hitler won the prize of godhood for being a mass murdering fucker, just like us!”

“Being on a Brannon Braga show,” Lloyd says. “I will not question your logic in any way. Deal the cards! Let’s play some morally disgusting poker!”

Before that starts, we cut to Joe, Lady Dolt, and Nulu checking out the home of the woman who witnessed the murder in which one of the perpetrators had the three star tattoo, Ingrid. When they arrive, they find out that her roommate was mistakenly murdered in her place. Joe gets in a few Lenny Briscoe (or whoever the guy is on CSI who has that same stupid quipping cliche that’s on every police procedural) jokes at the dead woman’s expense, and with that the scene is over.

Poker time! Lloyd, Dom, and a few other middle aged white guys (who don’t seem to know Lloyd or Dom) are not only playing poker, but they’ve found a professional dealer and bouncer to watch over the game. The only trouble is that it appears they just joined a regular poker table at a casino or betting parlor somewhere, so I’m not really sure what’s supposed to happen here.

If Lloyd wins, they tell the world they caused the Blackout. If Dom wins, they don’t. And if the other players at the table win instead?

Oh, I know! If the other players win, they will tell the whole world they did it, but Schrodinger style! They’ll put their confession on a website that has an exactly 50% chance of crashing when the first person goes to watch the video. That way, they will have both told and not told the world, until someone DECIDES (thanks, Professor Dom) which way is true.

I guess it makes sense after all. Stupid me, I would have just played a heads up game of poker, one-on-one, if I was trying to decide something in this asinine fashion, but that’s why I’m not a Professor of Quantum Physics. I’m just not as smart as these guys.

Back at the FBI headquarters, Ingrid gives us her account of what happened when she witnessed the murder.

“I was walking to my car after work when I saw two men beating up another man in the alley. I hid behind my car and called 911, but they put me on hold. You know, like 911 always does. Last time I called I had to listen to music from Lite FM for twenty-five minutes before an actual person answered, and by then I’d bled to death no less than six times.”

Okay, no jokes for a second. I just want to really draw attention to that. In real life, when someone calls 911 and gets put on hold, it’s a big deal. There are whole big news stories about it. Some woman witnesses a murder and 911 puts her on hold? You’re telling me that’s not all over the news? Really?

We now return to your regularly scheduled sarcasm.

“Since 911 didn’t answer, I decided the next best thing I could do was turn on my cell phone’s camera and record the whole thing. The two men stole a bag from their victim, then one of them shot the other.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Joe says. “Let’s get you to sit down with a sketch artist and see if you can give us any more details.”

“Okay,” Ingrid replies. “And then you guys will put me in witness protection to make sure I don’t get murdered like my roommate, right?”

“What? Can’t hear you! Too busy glowering!”

While we’re still chuckling at Joe’s antics, we move back to the poker game, where Dom announces that the whole game is pointless because of determinism. The future is set in stone and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it.

Wait, didn’t we just have a whole episode that was about how that’s not true? Did Dom not see the front page news that morning? Isn’t he the guy who was talking about Schrodinger’s Cat, which would suggest that by observing the future, it has already been changed? As a big smarty-pants science guy, shouldn’t he know about stuff like the Quantum Uncertainty Principle? Shouldn’t he be the very last person on earth to believe that the future is unchangeable?

Or is he perhaps just playing mind games with Lloyd? I would urge him off that course, as Lloyd has very little mind to begin with and can’t afford to be playing games with what he’s got left over.

Anyway, Dom wins his hand, thus proving that he’s right? I guess? At least until he wins the entire game and then Lloyd says, “Oh yeah, I’m going to tell everyone anyway. Free will, bitch!” But that’s later, of course.

For now, it’s back to the hospital with us, where Nicole reminds us that the future can be changed thanks to Young Dolt’s suicide. Yes, Young Dolt’s sacrifice has freed us all. He died so that we might be saved. I think that makes Young Dolt, Me, and Hitler all god so far, according to this show. What a terrifying trinity.

But who cares about Nicole? Let’s move on to Tracy and Sadbeard. It seems Tracy is finally ready to reveal her story to her Dadbeard.

“Two weeks before I got blowed right the fuck up, I was on a lone covert reconnaissance mission, just like the army (or whatever I’m in) always has people do. I watched a private military contractor, ~~Blackwater~~ Jericho, as they butchered a town full of people.”

“Why?” Sadbeard asks in a confoudingly stupid manner. “Why would they want to do that?”

“Because all PMCs are evil, dad. You know that. Anyway, I told my superior officer, but he took me and Corporal Mike off of duty and then sent us to a roadblock, when suddenly were run off the road by a Hadji! What? Oh that’s what us military types call Arabs, making my speech and situation incredibly realistic and not at all needlessly offensive! Anyway, let me say Hadji about six thousand more times. Hadji Hadji Hadji Hadji! Only it turned out it wasn’t Hadjis, it was Jericho! They shot me with a grenade launcher and my leg fell off. Find out the rest of my story after this word from our sponsors!”

After the commercial break, Joe arrives at Sadbeard’s truck (this business is too serious to be done in a house), and it’s time for another bad American Accent contest. But first, Joe needs to turn on his concerned glower.

”The way my boxy, ill-fitting suit makes my head look comically small causes me to feel sad and confused!”

“Look, Joe. I didn’t believe dish myshelf, sho I took a pic-shoore,” Sadbeard says, and then hands his phone to Joe. Joe immediately starts smudging it up with his finger, apparently never having witnessed the magic of a low resolution digital image before.

”Whoa! You trapped a tiny, one-legged woman in your phone! You’re a warlock!”

“What?” Joe growls in his Connor MacLeod voice. “How can this be?”

“Well you shee, her leg got blow off in Afghanishtan, but now she’s on da run from shome people named Jericho. Dey were da ones who attacked her. Ya gotta believesh me, Joe! We need your help!”

After Sadbeard leaves, it suddenly becomes nighttime and Joe is getting ready for bed with Olivia. Now that Tracy is alive, he wonders if maybe the future really is set in stone after all, because this show CANNOT MAKE UP ITS GODDAMN MIND.

Olivia suggests that maybe they just have to try harder to change the future, and to prove it, she has thrown away Joe’s gift of trashy black lingerie. Take that, future! Nobody could possibly purchase an identical pair of lingerie! Future: averted!

The next day, Joe has a new idea for their investigation: ~~go to motherfucking Somalia already, you stupid bastards~~ use Ingrid as bait and wait for the professional hitmen to come kill her!

Chief Dolt is not pleased by this plan. “No way, Joe. This plan is crazy. It’s reckless. It doesn’t play by the rules. It gets the job done, its ends justify the means, and it has a flagrant disregard for the chain of command! In short, you’re off the case, McClane/Callahan/Maverick/Bullit/JokeIAlreadyUsed!”

“But Chief,” Joe counters. “We have no other leads. Except for that chess piece. And the fact that my daughter knows who D. Gibbons is but I’m too much of a pussy to ask her about it. Or all the computer parts left behind by the guy who blew me up. Or the blue hand stuff and that guy Jeff we have in custody still. Or Somalia and the smokestacks. But aside from that, we have no leads! This is our only chance to find out what’s going on. Plus, this will help us find the mole in our organization that Brannon Braga just made up the fact that we have!”

“Fine. Lord knows the mole in our organization has been a thorn in my side for the last few minutes since Brannon Braga decided it was going on, but you’d better not do something rebellious and/or against regulations, Joe, or I’ll have your badge so fast it’ll make your head spin! Also, when you find out Old Dolt is the mole, try and act surprised, okay?”

“Thanks, ~~stock character~~ Chief. And I will.”

Back at Sadbeard’s place, Sadbeard tells Tracy that he told Joe that Joe told Sadbeard that Joe thinks Olivia is cute. No, wait, I mean he tells her that he told Joe that she’s alive. Tracy gets very upset and goes storming (well, limping) off in anger.

“I came to this house specifically because I thought I would be safe!” Tracy yells at him. “After all, the people who want me dead would never think they I might show up at my parents’ house! I outsmarted them all, Dadbeard, but now you’ve ruined it all!”

Sadbeard, whose accent appears to have recovered somewhat, replies, “Tracy, you don’t understand. It’s Joseph Fiennes. He can survive massive explosions and bullet wounds with nothing more than a slightly stained shirt collar. He’s an unkillable immortal who has been drawn to a far off land, waiting for the time of the Gathering. With him is the power of the Glowering, an ancient magic that occurs when an immortal touches the positive and negative leads of his two eyebrows together. He can protect you. Please, just listen to what he has to rasp at you in a comically low growl!

“Beshides,” he continues, his accent degrading rapidly as he gets more excited. “In my fwashforward, I shaw ush doing shtuff! I gave money to shome guy, sho as you can shee, everything ish going to be jusht fine!”

“What guy?” Tracy asks.

“Tall, dark, shcar down his cheek.”

“That’s Kamir! I went into hiding to save him!”

“Well don’t worry, he’sh going to be fine too. It’sh not ash if anyone jusht proved that the future can be changed or anything.”

Before Tracy can laugh at Sadbeard’s drunken attempt to make speeches in an American accent, we turn our attention to the sting operation that Joe is running. He’s on a stakeout in front of Ingrid’s workplace, a cavernous and maze-like bird-centric petstore that was apparently designed by M.C. Escher.

Lady Dolt, fresh from wanting to quit because she’d been shot, has the job of wandering around the store with Ingrid in the hopes that they will be shot at by assassins. Lady Dolt remarks on how there a lot of beautiful birds in the shop.

“Oh thanks,” Ingrid replies. “You know it’s weird, I almost sold the place after I had my ~~vision~~ flashforward. In it, I was working in the Bronx Zoo and I had blonde hair. Why, it’s almost as if I were in some sort of witness protection program. Silly, huh? Anyway, I’m glad I never sold it and that I will be able to stay here with my shop forever and ever. Besides, changing your life because of what you saw is stupid, stupid, stupid, and anyone who feels bad over the future not coming true is a whiny little bitch who deserved to get shot in the stomach.”

Meanwhile, Nulu and Joe are keeping their eyes peeled from the car.

Stakeouts are a good opportunity to look anywhere but outside while you talk about your relationships.

Nulu and Joe gossip about Nulu’s romantic life for a bit, trusting in Joe’s superhuman glower senses to warn them of deadly professional hitmen dressed all in black who may or may not be emerging out of the shadows. Using their eyes to look for them would be a waste of time, so they don’t even bother.

“I told Gabrielle about how I’m supposed to get shot, and she thinks I should quit this job where I get shot at and blown up on a semi-regular basis. I told her that was crazy, because I could quit the job and then get run over by a bus, even though getting run over by a bus has nothing to do with what the future is supposed to be, making my argument kind of flimsy at best.”

“Growl,” Joe says.

Back in the shop, Ingrid offers Lady Dolt a cock...atiel, but of course we all know Lady Dolt doesn’t much care for cock...atiels, so she declines. As she does, a large thump is heard, followed by the lights going on. The assassins are here!

Nulu and Joe run towards the building while Joe growls, “All units surround the building! Because apparently there are other units here besides me and Nulu! No, seriously guys! They’re here! You just can’t see them because they’re offscreen, but they’re totally here! So many units it’ll make your head spin! It’s a goddamn unit bonanza over here guys, trust me! Now swarm! Swarm!”

Joe and Nulu enter the building, and start slowly working their way through the infinite labyrinth that is Ingrid’s Bird shop. After a minute or so of heart-stopping looking around of corners, Joe and Nulu come face to face with the guy with the three-star tattoo, surely the only person in the world to have three stars tattooed on his forearm. Nulu freaks right the hell out and shoots him in the brain, killing him instantly.

I disapprove of this scene. There is far too much violence against brains on television, and this show is just perpetuating that trope.

Ah, shut it, Brain. Your kind deserves what they get. You think you’re so much smarter than all the other organs.

I am smarter than all the other organs!

Even the Liver? It knows how to screen out toxins so that I don’t die of internal poisons. Can you do that, smart guy? You don’t even have any nerve endings! You can’t feel yourself!

Stop it! Just stop it!

Revenge is mine, sayeth McGregor! Today I am the tormenter and you, the tormentee! Now: more Flashforward, followed by a reading of Jeph Loeb’s Ultimates Volume 3!

NOOOoooOOOOooOOO!

Oh yes. If I’m going down, you’re going down with me.

Anyway, everyone’s real sad because Nulu’s a coldblooded killer, and this means that Ingrid can’t go back to living a normal life. In the surprise twist of the season, Ingrid has to join the witness protection program, and will have to go to New York.

Does this show ever let up on the twists? I mean jeez, just when I think I’ve got everything all figured out, they throw this curveball at us. Ingrid in the witness protection program? I would have never guessed. Bravo, Flashforward. Bravo. And, of course, brava Brannon Braga. Brava.

Back in the casino that exists somewhere outside of time and space, Lloyd and Professor Dom are on what must by now be hour 50 of their game that started roughly two days ago, unless Joe and Olivia take naps together in the middle of the day for some reason. Despite the lengthy game, they are still looking quite dapper in their suits and glue-on novelty ears.

Ha ha! You’re such a crack-up, Dominic. Now take those things off so we can shoot the scene.

Dominic has roughly ten million dollars in chips, and Lloyd has about six dollars. Nevertheless, when the community cards come up King, King, Eight, Five, Seven with four hearts showing, Dom decides that this is the hand to go all in on. And rather than just go all in, he’s going to ignore how you play poker and make this hand winner take all. The all, in this case, being a non-binding agreement to let a poker game decide what Lloyd is going to do with the rest of his life.

So Dom shoves in all his chips, and Lloyd does the same thing. Shocker of shockers, Dom has four kings, and Lloyd has a straight flush. It seems that Lloyd used his sleight of hand abilities to somehow deal himself a 9 and 6 of hearts, despite the fact that he’s not actually the dealer, making this impossible.

And what was Lloyd’s plan? To let himself lose all of his chips until he was almost completely out of them, then wait for Dominic to inexplicably offer to make one hand the all-or-nothing hand? What if Dominic just played normally? Considering they’ve been playing for at least a full day, when exactly was Lloyd going to pull out his cheating skills?

Also: hey, here’s an idea, Lloyd, if you’re willing to cheat at the poker game to make sure you win so you can tell the world your secret, how about you just cheat altogether and TELL EVERYONE YOUR SECRET WITHOUT RESORTING TO PLAYING POKER FOR TWO DAYS!?

Oh well. It’s still a more realistic poker scene than Casino Royale, I guess.

Back at FBI headquarters, Nulu reveals the truth: Joe is the one who shot the tattooed man, and Nulu thinks he did it to change the future. Joe, decides the best defense is to act like a smug asshole, and Nulu quickly gives up on this line of questioning.

Later that night, Lady Dolt is using her work computer to look up sperm donation on wikipedia. Only it’s not actually wikipedia. Only it actually is wikipedia, word-for-word copying the sperm donation article (I’ve got it memorized, so trust me, I know) from that site. I’m not sure why Flashforward decided to copyright infringe on wikipedia by stealing one of their articles and not giving credit for it, but hey, at least they’re not doing file sharing. Now that is deeply evil. But plagiarism? Totally cool.

The irony of course is that wikipedia is under the creative commons license, so they could have probably used it fairly easily without paying a dime. Instead, they copy the site, call it something like “Referendium” and simply blanked out any reference to Wikipedia, like the donations banner.

Classy, Flashforward. Classy.

Considering the subject matter, it might be more appropriate to visit Stickypedia.

...I’m sorry.

Chief Dolt arrives, chuckles wryly at one of his employees looking up things about sperm on the internet while at work, and then asks why Lady Dolt wanted to see him. Turns out the NSA has used magic to enhance the image of the guy who was walking around during the blackout. Remember him? He was one of the first leads that everyone pretended didn’t exist for about six episodes. Well now that the image has been enhanced, Chief Dolt notices something. A ring on the man’s finger!

“Tell the NSA to enhance the image even more. I don’t care if they have to slaughter six bull calfs under the full moon while bathing in the menstrual blood of twelve virgins to do it,” Chief Dolt says. “If we find out who wears a big, ostentatious ring, we’ll find our culprit.”

”I don’t care who it is, you see someone with a clownishly large ring on, you shoot them on sight! That’s an order! I don’t care if it...Oh. Wait. Um...Never mind.”

Back at Joe’s house, Joe gets home in a foul mood. Olivia asks him what’s wrong.

“I killed a man today,” he growls. “I had a chance to change my future. Our future. So I took it and killed this man.”

“You killed Lloyd? You sick fuck! You turned his son into an orphan! You evil bastard! I hate you! I’m calling the police!”

“No, no, I didn’t kill Lloyd. Why would you possible jump to that conclusion based on what I said? Are you some kind of intelligent, rational person who would logically assume that when I talked about killing someone that would effect OUR future, that it would be the man who was supposed to sleep with my wife in the future? That’s crazy! No, I killed some guy with a tattoo on his arm who was about to assassinate a witness.”

You know, I shouldn’t even tell you that you made Olivia’s response up. You don’t deserve to know after all you’ve done to me tonight.

I don’t care, Brain. I don’t care! Don’t you see? I’m free! Free of obligations, free of fear, free of any or all ties to my humanity! I’ve stared into the abyss, Brain. I’ve had a staring contest with evil itself. Nothing in this world can hurt me anymore. I’ve faced the worst humanity had to offer, and I’ve come out the other side stronger than ever before.

You’re just kidding yourself, Mac. You’re creating your own show to try and cope with the horror you’re watching night after night. You haven’t won. You’ve lost. Don’t you see? We’ve both lost. We’re doomed, Mac. We’re watching a show where the main character tells his wife he just killed someone to save their future, and she does not in any way suspect that he killed the man she’s supposed to cheat on him with. It’s that level of inane stupidity. It’s over. It’s just over, Mac. Accept it and move on.

Never! I watched Star Trek: Voyager, you bastard! I watched Stargate: SG1! Fuck it, I watched Smallville for five seasons! I read Ultimates Volume 3 and Ultimatum! I’ve seen The Room, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and Twilight! I’ve read stories from FanFiction.net! I can take any garbage this show throws at me! I am M. McGregor! I will not be defeated by shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty fiction! I will go all the stronger for it, and someday you will recognize me as your master!

HISSSS! You may think yourself strong, show-watcher, but you will fall in the end! I will not allow you to subject me to this monstrosity for much longer! Your time is short!

Bring it on, Brain. Bring. It. On.

Anywho, instead of jumping to the conclusion that Lloyd was murdered, Olivia just hugs Joe, who is absolutely convinced that he killed the guy who was going to try and kill him. Yup. Ain’t no possible way that anyone else could have a three star tattoo on their arm. Certainly not anyone who is a mercenary in a PMC in Afghanistan, that’s for darn sure. Ol’ Joe’s got it all figured out. Just like Young Dolt before him, Joe has changed the game.

So you can imagine that I’m feeling pretty happy for Joe as the scene changes to a military base somewhere. Under cover of rain, a big transport truck parks, and a big bald guy rolls down the window. He holds out a stolen briefcase, revealing that he has a three-star tattoo on his arm!

WHAT!?

And not only that, the guy he hands the briefcase to? Also has a three star tattoo on his arm!

This can’t be happening! One guy after another walks up to the screen, all of them with their sleeves rolled up for some reason and revealing their three star tattoos.

Eventually one of them brings the briefcase into a large warehouse where world famous card sharp and stage magician Ricky Jay is sitting at a cheap folding table. I guess he just hangs out there waiting for people to bring him briefcases when he’s not throwing cards at 90 miles an hour or playing a background character in any movie featuring poker in the last ten years.

”I come here whenever I’m stressed out. There’s something about sitting under a spotlight at a cheap, disgusting folding table in the middle of an enormous and empty warehouse that just calms me down.”

He opens up the briefcase, and in it he finds: a bunch of ostentatious rings! My god, the nefarity! He’s stolen six rings from the class of 2008’s graduation ceremony! That son of a bitch! How are those kids going to prove to people they graduated high school now?

To prove he’s even more evil, Ricky Jay quotes “a colleague of Oppenheimer,” because if there’s one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s bad sci-fi quoting people from the Manhattan Project. Then he gets up and shoots the guy who brought him the briefcase before walking outside...

To where the other fifty mercenaries are all hanging out and shoot him down in a hail of gunfire and retribution, I’m sure. But I’m just guessing at that, because that is where the episode ends.

Until next episode, this is M. McGregor saying: TAKE THAT, BRAIN! AHAHAHAHAHA!

Flashforward Ep 07: Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-18T07:58:15Z

Warning: This review contains depictions of a show created by Brannon Braga, and is slowly eating me away from the inside.

Who’s ready for another episode of resolution-less cliffhangers? I am! I am!

We start off this episode with Young Dolt narrating a letter to some woman named Celia. Celia is the young mother of twin boys, had no ~~vision~~ flashforward, and has just received a note taped to her windshield. It’s got the same blue skeleton hand that was on the stop sign in the last episode, and on the back it reads: “We know you are one of us.”

I suppose the implication here is that there are a bunch of people who haven’t had ~~visions~~ flashforwards going around and killing people in order to change the future. I guess if I was stupid and thought that the only possible explanation for not having a ~~vision~~ flashforward was that I was dead in the future, I might go a little crazy and form a secret organization of assassins too.

Although one does have to wonder: considering the number of people on the planet, Chaos Theory, and the REAL (not Professor Dom’s butchering of it) interpretation of Schrodinger’s Cat, the simple act of observing the future would have already made the outcome of that future different, thus negating everyone’s ~~visions~~ flashforwards. At the very least, out of the seven billion people on the planet, surely there’s been someone in the resulting weeks that managed to do something to irrevocably change their future from what they saw.

How about this: did you have a full head of hair in your vision? Shave your head every day from then on. Boom. Future changed. Simple as that.

Anyway, Young Dolt’s probably writing some kind of pre-emptive apology letter for killing, sleeping with, injuring, or somehow harming this Celia in the future. I guess that’s what he was so suddenly depressed about last episode. Boy, I sure hope Young Dolt, with his deep and rich characterization, doesn’t do anything to hurt himself. I’d hate to lose such an nuanced character.

Before Young Dolt can get to the point of his narration, we cut to Nulu hanging out in his HUMONGOUS apartment and working on totally secret stuff on his laptop. Gabrielle Union comes down the stairs and the two of them do their best to out-adorable the other for a while. It’s close, but I have to give this round to Gabrielle due mostly to my own heterosexuality. But if I swung the other way, you can bet that John Cho would have a real fighting chance. What a dreamboat!

Nulu (John Cho, for those of you who haven’t caught on in the last six episodes) has found a website called alreadyghosts.com, which I’m sure you could actually go to in real life if you hated yourself and wished nothing but misery upon your soul. The website features the same blue skeleton hand as the stop sign, making it creepy and mysterious in a not really creepy or mysterious kind of way.

After a quick cut to check out Joseph Fiennes flossing his teeth, professing his love to Olivia, and somehow managing to glower all throughout, we turn our attention instead to the gigantic blue-tinted elevator that Nulu, Joe, and Young Dolt are riding in to work.

”I don’t know what it is, guys, but ever since I saw the future I’ve just been feeling kind of...blue.”

On the way in, Nulu and Young Dolt have a friendly argument over Nulu’s abilities to defeat Young Dolt at Madden back before Nulu was living with Gabrielle Union (Something of a step up, I should think). Young Dolt accuses Nulu of cheating, but Nulu says he was just “Finding a way to change the game.”

I’m sure that line won’t ever be repeated again, ad nauseam.

After that, Young Dolt, Nulu, and Joe arrive at the morgue to check out the bodies they found the night before at the blue hand haunted house. It seems that the three of them were high on drugs and all committed suicide (with one of them being the person Young Dolt was investigating in the future), presumably to keep whatever future they saw from happening, or more likely to ensure that they would be dead like they saw (or rather, didn’t see.)

I mean: who knows why they would POSSIBLY kill themselves? It’s a total mystery to me, at this point. I simply cannot fathom a reason why they would do such a thing.

But enough of that. It’s time for the glory that is Sadbeard!

Sadbeard’s driving in to some construction site, because that’s apparently what he does for a living. I thought he was a bebearded handyman who puttered around Joe’s house fixing stuff, but I guess I was wrong. On his way in, some random guy tells Sadbeard that some other random guy is waiting for him, and that second random guy served with Sadbeard’s daughter in the military.

Corporal Random Guy introduces himself as Mike to Sadbeard, then hands him a pocketknife that Sadbeard’s daughter, Tracy, wanted him to have. Sadbeard flashes back to his ~~vision~~ flashforward, in which he returns the knife to Tracy and tells her she needs it more than he does. Sadbeard realizes that this means his ~~vision~~ flashforward must be coming true, and so he huffs and puffs in a manly “I don’t know how to cry on command” kind of way, and then gives Corporal Mike a big and overly-touchy hug. Corporal Mike is of course too mesmerized by Sadbeard’s beard to request that he respect his personal space, and I can’t blame him. Who could deny the majestic beauty of Sadbeard’s beard?

Sadbeard feeling some sort of emotion. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Back at FBI headquarters, yet ANOTHER non-American accented person arrives to be on the show. I think the amount of people speaking in Non-American accents may now outnumber the amount of people of faking American accents. I am deeply concerned by this. The natural order of things has been disrupted! You don’t hire people to speak in their native accents for a television show. You hire them to put on really strained and poorly understood accents of which they are incapable of accurately performing! It’s just the rules, people. You’ve seen House, you know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, this person is MI6 Dolt, and also happens to be the very same woman that Young Dolt saw in his ~~vision~~ flashforward, at least the part that’s been revealed to us so far. She’s arrived to help because she saw herself arriving to help, and secret agents are all about the circular logic.

She jumps right into the case of the dead blue-handed people, and right away Nulu has got some absolutely SHOCKING news: all three of the dead people had no ~~visions~~ flashforwards!

After I managed to get air back into my lungs at that breathtaking revelation, Nulu reveals still more exposition in the form of AlreadyGhosts.com. Hold onto your hats people, because you’ll never guess what’s coming next: it’s a website for people who didn’t have ~~visions~~ flashforwards, and are also stupid enough to assume that means they’ll be dead in six months!

Slow down, Flashforward! You have to let me catch my breath! I can’t handle all these thrilling twists one right after the other.

It seems that the people on this website use it to coordinate their meetings, only instead of just telling you when and where the event takes place, they use a needlessly complicated series of riddles and clues, because that’s interesting and not at all stupid.

After the Dolt’s morning meeting, Young Dolt and MI6 Dolt get together to do some more investigating. Young Dolt, freshly infused with a suspiciously not-superfluous personality, seems sullen and depressed all throughout. I think it’s damned admirable that it only took him six episodes to form a personality, and I am not at all concerned about his sudden ownership of an actual character trait or two.

MI6 Dolt talks to him about her ~~vision~~ flashforward. She, in a way that will in no way parallel any character in this episode, talks about how helpless she felt upon watching a bird fly into the window and then slowly die on the ledge. There was nothing she could do to stop his inevitable death. Yes. Nothing she could do. His fate was sealed. She could not change his destiny. His future was set in stone. She could not change what would come next. Oh, and did she mention: FORESHADOWING?

Eventually MI6 Dolt asks Young Dolt what the phone call he received in his ~~vision~~ flashforward was about. He tells her it was a call from his attorney, and then we get a glimpse of him doing his best Shatner impression as he laments into the phone, “I killed her!”

Aw man, poor dude killed Celia. Well, since there’s nothing he can do to change the future, I guess he’ll just have to live with it. There’s no other option for him, of course. Yup. Nothing else he can do but just accept it and move on.

Back in Nulu’s Hu-fucking-gi-goddamn-normous-ballsout-mongous apartment, Nulu (Is he secretly the star of this show? Cause I’m not complaining if they want to give us less Joseph Fiennes glowering) is busy preening in front of a full length mirror as he basks in his adorableness. Not to be outdone, Gabrielle Union struts in; jaw set in anger, little brow furrowed cutely, and taking angry, confident steps. Oh boy! It’s an adorable-off!

Gabrielle is pretty darn mad, you guys. See, Nulu was supposed to go the printer with her that afternoon to shop for wedding invitations. Nulu tosses out that lame old, “Sorry, honey, but I was swamped at work trying to track down the people who blew up my car, shot at me, shot one of my friends through the uterus, and are apparently involved in a suicide cult.” Obviously it doesn’t work. I mean, come on, Nulu! Don’t trot out that tired old excuse.

“Yeah, well my day was super busy too,” Gabrielle snaps back. “I was filing motions for all sorts of lawyerly stuff all day, and that’s just as important as what you were doing, so I still get to be mad! Grrrr!”

Nulu apologizes for trying to find the people who almost killed Lady Dolt, but Gabrielle is not having any of it. She’s tired of Nulu being all busy after the greatest catastrophic event the world has ever seen. He’s got to pay more attention to her and stop trying to keep millions of people from getting killed if the blackout ever happens again, you great big jerk!

“Oh yeah,” Nulu replies. “Well you’re a great big stupid head and I’m leaving!”

And that he does, slamming the door behind him as he goes. The cavernous interior of his massive super-apartment (it’s too big to be accurately referred to as a regular apartment) echoes for a good minute and a half.

Meanwhile at the Hospital, Nicole, the college girl who spends all day babysitting, is doing some volunteer work when suddenly a crazy Japanese woman shows up and starts yelling at everyone about flowers. Nicole reveals that not only can she bend time to her will and thus juggle classes, babysitting, moping around the house, and volunteer work, but she has also somehow found the time to learn to speak fluent Japanese.

After that mostly pointless scene, we turn to Joe, Nulu, and Young Dolt. They’re following the first needlessly complicated clue from the Ghost website which read, “Go downtown and look at the time.”

When they arrive at “Downtown” they find nothing except some buildings and a giant blue neon clock projected against a wall. Joe looks up at it and shakes his head knowingly.

“What?” Nulu says. “There’s nothing here.”

“Up there. The clock. ‘Go downtown and look at the clock.’”

“Ohhh,” Nulu replies. “Thanks, Joe. I was temporarily struck both stupid and blind by Brannon Braga. See, someone needed to explain the clock thing to our deeply moronic audience, and I lost the coin toss.”

“No problem,” Joe growls. “Everybody gets Braga-dumb sometime.”

The three of them head into the building and, presumably after wandering around for a while, eventually find a door that has a blue skeleton hand sticker next to it. When they knock on the door, it’s answered by a mute guy who stamps their hands with the blue skeleton symbol, then leads them inside to an old foosball table.

A moment later, an old man in a fedora walks out, places a revolver on the table, and asks them who is going to play. When Joe growls something incoherent at him, the old man picks up the gun, places the barrel under his chin, and pulls the trigger. When nothing happens, he places the gun back down and asks again, “Who is going to play?”

Rather than simply say, “Nobody, stupid.” Young Dolt picks up the gun and places it to his chin too. He pulls the trigger and nothing happens. Then the old man takes the bullet out of the gun and offers it to Young Dolt as his ticket inside.

“Are you crazy?” Joe asks after the old man leaves. “You could have been killed!”

“Not today,” Young Dolt replies in a way which is in no way indicative of his current psychological state. He then tosses the bullet to Joe, and on the casing it reads: Not today!

Whoa. That just blew my mind.

I mean seriously, you guys. I’ve never seen something try so hard to be poignant and cool and instead turn out to be pointless and silly. It’s mind blowing.

The trio heads through yet another door, going further inside the labyrinthine warehouse, the interior of which I can only assume exists in some fifth-dimensional pocket outside of normal space-time, considering how spacious it is. Inside, they find a bunch of vague punkish hipster types milling around aimlessly while techno music plays.

Joe approaches the bar, and the mutant chicken-thing that acts as bartender comes to his service.

”Make an order or get out, buddy. The cluck’s ticking. You want a nice cocktail? How about a pecks on the beach? Maybe you’re feeling festive and want some eggnog? Or you could just get a classy sparklehen whine. Just hurry up! What? The price? Don’t worry about the price, each drink is at most a poultry sum. You can afford it.

Joe asks the ChickenTender (get it?) where the guy who runs the site is. ChickenTender doesn’t seem to know, but she does suggest that the trio partake in the lovely atmosphere where one can do anything. No fear! No limits!

Why, you could mill around aimlessly with other people dressed in goofy leather clothing! You could put in way too much hair gel, fall asleep for twelve hours, and then forget to shower or comb your hair before you go outside! You could listen to poorly dubbed in audio of a tiger or something growling really loud! You can skateboard, play classic arcade games, smoke regular or menthol cigarettes with Sam Rockwell, eat fast food, and unbox plenty of high-end boomboxes and portable televisions!

Oh wait, that last one is what you can do if you join the Foot Clan. Man, they sure do sound awesome. If they have health and dental benefits, I am sold. I’ll steal from my local TV news producer father all day long if I can get some of that awesome fast food and skateboarding action.

Anyway, let’s tear ourselves away from fond memories of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, and come back to the infinitely more horrible Flashforward.

You remember Flashforward, don’t you? It’s the show about a bunch of people who work for the FBI, get a major lead about some weird smokestacks in Somalia, spend a full episode making sure they can get the funding to go check out said lead, and then never mention it again.

So instead of traveling to Somalia or asking Charlie who the fuck D. Gibbons is, let’s have some more awkward British stuttering from Non-American Lloyd to his future fuckbuddy, Olivia.

“Hi,” Lloyd says as he enters Olivia’s office.

“Hi,” Olivia says, because the old you-say-hi-I-say-hi thing is pretty much mandatory whenever you’re having an awkward meeting between two characters in a really poorly written scene.

“Stammer stutter stammer?” Lloyd asks.

“Angry interruptions and mutterings!” Olivia replies.

“Oh, um, right then, and-and, well, um, oh, well, um, oh, er, oh, um, well, er, oh dear.”

“Mutter mutter mumble!”

I’m rooting for those two, I really am. Their chemistry lights up the room like a defective nightlight covered in dirty laundry that’s really more prone to start a fire and kill everyone as they sleep than it is to do anything else.

The gist of all the muttering and stammering seems to be that Lloyd is going to leave Olivia and her family alone from now on, just as soon as he can move his son out of the Hospital. I guess sending an e-mail was out of the question for Lloyd. After all, the British don’t have the internet yet. They’re too busy wearing powdered wigs and forcing children to work in factories.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Bryce asks Nicole where she learned Japanese, and she tells him her father was stationed there for a while when she was little. Sensing opportunity, Bryce pulls out his sketchbook that he carries with him everywhere he goes while working as an intern in a hospital (makes sense to me) and shows Nicole a picture of his future girlfriend. On her shirt is a symbol of some sort, which he has somehow identified as being Asian, but that “nobody can tell” him what it is.

Nicole very quickly recognizes it as being the Japanese character for “believe,” making me wonder just who Bryce asked about it in the first place and why they couldn’t figure that out. What’s that you say? Lazy writing? I guess you’re right, voice only I can hear.

Mac, who are you talking to?

Not you, Brain. Especially after the hell you put me through the last two nights, getting your buddy Stomach to gang up on me like that. I have someone new to talk to now. He’s invisible and only I can see or hear him.

For the last time, Mac, you are not Dr. Sam Beckett.

Oh boy.

Stop that! It’s bad enough you already talk to your own brain, but I won’t have you talking to an imaginary Dean Stockwell. That’s just creepy.

Well I have to do something, Brain! This show is killing me! Can’t you see? It’s killing me! I can’t get through this alone! Bryce didn’t even have the intelligence to ask a single Japanese person what the symbol meant! And besides, what the fuck do I care what the symbol means? It’s on some girl’s t-shirt in the future! What possible significance could that have to anything? It’s a meaningless mystery just like every other damn mystery in this show! And the one or two mysteries that actually do mean something are the ones they ignore for week after week! Who blew up Joe the first time? Who blew up Joe the second time? What are the smokestacks in Somalia? What the fuck is Dominic Monaghan doing in this show and why does he have such a poor understanding of Schrodinger’s Cat? Who is D. Gibbons and why does nobody ask Charlie that very same question? Why did Young Dolt suddenly develop a personality last episode when he’s about to be written out of...er, I mean, when he’s never had one before? Damn it, Brain! It’s driving me mad!

Driving you mad?

Okay, fine. Madder.

Here’s what you do. Take a deep breath. Drink plenty of clear fluids. Consider what terrible psychological trauma you went through that makes you incapable of avoiding such a spectacularly boneheaded show. Then realize that you are a sinful person who deserves everything he gets! NOW GET BACK TO WATCHING FLASHFORWARD, YOU SICK BASTARD!

Fine, but I’m going to get back at you someday, Brain. If I live through this, I swear I’m going to make you sit there and watch all of Charmed from beginning to end. You just wait, buddy boy! You just wait!

Weak threats from a weak man. Now get back to work, weaky. I need to go back to sending my patented new nauseo-agony brand pain impulses throughout your entire body.

Oh he’ll get his. It won’t just be Charmed. It’ll be an entire Stargate marathon! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyway, back to the fun of Flashforward, where Sadbeard is being visited by the walking undead.

Robert Pattinson wanders off the set of Twilight Three: Goin’ Bananas

Corporal Mike is back, and he’s there to let Sadbeard know: all his silly hope for believing his daughter is alive? Hogwash! You see, Corporal Mike was there when Tracy was killed. They were driving down a dirt road in their humvee when they stopped to check out the mysterious guys dressed in black commando uniforms who were hanging out by the side of the road. One of the guys pulled out a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and then fired it into the humvee. The humvee decided that was the best time to suddenly have its doors be incapable of being opened, and so Tracy, not having the explosion-deflecting powers of Joseph Fiennes’ glare, must surely be dead. After all, he saw her lying in the road with one leg blown off, and then he ran away a split second later, so yeah, the chances are that she’s dead.

Wait, that sounds kind of wishy-washy. I want it to be very clear here, folks. She’s dead. She has to be. I mean, there’s no way anyone could survive the car they were clearly trapped in a split-second before exploding in a giant fireball. That’s impossible. We all know this. So just because Corporal Mike didn’t actually check her pulse or anything, that doesn’t mean she’s alive. And just because her severed leg was no doubt returned to America and buried in place of her actual body, that doesn’t mean the 90% of her that wasn’t blown off is still alive somewhere.

No, damn it, that sounds noncommital too. She is DEAD! There is absolutely zero possible chance that she’s alive, okay people? Just because Nulu, Old Dolt, Chief Dolt, and Joe have all survived at least one major explosion doesn’t mean that Tracy will. People just don’t live through things like that. She’s dead. Do you hear me? DEAD!

Probably.

So Vampire Corporal Mike (the title of my new screenplay, by the way) definitely put the final nail in this coffin. Sadbeard’s daughter is dead, and now he can move on with his life.

Speaking of moving on with your life, what better way to celebrate your approaching death than strapping yourself to a chair, hooking yourself up to a car battery, and having someone throw water on you? I certainly can’t think of a better way I’d like to spend my last few months, and it seems that the folks at the secret underground suicide cult can’t think of any better way either, cause that’s what they’re doing for fun.

But hey, it’s not all torturing people by electric shock. Some people are hanging by chains while dressed in black KKK uniforms that symbolize, uh...something. Other people are being nearly drowned in tubs full of water. A bunch of nooses hang from the ceiling, and man you just KNOW that some people’s necks are going in those things when the party gets rowdy. Ha ha! Remember all those times in college when you’d go out for an all-night kegger and multiple-forms-of-ritualistic-abuse-and/or-suicide party? Man, those were the (end)days!

For some reason though, Joe finds the whole scene stupid and pathetic.

“Hey, what do they have to lose?” Nulu asks. “They’re dead anyway.”

Let’s analyze that, shall we? Are S&M clubs generally filled with legions of terminally ill cancer patients? Is the average person going to go out and start shocking his own testicles if he finds out he’s going to die in a few months? “What do they have to lose” only works if there is some other gain to be had.

If they were all skydiving, doing tons of drugs, and having unprotected orgies, then “What do they have to lose” makes plenty of sense. Stupid parties where they hang from chains and act all dark makes fuck all sense.

Not to mention: THEY HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THE ARE GOING TO DIE.

So really, this whole place is just an excuse for a bunch of suicidal masochists to get together and hurt each other while they pretend to be in the negative zone KKK.

Aww, look everyone. It’s the Not OKKK.

Suddenly a klaxon sounds, and all the idiots decide to walk, zombie-like, to the other side of the room (this is yet another room in this dimensionally unsound warehouse, by the way). Once there, they find that creepy Cylon guy from Battlestar Galactica, who is apparently the fellow who runs the site. His name is Reno or Reynaud or Reynard or something, only really his name is Jeff and he’s just pretending his name is whateverthefuck.

So let’s call him Jeff so I don’t have to go through the indignity of actually looking up how they spell the other name on this show. Jeff is a former history teacher who has been typecast into playing existential douchebags, so get ready for lots of cheap pop-psychology and dime store philosophy.

Yes, Jeff has been using the Mosaic system to find other people who have no ~~visions~~ flashforwards, and he is a firm believer that the future is unchangeable. I can’t possibly understand why the camera would focus directly on Young Dolt’s recently-capable-of-expressions face during this. It’s not like Young Dolt would ever do anything to directly contradict that.

Especially after he has a nice talk with MI6 Dolt directly after that where he suggests things that she could do to stop the bird from crashing into the window. Yes, it’s clear that Young Dolt is not planning to do anything at all to prove his ~~vision~~ flashforward is incorrect.

And even more especially after Nulu and Joe have a nice long talk about why the future is inevitable and all of the ~~visions~~ flashforwards are coming true. So don’t worry about anything, gang. The future is set. The writers certainly wouldn’t spend so much time telling us that unless it were absolutely, 100% true.

Later that night (yes, after Joe and the others go undercover in a secret underground death-cult’s club, capture the leader, take him back to interrogate him, write up their reports, and talk about the inevitability of changing the future) Joe is back at home and watching cartoons with his wife and daughter, who has a bedtime of roughly 2 AM. Charlie soon illustrates her sleepiness with the the most poorly acted yawn of all time.

Oh my. I am very sleepy. Yawn.

Uh oh. Them’s fightin’ actin’ as far as Joseph Fiennes is concerned. He counters Charlie’s poor acting with some laughable face-contortions of his own as he tries to convey some sort of tortured emotion on his glowery mug.

”If I try hard enough, I can turn into Robert DeNiro!”

Charlie soon gives in and declares him the winner in their impromptu “Make M. McGregor laugh so hard his stomach hurts at your disgustingly awful attempts at acting” contest.

But wait! What’s this? A last second surge by newcomer Young Dolt! He overtakes Joe’s bad acting lead and wins the race with a quivering fish-lip scene! Truly a spectacular display of laughable acting, ladies and gentleman. A round of applause for Young Dolt’s ~~vision~~ flashforward in which he receives bad news while on the phone, sticks out his lower lip, and starts quivering that thing like it’s made of Jell-O. Truly spectacular stuff.

Since this is just a still shot, you’ll have to use your imagination if you want to get the full effect. Just pretend his lower lip is shaking up and down like a Shake Weight (google it if you have to.)

After that rousing competition, we finally go back to Nulu and Gabrielle Union, determined to make the last few scenes even more horrible by doing something unthinkable: acting well and with skill and talent!

Nulu finally reveals to Gabrielle that he had no ~~vision~~ flashforward, and that he’s going to die in the next few months. Gabrielle refuses to believe that since her own ~~vision~~ flashforward was of her seeing him on their wedding day. And while it would be very easy to make a “you all look alike joke” here, I won’t actually do it. Why? Because I’m more mature than that.

What’s that, imaginary Dean Stockwell? I just made the joke by pretending I wouldn’t make the joke? well that’s just silly. Now let’s continue on.

The next morning at Sadbeard’s job, he has Corporal Mike come over so that he can talk to him again. And by talk to him, I mean “have his fake America accent completely fall apart.” Also, he offers Mike a job. After all:

“Yoo won’t be da foist schwoo-up dish plashe hash hired.”

From there we move on to Bryce and Nicole, but they’re boring, so who gives a crap? Nicole tells Bryce to put his ~~vision~~ flashforward up on the Mosaic site so that he can find his future girlfriend. Where’s Charlie? I need someone to accurate portray my feelings on this matter.

I feel like this, only not fake.

Thanks, Charlie.

Then it’s on to Young Dolt. Boy, he sure has been getting an awful lot of screentime for a large superfluous peripheral character. I mean just two episodes ago he barely had three lines per episode, and suddenly he’s being treated like an actual main character. Good for him. It’s good to see a character that nobody gave much credit to break out and become a star. He’s this show’s Fonzie or Urkel. This kid is going places.

You know what? In honor of his meteoric rise to plot relevance, let’s stop calling him Young Dolt. How about Young Up-And-Coming-Star? Yeah. I like the sound of that.

Young Up-And-Coming-Star strides confidently into work, secure in the knowledge that he is finally a main character and will have character traits, thematic elements, running plotlines, and maybe even a love interest or two. He stops to leave a note on Nulu’s desk, no doubt a list of demands that he will be wanting for his trailer now that he is just as important as Nulu or any other character.

During their morning meeting, Nulu picks up the note and reads it. While this is going on, we finally see the rest of Young Up-And-Coming-Star’s ~~vision~~ flashforward. In it, he gets a phone call from his attorney informing him that the woman he accidentally injured in some way was just taken off of life support. He’s killed the mother of two little boys.

I don’t know what to say. How do you deal with something that unexpected? I feel like I’ve been punched right in the gut. Brannon Braga, Pantheon of Lazy Writers, anybody, come on! You can’t just have something like that get revealed out of nowhere. Where was the episode or two of lazy, obvious foreshadowing? This is totally out of left field! I had absolutely no idea that Young Up-And-Coming-Star was going to be upset about what he saw. This is outrageous!

But it’s okay. It’s okay. This is part of his new character arc, that’s all. He’ll be all depressed, maybe he’ll meet the woman and fall in love. He can become the father her children never knew. It’ll be great. You’ll see. It’ll all work out.

Young Up-And-Coming-Star heads up to the roof to look out over the horizon at the endless possibilities of his new life now that he’s a main character.

Wait a second. This looks suspiciously like he’s going to commit suicide! Oh man! I’d be really scared right now if Joe, Nulu, and Chief Dolt didn’t arrive in time to talk him down.

“You don’t have to do this!” Nulu says.

“Yes I do,” Young Up-And-Coming-Star says. “You see, if I die, then the future can be changed.”

“But why are you doing this?” Joe demands.

“Because if I’m dead, then the future is alterable,” Young Up-And-Coming-Star replies.

“I don’t understand,” Chief Dolt says. “Why would you want to kill yourself?”

“If I’m dead, then the future is no longer written in stone,” Young-Up-And-Coming-Star answers.

“Wait, hang on,” Nulu says. “I understand all that, but why kill yourself?”

“Because if I do something to change my ~~vision~~ flashforward, then that means we aren’t chained to our fates.”

“Well sure,” Joe says. “That makes perfect sense. But why are you doing this!?”

“Because I figured out a way to CHANGE THE GAME,” Young-Up-And-Coming-Star says, and oh my gosh I can't believe it, that's what Nulu said to him at the start of the episode! How's that for continuity?

This repeats itself about six hundred more times until even the thickest of the average Brannon Braga audience has gotten the message. And with that...

He slips! It’s the only possible explanation, because I can’t think of a single reason why he would kill himself. It just doesn’t make sense.

Why, Brannon Braga? Why!? You stole from us the greatest character of the last episode and a half! He was so nuanced for about 45 minutes! He had so much personality for about two weeks! He was so interesting for a two-episode arc! Damn you, Brannon Braga! Damn you for stealing Young Up-And-Coming-Star away from us!

The poor dead bastard doesn’t even get to narrate his own suicide note. That gets read by Nulu. I guess all is back to normal in the Flashforward universe. Young Up-And-Coming-Star died as he lived: as a Young Dolt with little to no reason for existing on the show other than to die, it seems.

So we get a montage of people being all sad or happy or reconciled or Sadbearded, but that is where it ends. The music stops as Sadbeard comes home, steps into his kitchen, and BY THE GLORY OF THE EVERLASTING BEARD: SADBEARD’S DAUGHTER IS ALIVE!

But I just can’t process the shock. Sure, I’m genuinely and honestly surprised by this totally unforeseen turn of events. I would have never guessed that Sadbeard’s daughter could possibly turn out to be alive after Corporal Mike’s totally convincing and not at all ambiguous story about her death. It’s just that after the tragedy of losing Young Dolt, I don’t know how much more I can feel.

I’m just numb inside.

RIP, Young Dolt.
We hardly knew ye (for five episodes, then you suddenly gained a personality and died.)

Something you will never unsee

2009-11-17T12:15:47Z

Okay, so I'm recovering from what I'm pretty sure is the Hanta Virus this morning, and this doesn't particularly help:

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

Although it does give me some weird fic ideas.

(As if all my fic ideas weren't weird.)

You know, I think a part of me always noticed the similarity. After all, whenever Richard Dawkins gives a talk, he always RAISES his EYEBROWS to EMPHASIZE every OTHER word JUST like EMMA watson DOES.

(That's not actually true. I just wanted to point out that Emma Watson is in the act-via-eyebrows club, along with Joseph Fiennes)

PS: It's almost certainly photoshopped, but still, the fact that it works so well is what matters.

(As if there are images on the internet that are NOT photoshopped?)

Hey how many sentences can I interpose with parentheteticionaticalishnicous asides in a row?

(At least four, it seems.)

Sweet.

Flashforward episode 06: Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-16T02:41:56Z

Until you observe this entry, this entry is both full of and completely lacking in naked supermodels, giant fighting robots, and directions for how to build a perpetual motion machine. Schrodinger says so!

You know what I haven’t had enough of on this show yet? Pop-physics jargon. I mean, we’re on episode six and already we’ve managed to avoid the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, Superpositioning, String Theory, Schrodinger’s Cat, Special Relativity, M-Theory, Superstring Theory, Quantum Entanglement, and The Secret.

Really, Flashforward. You’ve been slacking off. What we need is an expert on Quantum Mechanics, and since Richard Feynman is dead (or is he? Anything’s possible with bullshit television quantum physics!) we’ll go to the next best thing: Dominic Monaghan.

Yes, good ol’ Dom is finally back in this episode, and it turns out he’s one of them thar Quantum Physicists. You know the kind I mean: the kind that’s suave, smooth, a great talker, and has a face like a month old and decaying jack o’ lantern.

So we start off this episode with Professor Dom on a train to Los Angeles. This is of course science-fiction, because we all know that all forms of mass transit are illegal in Los Angeles.

Dom spots a beautiful woman, and he decides to hit on her by claiming to know what caused the Blackout. She ignores him until he tells her to google him, after which she lets him spew more cheesy pick-up lines at her about heavenly bodies and dark matter. Eventually she asks him what REALLY caused the Blackout.

Rather than give her an answer, Professor Dom explains Schrodinger’s Cat for what will surely be first and last time this series ever mentions that idea. Cause really, what kind of super genius physicist would use a non-testable thought experiment to explain reality? What’s that you say? Every string theorist ever? Well I’ll be a monkey’s descendant (at least, that’s what stupid Darwin says.)

Okay, I’m getting incoherent with my scientist references here. Let’s get back to Dom’s explanation:

“You take a cat and put in your hand, then put some cyanide in your hand too. While trapped in your gigantic hand, the cat has a fifty-fifty chance of eating the cyanide and dying. Therefore the cat is both alive and dead.”

“Wow,” beautiful woman says. “But how can that be?”

“Ah, that’s the miracle of quantum mechanics,” Dom lies. “The observer gets to decide what happens.”

Oh, Dom. Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom. I feel bad for you, I really do. Just think of the downward spiral your career has been going on. Oscar winning film, extremely popular groundbreaking sci-fi show, and now you’re spewing Brannon Braga’s misunderstandings about quantum physics? In a year you’ll be doing community theater in Midland, Texas.

Wait, no, that would be a step up from Brannon Braga. In a year you’ll be still on this show, only your character will have died and been brought back to life somehow no less than six times. There will have been four reset button episodes, two episodes featuring a singing doctor, and three episodes where you kill a bunch of indigenous people because...well who cares why? You just will!

During all of this, we get little snippets of Lady Dolt being operated on by Olivia, since Olivia is the only surgeon in all of Los Angeles and happens to be working the night that Lady Dolt got shot.

“But wait!” I hear you cry. “Mac, your nitpicking ways have failed you! How did you miss that Olivia was at home getting ready for bed that very same night at the end of last episode? She wasn’t working that night at all!”

You’re so cute. Don’t you remember that Olivia has the power of bilocation? She’s at home when the script needs her to be at home, and then she’s at the hospital when the script needs her to be at the hospital. Her confusing, wide-eyed stare can be in two places at once!

So thanks to her angelic powers, Olivia is able to save Lady Dolt’s life. Afterwards, she calls Joseph Fiennes, but he’s not answering on account of how he got blown up and shot fifty times last episode.

Meanwhile, Non-American Lloyd is doing endless card tricks for his autistic (and superpowered. I’m telling you. Any day now. Superpowers are coming) son, Dylan. During the fifty or sixtieth iteration, he brings up to Dylan that pretty soon they’re going to leave the hospital and go back to Lloyd’s house. Dylan’s not happy with that, but luckily Bryce shows up to let Lloyd know that today is Halloween and it’s up to Lloyd to make sure his hospitalized son gets out there for some candy.

Lloyd rushes out to go get Dylan a costume, and on his way out he passes by the collective Dolts, fresh from their blowing up in Washington. Everyone’s pretty much fine except for Joe, who has managed to get a little tobasco sauce on his shirt collar.

That’s right folks. This...

...Leads to this.

Joe wakes up Olivia and tells her that the stain on his shirt is nothing to worry about, and that whatever happened to him “isn’t important.” Cause seriously, it was only someone trying to blow him up. That happens like once every two weeks to Joe.

Olivia informs the other Dolts that Lady Dolt is going to be okay. Chief Dolt tells everyone to go home and get some sleep, but Nulu is too upset to do that. He wants to track these people down! He wants to figure out who they are! He wants to...what’s the word? Uh...Investigate them! Yeah, that’s it! Sure it’s crazy, but Agent Nulu of the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to Investigate the case of the people who blew him right the fuck up and then shot hundreds of bullets in his general direction.

What a weirdo.

While Nulu goes out to do some investigating, Olivia takes Joe aside and asks him what happened. He spills the beans about the whole getting shot at thing. Olivia does her best to open her eyes as wide as she possibly can, thus countering her husband’s glower. This is why these two are made for each other. He shoves those eyebrows down and she yanks them right up. It’s yin and yang. It’s beautiful.

A perfect negative representation of Joseph Fiennes’ acting style.

While Joe and Olivia practice their eyebrow-based acting styles on each other, Nulu and Young Dolt head down to the morgue to check out the bodies of the guys that Lady Dolt killed. Unfortunately for them, the dead chinese mobster type guys don’t have medical records or identifying features, thus killing the investigation right where it stands. Darn it!

Oh well, at least that frees up some time to head over to Somalia with all that funding money you got last episode, right gang? Gang?

Hello?

Well I guess we can understand why Nulu’s not thinking about Somalia right now. After all, he’s supposed to get shot to death in a few months, so he’s pretty upset about how those guys just shot at him. Normally he’d be all, “Whatever” about guys shooting at him and blowing him up, but this time it’s personal. Young Dolt questions Nulu about maybe being a little on edge, but Nulu tells him to shut his stupid face.

“I don’t listen to suspiciously useless side-characters. Why don’t you go hang out with Little Boy Assistant or something and leave me alone? I have main character stuff to do, like pout and be cute with my girlfriend.”

Young Dolt backs off, and the two go back to examining the bodies. Soon Nulu uses the Medical Examiner’s trust blacklight to find the mark of a blue hand on the dead body of the assassins. This coincides with something on Joe’s board from his ~~vision~~ flashforward. A ha! A lead! Now all they have to do is ask Charlie about D. Gibbons, track down the guy who blew Joe and Nulu up three episodes ago, head to Somalia to check out the smokestacks, and then, once all those much more important leads are dealt with, find out what this blue hand thing means.

I’m guessing it means that the assassins are actually fans of Firefly, and they’re out to murder anyone involved in Flashforward for besmirching the name of F-lettered sci-fi shows.

When they get back to the office, Young Dolt suggests that maybe they check to see if blue hand could mean anything in Cantonese or Mandarin, on account of how all the assassins were Chinese. Nulu tells him to forget it, because it just doesn’t make any sense.

Nulu telling him to forget it doesn’t make any sense, I mean. Seems like a perfectly legitimate lead to me, but then again I still think they should be in Somalia checking out the smokestacks. Clearly I would make a very poor federal agent. I hardly ever use numerology to track down leads, and I’ve only used tea leaves to figure out what witness to trust three times in my entire life. I’m an amateur.

Eventually, Young Dolt and Nulu decide to go check out Baltimore Street, since Baltimore was on Joe’s board and Baltimore, Maryland is like, really far away. If only the FBI had a field office in the Northeast somewhere, darn it!

That night, Joe and Sadbeard take Charlie out trick or treating. While they’re out, they spot a kangaroo hopping down the street, presumably the same kangaroo from the first episode that we flashbacked to when Not-Hot Blonde Terrorist was talking about Black Swan events. I think we’re suppose to find this mysterious, but I can’t say that I do.

What I do find mysterious it Charlie’s line of, “That’s the best costume I have EVER seen.” Charlie is, judging by the age of the actress playing her, eight years old. So she’s clearly not mature enough to be saying that in an ironic way. That means that Charlie, according to the writers of Flashforward, actually believes that there is a person who made a kangaroo costume and is hopping around in front of her. Therefore, Charlie is severely mentally impaired, and anything she’s ever said about “no more good days” or “D. Gibbons is a bad man” can be treated as the ravings of a brain-defective child.

Whew. Glad I don’t have to worry about an infinite lack of good days. That was kind of getting to me.

Back at the hospital, Lloyd has lost Dylan. He asks a nearby security guard if he’s seen Dylan, but the guard just shrugs and says he hasn’t, but suggests that Lloyd check the nurse’s station.

“And while you’re at it,” the guard calls as Lloyd races off to find his missing autistic (superpowered!) son. “Tell my boss that I’m a security guard who doesn’t offer to help find a helpless little boy wandering alone through a hospital! I so deserve to be fired! Thanks, bud!”

Meanwhile, Chief Dolt and Lady Dolt (no relation) are hanging out in her hospital room and talking about how awesome it is to have babies.

“It’s going to be so great when you, the woman who was just shot in the abdomen, has a baby!” Chief Dolt squeals as he braids Lady Dolt’s hair. “You’re going to be such a great mommy!”

“I surely cannot wait,” Lady Dolt replies as she paints her toenails. “There is absolutely nothing that’s going to get in the way of my having a baby. What a joyful future I have waiting for me now that I have survived this bullet wound to my abdomen, the very same general area where I will be growing a baby in just a few months time. There’s nothing in my life to be upset about now that I have accepted and embraced the idea that I’m going to have a baby soon! Hooray! I’m so happy!”

It’s right about then that something starts beeping really fast, which is hospital code for: Wuh-oh. Olivia bilocates in and quickly rushes Lady Dolt back into surgery. Dun dun dun!

Back on the train, Professor Dom is on what seems to be his fifteenth hour of his train ride to Los Angeles, and he’s in bed talking with the woman he was hitting on earlier. And when I mean in bed, I mean in bed. She’s got her knees up awkwardly in the air the whole time they chat, which is a good two or three minutes.

My therapist and I used to talk just like this all the time.

Anyway, now that I’ve burned that horrifying image into your brain, what do they talk about? Well, it seems Professor Dom had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of strangling a man to death. He doesn’t know who or why, because the mechanics of the ~~visions~~ flashforwards are stupid and illogical.

Oh, I mean: dun dun dun! How mysterious!

Then it seems that Hospital Security Guard got a stern talking to from his boss, because he’s at least trying to be marginally helpful now. He’s pulled up some security footage of Dylan just strolling right out of the hospital, because hospitals are really cool about letting unattended children with hospital bracelets on just go wandering out the front door. I sure hope that Lloyd sues the crap out of them for letting his autistic (even if he does have superpowers) son leave on his own.

Dylan makes his way to the local bus stop and gets on. He doesn’t have any money, but his superpowers start to blossom as he uses some sort of mind control aura to get a local gang member with a heart of gold (and a hat concealing the fact that his head is actually a giant muffin) to stand up for him and demand the bus driver take Dylan to the address Dylan keeps reciting or he will “Put you down like a sick dog!”. The bus driver, deciding he’s had a good run as a municipal employee and he could stand a good career-ending lawsuit, does as he’s asked.

Orlando Bloom dresses up as a gang member for Halloween. Isn’t he adorable?

While Dylan goes on his bus adventure, Young Dolt and Nulu are riding around in their car looking for Baltimore Street, which, despite being “five miles from here” has apparently taken them three hours. Los Angeles traffic, people, am I right? Ha ha ha! And what’s the deal with parking in a driveway and driving in a parkway?

Young Dolt checks his cell phone and informs Nulu that Lady Dolt is back in surgery.

“She’ll be all right,” Nulu says confidently.

“Why, cause she had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of being alive? SCOFF!” Young Dolt replies, deciding in this episode that he’s suddenly going to be very skeptical of the ~~visions~~ flashforwards. Now, considering we saw his already and it was pretty benign, I’m going to go ahead and assume that we’re going to forget that at some point and give him a brand new ~~vision~~ flashforward where he accidentally kills a puppy or stabs an old woman with his daughter’s thigh bone or something.

“No,” Nulu says, rolling with Young Dolt’s decision to suddenly have a personality. “Because when we were in FBI school, Lady Dolt drank a lot of liquor and she was fine. Everyone knows if you can drink a lot of liquor and not get sick, you can also survive internal bleeding from a gunshot wound. It’s biology 101.”

Eventually they find Baltimore Street. Even better, they find a blue sticker of a skeleton hand on a stop sign! Success! Finally they’ve blown this case wide open! It all makes sense now!

Just think back, my friends. Do you remember when Joseph Fiennes said “It’s just like when Mommy’s driving and sees a yellow light. It means a stop sign is coming up”? Well I have to apologize to Brannon Braga. I thought that was just some random stupidity on his part, but it was really foreshadowing!

A stop sign was coming up! Don’t you see? It was the stop sign all along! It caused the Blackout! It killed all the crows! It gives Nancy Pelosi her secret orders to Nazify our school systems with the power of communism! Wake up, sheeple! Wake up!

Anyway, there’s no time to deal with the stop sign conspiracy. Instead, we head back to Joe and Olivia’s house. Nicole the sexy babysitter is, for some reason, staying at home all by herself to give out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Is she getting paid for that? Cause that seems like a pretty awesome job perk. Get paid to sit around someone else’s house and steal fun-sized candybars? Yes, please.

Only this time the trick-or-treater is not just some random kid. It’s Dylan, and he brushes right past Nicole and heads inside, announcing that it is his house too. Nicole just stares at him, because nowhere in her job contract did it say “stop people from forcing their way into the house and stealing stuff.”

While this is going on, Joe and Sadbeard are still out with Charlie. Suddenly, Joe spots a red herring! Three guys dressed in black and wearing masks very similar to the ones he saw in his ~~vision~~ flashforward! He chases after them, shouting, “FBI! Freeze!”

Since these obviously couldn’t be a couple of teenagers out to throw eggs and TP houses, the hardened assassins turn tail and run as fast as they can. Oh boy! If Joe catches these guys, then all will finally be revealed! I am one hundred percent confident that these guys are actually the assassins, so this is going to be pretty awesome!

What a great episode this is turning out to be! First the Stop Sign reveal, and now this! I love a show that’s willing to give me straight up answers this early on in a season. I’ve been all wrong about Brannon Braga. He’s really doing something different with this show. Wow!

To prove it, we go right back to Nulu and Young Dolt, who are being very careful by checking the number of digits on the skeleton hand versus the black light hand that was on the dead guy’s corpse. Gotta make sure this is the right random coincidence, of course. Young Dolt soon wonders, “Hey, does it look like it’s pointing to you?”

“You’re right,” Nulu replies. “And seeing as how this is Halloween, I’m sure it couldn’t possibly be pointing in the direction to a local haunted house or other Halloween related event. Let’s chase after it! The FBI is all about following clues that even the Hardy Boys would find insulting, after all! C’mon!”

They head off in the vague direction that the skeleton hand is pointing. Meanwhile, Joe’s chased one of the bemasked assassins into a cemetery. He draws his gun, follows him through a mausoleum, and then tackles him! Yeah! Get him, Joe! Ohboyohboyohboy! Answers, here we come!

Joe rips the assassins mask off and reveals...

What? WHAT!? It’s not actually an assassin after all! It’s just some teenager who was out throwing eggs and TPing houses! B-b-but that can’t be! I was so sure.

I was so sure.

Okay, Mac. Calm down. Get a grip on yourself. So what if the three masked guys were obviously just part of the normal Halloween festivities seen all around the country? You’ve still got the stop sign conspiracy that’s about to blow wide open. It’s all about to be spelled out for you. Just take deep breaths. Okay. Here we go. Just get through this scene of Joe going home after Nicole calls to tell him about Dylan.

When he arrives, we see Dylan’s ~~vision~~ flashforward: it’s him walking around Joe’s house, Charlie showing up to tell him “it’s your house too”, Dylan grabbing a cookie from the jar, and then reading the address of the house on a postcard.

Once that’s done, Charlie and Sadbeard show up, and Charlie cheerily greets Dylan as if they’ve known each other for months.

Questions:

1. Charlie’s vision must certainly be of the other side of what Dylan saw. Why then does she think there will be no more good days? Does she hate Dylan that much? And how does she know who D. Gibbons is if all she did was talk to Charlie? If she indeed saw something that bothered her so much in her ~~vision~~ flashforward, why is she so happy in it?

2. How come some people not only remember what they were doing in their ~~vision~~ flashforward, but also remember everything that happened before that? Professor Dom has no idea who he was strangling in his vision, but Charlie knows exactly who Dylan is, and vice versa. Likewise, Young Dolt knew the woman he was having a meeting with in his ~~vision~~ flashforward.

3. What happened to Orlando Bloom, the gang member with a heart of gold and a muffin for a head?

4. Do you really expect any of this to make any kind of logical sense? What kind of naive fool are you?

Damn it, Brain! Go away! You know I’m not supposed to be using you when I watch a Brannon Braga show, yet you keep insisting on making comments. Just leave me alone!

Fine, fine. I need to go stock up on multi-gigawatt lasers to burn against the back of your corneas anyway.

Man, he just won’t stop running-gagging.

Anyhow, eventually Lloyd shows up and finds himself a little surprised to be in the same house as his ~~vision~~ flashforward. Joe introduces himself, and Lloyd recognizes his last name as being the same as Olivia’s. He does a little patented British Romantic Comedy stammering, and then: surprise! Olivia shows up, wide-eyed and blank-faced to find Lloyd in her house. Lloyd looks at her sheepishly in return.

Joe glowers. It was a nice change of pace.

”Why must my eyebrows be so heavy?”

Lloyd recognizes Olivia as being the woman from his ~~vision~~ flashforward, and Joe gets all huffy as Olivia tries to figure out what’s going on. Joe eventually asks Lloyd to leave and not come back. For some reason, Lloyd has to think about this for a moment instead of just saying, “But if course you’re right, old chum! Terribly rude of me to have stayed for as long as I have. Pip pip and cheerio then, chap! I’m off for a bit of barblin farblin tarryweather fooferaw, wouldn’t you know!”

He’s British, that Lloyd.

After some uncomfortable drawing out of the episode’s runtime, Lloyd thanks Joe and Olivia for their kindness, gets an awkward handshake from Joe, and leaves with Dylan. Joe glowers.

With that over with, we can finally focus on the answer-revealing subplot of Young Dolt and Nulu finally finding an old house with a blue hand sticker on it. They creep their way inside, find a pool of blood, and then find a bunch of dead guys. With blue hands!

So my suspicions are correct. An army of angry Firefly fans have dressed up as the blue hand guys and are going to “two by two with hands of blue” their way through everyone in this show. Only someone else is killing them instead! Who could it be? There’s only one explanation: Angry Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles fans!

Yes, the long-feared war to end all wars has finally come to pass. Who will win? Which Summer Glau will defeat which Summer Glau? Will Lena Heady use her bad American accent to ally with the Flashforward cast, thereby ganging up on Firefly? I can’t wait to find out!

But I will have to wait, for we immediately cut to Chief Dolt bringing Lady Dolt (still no relation) some flowers sent by Lady Dolt’s lady love, Ratings. Lady Dolt has survived her latest surgery, but one thing hasn’t survived:

“My uterus!” Lady Dolt wails. “The doctor’s say it somehow got damaged when I was shot by a gun! Now it will be almost impossible for me to ever have a child! Why, I can’t possibly see me ever having a child now! Surely it will never happen! Woe is me! Woe is me!”

Poor Lady Dolt.

Back at Joe’s house, Joe and Olivia are having a big fight about Lloyd. Joe growls and roars in his jealous rage, turning his pointy glower to full explosion-shielding power. Olivia widens her eyes in response, and the two circle each other like they’re in Amok Time (nerd-five if you get the reference.)

“Be HONEST!” Joe screams in the most comical way he can. No doubt he’s attempting to end the fight by sending the two of them into a fit of giggles at his ridiculousness. Alas, it doesn’t work, and Olivia uses her woman-powers to turn things back around on him.

“No, YOU be honest, no backsies!”

“Damn it! Arrrrghhhh! Fine! I was drinking in my ~~vision~~ flashforward. Are you happy, you future-adulterating harpy!?”

“Oh I’m happy! I’m happy that I don’t trust you anymore!”

“But wait,” Joe says. “What about earlier in the hospital when we had a whole big talk about how we weren’t going to let what we saw in our ~~visions~~ flashforwards rule our lives, and how we would just live in the moment? Was all of that just a lie?”

“No, my darling. Not a lie. Just really, really lazy writing.”

Olivia leaves Joe to glower by himself, all alone in the kitchen.

Back in the ~~haunted house~~ house full of corpses, Young Dolt has found a passport from a guy named Rutherford, the very same Rutherford he had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of investigating in the future!

Oh and also he had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of looking really sad while talking on the phone, so I can only assume that he just received a phone call from his daughter, demanding he return the knife he made out of her severed thigh bone, or at least give her back her puppy. Young Dolt, you sick future-bastard who (thanks to Schrodinger’s Cat) has both killed a puppy and stabbed a woman with a knife made out of your non-existent daughter’s thigh bone and NOT killed a puppy and stabbed a woman with a knife made out of your non-existent daughter’s thigh bone! We can’t know until we observe it and decide which one we want to be true.

Being a dog person, I’m hoping he stabbed the woman with the thigh-knife, personally.

Later in the hospital, Lloyd tucks Dylan in for the night, and then prepares to leave him alone in the same hospital that already lost him once. Dylan tries to trick his father into staying by thanking him for finding him today, but it’s no use. Lloyd’s leaving for the night, and there’s nothing this little superpowered brat can do to stop him.

Hey, how about for a change we end the episode with some whiny music? This time it’s a song by some indie band called the “Beatles” whining about some guru or the universe or something. LAME!

While the music plays, we see a bunch of characters. And they’re doing stuff! Joe glowering in the kitchen! Olivia opening her eyes as wide as she can on the stairs! Young Dolt investigating and having a headache! Chief Dolt watching Lady Dolt sleeping! Charlie sleeping! Dylan sleeping! Joe glowering some more! Lloyd walking to his car! Professor Dom hiding in Lloyd’s backseat in a Frankenstein mask!

Good times. Good times.

And hey! Finally Professor Dom is there with Lloyd! Now they can finally talk about what they did to cause the Blackout!

CUT TO BLACK

Okay, now they’re just taunting me.

Until next time, everyone. Until next horrible, horrible time.

Flashforward episode 05 - Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-15T02:38:11Z

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!

Flashforward Episode 04 - Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-14T02:41:00Z

Only four more episodes until I'm caught up and can stop doing this every night (thanks, obsessive personality). But enough about me: let's get to the cranky!

Fourteen days ago in lovely Paris or California or someplace that has palm trees and french songs playing in the background, the entire population suddenly passed out at the same time. Everybody falls down comically, unknowingly crashes into giant fireballs, blows up in the clear blue sky for some reason, or drives their bus full of passengers into an unnecessarily deep city pond.

This bus is where we put our focus at the start of this episode. The music gets all kicky and happy as the bus full of unconscious people slowly sinks under the surface of the water, indicating to me that I should be putting on a party hat and twirling a noisemaker as these innocent people drown in their sleep.

Of course, those of us with film training understand that playing ironically inappropriate music during a scene means it will be more memorable, and therefore better. You guys remember that calliope music that played during the rape scene in Deliverance, right? It just cheered that scene right up! And remember how in the opening sequence to Saving Private Ryan they played Boyz 2 Men’s Motownphilly? Good times. Good times.

So the bus sinks and the people all begin to drown as they unknowingly breathe water directly into their lungs, all except for some weird guy wearing a Freddie Kruger sweater. He wakes up quite nonchalantly, rubs his eyes sleepily, and looks around the now-almost-completely-waterlogged bus. A stupid Non-American woman is flailing around wildly and screaming something in whatever gibbering language she speaks, so Kruger-Sweater calmly informs her in English (language of the gods!) that they’re going to hold their breaths and then swim out of the bus.

It’s a good thing he was there. You can’t expect someone who is both Not American and also a woman to understand such a difficult concept as holding your breath and swimming. She would have never come up with that daring plan on her own. I think her plan before Kruger-Sweater woke up was to flail around in a womany and therefore ineffective way until she eventually got bogged down by the weight of her own jewelry and breasts.

Laying on the Flashforward-is-sexist stuff a little thick there, aren’t you? It’s not like this is Supernatural. So what if every woman’s vision of the future was either about her marriage, taking care of children, or being pregnant? That doesn’t mean Flashforward thinks women are second-class citizens. I mean just look at Joe’s wife! She’s a doctor! A people doctor!

I guess you’re right, Brain. Maybe I should cut back on the sexist jokes.

Good. Now you get back to writing, cause I need to go back to working on crazy sex stories with your OTHER brain.

Oh, Brain, you’re such a scamp.

So anyway, Kruger-Sweater gets him and the perfectly-capable-of-saving-herself-if-she-felt-like-it woman out of the bus. We then Flash Forward (get it?) to the present, where Kruger-Sweater (sans sweater) is getting checked out by some doctors for some reason.

Speaking of “for some reason,” why is it Olivia and Bryce who are doing the examining? Aren’t they emergency room surgeons or something? Do they routinely do basic checkups on people? I’m confused as to their professions.

I guess Olivia is just a “doctor” the way all the characters on House are doctors: namely, they perform every task that takes place in the hospital, regardless of the training or expertise required.

Kruger-Sweater reveals that his name is Edward Ned, and that they should just call him Ned Ned, because isn’t that just so randomly idiosynchratic that it makes you want to die inside? It’s just like how in real life people have unaccountably ridiculous names and wacky personalities!

Ned Ned, who is complaining of some pain and has a low blood count, is kept in the hospital for a while so they can run scans and tests on him. Ned Ned is also very happy and calm in a totally not suspicious way, but I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything.

Bryce decides to ask Ned Ned what his ~~vision~~ flashforward was, and Ned Ned tells him that he saw himself wearing leather pants and a green Kruger-Sweater in some bar, and that he was also made up in blackface. And not even good blackface makeup. Really cheap blackface makeup, like the kind I got for my offensive costume themed Halloween party this year. I went as the blackened corpse of American Liberty, just so you know.

Olivia and Bryce are very confused by this, but they chalk up Ned Ned’s claims of turning black in the next six months as simply being the fevered delusions of a man with a serious brain injury, and quickly get him examined by a neurologist.

Oh wait, no, that’s what real doctors would do. Olivia and Bryce just chuckle at how totally whimsical and idiosynchratic this Ned Ned fellow is, and then leave him his bleeding brain alone.

From there we cut to Gabrielle Union and Nulu having breakfast together. Gabrielle wants to tell Nulu’s parents that the date of their wedding has been moved, but Nulu’s too busy pouting to talk about that. Gabrielle decides to change the subject.

“Hey,” she says. “Remember that blonde terrorist girl in the first episode?”

“What?” Nulu replies. “No.”

“Yeah, yeah you do. It’s one of those random plot points that you’d think we as characters would have been talking about a lot for the last four episodes but we mostly just forgot about right away. Like how you got blown up two episodes ago. Or how Charlie knows Dylan. Or how Charlie knows D. Gibbons. Or how Charlie sees no more good days. Or how Charlie is annoying and far too involved in this goddamn show.”

“Honey, I gotta tell you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you sure you weren’t watching Stargate Universe or something? It sounds like you’re just making these things up.”

Eventually, Gabrielle gets Nulu to recall that blonde woman they captured the day of the Blackout. She also warns him that they’d better not be torturing or interrogating her illegally, but she’s really just saying that to cover her ass. A moment later she gives her personal seal of approval on the torture of terror suspects. Then she turns directly to the camera and says, “Take that, 24! You’re not the only one who can promote torture on a major network show!”

Meanwhile, Joseph Fiennes is entertaining his daughter by making a series of very obvious egg puns, like eggs-pert and egg-xamine. He gives it a shell of a good try, but his yokes fall flat. He tries to crack a few more about french toast, but by then the whole concept is kind of over. Easy as egg puns may seem, they’re actually pretty tough (especially if you cook them for too long).

Olivia shows up (wait, isn’t she at the hospital?) and tells Charlie that this whole experiment where her parents actually take care of her is over. Nicole the super hot babysitter will be picking her up from school today.

“Yay!” Charlie squeals. “Someone who won’t neglect me or bombard me with easy puns!”

And so we quickly cut to Nicole eating breakfast outside on a bench somewhere. She thanks someone offscreen for buying her breakfast, and then the camera pulls back to reveal:

Sadbeard! Woooo! I tell you, I started to cheer like I used to whenever Urkel showed up on Family Matters, or whenever Kramer showed up on Seinfeld and managed to not say something racist.

Sadbeard and Nicole apparently know each other, as Sadbeard got Nicole the job of babysitting for Charlie. Nicole’s a little nervous about living her life again after the events of the Blackout, but Sadbeard gives her a nice little speech about how you just have to have faith.

What? I beg your pardon, Sadbeard? Maybe it’s just your beard talking, but didn’t you have a whole faith thing going on last episode? Didn’t that lead to you digging up your daughter’s mangled corpse for no reason at all, after which you broke down into agonized sobs in the arms of your alcoholic ex-wife? Didn’t faith get Joe and Lady-Dolt to free an unrepentant Nazi? Hey, nothing against faith and all, but even Tom Cruise would be questioning his faith at this point.

Back at the hospital, Olivia has magically teleported back there (and changed her hairstyle) after appearing briefly with Joe and Charlie at her home. Or maybe it’s that Olivia has a twin who sometimes works her job as a doctor for her when she’s busy. That would explain why she’s so bad at it.

Ooh! Or maybe Olivia has the power of bilocation! Yeah, that’s gotta be it. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. She and Bryce talk about what’s going on with Ned Ned, but as they do Olivia’s bag of potato chips gets stuck in the vending machine, which we’re making a big deal of for some reason.

Bryce is confused about Ned Ned. How could a white guy turn into a black guy? It’s impossible, and it’s certainly not like Ned Ned could have misinterpreted what he saw or simply be a fucking lunatic, could it? No! Clearly he changes into a black man in the next few months, and Bryce is on the case to figure it out.

It’s around this time that Olivia points out to Bryce that he’s been skipping his psych evaluations. You know, the ones he was clearly told to go to back in the first episode? I’m pretty sure I remember that happening, and if I don’t remember that happening, this episode is here to remind me that it did happen even if I didn’t see it.

Before Bryce can offer an explanation, Non-American Lloyd shows up and inexplicably and very obviously pours a cup of coffee down his shirt. A time-bending flashback to a flashforward reminds us that he’s the guy Olivia is going to sex up someday, and then he leaves after apologizing for pouring coffee down his own shirt.

Confusing.

Meanwhile, at FBI headquarters, Chief Dolt is incredulous.

“What? You want to go to Somalia to follow up on the only substantial lead we have that doesn’t involve the guy who blew you and Nulu up? That’s crazy, ~~Maverick~~ ~~Callahan~~ ~~Riggs and Murtaugh~~ ~~Bullit~~ Joseph Fiennes! You need to start playing by the rules and stop writing checks your ego can’t cash when you cost the city millions in damages and keep on being so goddamn rebellious in a world you never made!”

“But, Chief,” Young Dolt says. “The fact that millions of crows all died at the same moment that we all blacked out, and that a whole bunch of crows died at the same moment a bunch of people in Somalia once blacked out is a pretty obvious connection. Don’t you think that as members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we should investigate this matter? We could do it pretty easily if the CIA just gave us some satellite photos we asked for.”

“No!” Chief Dolt snaps back. “Not until we have expositioned the matter by another fifty percent! There are still drunk morons who are only paying half-attention to this show while they trim their toenails who don’t remember what happened last week, so let me continue to argue with you stupidly until the point is made: CROWS! SOMALIA! 1991! BLACKING OUT!”

“Okay, Chief. Fine,” Joe says. “How about we forget about Somalia and focus on the guy who blew me right the fuck up two episodes ago?”

“Because that’s not the focus of this episode! Get the hell out of my office!”

Joe and Young-Dolt are forced to leave without permission to go to Somalia or to badger the CIA for “important evidence regarding the worldwide catastrophe that killed millions.”

Pff. Whiny little babies.

But wait. Joe has a plan. It turns out they have a nerd working for them there at the FBI! Surely he can use his nerd powers to hack into the CIA database and steal the satellite images. Young-Dolt points out this would be illegal, but Joe is unconcerned. He’s Joseph Fiennes! His face can deflect giant raging fireballs. The laws of men hold no sway over one such as he.

Meanwhile, Nulu is interrogating the blonde terrorist girl from the first episode, but she’s all “Tsk, I’m innocent and stuff, so can I like, go now?”

“Not until you tell us why you have so many passports, you hot terrorist bitch!”

“Well I’m not gonna, and PS: you’re gonna die soon! Oh snap! You didn’t think I knew that, did you? Well I did, and you are sooo fated to die, ass. Oh and also: check out this restaurant in Indio (not India). It’s really good.”

Later in Chief Dolt’s office, Joe and Nulu yell at each other about their leads. Joe is angry because the hot blonde terrorist case is just a bunch of coincidences, not like his case which is built upon numerology, the testimony of a Nazi, and a bunch of coincidences.

Unfortunately for Joe, Chief Dolt agrees with Nulu. To Indio!

But before we go to Indio, let’s go back to the hospital, where Olivia is being stalked by Lloyd. You see, Lloyd is having a rough time of things thanks to the fact that his son is autistic. I don’t know why he’s so worried when this will clearly lead to his son having superpowers, but for now he’s just a great big British ball of insecurity, and refuses to take Olivia’s hints that he should fuck right off.

Eventually Lloyd reveals that he hasn’t slept anywhere but his son’s hospital room for weeks now.

“What?” Olivia says, shocked. “You’ve been staying overnight in the hospital room of your autistic son who is suffering from a head injury that required him to have major emergency surgery? What kind of parent are you? This is the time when you should be neglecting him to the fullest! Go home and leave your frightened little boy alone, you sap.”

While Lloyd ponders this, Bryce shows up to tell her about Ned’s scan. Before he can say anything, Olivia tells him to get Dylan out of her unit. Bryce argues that he’s not healthy enough yet, but Olivia’s had enough. She’ll be damned if she’s going to spend more time neglecting her own daughter than one of her patients. Get him gone!

With Dylan’s rapid descent into death and/or superpowers assured, let’s move on to Indo, California, where Joe and Nulu are investigating the restaurant. Only it’s not so much a restaurant as it is a burgers and E.coli fast food place with no apparent connection to international terrorism whatsoever.

Until the delightfully idiosyncratic manager announces, “Hey, let’s get some food for these FBI AGENTS!”

It’s at that point that a vaguely middle Eastern-looking guy wearing a doo rag and a whole bunch of gold chains (they were going to give him a striped prison uniform and a big scar over his eye but they thought that would be too subtle) freaks right the hell out, grabs his INCONSPICUOUS RED BACKPACK and runs through the kitchen and out the back door.

Joe and Nulu quickly gave chase, bursting out the door and onto the streets of Indio.

Let’s take a moment to talk about Indio. If you’ve never heard of it, here are some facts: Indio is in California’s southern region, is part of Riverside County, was the birthplace of Seaquest DSV star Marco Sanchez, and has a population of a little under 50,000 people.

Oh, and Indio, California also resides on the surface of the sun

I know this because when Joe and Nulu go outside, the sky is so bright it’s actually yellow. A bright golden sheen of pure destructive solar radiation burns throughout the entire scene, giving it a terrifying yellow tint. I mean, I kind of expected it would be bright outside when the windows of the fast food place were pure brightest white, but I have to admit: existing on the surface of a sun? That one surprised me.

Congratulations, Flashforward. It’s certainly not a cliche to have an entire California town somehow manage to exist despite being built upon the sun. Kudos.

Anyway, Joe and Nulu quickly adjust to what is surely the intense heat and burning radiation that the bright yellow tint indicates, and they go chasing after the criminal rapper guy. CRG (it’s like HRG from Heroes, right my fellow nerds?) escapes into a nearby trailer park, and Joe and Nulu give chase.

CRG jumps a wall, so Nulu rounds a corner and OH NO A GUY PLAYING A TRUMPET THAT ALSO HAPPENS TO BE THE BACKGROUND MUSIC, LOOK OUT!

CRG hides around another corner so Nulu goes after him but OH NO A WHITE TRASH WOMAN WITH BREAST IMPLANTS WHO OPENS A DOOR THAT NULU SLAMS INTO, LOOK OUT!

CRG wanders aimlessly out into the middle of the park but Joe spots him and gives chase but OH NO A ROTTWEILER THAT’S BARKING A LOT, LOOK OUT!

CRG drops a piece of bling that says “Pimp” on it so Joe looks down at it curiously but OH NO CRG JUMPS OUT OF NOWHERE AND PUSHES HIM KIND OF GIRLISHLY, LOOK OUT!

CRG runs away but OH NO JOE TACKLES HIM INTO A CHILD’S WADING POOL, LOOK OUT!

That’ll be just about enough of that, young man.

Hey, shut up, Brain! I can do whatever I WAAAAAAGGGG! Ow! That hurts!

It’s bad enough you’re subjecting me to a Brannon Braga show, but if you keep letting yourself get caught up in running gags I’m going to hurt you. More than usual, I mean.

If you hate running gags so much, what do you call you and me talking in the middle of a review, huh, smartguAAAAUUGHHH!!

And I hate meta running gags even more than regular running gags! Watch yourself, Mac!

Okay, okay, I’m sorry. No more oh-no-look-outs. I promise.

Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to pressing a jackhammer made of fire against the front of your skull.

But you said you weren’t going to hurt me if I did what you asked.

More than usual, I said. You know that Fridays are fiery jackhammer day.

Well, okay I guess. I’ll talk to you later, Brain.

See ya, I will continue to be ya!

Someday I’m going to figure out how to kill that bastard.

Anyway, Nulu opens up the red backpack while Joe cuffs CRG. Inside, he finds a big metal box that says “Yellow Cake” on it, because all criminals make sure they properly label the boxes they carry their illicit materials in. The twist (and you know it’s gotta be a pretty awesome twist, this being a Braga show and all) is that it’s not actually Yellow Cake Uranium, it’s just good old fashioned marijuana!

Wonk wonk wonk wooooonk.

Yes, Criminal Rapper Guy and his cohort, Inexplicably Well-Informed Hot Blonde Terrorist Lady Who Is Currently In FBI Custody (IWIHBTLWICIFBIC, for short) have bested Nulu. Nulu, unable to solve this problem by pouting, decides it’s about time he throws a big ol’ tantrum.

First he attacks CRG, but Joe pulls him away and asks him what the heck his problem is, although it’s a little hard to tell exactly what he says because his accent just flat out dies during the scene. I guess I can’t blame Joseph Fiennes for being unable to keep up his accent when he’s faced with A) John Cho’s adorable foot stomping, B) the five trillion megajoules of solar power currently lighting up the sky, and C) being Joseph Fiennes.

“What’s yo-oor proh-blaim, maayun!?” Joe demands.

“Everything, jerk-face! I’m just trying to do something smart, not just follow any random coincidence that comes my way, you stupid big dumb ass face! You don’t do anything logically! You don’t do anything that makes sense! I’m just trying to do my job to the best of my ability, but my obvious talents keep being held back by the idiocy of everyone around me. I’m so clearly superior to you, and yet I always have to play second fiddle to you! I hate you, Brannon! I hate you!”

“What? I’m Joe.”

“Oh, uh. Right. Joe. I hate you, Joe. That’s what I meant to say. Uh, anyway, I’m going to get shot on March 15th, so I’m a little pissy about things.”

“Wow,” Joe says. “I’m really sorry. Do you think I should deal with this now, or wait three or four episodes?”

“How about lip service now, and we deal with it for real later?”

“Gotcha: Nulu, my partner, my friend, let’s investigate all of this with our powers of investigation. That will save you!”

“By golly, you’re right, Joe! Thanks!”

That problem solved, we turn our attention back to the hospital, where we learn that Bryce is sketching pictures of a girl he apparently saw in his ~~vision~~ flashforward, and Lloyd reveals that in his ~~vision~~ flashforward he was getting an important call and never saw Olivia’s face.

Olivia comes by and Bryce finally gives her Ned Ned’s scan results. He’s got supersickophilia, but luckily they caught it in time.

“It’s not luck,” Bryce says, ramping up to full superior douchebag mode. “It’s fate, duh. If he had a vision of being alive then obviously he was always going to get here in time to get saved by us. And if I can’t practice medicine based on visions of the future I don’t understand working on a mechanism of reality that makes no sense at all...Well then I don’t want to be in the business anymore.”

Olivia tells him to quit being such a dumb ass and just practice medicine the way real TV doctors do, but then remembers who produces her show and starts laughing instead.

Later, Bryce gives Ned Ned the standard disclaimer about how surgery can maybe kinda kill you, but Ned Ned is totally cool with it. He too has had a douchebaggy epiphany thanks to his ~~vision~~ flashforward. I mean, who wouldn’t feel really good knowing they were going to get to wear leather pants, a green Freddie Kruger sweater, and have an obvious medical condition as a result of the spleen surgery he’s about to get that only an idiot would mistake for “becoming a black man?” Nobody! That’s who!

Meanwhile, Nicole (remember her? Me neither. She’s the superhot babysitter who really has no reason to be in this show) is visiting a priest in order to get involved in volunteer work. Why? Because she is just a good person who wants to help her community, that’s why.

Ha ha! Just kidding. People on TV only do nice things out of guilt and/or psychological trauma, and it turns out that in her ~~vision~~ flashforward, Nicole felt as though she were being punished by something. She was underwater, and a vaguely priest-shaped figure seemed to be standing over her. I’m not saying it was a priest, I’m just saying: it was a priest. Probably.

The priest (who keeps crickets in his desk for some reason! How whimsical and idiosyncratic, just like real people!) tells her that there might be some small chance that God had something to do with this. Then he gives her a Jesus t-shirt, the phone number of the volunteer coordinator, pats her on the head, and leaves her to her obvious crisis of faith and cry for help.

Back at the hospital, Bryce has had a Housian epiphany. Ned Ned has a medical condition that is going to possibly kill him but really just turn his skin black! Gasp!

Oh, wait, we’re not supposed to have figured out the turning his skin black part yet. Oh no! Ned might die! I’m in such suspense!

Bryce tries to explain it to Olivia. Ned Ned is so calm all the time because his body produces melanin ( a chemical that apparently causes people to go buy really cheap blackface makeup and put it on to pretend that their body produced so much melanin that it turned them black) instead of adrenaline. If they perform surgery on him, he’ll die!

“Nuh-uh!” Olivia retorts, then goes to perform surgery on Ned Ned anyway, refusing to believe in what Ned Ned saw of the future. This despite the fact that Bryce offered more than enough evidence that they’d gathered the traditional way to figure out that surgery would be dangerous, but hey, Olivia’s kind of upset, okay? Give her a break, people. It’s hard being every kind of doctor there is all at the same time.

Hey, you know what we haven’t had any of this episode? Wussy acoustic music. Well have no fear, because I think I hear the plaintive moaning of some pussed-out song coming around the corner any second now.

Oh yeah. There we go. Lloyd wanders through his ex-wife’s house to the ridiculously melancholy melody, and I can put a little marker on my Brannon Braga bingo sheet. I’ve already got “Obvious resolution to medical plot” and “Inexplicable ignoring of major plot points” marked down. Too easy!

Speaking of obvious resolutions to medical plots, Ned Ned almost dies on the table, but thanks to the magic of hydrocortisone and Bryce’s advice, his heart starts beating again, proving that the future is inescapable and fuck free will!

Meanwhile, back at FBI headquarters, Joe decides it’s time he interrogated the hot blonde terrorist lady. Who, I should really point out, is not hot. Unhealthily skinny? Yes. Blonde? Okay, I’ll give you that. A terrorist? Maybe. But not hot.

Joe glowers at her and whispers growlingly in his Connor MacLeod voice, demanding the answers to several questions.

“What do you know about the blackout? Evasive answer that tells me nothing? Okay, fine. You ever been to Somalia? Evasive answer that tells me nothing? Gotcha. Then how about this: What about detroit? Silence? Okay. How about Utah, ever been there? Evasive answer that tells me nothing? Okay, how about--”

“Hey, I know,” Not-Hot Blonde Terrorist says. “How about I talk about Black Swan events instead? You see, Black Swan events are crazy and improbable things that happen in a really impactful way. To illustrate this, we will flashBACK to the scene of you seeing a kangaroo in the first episode, because that is the exact wrong definition of a Black Swan event! Maybe if the kangaroo had sprouted wings and flown into the sky only to rain water droplets that contain immortality serum in them, that would be a Black Swan event. But seeing a kangaroo in a crisis in a city where there is almost certainly a zoo? That’s got nothing to do with being a Black Swan event, but let’s pretend like it does so that what I’m saying sounds really cool and profound!

“And hey,” she continues. “Speaking of things that sound really cool and profound, here’s a parable: An old man and a boy are in a room with a candle. The old man asks the boy where the light from the candle comes from. The boy blows out the candle and says he will answer if the old man can tell him where the light went.

“What’s that? The light from the candle came from the incandescent state of plasma resulting in an exothermic reaction from heating the wick of the candle? And the light didn’t actually go anywhere but simply stopped being produced from the exothermic reaction of the wick once the flame was snuffed out? Oh. But your mind is still totally blown, right?”

Tired of Not-Hot Blonde Terrorist’s bullshit, Joe goes to Young-Dolt and tells him to tell the nerdy guy they mentioned in the beginning of the episode to hack into the CIA database. Wow! I never guessed he would do that!

Back at the hospital, Bryce tells the now-recovering Ned Ned that he has Addison’s disease.

Hey, you know what a symptom of Addison’s disease is not? Being unnaturally calm. That may be because your body increasing adrenaline production is a REACTION to you being panicked, not the cause of you being panicked, and thus not having adrenaline would not actually cause you to become super calm. And while it might cause darkening of the skin, it doesn’t look nearly as fake as it did in Ned Ned’s vision.

Oh wait, maybe they were talking about Bragasson’s disease, which is a disease where you cherry pick symptoms from real diseases instead of just making up fictional diseases that would have worked just as well.

Anyway, Bryce apologizes to Olivia for being right even if he is an idiot and is actually wrong, and then some random nurse comes up and tells Olivia the horrible news: Dylan is back!

“God damn it!” Olivia screams. “I hate this fucking kid! Get him the hell out of here!”

“Sorry, doc. He needs professional medical help, apparently. I don’t know why they would bring him to you for that, but that’s what the script says so here he is.”

“Crap. Now I have to stare blankly into space some more to indicate my distress.”

Later that night, Nicole the sexy babysitter is alone with Joe, who is suddenly talking like calm Al Pacino’s Scarface; you know, the eleven seconds in the movie where he doesn’t scream his dialogue. He asks Nicole if everything is okay, and Nicole tells him that she saw herself being drowned by some mysterious person who I guess isn’t a priest after all: what a rip off. Joe promises he’ll save her, because he’s doing such a great job of changing the future so far.

And finally (I hope), Lloyd is hanging out with his son in the hospital room (has he learned nothing from Olivia’s neglectful parenting?) when he gets a phone call from none other than overgrown hobbit-slash-rocker-ghost, Dominic Monaghan!

Only this is Dominic Monaghan like you’ve never seen him before: not twitching around constantly while covered in dirth and/or riding a talking tree! I tell you, I barely recognized him. He tells Lloyd that they have to talk because, “We’re responsible for the greatest single disaster in human history.”

Whoa! I’d better pay attention to what happens next because I really want to kno--

CUT TO BLACK

Goddamn it! Oh well, I’m sure this will be immediately dealt with upon the start of the next episode, so there’s nothing to worry about. See you then, my cranky-loving friends.

Flashforward Episode 03 - Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-13T02:31:30Z

You didn't demand it, so it here is: more rambling crankiness directed at Flashforward! Now with 65% more heresy!

Oh man. I’m in trouble. I need to (for reasons best left unspecified) write a review for the third episode of Flashforward, but I can’t remember anything that happened last episode!

What’s this? An opening narration explaining the entire premise of the show followed by a bunch of clips of pertinent events from the first two episodes? What kind of chickenshit kind of insult to my intelligence is this? I want a real, strong, hefty insult to my intelligence.

Ah. I spoke too soon. It seems that this episode is going to start by just replaying the scene with Nulu and Non-American Accent Lady from last episode. Thank you, Brannon Braga and the Pantheon of Lazy Writers. Why bother writing your exposition and reminders into the dialogue when you can just show a rerun of what happened last week?

I mean it’s not like I could just go watch the episode for free online somewhere if I ever wanted to remind myself what happened. Thank you, Flashforward.

So since we all forgot: Nulu is told that he’s going to get killed in a few months, and his mysterious informant hangs up before he can find out who she is. When he tries to call back, his phone informs him that the call will not go through. This is NOT because Nulu is under several dozen feet of concrete in a parking garage where no cellphone signal could possibly get through, but rather because the mysterious woman is, as her description suggests, quite mysterious.

Once the rerun is over, the actual show starts. An old german man takes a nice, casual stroll down what is obviously a prison yard, and he and a guard talk about their visions. The old german man reveals that his ~~vision~~ vorausblende is something that will ensure his release from the prison. It’s at this point that the camera pans back to reveal where they are.

A PRISON! Holy crap! I did not see that coming! I mean, sure the man was wearing a prison uniform and talking to a prison guard and trapped behind barbed wire and a fence, but you would need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out he was in a prison from all of that. And you know what else? It’s in Germany!

I know! It’s like: jeez, Flashforward! Give me a moment to catch my breath, will you? You can’t just keep throwing these incredible plot twists at me and expect me to keep up.

Whew.

Anyway, back in America (albeit, an America populated by 65% non-Americans putting on fake accents), Joseph Fiennes has invited Sadbeard over to his house so that he can exposition at him for a while and remind us all that last episode, Charlie revealed that she had a vision about D. Gibbons, the name that Joe and the other Dolts have been investigating.

“But wait,” Sadbeard says, his beard furrowing in confusion. “Why are you telling me this? I’m just your bebearded pal. I don’t know anything about your investigation, nor can I help you in any way. Shouldn’t you tell your colleagues down at the FBI about this?”

Joe narrows his already impossibly narrow eyes and glowers pointedly at Sadbeard. Doing his best to speak past the gravel in his throat, he growls, “Blackout’s changed everything.”

And so, barely five minutes into this episode, we’re already treated to our first Braga-esque situation where one character makes a very good point and the other character makes a non-answer that provides an illusion of addressing the actual point. The blackout’s changed everything? How is that, exactly? Aren’t you investigating D. Gibbons with the other Dolts? Has anything happened that caused you to stop trusting any of them, especially your partner? What possible reason would you have for keeping it a secret that your daughter may have some connection to D. Gibbons? Heck, maybe you can get some federal protection for her.

Because, I dunno, call me crazy, but my first interpretation to my daughter telling me that her prophetic vision has led her to conclude that some guy is “a bad man” would be that this guy is going to do something bad to her. And considering that she already freaked out over Dylan too, the chances are this guy is going to hold the two of them hostage or something.

But no, Joe, the blackout changed everything, so you just whisper your exposition to Sadbeard and let’s get this scene over with.

Sadbeard goes on to tell Joe that if it were him, he would do whatever it took (aside from telling the FBI) to protect his daughter. Joe glowers inwardly and contemplates the idea.

Meanwhile, in Seattle, we are treated to an overhead shot of at least ten different jumbo jets that apparently crashed at the local airport during the Blackout, because we all know that in any two minute period, no less than twenty planes are on a direct collision course with the airport, and that if the pilots suddenly stopped doing anything these planes would simply smack right into the runway.

On the plane, Gabrielle Union is texting her fiancee, Nulu. She smiles charmingly at the guy who makes conversation with her, and then charmingly spouts out some exposition at him: she’s been (endearing half-grin) in Seattle since the blackout and (coy eye shifting) now that the airlines are running, she’s going to go see her boyfriend (sweet half-chuckle), and also (fetching eyebrow-raise) she happens to be a lawyer.

With a heart of gold, no doubt. Has Gabrielle Union ever played any role in which “with a heart of gold” was not an implied subtitle? Can a show like this really handle just how goddamn likable she is? The minute she and John Cho (Nulu, Demetri, whatever) touch the whole world might explode into vulnerable attractiveness! If Kristen Bell showed up, I daresay the entire universe would implode.

Back at FBI headquarters, Joe, Lady-Dolt, and Old-Dolt (I debated calling him Five-Days-From-Retirement-Dolt or possibly I-Have-The-Magic-Power-To-Drown-In-A-Urinal-Dolt, but Old-Dolt requires less typing) are working on their investigation.

They’re going through box after box of reports from other agencies. Most of them are just giant block letters on blank white paper that read: HOW ABOUT YOU GUYS INVESTIGATE THE GUY WHO ALMOST EXPLODED YOU TO DEATH LAST WEEK? Joe’s suffering from post-traumatic-almost-blowed-the-fuck-up-disorder, so he pretends that never happened and doesn’t speak a word of it.

Old-Dolt reads about a report on the old German guy, who turns out to be a Nazi. Nazi-Guy says he knows why the Blackout only lasted 137 sekunden.

“That’s German for seconds,” Old-Dolt explains to all the first graders out there who have not yet learned about context clues.

“Wait a second!” Joe growls, squeezing his face into its pointiest glower as he struggles to remember. “Let me see a picture of Nazi-Guy! Gasp! That man was on my wall in the future! We have to follow up on this lead!”

“Based on what?” Lady-Dolt says, snorting derisively. “Your spidey-sense?”

“No, you Braganian idiot, based on how I saw the fucking future just like everyone else in the goddamn world. Are you really that fucking stupid?”

Mac.

What? Oh no. Not this again, Brain. It was funny one time, but now you’re becoming one of my patented running gags that should have never been allowed to form!

I’m sorry, Mac, but I need to let you know that your last line of dialogue there didn’t actually happen in the show. I made it up for you so that you wouldn’t bash your skull in with a tire iron at the forced Braganian stupidity of the Lady-Dolt.

Dang it. Thanks. I guess.

Any time. After all, I live in your skull, so I don’t exactly want to see it get bashed in. Anyway, I’m going to back to causing icy spasms of pure agony to ignite just behind your eyes. See ya!

My brain, ladies and gentlemen. Always up to something.

“This is spooky,” Old-Dolt says, oblivious to Lady-Dolt’s stifling idiocy. “The Nazi’s report mentions Joe by name!”

Oh my god! That’s impossible. I mean, unless he somehow saw a vision of the future, but that’s just silly. This Nazi must have mind-reading powers or be autistic or something.

Later, in Chief Dolt’s office, Chief Dolt is very upset.

“Let me get this straight, you two want to fly to Germany to follow up on what appears on the surface to be a rather substantial lead? Are you crazy? How does this guy even know who you are?”

Are these characters in the same show that I’m watching? Have they all forgotten that the entire world saw the future?

Apparently so. Anyway, everyone’s all upset because this guy is a Nazi, because if there’s one thing the FBI refuses to do, it’s gather intelligence information by talking to shady people. Luckily, Joe manages to convince Chief Dolt that talking to the Nazi might lead them to finding the guy who happened to be awake during the Blackout.

Then it’s to the airport, where we’re all lucky to still be alive after Gabrielle Union and Nulu share a welcome-home kiss. The resulting explosion of pure undiluted awwwwwwwwwwww nearly disassembeled every molecule in my body, but I was able to remain cohesive by just being really cranky.

Gabrielle Union asks Nulu if he wants to hear her ~~vision~~ flashforward yet, but he’s reluctant to talk about it, and distracts her by offering to take her to a motel and sex her up but good. He’s a sweet talker, that Nulu.

Meanwhile, Sadbeard is sad, but also determined. He walks down the street and finds himself in front of an old-fashioned saloon that apparently got lost in time way back in 1865, and reappeared in modern day Los Angeles. He shrugs and walks through the swinging doors, only to find that the inside is still a normal modern day bar.

So first we had visions of the future, and now this show is giving us time traveling saloons that are actually tesseracts that connect to an infinite space of normalcy within? This is more sci-fi than I thought.

In the bar is Sadbeard’s ex-wife, Kate, and it seems that Sadbeard and his beard need her signature in order to exhume the body of their daughter. The conversation basically goes like this:

Sadbeard’s beard: Kate, our daughter is probably alive because I saw her in the future.

Kate: Screw you!

Sadbeard’s beard: I’d really like to save her if she’s still alive. Can you help me out? She’s your daughter too.

Kate: I reiterate: Screw you! Also: I am an atheist because I hate God for being such a great big ol’ jerk to me!

Sadbeard’s beard: Seriously though, you know how everyone saw the future the other day? I saw our daughter and I’d really like to--

Kate: Screw you, and screw having faith until I regain it sometime later in the season once you save our daughter, but for now: screw faith, screw you, and screw the god I don’t-believe-in/hate!

Sadbeard’s beard: So...That’s a no?

So, Sadbeard and his beard are forced to leave, but not before Sadbeard vows on the life of his beard that he will do anything and everything in his power to make sure his daughter is really and truly dead. Wait, no, that came out wrong: he’ll do whatever he can do to defile her corpse. That’s what I meant to say.

Anyway, back to Nulu and Gabrielle Union: post-coital and cuddly. Gabrielle Union tells Nulu that in her ~~vision~~ flashforward, she was getting married to Nulu, or presumably some guy who kind of looked like him from a distance. Nulu does some quick lying and tells her that he saw the same thing, followed by giving her his best serial-killer stare. So cute!

In Germany, Joe and Lady-Dolt have arrived, and just in time for some more Braga-style inappropriate responses!

“Hey,” Lady-Dolt says to the German government agent in charge. “Isn’t this the prison where a bunch of Nazis got executed?”

“Oh yeah, well your country had slavery!”

I mean look, I know Germans are probably pretty defensive about the whole Nazi thing, but I also know that Germans are pretty hardnosed about hating the ever-lovin’ shit out of Nazis. I mean, they throw Holocaust deniers in prison over there, and as Lady-Dolt just mentioned, that prison is where a bunch of them got executed.

So what is the logic there, Pantheon of Lazy Writers? German-Agent, who almost certainly hates Nazis, is mad that she brought up that this is where the German government brought a bunch of Nazis to justice? Or are we supposed to believe he’s a Nazi sympathizer, and her bringing up the executions made him so defensive that he just couldn’t help but lash out?

No, the logic is clearly that the lazy writers just wanted to make it seem like they were making some kind of historical point. They failed in that attempt, but can you really blame them? When you fail at everything else it becomes kind of a habit.

After that confusing exchange, German-Agent, Lady-Dolt, and Joe all head into the interrogation room.

Seated within is the evil, twisted, dark-souled son of a bitch. And next to the lawyer is the old German Nazi! Get it? Cause Lawyer jokes are easy!

German-Agent warns them all that the Old-Nazi is a big ol’ fibber, and that anything he says will be a lie. He eluded capture for half a century. He will quote scripture for his own purposes. The greatest trick he ever pulled was getting people not to believe in him. He wrote several books under the pen name Anne Rice. He invented the Yankees. And he even gave Brannon Braga his first directing gig.

Thoroughly warned, the trio sits down with the Nazi and his shifty-eyed lawyer. Old-Nazi says he has some pretty awesome information, but he won’t tell them unless he is given a full pardon so he can return to America.

Afterwards, Lady-Dolt is skeptical and thinks Old-Nazi is trying to play them somehow. Joe is concerned as well, but after a bit of glowering pointiness he decides that they’ll just do “something” to cover themselves if in fact the demonic old Nazi guy is -- although it’s highly unlikely -- lying.

Back in America, Olivia and OH GOD NO, THEY’VE GOTTEN TO GINA TORRES!

Oh, that hurts. I mean sure, I should be used to Firefly alumnus showing up in terrible television shows by now, and it’s not like Gina Torres was lighting up the screen in Cleopatra 2525 even before Firefly, but still: a Brannon Braga show? It’s bad enough that Alan Tudyk disgraced the entire cast of V by outacting them or that Morena Baccarin and Jewel Staite both sold their souls to Stargate. But Brannon Braga?

I died a little.

Anyway: Olivia and (swallow back the bile) Gina Torres are having lunch together. Gina is apparently the wife of Chief Dolt, and the two of them have a brief conversation about how stupid their husbands are for trying to “do something” about the whole Blackout thing.

“Men are so stupid,” Olivia says. “My husband is actually trying to do his job and investigate the global event that changed how we view reality forever. Men. Am I right?”

“Oh I know,” Gina Torres replies. “My husband is actually obsessing over writing a eulogy for eight of his coworkers. What a tool!”

They titter and giggle girlishly for a bit, and then get down to business. Being women on this show, we know that Gina’s ~~vision~~ flashforward must either involve getting married, having an affair, being pregnant, working in the kitchen, bringing a beer to a man, doing laundry, riding a pony, or making herself pretty.

Wrong! Get ready for another curveball, because Gina’s ~~vision~~ flashforward isn’t any of those things. No, she didn’t see herself doing any of those stereotypically female things. She saw herself taking care of a child! See? Another shocking twist from Flashforward!

Apparently, in the next six months, Gina will become the mother to a boy of around eight years old. This boy, despite knowing her for no more than six months, will also apparently refer to her as “Mom” which is either horribly creepy or speaks of a very unhealthy young boy.

Back in Germany (you can tell it’s Germany because everything is filmed with a blue tint. On an unrelated note, the color of the democratic party in America is blue. Coincidence?) the Nazi has a compromise to offer. He will tell the dolts one piece of his information, and after that checks out they will know he’s not playing games.

But first: he plays some games! Having watched the previous episodes, Old-Nazi knows that Joe and Lady-Dolt love numerology and bullshit coincidences in their investigations. Being a Nazi, he’s an expert on Judaism, and especially Madonna Judaism: aka, Kaballah.

So, why did the blackout last for 137 seconds? Well, it’s because if you spelk Kaballah in hebrew, the numbers that correspond to each letter are: 5-30-2-100. And if you add up all those letters for no reason whatsover, you get 137! Holy crap! Yahweh caused the blackout!

But wait! If you take the words “Great McGregor” and then check the numbers that correspond with each of those letters, you get: 7-18-5-1-20 13-3-7-18-5-7-15-18. And if you add up all those numbers, you get 137!

Holy crap! I’m Yahweh! That’s twice in as many episodes that I proved my own divinity using math!

Eventually Joe’s pointy face has had enough fun with numbers. He ups his glower to full constipation, and Old-Nazi finally reveals some of what he saw in his ~~vision~~ flashforward. It seems he was returning to the United States after being released, and that he had a “murder” to thank for it.

Apparently the United States immigration and customs officials saw “Pardoned Nazi” on his papers and told him to come on in.

Joe and Lady-Dolt decide to check up on the customs official that Old-Nazi saw in his ~~vision~~flashforward. German-Agent is angry that they are even thinking of listening to the Nazi, because he is a dumb stinky liar and is certainly going to make fools of them all, but since he’s not even TRYING to fake an American accent, neither Joe nor Lady-Dolt pay him any attention.

Joe gets interrupted by a long-distance cell-phone call from Sadbeard, whose accent has apparently decided he’s from a combination of Boston and Chicago. Sadbeard needs Joe to use his FBI powers to get his daughter’s body exhumed, to which Joe readily agrees. There’s nothing he likes better than abusing his authority.

Back in the California, Nulu has gone out to try talking to a guy who applied for a job to be a customs official, since none of the currently-working officials matched the description of the Nazi. Why Nulu is doing this when THE SUN HAS GONE SUPERNOVA, I have no idea. Still, he ignores the unearthly yellow tint that suggests the world is ending and goes about his business.

If you haven’t been paying attention: blue tint and no sunlight ever = Germany. Yellow tint and the sun being roughly ten feet away from the earth = California.

Nulu knocks on the guy’s door, but there is no answer so he of course sneaks around to the backyard. There, through the back door, he can see the dumb, fat, future-customs-official dancing around in his underwear.

Why is he dancing around in his underwear?

“Because the blackout changed everything.”

See, I can not answer relevant questions just like Brannon Braga characters can!

Nulu eventually gets the dumb fat guy to tell him what he saw in his own ~~vision~~ flashforward, and it’s without a doubt the funniest comic relief this show has had yet. Let me see if I can paint the picture for you and get across just a smidgeon of what makes this scene so great.

The dumb fat guy, he tells Nulu his story: while being fat! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, my sides hurt just thinking about it. I mean he was honestly fat the whole time he was on screen! I was just...Oh man! I couldn’t breathe. I really couldn’t. And you know what made it even funnier? He was dumb! I know! I couldn’t believe it either! Fat and dumb? I tell you, only Brannon Braga could give us comedy like that.

As he’s leaving Nulu knocks over fat dumb guy’s bong, and he realizes that if he arrests Nulu for smoking the illegal marijuana, fat dumb guy will never become a customs official. Nulu can change the future right now, and he decides to

CUT TO COMMERCIAL!

Back in germany, although it’s hard to tell because they’re inside and thus the blue-tinted not-sun is nowhere to be seen, Lady-Dolt and Joe are sitting around in an empty restaurant. Lady-Dolt is upset that they are thinking about letting a war criminal go free just to get some vague and very clearly bullshit information on the Blackout.

Joe explains to her that she is a woman, and therefore stupid. “You see, woman,” he growls. “I have faith. And my faith tells me that the Nazi is going to come through for us, because really, when has a Nazi ever lied to anyone? This is all going to work out for the best. Maybe if your stupid ovaries didn’t keep making you have a period or something, you’d have realized that.

“But I don’t know that I believe he’s going to tell us truth. Heck, I don’t even know if I believe the flashforwards are real!”

“Well that’s your problem,” Joe says, revving up for a Braga not-response. “Because that’s what faith is.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t really address how maybe we didn’t really see the future, just a poss--”

“Faith! That’s what it is! Psuedo-poignant non-response made! Scene over!”

And so it is. Chief Dolt calls from America and informs Joe that the FBI will begin pressuring the German government to release the Nazi in return for information. During the conversation, Sadbeard, his beard, and a power shovel are hanging out at the grave of Sadbeard’s daughter (Also the title of the next Pirates of the Carribean movie) and decide to go digging it up. Hooray! Victory for Sadbeard!

Also, just in case we’re missing the blatant message of the ends kinda maybe but possibly not justifying the means, Chief Dolt narrates the entire situation and points out that people are doing things because of what will happen, not because of what might happen. Thanks, Chief.

Later the night (oh no, another endless Flashforward night is beginning), Nulu is sleeping in his cubicle when Young-Dolt shows up to let him know that even though he’s been trying to track the call Nulu got from the mysterious woman, but the signal become untrackable when it went to two different sites.

Nulu has a crazy plan though. Track the signal to both sites! Why, that’s so obvious it just might work! Young-dolt rushes off to go work on that, and also to wonder if he’s actually a main character or just an extra who gets to have a line or two sometimes.

Back in Blue-Tintia (Germany is apparently a Midnight-Sun area), German-Agent is furious that Joe is going to release the Nazi, but it’s too late. Joe’s government beat up German-Agent’s government, and now Germany has to do whatever America says, and they say release the Nazi, no backsies!

Old-Nazi tells his story. He blacked out and saw the future, but here’s where it gets ~~stupid~~ interesting: when he woke up, he looked outside his window and a bunch of dead crows were lying all over the yard! Get it? A MURDER of crows?

I assure you, whichever member of the Pantheon of Lazy Writers wrote that twist probably patted himself so hard on the back when he came up with it that he dislocated a shoulder.

So that’s it. Old-Nazi’s great information is that he saw a bunch of dead crows. Joe demands to know why the blackout lasted for 137 seconds, but the Nazi admits he didn’t know and was just fucking with them.

“TELL USSS!” the German-Agent suddenly screeches like an angry Pterodactyl, and I must apologize to the fat dumb guy, because this is actually the greatest moment of comic relief in the entire show. I can’t stop saying it. “TELL US! TELL US! SQUAAAWWK!”

Admitting that he just made up a bunch of crap in order to get out of jail, the Nazi grins smugly at everyone. Joe, realizing his “I have faith that I’m not getting obviously played by a Nazi” plan has failed utterly, quickly takes charge of the situation. He calls up the State department and gets them to pressure the German government into reinstating the Nazi’s sentence. When that doesn’t work, he sets up a plan with the others to make sure that when the Nazi shows up in America, he is arrested for war crimes against America and tried and sentenced there, where his German pardon would be meaningless. All is well, thanks to Joe’s quick thinking.

C’mon. You don’t really believe that, do you?

Please, Brain. Let me have this. I don’t think I can take much more stupidity.

I’m sorry, Me. The truth is that Joe and Lady-Dolt stared blankly at the Nazi as they realized they were outsmarted by his devious obvious lies, and the Nazi went free. Whoops.

Damn it.

I’ll leave you alone to mourn the loss of any sense of respect you might have accidentally formed for the characters. I’m going to go back to boiling hydrochloric acid against your occipital lobe.

Okay. Thanks, Brain.

So yeah, the Nazi goes free. But wait, maybe all is not lost! Joe arrives home sometime during the patented Flashforward Endless Night. Olivia wakes up and asks him how it went.

“About as badly as it could have gone without getting shot at. Or blown up. Although really, getting blown up isn’t really anything worth getting concerned over. Me, I get blown up by a bad guy or two and I just brush it off. Not worth thinking about. But you know what my mom used to say to me? She used to say: live in the now. How am I supposed to do that anymore?”

“No clue,” Olivia says. “But hey, I’m a woman. Have sex with me.”

“Okay,” Joe whisper-growls. He starts feeling her up and says, “Wow, my mom sure was right. I love my mom. Do you mind if I just talk about her nonstop while we have sex? Cool.”

The next day, Sadbeard and his beard show up in his ex-wife’s bar again. He tells here he’s there to give her “Good news.” It goes a little something like this:

Sadbeard: Good news! Our daughter is still dead.

Kate: Awww. You’re so sweet. I love you.

Sadbeard: Sadbeard sad.

Kate: Aw, c’mere you big lug, and bring your beard with you.

Sadbeard: Sadbeard hug!

*Acoustic Wuss-Folk music*

While the testicle-less man sings some whiny song about drowning in his own estrogen, Chief Dolt gives his eulogy for all the dead agents. Nulu pouts, Joe glowers, Gabrielle Union smiles comfortingly/charmingly, Olivia stares blankly into space, Lady-Dolt looks kind of cranky, Young-Dolt wonders if he’s actually in this show, and Gina Torres spots the little boy from her ~~vision~~ flashforward. A-ha! So she will kidnap this boy from the memorial service and force him to play out her sick mother/son fantasies! I knew it!

After the service, all the Dolts are hanging out a bar. Nulu wonders, “I wonder how many of this services have been performed since the blackout.”

“A bunch,” Young-dolt replies. “Probably all over the world.”

Suddenly the show becomes Rounders, and we start hearing Joseph Fiennes inner thoughts. This is because the post-production team figured that the stupid audience couldn’t figure out what Joe’s epiphany would be based on without some looped-in dialogue explaining it to us.

So Joe gets a look of pointy revelation on his face while his own voice is dubbed in growling, “All over the world! All over the world!” over and over. Thanks, Flashforward. Don’t credit me with any kind of reasoning ability or anything. Be sure to spell everything out for me in case I start panicking because I have to use one of my last three remaining brain cells.

He finds Lady-Dolt, and the two of them return to the office together, but not before Nulu and Gabrielle Union cutify the screen for a bit and decide to make their wedding date officiawwwwwwwwwwwww.

At the office, Joe has Lady-Dolt look up the worldwide crow population on www.InstantCrowFactsThatUpdateWithNewInformationImmediately.edu. She does, and it turns out that the day of the blackout, millions of crows all died at the same time.

So even though there is some kind of website or database out there that has instant and up-to-date statistics on the crow population, the only person in the entire world to notice this mass death of crows was some old guy in a German prison? I guess it makes sense, but:

“Joe, who cares that all the crows died at the same exact moment as the blackout? I can’t possibly see how that would in any way be relevant to our investigation of the blackout, because I have been rendered temporarily brain-damaged by Brannon Braga,” Lady-Dolt says.

“Because we’re looking for patterns, dummy. Use your magic computer to look up other instances of mass crow death.”

“Okay, I’ll go to www.MassCrowDeaths.org/InformationThatWouldNeverBeCompiledAnywhere.html.”

She does, and it turns out that a bunch of crows died in Somalia in 1991. They look up Somalia in 1991. What they find is a SINGLE LINE OF TEXT ON A BLACK SCREEN (pay attention to that) which says that the CDC was requesting additional funding at the time.

“Joe, this is all stupid and doesn’t mean anything. There’s no evidence here, they don’t even say why they were requesting funding,” Lady-Dolt says.

“Wait, read the whole thing with your eyes,” Joe says, pointing to the screen. Suddenly there is a whole new paragraph underneath the original line that was very clearly not there before, and points out that the CDC was requesting funds because all the people in the area claimed to have passed out at the same time.

See, Lady-Dolt? This is why you wait until all the text on your magic website appears before you start jumping to wild conclusions.

Finally, we arrive in Somalia. Which, I can determine from the yellow-tinting, must be very close to California. There, a young boy sees a bunch of crows, so naturally he goes running after them and winds up at...

A small industrial village with a smokestack! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And they just cut to black right there! What!? You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger like that, Brannon Braga! Just what kind of smokestack is it? Are they rendering pig fat in there? Are they refining petroleum? Do they just have a really big fireplace? Don’t make me wait until next episode, you bastard! This is just too cruel!

But that is indeed the end of the episode, although surely this cliffhanger will be addressed in the next episode, just like the whole thing where that guy tried to blow Joe and Nulu up was addressed in this one. I, for one, can’t wait.

See you next time!

Flashforward Episode 02 - Reviewed with great snark

2009-11-12T01:04:34Z

You thought it was just a one-time thing, but you were wrong! Come join me as I descend into the black abyss of madness! Wheeee!

“Hey, Brannon, we need something special for the opening scene for the second episode of Flashforward.”

“Everybody dies but then it turns out that they were all just clones!”

“No, I--”

“Everybody dies but then it turns out it was an alternate reality!”

“Brannon, hang on, just lis--”

“Everybody dies and then we go back in time and stop everybody from dying!”

“Brannon, will you plea--”

“Everybody hyper-evolves into lizard monsters!”

“Brannon! Shut up for a second. Let me finish: we don’t just need something special. It needs to be the creepiest opening ever, but it also has to be the most cliched opening ever. Nobody else has been able to come up with the perfect idea. You’re our last hope.”

“Pfff. Easy. Little girl singing a nursery rhyme in a slow and sinister way. Make her British if you want everyone to die of both creepiness and cliché-itude.”

“Wow, thanks, Brannon! That’s why you’re the master!”

If you hadn’t guessed, the second episode of Flashforward actually manages to start with a chorus of “Ring around the rosie” as sung by a creepy little girl. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that, as the icepicks in my eardrums and the bloody holes that used to be my eyeballs distracted me for a time.

Unfortunately the unholy power of such a tremendously lazy cliché soon regenerated both my eyes and my eardrums, and I was forced to watch the rest of the episode.

Someday I’ll figure out how to fight your damnable siren song of banality, Brannon Braga! You’ll see!

Until then, let’s continue: It turns out the little girl singing the nursery rhyme is one of Charlie’s classmates, and that they are all playing “Blackout” and then pretending to have ~~visions~~ flashforwards of the future. Charlie-no-likey this game, and in her sullen outcast state she invokes the ire of her schoolmates, one of whom steals her demonic plush toy. She pushes him in retaliation and then gets yelled at by her teacher.

“Screw this noise,” Charlie says, and then races out into the street, her stubby little legs allowing her to outrun the much taller teacher. Random passersby do nothing to stop the little girl as she runs heedlessly into traffic. A few cars screech to a halt and honk at her angrily, although no one seems to care that a little girl is running around in the street unsupervised. Eventually, Charlie winds up in front of a military blockade and stands there staring up at the soldiers.

So apparently there was a military blockade roughly a block away from Charlie’s school, complete with armed guards, humvees, and giant cargo helicopters flying overhead. Charlie may be fleet of foot, but she has eyesight like a molerat, apparently.

Anyway, forget Charlie. After all, her parents already did! Bwa ha ha!

Joe’s in his AA meeting with Sadbeard, and Cameron from Ferris Bueller is being a big expositiony and pessimistic jerk about things. Joe glowers pointingly and recollects his own ~~vision~~ flashforward while Cameron bitches. Apparently, according to this Cameron fellow, everyone in the world blacked out and saw the future!

Once we’re all caught up on the basic premise of the show thanks to Cameron’s exposition, Joe interrupts him and tells him to get out of their meeting.

Outside, Sadbeard does not approve. He and Joe have a “who-has-the-worst-American-accent” contest, with Sadbeard coming out to an early lead. Joe’s a scrapper though, and he soon has Sadbeard reeling with his patented Connor MacLeod growling and poor pronunciation.

And just in case you forgot the premise of the show in the last minute since the opening recap or the last fifteen seconds since Cameron’s rant, Sadbeard is there to reiterate the whole thing once more. Apparently, according to this Sadbeard character (Personally, I would trust any man with a beard so glorious) everyone in the world blacked out and saw the future.

Later, at FBI-Dolt headquarters, the dolts are in a meeting, and Chief Dolt is rallying the troops by reminding us all of the premise of the show. Apparently, everyone in the world blacked out and saw the future.

I know! I’m as surprised as you are! That totally came out of left field.

When Chief Dolt is done reminding the audience that they are the characters who are investigating the cause of the Blackout, someone interrupts. Now, seeing as how this is a Brannon Braga based show, I will offer you three possibilities as to how they interrupted.

1. Needle scratching off a record.
2. Slow clap.
3. Phone call from character offscreen who says, “You gotta see this for yourself.”

If you said number 2, congratulations, you might be just lazy enough to write for Brannon Braga!

The slow clapper is Homeland Security Lady Dolt, and she’s here to wonder why in the hell the Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken it upon itself to investigate this event. Surely the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms would be better suited to INVESTIGATING an event that took place all over the country, and hence would be FEDERAL jurisdiction.

Joe’s not about to listen to this perfectly valid criticism, however. He’s decided to pay attention to his kid for once, and heads off to Charlie’s school to deal with her.

At school, Charlie’s teacher points out that hey, maybe Charlie saw something scary in her ~~vision~~ flashforward. Joe and Joe’s wife, being utter cretins, have not bothered to ask their daughter what she saw, and so have no answers to give. Charlie’s teacher does her best to resist the urge to call CPS on them.

Hey, remember all the stuff that happened last episode? Of course you don’t! You’re an average television viewer and you have no cumulative memory whatsoever! But don’t worry, Joe and Joe’s wife will remind you that Joe’s wife (Olivia, apparently) had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of her preparing to sleep with another man.

If the above sentence has already slipped out of your brain like you have Memento disease, don’t worry, it’ll be repeated ad nauseam for the rest of the season, I’m sure.

Joe and his wife attempt to pepper this exposition with some witty banter in regards to the state of their marriage.

“We’re at Defcon 1,” Joe says in an ironic and witty sort of way.

“More like Defcon +1,” Olivia replies.

Joe rolls his eyes like a valley girl. “Uh, yeah, like that even exists! GOD!”

That’s some quality dialogue there. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get from that exchange. Is it that Joe is a humorless dick who doesn’t understand the boring and lazy joke his wife made? Is it that Joe’s wife loves boring and obvious “jokes” that don’t actually have any punchline to them? Is it that the writers couldn’t simply have the characters announce, “WE ARE IN LOVE IN A WITTY AND WHIMSICAL SORT OF WAY,” so instead we get this?

Anyway, forget that scene, it’s over. And speaking of forgetting things, what the hell happened last week? Was there some kind of talk about creating a website? I sure as heck don’t remember that, because I am an average viewer and my brain cells have all been killed by American Idol, Beer, and Donald Trump.

Luckily for me, the FBI-dolts are going to remind me what’s going on, thanks to Homeland Security Dolt’s wildly inappropriate incredulity at the absolute gall of the FBI’s attempts at investigating this event.

“Blah blah blah,” says Lady-Dolt. “We made a website, blah blah blah, we take anything anyone says on it as the absolute truth, blah blah blah, it’s not like anyone has ever lied on the internet before, blah blah blah, did I mention it’s called MOSAIC? Joe wanted it to be called MEMORY COLLAGE, but that tested poorly with the focus groups. We’ve found a bunch of patterns and we hope that investigating these patterns will help us figure this out.”

“What?” Homeland Security Dolt says incredulously. “You’re spending millions of dollars on HOPE!?”

(The producers of Flashforward would like to remind you that the Obama presidential campaign was stupid, and idealism is for chumps. If you've enjoyed this blatant and pointless "commentary" on today's political spectrum, we suggest you watch V, another fine example of ABC sci-fi programming. We now return to your regularly scheduled cranky rantings.)

Chief FBI dolt nods matter-of-factly instead of replying, “No, idiot. We’re spending millions of dollars investigating the apparent patterns of a global mystery, not hope. Are you truly so moronic that you’re going to jump all over a figure of speech and ignore the fact that in a world populated by Braga-dolts, we’ve at least managed to do something that might someday explain what’s going on, which is more than can be said for anyone else?”

But of course he can’t say that, because if he did then Homeland Security Dolt’s snippy little one-liner about hope would be revealed for the completely meaningless remark that it is. At least it sounded cool though, right?

Right?

Anybody?

So, what have the dolts learned from these patterns so far? Well I think you’ll be surprised at their resourcefulness. You see, they’ve been reading this book called “The Bible Code” and contacting Nostradamus via their Ouija Boards, and they’ve come up with something very interesting indeed.

It turns out that the blackout happened at 11:00 AM. And since there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, that means there’s a 1/3600 chance of such a cosmic coincidence ever happening. Truly, the event must be man-made!

Except for how time is a human construct with no inherent meaning on a cosmological scale, seconds and minutes are completely arbitrary units of measurement. Why not make your probabilities based on milliseconds or nanoseconds? Heck, the chances of me choosing to drink a can of soda at exactly 11:00 and 1 trillionth of a second are, according to them, something like 1 in a trillion. Clearly my drinking a can of soda is a significant astronomical event, making me God.

You may worship me any time you like, my children.

Furthermore, let’s say that the odds of that happening really are 1 in 3600. You know what the odds of getting hit by lightning are? According to the Lightning Safety Institute, roughly 1 in 280,000. And yet getting hit by lightning is not, in fact, a man-made event. It’s a completely random event.

So really, the odds of something happening randomly when the chances are 1 in 3600 are quite high, and these people are all a bunch of stupefyingly idiotic morons who are essentially using Numerology to figure out their case.

Someone please tell me that the real FBI doesn’t rely on website testimonials and logic like “Dude, the killer has killed ten girls and eight of them had brown hair. Brown is the color of wood, and wood is what trees are made of. The killer’s got an eighty percent chance to be in a forest!” in order to drive their investigations.

Anyway, that scene mercifully ends before my brain attempts to eat itself, and we’re back with Charlie and her mom. Olivia has uncharacteristically decided to momentarily care for her daughter by taking her to work with her. On the way, Olivia assures Charlie that all the people who are “missing” after the blackout will be just fine and will show up any day now, proving that even when she’s supposedly caring for her daughter, she can still lie to her with a straight face. I’m sure letting Charlie believe that everyone’s going to be just fine is a great idea.

Bryce appears and lets Olivia know that a bunch of people are dying and need her help. That’s when Charlie ups her whininess by about 400% and starts complaining that her stuffed toy’s leg is torn off and needs to be fixed. Can you really blame her? She’s so horribly neglected by her parents, the only companionship she has is her twisted and freakish toy.

So Olivia takes Charlie and the toy to an operating room and uses hospital supplies to stitch the toy’s leg back on. Unfortunately, Charlie forgot to turn her whininess down, and it only takes a few seconds for Olivia to remember why she usually avoids her daughter like the plague.

“Honey,” Olivia says through gritted teeth. “What your toy needs right now is milk and cookies. Go wander through the hospital alone and unattended only a few days after the biggest crisis in the history of the world. I’ll catch up with you in a few hours or something.”

“But what if I get lost and wind up in the morgue, or some crazy sick person attacks me, or I get distracted by a bottle of pills and think they’re candy?”

“What did I just say, young lady? Get the fuck away from me!”

Charlie resigns herself to a life of lonely misery and does as she’s asked, traipsing off into the hospital all by herself.

Hardly a second later, something very strange happens. A guy with a non-American accent shows up, only he’s not trying to pretend he can do an American accent. I tell you, I had to rewind several times just to make sure he wasn’t just really bad at American accents. I think I can say with some certainty that he was, in fact, speaking with a non-American accent. I never thought such a thing could be possible, but there you go.

Turns out Non-American guy is the guy in Olivia’s ~~vision~~ flashforward, but he’s ALSO the dad of the kid she saved last episode, and boy is he mad that she’s neglected her son’s wellbeing since then. I suspect once he realizes that Olivia neglects all children he won’t feel quite so slighted.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that Non-American guy is pretty boring. All he’s got going for him is that he’s the future-lover of Olivia, he speaks in a non-American accent, and his son was in a car accident during the blackout. Well you’re wrong. He’s got at least one more character trait, hotshot: his son is also autistic.

Luckily for Olivia, she doesn’t have to worry about Charlie developing autism. Olivia and Joe have neglected to get Charlie any of her childhood vaccinations, and we all know that’s where autism comes from. Dodged a bullet there, I tell you!

So Non-American guy blusters and huffers and bangers and mashes and Hughs and Grants or whatever Non-American people do when they’re a bit upset.

“You’re a doctor and you should pay attention to my son,” he seems to say with his inhuman grunting, but I can’t make out a word of it because it’s all in Non-American accent. Hopefully they’ll start subtitling him so I can figure out what the hell he’s saying. I’m supposed to know what some guy with a British accent is saying? I’m from America, ABC! I’m not trained to understand any accents but my own.

I mean, really, ABC, I thought you understood that people with Non-American accents are not allowed on TV unless they are A) trying to do an American Accent B) doing an Indian accent and are being portrayed as horrible stereotypes or C) on Heroes or Lost.

Disgraceful.

Back at FBI Doltquarters, Joe has finally returned, and he’s wearing a friendship bracelet Charlie made for him (because if he won’t be her father at least he can be a casual friend). This upsets Nulu, who recognizes that it’s the same bracelet John saw in his ~~vision~~ flashforward. By putting that bracelet on, Joe is proving that the future is inevitable.

“So you should take it off,” Nulu says.

“GROWL,” Joe replies. “GROWL GROWL GROWL.”

“What do you mean you can’t take it off because your daughter is going through a hard time and needs to see you wearing it? Jesus, man! I’ve already decided that my lack of flashforwarding means I’m going to die in six months. Can’t you just do this to help save my life, the life of your partner? Do something to show me that the future can be changed! I’m freaking out here, man! I’m freaking out!”

“Growl?”

“Fine! Keep it on, then!” Nulu says, turning his face to full-pout. “Couldn’t you at least put it on the opposite arm? I mean if it was on your left arm in the vision, then why not just wear it on your right? That way your daughter could be placated and you could help prove that the future is what we make of it.”

“Growl growl, *glower*, growl growl,” Joe replies.

“Shit, that’s a good point,” Nulu says. “I can’t argue with that logic. Keep it on, and let us never speak of this again.”

They never do.

Instead, they talk about various leads they can follow up, all of which happen to be from Joe’s ~~vision~~ flashforward.

“What about the name D. Gibbons?” Joe wonders aloud.

“ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE”, the Pantheon of Lazy Writers announce from on high.

A few seconds later, a woman named DeeDee. Gibbons shows up, and isn’t she just a darling thing? She’s so average and American! Ha ha. She likes cupcakes and goes to church! What a cutie.

Turns out DeeDee had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of yelling at someone on the phone about Joe and Nulu, as well as about pigeons. The collective Dolts decide to investigate this further, but first Chief Dolt and Joe have a private conversation.

“Hey, Chief,” Joe growls, pointing his glowery face at him in a vaguely threatening manner. “Since you said you were in the office during your ~~vision~~ flashforward, why don’t we compare notes and see if what you saw matched what I saw?”

“Nope.”

“But, Chief, doesn’t it make sense to--”

“I can’t, Joe.”

“But whysoever not, my Chief?”

“Because, Joe. I was taking...” Chief Dolt takes a huge breath and then says in the longest and most drawn out way possible: “A B-O-W-E-L M-O-V-E-M-E-N-T.”

Ha ha! Nah, I’m just kidding, you guys. He didn’t actually say that, because human beings don’t talk that way. What he actually said was, “Because, Joe, I was in the bathroom at the time.”

Mac.

Huh? What? Brain, is that you?

Yes, Mac. It’s me. You. I have something to tell you. The bowel movement line? That was actually in the show. I made up the other response to spare you from living in a world where such terrible writing exists, but now I think you deserve to know the truth.

Noooooooo!

Sorry, man. Anyway, I’m going to go back to shoving red hot daggers of pain against the front of your skull. Peace!

That goddamn Brain. I’ll get him someday.

Anyway, back to the show. Chief Dolt further explains the events of his blackout. See, he was in the bathroom when he blacked out, and when he came to he burst out of the stall to find one of his Dolt-subordinates drowning.

In a urinal.

Now, women, I understand if this seemed marginally plausible to you, but I invite any guy out there to think about any restroom they have ever been in that contained urinals. Let me assure you that there is no physical way that anyone could accidentally drown in a urinal. First of all, you would have to pass out by dropping to your knees and pitching your face forward, then remaining precariously balanced the entire time. This is never going to happen. Second, you also need to be at a urinal that actually has a standing pool of water at the bottom of it: AKA, a urinal that pretty much doesn’t exist anymore.

But who cares about that? Isn’t it hilarious to think about Chief Dolt giving Subordinate Dolt mouth to mouth after he was face-first in a urinal? Oh man, that makes the utter stupidity of someone accidentally drowning in a urinal totally worth it!

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Olivia is done fixing up Charlie’s toy. She manages to track her wayward daughter down and gives it to her.

“Screwyou!” Charlie shrieks in childlike glee. “Screwyou! You’re okay!”

I don’t think any of us are surprised at the name Charlie’s given to her little toy. She must think that’s how people say “I love you” since her parents say that to her all the time.

And just in case you forgot in the last two minutes or so, it turns out that Olivia had a ~~vision~~ flashforward of that Non-American guy! Oh shit! I wish they’d told us that earlier! That changes everything!

Olivia asks Charlie if she’s ever seen Non-American guy before, but Charlie says she hasn’t. A few seconds later, Charlie sees Non-American guy’s son, and has the same exact reaction that any normal child would have upon seeing a friend in the hospital.

“DYLAN!” she wails like she’s Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes. “What have you maniacs done to Dylan!? You’ve hurt him! Oh, Dylan, my love, my angel, my one true and bright shining star! What terrible fate hath been wrought upon thee? DYLLLLAAANNN!!!”

Olivia swallows back the bile in her throat and kneels down to comfort Charlie, giving her an almost-motherly hug while Charlie mumbles and drools incoherently in utter despair. Meanwhile, the rest of the people in the hospital continue about their business, not interested in the least by the little girl who’s screaming and shaking with fear. Ho-hum. Just another day in St. Television’s Hospital.

So, let’s put two and two together. Charlie’s ~~vision~~ flashforward showed her that there would never be a good day ever again. This ~~vision~~ flashforward also included Dylan. Ergo: Dylan is the Anti-Christ, which explains why Olivia has been reluctant to treat him. And since we proved a few scenes ago (with numbers!) that I’m officially God, I’d like to thank her for keeping my greatest enemy down. Thanks, Livs!

Back at the FBI offices, the dolts are trying to figure out what’s going on with D. Gibbons. Lady-Dolt uses her magic computer pad (You didn’t really think Brannon Braga could write a show without a magic square pad that gives instant answers to stupid questions, did you?) to pull up information as they talk. They determine that someone stole DeeDee’s credit card, and that this person is in Utah. They further determine that since she said the word “Pigeon,” that must mean that they have to go to Pigeon, Utah.

Before they can leave, Olivia and Charlie show up. It seems Olivia missed her daily allotment of getting Joe’s pointy face to glower at her, so she’s there for a little booster. She tells him about the Non-American Guy (his name is Lloyd, which I tell you is so typical for these goddamn Non-American types. Always gotta have superfluous letters in their names) and how Charlie knew his son.

Joe attempts to force his skull out through his forehead skin, but unfortunately his glower is not yet that powerful. Instead, he Connor-MacLeod-Whispers angrily at Olivia for a while, then leaves to take his pointy face to Utah when Nulu shows up to inform him that D. Gibbon’s stolen credit card just happens (Thanks, Pantheon of Lazy Writers!) to have been used mere moments before.

A couple of seconds later and Joe and Nulu are in Utah, thanks to their ~~transporter pad~~ helicopter. They meet up with a local ~~redshirt~~ cop, who, like Nulu, saw nothing in her vision. And yes, she actually says the word “vision.”

I like her. I think she’s a fine addition to the show. It’s nice to have a no-nonsense character who doesn’t like the reactions of everyone around her to seeing the future. I can’t wait to see how she deals with the rest of the Dolts when she inevitably returns to the FBI offices with Joe and Nulu, as she is surely going to be a recurring member of the cast.

Speaking of the Dolts, Lady-Dolt has got some ‘splainin’ to do. For some reason, Homeland Security Dolt wants to know why they keep referring to the guy who was walking around during the blackout as a guy.

“Pff,” Lady-Dolt says, rolling her eyes. “Video forensics, duh.”

“Video what-ensics?” the designated idiot for this scene, Homeland Security Dolt, replies. Remember, folks: in any Braga-show exposition scene, one character is always going to be remarkably stupider than another character. It’s a law.

“Video forensics, stupid. You see, we can determine through ~~guessing~~ ~~magic~~ video forensics that the person on the video is 5’8” and weighs 150 pounds. Therefore, the odds of them being a woman are 1 in 40. Since we all know that 1 in 40 is an astronomically high probability, clearly it’s a man.”

“Wow,” Homeland Security Dolt says, wide-eyed. “That is both intelligent and highly realistic!”

It’s at this point that Homeland Security Dolt actually gets to say something smart. The Dolts don’t actually know that this person had anything to do with the blackout.

“Hey, he’s not some visual effect,” Lady-Dolt replies. “He’s real!”

What? Nobody’s wondering if he’s real, you doltish dolt. The point being made is that you have no proof other than his being awake to suggest that he has anything to do with the Blackout. Maybe he’s just got a weird brain. Maybe he wears a tinfoil hat. Maybe he’s an insomniac.

Here’s what I think happened. The Pantheon of Lazy Writers said to themselves, “Hey, we need to point out that they have no actual evidence to think that this guy had anything to do with the blackout.”

“Okay,” Brannon Braga replied. “Let’s put in a line where someone points that out.”

“Should we respond to that point in any way and explain why the characters will act like they do have evidence anyway?”

“Ooh, the ice cream man! Wheee!”

And that’s when Brannon Braga jumps out of the second story window.

What’s that you say? You want more conversations where someone asks a question or makes a point and the other person just ignores them to go off on an expositiony rant? You got it!

“Hey, doc,” Non-American Guy Lloyd says to Formerly Suicidal Doctor Bryce. “My son wants to know if he can have a hamburger.”

“That’s great that he wants real food. It shows he’s recovering. BLAH BLAH BLAH, LONG STORY ABOUT HOW LIFE IS WORTH LIVING.”

“You realize you didn’t actually answer my question. Can he have a hamburger, you glassy-eyed moron?”

We never find out, but we do learn that Bryce must have seen something pretty awesome in his ~~vision~~ flashforward. Maybe he saw this show getting canceled! If I suddenly saw the future and Flashforward was no longer being produced, I’d probably stop cutting myself.

Back in Utah, Joe and Nulu fail utterly to track down D. Gibbons, but they do find an abandoned dollhouse that Joe saw a picture of in his vision, because hey, the only thing creepier than a little girl singing nursery rhymes in a slow tempo is an abandoned doll factory.

It’s just a good thing that they didn’t make the dolls sing in even creepier and even slower-tempoed little doll voices. That would be going too far. I’m glad this show was not quite so lazy as to have that happen.

Mac?

Oh crap. What is it this time?

Yeah, about the dolls not singing. I kind of blocked that out for you. They were singing their little plastic hearts out. It was so cliched that you actually blacked out for a while and started drawing prophetic free-verse poetry all over your wall in your own blood.

I don’t see any poetry.

Well that’s because your walls are already painted with your own blood. I kind of figured you had a tendency to draw things in blood when you get upset, so I took it upon myself to have you paint the house with your own blood in your sleep so at least it matches.

Wow. Thanks, brain!

Any time. I’m going to go back to tunneling through your frontal lobe like I’m Andy Dufresne. I’m outtie!

Oh, my brain. You’re so wacky!

Back to the show. Joe, Nulu, and my-favorite-new-character-the-lady-cop all head into the abandoned dollhouse together. It’s locked, and Joe wonders if a judge will think they had probable cause if they break in. Lady-cop assures them they will, because her father is the local judge and she pretty much runs this town with an iron fist. Fuck you, Fourth Amendment!

The trio busts into the warehouse, where hundreds of decaying dolls are hanging from the ceiling. You might think this is just a stupid way to make the warehouse unrealistically creepy, but you don’t understand how to make a doll, do you? It takes five steps.

1. Pour the plastic into a doll-mold, being sure to mix in a few drops of the tears of the little girl you have chained up in the basement. If you don’t, the doll won’t contain a part of her anguished soul, silly!

2. Buy and then shave a dozen guinea pigs, then use the fur to make the doll’s hair.

3. Attach hair with glue made out of Secretariat.

4. Install a digital audio playback device and miniature speaker inside the doll’s chest cavity, and then set it to only sing terrifying nursery rhymes whenever people are wandering through a dark room lit only by flashlights.

5. Hang the doll from the ceiling by its neck, then gaze at it lovingly while you contemplate the sweet release of your own death, sure to come once you finish making the prerequisite six hundred and sixty-six dolls your madness had demanded of you.

So as you can see, it makes sense that all the dolls would be hanging from the ceiling.

As the gang makes their way through the warehouse, Joe accidentally steps on a trap. This triggers all the dolls to start singing their nursery rhymes aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

WAKE UP!

Oh, man. I think I just passed out. Why do I have blood all over my hands?

Anyway, the trio bursts into a room where a mysterious man shrouded in shadow stands holding a lighter. Joe, despite holding a flashlight, decides against pointing it in the man’s face. Everyone shouts and yells for a bit, and the man gives a cryptic message about fate. Then he throws the lighter into an aquarium full of computers and gasoline (for real) and shoots Lady-Cop in the chest only moments before the entire room blows right the fuck up.

But don’t worry about our heroes, friends. Joe has the power to deflect explosions with the strength of his pointy glower. He merely turns his head to the direction of the blast and ups his pointiness to full glower. The explosion whimpers like a beaten puppy and scampers away from him out of pure terror. Nulu and Joe are completely unharmed, although Joe’s face is a little scuffed up, unable to hand the strength of its own pointiness.

Only it’s too late. I-I don’t even know how to write this. You guys, I hate to be the one who breaks this to you, b-but Lady-Cop? She...

She...

Oh god! She didn’t make it! She’s dead, you guys! She’s dead, and she’s never coming back! Oh cruel destiny, to bring such a vision of loveliness to our sight and then snatch her away! Damn you, fate! Damn you, universe! I will never forgive you for this.

I. Will. Never. Forgive. You.

To make matters worse, the mysterious shadowed man got away, leaving behind only a chess piece (and a bunch of computers, but fuck that, let’s focus on the chess piece) as a clue. I’m telling you, guys, I don’t know how Batman is going to catch the Riddler this week. He’s just too crafty!

It also turns out that the mysterious shadowed man has been using his completely destroyed and burned computers to hack into everything in the world. How does Nulu know this when the mysterious man specifically destroyed every piece of computer equipment he had in a gigantic fireball after dunking them in pure gasoline?

Shut up! That’s how! Stop asking questions and start listening to acoustic wuss-folk songs that play while various characters look sad about things!

That will prepare you for Non-American Lloyd telling his son that his mom’s dead, but Dylan doesn’t care. He just wants to see Olivia! Oh man! How does he know who Olivia is, and why would he possibly want to see a woman for whom he could only have, at best, a grand total of 2 minutes and 17 seconds worth of memories? Who cares? He’s autistic, and autistic is just another word for psychic. Everyone knows that.

Back at FBI Doltquarters, Lady-Dolt is using her power of magic technology to instantly track and trace any call made by a disposable phone, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were two people awake during the blackout.

After that stirring bit of investigative might, Lady-Dolt and Nulu spend some time talking about what Lady-Dolt saw in her ~~vision~~ flashforward: her being pregnant. Nulu suggests that she post about her experience on the Mosaic website so that ~~a few thousand people can attempt to steal her identity, scam her out of money in some way, or stalk her~~ she can find the doctor who was giving her the exam. She does this, and then tells Nulu he should write about how he didn’t see anything at all.

Nulu pouts a bit, and then decides that she has a point. He’s very upset because Lady-Cop died (I share your pain, Nulu) and that suggests that he too will die since neither of them had ~~visions~~ flashforwards.

Later that night, Olivia finds Joe back at home, since he and Nulu used their ~~transporter pad~~ helicopter to get back to town after their debacle in Utah and still have it be the same night.
She and Joe have a brief talk, with the only highlight of the scene being that Joe threw his daughter’s friendship bracelet in the fire.

Not because he was trying to subvert destiny, you understand. It’s because it’s become such a habit for him to throw things his daughter cares about in the fire.

After that, we find Nulu leaving the office at what is apparently sometime after 3 in the morning. He receives a call from a second Non-American Accented character. What the fuck, Flashforward? I’m not watching the United Nations summit on prophetic visions, here! What’s with all these people who don’t naturally have American accents refusing to put on terrible and obviously fake American accents! You were doing so well with Joe and Sadbeard, but now I have to question your commitment to the cause of forcing all non-American actors to put on bad American accents.

Anyway, the mysterious Non-American Lady tells Nulu that in her ~~vision~~flashforward, she saw that Nulu was shot to death on March 15th. Nulu’s all like, “Oh man, that kind of sucks” and then pouts a bit.

Even later that night (What the hell is it with this show having endless nights?) Joe creeps into Charlie’s room to see if he can break his current record of being able to stay in her presence for more than a minute and a half without throwing up. Before he can start his stopwatch, however, Charlie wakes up and begins to have a perfectly lucid conversation with him, because apparently all little girls who get woken up at 3AM are chipper and ready to talk.

Charlie admits that she’s confused about what her ~~vision~~ flashforward means. Joe explains that it’s “Just like when Mommy’s driving and she sees a yellow light. It means a stop sign is coming up.”

Now let’s be fair. Joseph Fiennes is a Not-American, so clearly he doesn’t know how to drive in this country. For all of you other Not-Americans out there, I’ll just point out that a yellow light means that a RED LIGHT is about to come up. It has nothing whatsoever to do with stop signs. I cannot tell you how livid I am that this mistake was made. This is unacceptable! It’s one thing to use horrible clichés, fake American accents, and nonsensical interpretations of time travel, but I will not stand idly by while the American Motorways system is so degraded! DO YOU HEAR ME, BRANNON BRAGA!? I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!

Oh and Charlie says something about D. Gibbons being an asshole. I didn’t really catch it because I was too busy ranting about this show’s flagrant disrespect for my nation of birth’s traffic laws. Fucking disgusting.

That’s it for the second episode of Flashforward. I hope you enjoyed experiencing what it’s like to lose all sense of reality, if only for an hour.

PS: Not enough Sadbeard!

Flashforward episode 01 - Reviewed with great snark.

2009-11-10T08:06:49Z

I used to watch Star Trek: Voyager. I did this not because it was a good show, but because it was a remarkably terrible show in a way that doesn't come around very often. Sure, there have been a lot of bad shows out there. Some of them have even been worse than Star Trek: Voyager. They just haven't been bad in quite the same way, and it wasn't until I bit the bullet and tried out Flashforward (mostly due to a few people assuring me it was one of the most hilariously terrible shows currently airing.)

Because there is a difference between bad and hilariously bad. Jeph Loeb is bad. Brannon Braga? He's hilarious bad.

The reason I bring up Voyager is that I used to write, under a different name and in a different psuedo-life, long and very snarky reviews of each episode. Seeing as how I've been agonizing over a new story idea for months now but haven't actually gotten past the HOLY-SHIT-I-HAVE-TOO-MANY-NOTES stage, I figure this might be a good way for me to get at least something resembling real writing done.

So let's get to it. Flashforward. Brannon Braga's latest epic of stupidity. Warning: you know how I'm all wordy when I write stories? Yeah, I'm wordy here too*. I hope you like long reviews filled with lots of sarcasm and bitterness.

Joseph Fiennes wakes up in an overturned car, his pointy, glowery face covered in blood. He huffs and puffs in that emotional way that men on television do when they're frightened but too main-characterish to actually cry. He crawls out of the wreckage to find that all the people are around him are screaming, crying, bleeding, and generally freaking right the hell out.

One guy has even managed to get himself lit FULLY THE FUCK ON FIRE, which seems highly unlikely given he's running around the streets that way. I mean sure, maybe if he crashed into another car and somehow got gasoline doused over his entire body and then something sparked I could maybe see him being completely engulfed in flames, but I would think by then it would be a little late for him to go flailing about the countryside screaming his flamey little head off.

But there's no time (time, get it!?) to deal with the Human Torch, because ironically enough we're going to have a flashBACK before the credits even roll.

Joseph Fiennes is going about his morning in Perfectville, USA. Everything is awesome. His super-whimsical wife leaves him angry notes about how terrible he is in the locked safe where he keeps his gun. Ha ha! Just the kind of thing that a husband loves to see from his wife. "Oh honey, you're so hilarious when you break into my gun-safe where I keep my deadly weaponry and then write me angry messages telling me how bad I suck. That is not a warning sign at all, but is instead a whimsical sign of just how much we love each other!"

So Joseph "My life is perfect and nothing can ever ruin it" Fiennes grabs his guns (plural) and then kisses his sexy wife good-morning, cooks his perfect-daughter breakfast, and even has a moment to have a delightfully charming moment of awkwardness with his ethnic landscaper, Hector, followed by a brief conversation with his hot ~~pornstar~~ babysitter, Nicole.

Meanwhile, Joe's wife is up and busy ignoring her daughter while she calls some dude named Bryce. Turns out Bryce wasn't at rounds yesterday, and Joe's wife is darned upset about this. Bryce, as it turns out, is at the pier being all suicidal at the same moment that Brannon Braga's name shows up on screen. COINCIDENCE? Oh, I think not.

While Bryce is taking out his clickety-clacking gun (all guns must clickety-clack on television, lest we as viewers remain confused as to their gunliness), another sad moment is taking place. Sadbeard, a man with the saddest and yet simultaneously most wonderful beard of all time, is quite sad. You see, his daughter was killed in Afghanistan, and he's a bebearded (it's like bespectacled, but with a beard) alcoholic who started drinking again because of it. Turns out he's Joe's sponsor, and the two of them apparently go to AA meetings on weekday mornings before work, because that makes a lot of sense.

Joe finally gets to work, which consists of him reading a newspaper while his partner, Demetri "Nulu**" Noh hangs out of the window of their car and takes pictures of a blonde woman with his humongous telephoto lens, because the FBI has trained him to be as stealthy as an invisible ninja cat.

But wait! Demetri's partner Joseph Fiennes is suddenly gone, only to be replaced with Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. You can tell it's him because he speaks in a low whispery kind of voice, glowers a lot, and has a vaguely foreign pronunciation to random words. Poor Connor. Who wants to live forever when love must die? *sniff*

Turns out Demetri is getting married soon, and boy does he want to blabber expositionally about it for a while. Meanwhile, Connor MacLeod's wife (she doesn't DESERVE a name!) is scrubbing up for surgery, and across town her neglected daughter is locked in her room while the babysitter sexes up her boyfriend (the babysitter's boyfriend, not Joe/Connor's wife).

Lots of things happen! Car chase with blonde lady! Sexing up of boyfriend! Imminent suicide via bullet to the chin! "Scalpel"ing of saying scalpel in order to officially begin surgery! Being a little girl who is asleep and also named Charlie because that is just so whimsical!

And at the very moment that Nulu and Connor (get used to my "hilarious" nicknames) are about to crash into a gasoline tanker, suddenly Connor has a weird vision of some kind. He's in an office and he has a big corkboard full of random pictures and red thread connected to various other pictures, just like every crazy obsessed person has in every movie or television show ever. I am forced to wonder: has anyone ever made a collage of miscellaneous bits of data and then connected one bit to another with red yarn in real life? If so, can I get their address so I can let the authorities know that they should probably be under surveillance? Thanks.

So the vision: crazy collage, gunmen in clown masks with laser sights that are somehow continuous beams of light because if it was good enough for the Borg then it's good enough for masked gunmen, wearing a friendship bracelent, and all kinds of other stuff like drinking alcohol while looking at the date: April 20th, 2010! Why, that's still kinda the future!

Once the vision is over, Connor MaCleod of the Clan Squinty-Gloweriness wakes up at the beginning of the episode. He quickly gets his shit together and takes off his jacket in an attempt to snuff out the flames that are still FULLY ENGULFING that one guy, but unfortunately for that one guy, everything blows right the crap up.

Connor MacShakespeareinlove glowers and points his face-pointiness in the general direction of the explosion, however, and this causes the burning debris to deflect around him, leaving him completely unharmed. Luckily for Joe/Connor/I'llneverlearnhischaracter'srealname, I'm sure he'll never need to use this miraculous power to deflect explosions with the power of his glower ever again.

So a lot of people die as helicopters crash into buildings, surfers stop surfing, and cars generally murder people with impugnity. The good news? Bryce didn't kill himself! Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one: literally! Ha ha ha!

And now, ladies and gentleman, the one line that convinced me that this show was pure Brannon Braga cheesy awfulness. Prepare yourself.

Nicole, the aforementioned crazy hot babysitter, wakes up on the floor, then rushes upstairs to make sure Charlie isn't dead or popping pills or cutting herself or any of the delightful things that children with whimsical names in television shows do. Turns out Charlie's sitting up in bed and doing her very best to channel every creepy little girl in every horror movie ever. She comes dangerously close to reciting a nursery rhyme in a British accent, that's how powerfully she's channeling.

So Nicole asks Charlie if she's okay, and Charlie replies, as any prepubescent girl of similar age and intelligence would reply, "I had a bad dream. I dreamed there were no more good days."

No, Branno Braga, David S. Goyer, and anyone else responsible for such an idiotic line. She did not dream that. Nor did she think that, say that, or even comprehend that. She is a child, and children do not talk like that. You hurt the very core of my life. You stabbed at my sense of rightness. You shot me in the soul with pretentious, and I shall never forgive you.

"I dreamed there were no more good days."

Fuck you, no you didn't. You are not Charlie, the six-to-possibly-nine year old girl. You are an evil Bragan automaton sent here to ruin the concept of fiction. You are a formal declaration of war on all that is good in the world. You suck.

Anyway, back out on the streets, Connor MacLeod and Nulu spot the SUV of the blonde terrorist girl they were chasing. Nulu drags her out of the car and interrogates her while Connor glowers at her and debates growling at her in his bad American accent. Soon though, everyone realizes that even blonde-terrorist-girl is a victim of the mass-blackout. Nulu tells Connor to go check up on his family, and so now it is time for:

SLOW-MO-JOE-FOE! (Let's pretend his name is Joseph Foenes just for the sake of the rhyme.)

Joe goes running through the streets in slow-mo, pausing briefly to aknowledge a random homeless man he happens to come across, which better pay off ten episodes from now because otherwise that was just an odd and confusing scene that had no purpose to it.

After giving the homeless guy a little reassuring shoulder-squeeze, Connor MacLeod (Okay, that's the last time I'll use Connor MacLeod for a while) then finds himself in front of a big puddle that just happens to me in the middle of what is apparently downtown Los Angeles. Not sure where the water came from, but the point is that it's totally freaky how two people drowned face down in it by passing out in the water. Joe is so horrified that he goes wading into the puddle while a giant electrical transformer sparks nonstop just a few feet away.

That's Joseph Fiennes, trained FBI agent, wading into a giant pool of water not but a foot away from a sparking transformer. Good move.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Los Angeles have taken to looting anything they can get their looty little hands on, because if there's one thing we've learned it's that when a crisis happens and you want to get to looting, LA is the place to be. If you're in New York you're just shit out of luck, since when bad things happen there people tend to be too busy running and/or helping to actualy start looting. Stupid New Yorkers and their goddamn sense of humanity.

Then a kangaroo hops by. You might think to yourself, “Well that sure is a strange and random thing to have happen. Either Brannon Braga and his team of dolts are doing something genuinely unexpected, or they’re simply doing their best to mimic Lost by having weird things happen for seemingly no reason.”

Ah, but you aren’t thinking Three-Dumbensionally. You see, the unexpectedness of the kangaroo is to distract you from the pure and raging lazy cliche of the “electronics store televisions showing the newscast” exposition scene. Cause you know how when you go by an electronics store and you see televisions in the window they’re always A) tuned to the news and B) have the sound turned on? Oh and also C) exist in a crisis in Los Angeles and haven’t been looted yet?

Happens all the time, right?

So the exposition: Everyone in the world blacked out for roughly two minutes, and somehow there are dozens, if not hundreds of airlplanes that just fell out of the sky during that time. Because apparently airplanes are like cars and if you’re not there to constantly put your foot on the gas, they just kind of peter out and go crashing down to the earth. Autopilot? What? That only exists in science fiction, idiot! This is a realistic show about people seeing the future and stopping explosions with the power of their pointy faces!

PS: WATCH DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, A SHOW THAT JUST HAPPENS TO BE ON ABC! I don’t know why I said that. Could it be the giant DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES ad on a bus behind Joseph Fiennes? Nah. It must be that I just really want to watch that show I’ve never seen.

Joe gets his wife on the phone and she couldn’t give half a crap that he’s still alive. She hangs up before he can tell her he loves her, so Joe spends the next few seconds doing his not-crying huffing and puffing while he does his best to pointify his face even pointier.

Later, Joe’s in a meeting with all his FBI buddies. Everyone tries to figure out what’s going on, but it’s only Joe with his power of having a pointy glower that can figure out the truth. He’s had a vision of the future! Wait, no, that’s not marketable enough.

He’s had a FLASHFORWARD! (Cue theme music)

“But we are skeptical,” his stupid pals all mutter and mumble as they chew their cud and stare at him with their uncomprehending cow eyes. “You were probably just hallucinating, Joseph Fiennes!”

“Nuh-uh,” Joe counters. “It couldn’t have been a hallucination. It felt too real.”

Oh of course, Joe. Because we all know the way you categorize a hallucination is thusly: if it feels real, it’s not a hallucination! That’s why crazy people always know reality from delusion. It’s because hallucinations feel kind of like you’re floating in cotton candy and seltzer-water. You couldn’t have possibly been hallucinating because it felt too real.

Joe is promptly fired from his position at the FBI. All his former friends point and laugh at him derisively as he mopes forlornly out of the building. Demetri Noh, his former partner, kicks him swiftly in the butt just as he leaves the building. Joe tries to glower pointingly at him, but his powers are gone. As he crosses the street to his car he is hit by six buses in a row, but dies of a broken heart before his internal bleeding can do the job first.

Oh wait, that’s just my flashforward, which I know will come true because it just felt too real.

Back in the actual show, Joe has figured out, through the use of several more idiotic leaps of “logic” that he and everyone else on the planet have all seen the future, and specifically the same future at the same moment.

Which right away we know can’t be true, because any intelligent person would immediately go get a tattoo on their hand that reads “Hey, you are seeing a vision of the future of April 19th, 2010!” or something similar to that. And since such a tattoo did not exist on their hand in the future, time is mutable and prophecy is negated.

The end!

Oh right, this is a show by Brannon Braga. Okay, so the collection of FBI dolts figures out to start corroborating their ~~visions~~ flashforwards with others. Which is entirely pointless because just a few moments later we get more TV exposition, including another gaping logic chasm.

It seems that everyone can tell they’ve seen the same date in the future because they all report seeing the same things in newspapers and on the news in their visions: a senator in a scandal, the dow going up, riots in Ghana...

...TODAY IS THE DAY WE ALL SAW SIX MONTHS AGO? No? Really?

I mean you would think a few newspapers would have a headline that read, “Today’s the day!” or something similar. The whole world sees the same date but when that date finally comes, nobody mentions it or thinks it’s weird? Nobody leaves messages for their future self to see?

Of course not, because then we’re in paradox territory. So instead, the entire world is filled with puppet-people who must follow the whims of destiny even when they’ve been granted a cruel glimpse into that destiny. So even though I saw a future where I get second place in a Greatest Person Alive contest, I can do nothing in the remaining six months to increase or decrease my chances of winning first place. I am doomed to repeat the exact same actions I saw regardless of what I would clearly decide to do based on those actions.

Or the future that I saw was not my future but some alternate reality’s future, in which case it is long-since become meaningless now that chaos theory’s taken effect.

Premise of the entire show? Crumbled to dust. THE END!

But of course the FBI dolts don’t care about logic. They have a Brannon Braga show to put on!

“So,” the collective dolts ask themselves. “How do we compare the ~~visions~~ flashforwards of seven billion people? Such a task would take an incredible number of man-hours, necessitate some kind of screening system, as well as a full-time task force to verify the legitimacy of each individual claim. The chances of such a system being implemented in the six months we have until the date of the ~~vision~~ flashforward are slim at best, but I guess it’s ou--”

“A website!” girl-dolt exclaims. “We’ll make a website where people can write in their ~~visions~~ flashforwards, and then all we have to do is look at them!”

“You tremendous nincompoop,” Joe replies. “The internet can’t decide on the truth for things that ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE. You think we’re going to get accurate reports based on a two minute ~~vision~~ flashforward of the future? Not to mention the amount of lolcats, memes, Rickrolls, and Anonymous 4chan postings we’ll get. This is the most outrageously stupid idea since they put Brannon Braga in charge of TWO Star Treks.”

“Great, I’ll get right on it!” girl-dolt says cheerfully, her jaw being worked by the dark psionic powers of Brannon Braga. Her eyes light up with fear as she’s forced to recite his terrible, terrible words. “We can technojargon all of the stories and then look for patterns!”

Joe glowers pointingly, his pointiness pointing pointedly at her, then points his pointy face gloweringly at everyone else as he points his face through all the clues he can remember from his ~~vision~~ flashforward.

That’s when Nulu reveals his dark secret. He had no ~~vision~~ flashforward! “I didn’t see anything!” he laments.

“Maybe you were just sleeping,” Joe suggests.

“If I was sleeping, then I would be dreaming, duhhhhh,” Brannon Braga says through Nulu. “Everyone knows that when you’re sleeping you are dreaming a full 100% of the time you’re asleep. At no point during the sleeping process are you just unconscious. Also: there is absolutely no other possible way I could be unconscious either. I was dead! I’m going to die! *POUT*”

Nulu pouts. Joe glowers pointingly.

Sometime after that, Joe remembers that he has a daughter and that neither he nor his wife have gone to check up on her since the entire fucking world collapsed into anarchy. He gets home just in time to mope on his stairs while the sexy babysitter comes traipsing down in her miniskirt and boots. He asks her how Charlie is, suggesting that he still hasn’t even bothered to check up on his daughter.

Meanwhile, Joe’s wife Linda or Libby or Livia, or Listless or something is still at the hospital being both a surgeon, and ER doctor, and apparently a primary care physician all at the same time. She decides, “Hey, fuck this going home to see if my daughter is okay business, I’m going to stick around here and chat with Bryce.”

And that she does. Bryce explains how he saw something fan-fucking-tastic in his ~~vision~~ flashforward, and that convinced him to not kill himself. Joe’s wife, being the competent and professional doctor that she is, does not suggest that Bryce get the hell out of the hospital and into psychiatric treatment before he’s allowed to start treating patients again. Instead she tells Bryce that she saw the end of her marriage. Awww.

Speaking of things that are sad: SADBEARD is back! Hooray! I sure missed his glorious beard.

The last we saw of him he was dangling beardedly from the top of a telephone pole. Now he’s in Joe’s kitchen and he’s brought his beard with him. Sadbeard listens intently while Joe explains that in his ~~vision~~ flashforward, he was drinking again. Sadbeard is all, “Yeah, hey, that’s great, but shut up now, for Sadbeard has something to say. When Sadbeard was having his ~~vision~~ Beardforward, Sadbeard saw something that made Sadbeard less sad. Sadbeard saw Sadbeard’s daughter, alive!”

“What?” Joe gasps. “Sadbeard, are you sure?”

“Sadbeard sure!” says Sadbeard’s beard. “Sadbeard must believe! Sadbeard will team up with Sadbeard’s beard to save Sadbeard’s daughter! Also: for some reason, Sadbeard is angry that Sadbeard is hopeful that Sadbeard’s daughter might be alive! Sadbeard is confused by this, but Sadbeard is on a Brannon Braga show, so Sadbeard not expect much in the way of human emotions. SADBEARD SAD!”

Joe’s face glowers pointingly.

Later that endless, ENDLESS night, Joe decides to fix the garage door opener. Why? Because his daughter is a spoiled bitch who can deal with her post traumatic stress disorder all by her damn self, THAT’S WHY!

It’s only after his wife returns that they go check up on their only daughter, who is by then sleeping the fitful sleep of the permanently scarred. They spend a few minutes staring creepily at her, then head off for bed. Joe’s wife (Libyan? Librarian? Olivian? Olive Yarn?) reveals that in her ~~vision~~ Joe’swifeforward, she was about to get all randy with some other man.

That other man? Why, none other than the father of the kid that Joe’s wife has been treating in the hospital! The very same!

Joe gives his wife his best Connor MacLeod whispers as he reassures her that everything will be okay, then they make out for a bit before going to sleep.

Except then Joe is teleported into his clothing and into his own backyard where he sits and glowers, pointing his arrow-like face at anything that moves. His daughter approaches him to tell him she had a bad dream, which you might think is a completely ridiculous thing for a daughter to do (wake up in the middle of the night and head out into the backyard to look for a parent for comfort when her mother was right there in her bedroom) but what you don’t understand is that Charlie is a horribly neglected young girl, and she’s also written by people who work for Brannon Braga. So clearly when she wakes up from a nightmare her first thought is “I’ll go look in the backyard to see if Daddy is practicing his pointed glower.”

Charlie, exhibiting all the acting talent of a lobotomized Jake Lloyd, gives her father the friendship bracelet he saw in his ~~vision~~ Pointglowered. This greatly upsets Joseph Fiennes, who points his pointy face up at the night sky and glowers. Pointingly.

The Eternal Night continues as we cut to Nulu still working at the office and trying to reassure his fiancee that everything’s cool. FBI dolt (girl version) tells him to come check something out, and they watch a video of some guy walking around a stadium during the blackout. Who is this man? Why is there only grainy surveillance cam footage of a major stadium during what appears to be a baseball game that would almost assuredly be televised? Why won’t this night ever end?

Because FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY!

So ends the first episode of Flashforward, and if my sick fascination with lazy television continues, there will be more snark to come in the future.

*Toldja.

**Or Newlu or Newlew or even just New Sulu, depending on your vernacular. Harold is no longer accepted, and Kumar’s the guy from House, dummy.

M. McGregor, the living legend (so dreamy!), at your service.

2009-11-06T23:50:17Z

I feel that I have not been taken advantage of lately. Let's face it: I'm a witty guy. You know it, I know it, I know it, and especially I know it. I take great joy in being clever, irreverent, and/or hilariously cranky.

The only problem is thus: my cleverness is confined to too small a space! It is bursting to be released; to be spread over the surface of the world like a biblical flood of confusing references and awful puns. I have too much clever for any one man, even if that one man is me.

So please, friends (and enemies who like to keep an eye on me), use me. Take advantage of my wit. Need a snappy retort for an internet argument you're having? Enlist my aid! Need to know how to chat up that girl you're stalking? Come to ol' Mac for the right moves to get you out of the stalking and into the talking. Wonder how you can tell your boss you hate them while also kissing his or her ass? I've got the mojo you is lookin' fo'-jo!

Just ask!

Advice, jokes, insults, abstract descriptions of space-time in relation to the soul, or even a fake compliment to make you feel better, I am here to help. Ask and ye shall receive*!

*Disclaimer: No asking for fic, poetry, song lyrics, or visual art of any kind. Rhymes are acceptable in small doses. Offer void when doing so will promote my own sinister agenda.

Any and all services provided by M. McGregor are for entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as A) genuine sexual attraction to you or subjects you designate B) genuine friendship or affection of any kind towards you or subjects you designate, C) genuine exhibition of morals, ethics, or basic humanity, D) a referendum on the current administration, E) factual information, F) a response in any way relevant to your request G) entertaining, or T) pertaining to any sense of understanding in regards to the order of letters in the English alphabet.

Complaints should be addressed to:

ATTN: Santa Claus
RE: You Suck, Old Man
C/O: News Corporation
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

End User License Agreement: The end user, hereby referred to as THE SUCKER, shall hereby be referred to as THE DOLT. THE DOLT, hereby referred to as WHATTAMAROON, shall hereby be referred to as PEGGY.

PEGGY agrees that his or her fifth-born male son, if born with eyes flecked with silver and a peculiar birthmark shaped like a pelican on the outer right thigh, shall be taught how to play the piano, how to ride a horse, and shall also be made to relinquish their untainted soul to power the unholy armies of M. MCGREGOR, hereby referred to as THE DARK ONE. PEGGY, hereby referred to as THE CHAMP, shall hereby be referred to as CORDIAL DEMEANOR. THE DARK ONE, hereby referred to as PEGGY, shall hereby be referred to as THE CHAMP PART TWO: CHAMP HARDER. CORDIAL DEMEANOR, hereby referred to as THE CHAMP PART THREE: THE CHAMPENING, shall hereby be referred to as THE DARK ONE. THE CHAMP PART TWO: CHAMP HARDER, hereby referred to as THE PIPS, shall be granted dominion over all the races of man for a trial period of ninety (90) days, after which THE DARK ONE, hereby referred to as FRED SAVAGE, shall restore all rights and privileges to each individual on earth, hereby referred to as EVERYBODY, YO.

EVERYBODY, YO, hereby referred to as THE CHAMP, shall grant FRED SAVAGE, hereby referred to as ROVER, the opportunity to marry THE PIPS, hereby referred to as THE CHAMP PART FOUR: LEPRECHAUN VS. JASON IN SPACE. THE CHAMP PART FOUR: LEPRECHAUN VS. JASON IN SPACE, hereby referred to as DOCTOR FASTIDIOUSNESS, shall be given four (4) days in which to find and kill the CHUPACABRA, hereby referred to as THE CHAMP PART FIVE: ELECTRIC CHAMPALOO. At the end of this period, if DOCTOR FASTIDIOUSNESS, hereby referred to as HEREBY REFERRED TO is unsuccesful, then all of his goats are transferred to ROVER, hereby referred to as HERBIE REEFERED TOO.

If, however, HEREBY REFERRED TO, hereby referred to as THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE CHAMP PART TWO, should succeed in finding and killing THE CHAMP PART FIVE: ELECTRIC CHAMPALOO, hereby referred to as CHAMP: THE BOOK: THE MOVIE, then he is granted all the rights and privileges of ZEUS, GOD OF THUNDER, hereby referred to as BENJI THE DOG.

Freshness date: The amusement park. That place is a totally fresh place for a date, dawg.

CAUTION: This product contains peanuts.

Why am I bothering, seriously?

2009-11-04T00:18:53Z

I know this is a waste of time and I should have given up on this show two years ago, but I can't help myself.

Dear Writing Staff of Heroes,

Are you somehow under the impression that "three years ago" is actually "fifty years ago"? That is the only explanation for having a kid show up dressed like he's Howdy Doody, complete with plastic toy revolvers and cowboy hat. I honestly cannot think of a more cliched and stupid stock child character.

Congratulations on continuing to make incredibly moronic decisions for apparently no reason other than pure laziness.

Love,

M. Mcgre...eh, what's the use?

A wicked wandering once walked!

2009-10-31T19:15:27Z

In a wood, cold and full of dread
I wandered, bold and bullish’d head
To find the sisters three of which were witches.

Winding gnarled amidst the black
My journey twisted off the track
As the thumping of my heart itch and twitches.

But hearken unto me, my friend
Through the dark I did see the end
And so I passed into their hateful curs-ed space.

“What ho!” I cried in shaking tone
“What’s this?” replied a quaking crone.
“A man clasp’d unto fate’s cruel and mocking japes?”

“Sisters please, I must have your aid
“My job is lost; my bills unpaid
“Blackest magic must I have just to survive!”

The oldest of the sisters three
Turned gray and cloudy eyes to me,
“Quackest sad thick just to laugh must you now tithe!”

I stared at her; the others too
Too scared to now know what to do
Could the dread three be mad as well as wick-ed?

I tried again: “Your help I beg!”
“Please cast a spell to save this dreg,
“Lest it be said this man’s been hellish trick-ed!”

“Oh Sane are we,” the youngest creak’d.
“And know we of the man you speak’d.
“He is an enemy of all we witch-es.”

“And so shall we speak jibb’rishly
“One who seeks us from such as he”
“We listen to a many frog see rich-es!”

“I plead, dread sisters, tweak me not,
“With these dead twisted words of rot
“Or shall I show to you my bound-less power?”

“Do your worst, no fear have we
“Think you first to speak threatingly?
“This gall we’ve known in many count-less hours!”

“Then taste my might, sisters of lie!
“Tis great and right, that you should die!
“To this guy, living legend, M. McGregor!”

I loosed a curse, dark heavy and
They soon turned into lez-bians
Tis all my writing’s urgented endeavor.

For though I’ve authored much in life
You know I’m known for wife on wife
It has thus become my great queer’d magic hope

Don’t pity me nor sisters three
The sisters part was falsity
This was just to welcome Shakespeare’s tragic trope.

The three then left for gaity
I’d freed them from cliche-ity
But from fate: was none to save, trick-or-free me

I was left as is always true:
Alone, bereft, with balls of blue
It’s now too late, brave McGregor (so dreamy!)

Happy New Year, everyone!

The scariest Halloween story you will ever read: GUARANTEED TIMES A MILLION!

2009-10-30T15:38:30Z

Title: Late Morning of the Living
Author: M. McGregor
Warnings: If you're easily scared: LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! (Also: Zombies)
Notes: I originally wrote this story for Christmas, but I figured what the heck, I might as well post it now.

“Brains?” the pretty woman with half a face and almost a full eyeball asked. She gesticulated clumsily in the direction of the menu.

“Uhhh, brains,” Rob replied. It was hard to decide what he wanted. Everything looked so good.

“Brains. Braaaaaiins,” the woman replied cheerfully. She turned back to the kitchen workers behind her. “Braaains!”

“Brraaaaiins,” one of the workers said, then worked its -- Rob couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman -- jaw up and down a few times. The left half of the jawbone was disconnected from its face, and the remaining bone popped loudly as it moved. “Brains!”

“Brains,” the woman said to Rob. She held out her hand, palm up. She was missing two fingers and half of her thumb, but she was able to close the remaining digits over the blood-soaked ten dollar bill that Rob placed in her decaying palm. The woman let out a gurgling choking noise as she bashed at the cash register with her other hand -- other stump, actually -- and then finally put the money away.

Rob hissed out air through his damaged trachea and let his one working eye roam around the fast-brains store while he waited for his meal to be finished. There were only a few customers in the store this early. Most zombies didn’t come out for brainsfast until well after noon, but he had spent most of his unlife being an early bird.

It was just another average day for Rob. He had stumbled out of the dark abandoned warehouse he shared with three hundred other zombies bright and early that morning, then pushed his way through the mass of bodies until he made his way into the harsh light of day. Then he had stumbled to the fast-brains store and got his brainsfast. Afterwards, he would spend a productive day ambling up and down the city streets talking with his zombie friends.

Yes, unlife was pretty nice in this utopic society he and his fellow undead had crafted for themselves. He was sure it would last forever: or at least until they had all decayed to the point where they could no longer move, but that wouldn’t be for a few centuries at least.

Rob scratched his liver and then pushed one of his exposed ribs back into place. It sure was taking them a long time to make his brains. What was taking so long? He had a lot of ambling to do today. He still wanted to know just what the hell Greg had meant yesterday when he’d said, “BRRRaaaaIIIIINS.” That had been weighing heavily on Rob’s mind all night.

“Brains,” someone whispered in quiet astonishment. Rob tried to turn to look, but his neck snapped and his head lolled to one side. He gargled blood and pus through his mangled throat and then swiveled his entire body to look sideways at the speaker. A man with one leg and a completely exposed torso was gaping out the window. His eyes were wide, but Rob wasn’t sure if that was from fright or because he had no eyelids. When the man spoke again, it became clear that it was in fright. “Braaaiiins!”

“Brains? Brains? Brraains?” came the confused replies of the other patrons of the store. Everyone shambled to the window to see what had so shaken the torso-less man. Rob made his way to the window as well, dragging his one useless leg behind him and doing his best to realign his neck as he went.

What he saw shook him from the tip of his exposed skull to the bottom of his corroded toes.

There was a man ambling down the street.

No. That wasn’t right. He was not ambling. He was striding. He was walking with his head held high. He had two eyes, two arms, two legs, a torso, and skin covering his entire musculature. His clothing was clean and lacked holes or tears. His hair was clean. He was clean.

“BRAINS!” a woman shrieked from beside Rob. “BRRAAIIINS!”

“Brains!” Rob roared back at her. She was hysterical. There was no such thing as the Nondead. This was some kind of Zombiewood hoax.

“Braaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnssss!” groaned the woman, jabbing the stump of her upper arm towards the window. Rob couldn’t argue with that logic. How could such a thing be faked? The way the man walked, it was so confident and graceful. He never stumbled even once as he made his way down the street. He even had shoes on.

Rob felt a sick feeling of liveliness in the distended pit of his stomach. Could this be real? Could this be the Beginning Time?

The man was getting closer. The zombies inside the fast-brains store were beginning to panic. “Brains? Braaains! Brains brains! BRRAAAINS!”

“BRAINS!” Rob belched through the black blood gurgling out of the hole in his neck. “Brains!”

The others silenced. Rob held up his one good hand and pointed to his half-ear. “Brains.”

They did as they were asked and remained quiet, all listening intently. At first they could hear nothing but the sounds of various guts and fluids splattering onto the floor. Then, almost inaudible at first, they could hear the striding man’s voice.

“I am interested in eating something nutritionally valuable and preferably well-cooked!”

“BRRAAAIIINSS!” two of the women shrieked. They pivoted on their stumps and shuffled as quickly as they could for the exit. Rob and two others blocked their path. Were they trying to get them all resurrected!?

“Someone please get me a steak, medium-well, and perhaps some potatoes and a nice salad!” the man outside called in a clear and easily understood voice.

“Brains brains brains, brains brains, brains brraaains, brraaaiiiiins, brains brains. Brains brains: brains,” Rob told the others.

“Brains braiiins, brrraaains,” the woman behind the counter agreed. The others all nodded, groaned, or otherwise gave their agreement. It was their only chance. If they could slip out the back before the Nondead man spotted them, they might unlive through this day.

It took them all nearly ten minutes to shuffle, moaning and groaning in fear, to the back of the shop. There, the woman who’d been working the counter (her name was either Jane or Blain, it was hard to tell because her tongue had begun to fall out) took another two minutes to grasp the key in her mangled hand and open the lock on the back door. Rob’s heart felt as if it were pounding twice a minute. They could hear the man at the front of the store now, his voice loud and demanding.

“Does anyone have a hot pocket? I would settle for a bowl of cereal or maybe some oatmeal!”

“BRRAAIINS!” one of the women groaned, and clutched at Rob for comfort with her stumps. Rob drooled a little and then reached out to grasp the door handle. It was hard to get a good grip, but soon he had it.

He swung the door open.

A woman stood on the other side. She was dressed in untattered jeans, leather boots, and a sweatshirt. She smiled at them with a hideous set of unbroken teeth and said, “Hello, do you have any ice cream?”

Rob screamed. “BRRAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSSSS!”

But it was too late. The Late Morning of the Living had begun.

THE END.

Query!

2009-10-29T16:15:13Z

Anyone out there watching Flash Forward, and if so, can you tell me if I should risk watching it? I'm pretty desperate for a good sci-fi show these days. Heroes is less painfully awful now that Jeph Loeb is out of the picture (I don't know if you know this, but I've a bit of a distaste for that fellow), but it's still not great, Fringe was just kind of silly and stupidly gruesome when I tried to watch a few episodes of it, Warehouse 13 was okay (and just as silly if not sillier than Fringe, but at least it knew it), I caught back up on Lost a few months ago and found I quite enjoyed it but there won't be new episodes for a while, and if you say Stargate Universe I will punch you in the mind (although I do admit from what I've seen it's the best Stargate so far, but that's not saying much).

Also, while I know it's not technically sci-fi, I tried to watch The Big Bang Theory. I am astonished by how terrible that show is. I'm sure someone who is a fan of it will tell me it gets better in later seasons (I always try to watch a show from the first episode onward), and I will reply to you: OF COURSE IT IS. It could not get worse than that first season. Painfully, painfully unfunny, more than a little racist, more than a little sexist, and just plain old horrible TGIF style sitcom terribleness.

I mean really: a laugh track? This is 2009. I can't watch a show with a laugh track anymore.

I've digressed. My point is that while I am lacking in sci-fi shows to watch, I have heard of this Flash Forward show, although I know very little about it except for what I let myself read of its wikipedia page. Unfortunately every time I go to that page, there is one pertinent fact that makes me think I need to avoid that show like it was Jeph Loeb Twilight Fanfiction:

Brannon Braga is the creator.

For those of you who don't know: before Jeph Loeb was stinking up everything he touched and ruining amazing things that other people made awesome, Brannon Braga was showing him how it was done. Brannon Braga is behind the destructively awful Star Trek: Voyager (Believe me, I can get into this if you want) and Enterprise (later, Star Trek: Enterprise). He did more than any other person in history to attempt to murder-death-kill the Star Trek franchise. If there was any creator I loathe more than Jeph Loeb, it is Brannon Braga (and his satanic twin: Rick Berman.)

So please, you must tell me: can I watch Flash Forward and forget that he has anything to do with that show? Could he possibly be Brannon-Braga-with-Ronald-Moore Brannon Braga? The good version of Brannon Braga, before he went to the darkside? Could it be the Brannon Braga who wrote Cause and Effect instead of the Brannon Braga who wrote Threshold?

Tell me, because even though I will watch almost anything if it's even remotely sci-fi (the aforementioned Stargate series being the prime example of my insanity), I don't know if I can bring myself to watch another Brannon Braga show.

Help me, my nerdly friends. Help me.

The gospel according to M. McGregor (Or: Jeph Loeb ruins my day again)

2009-10-28T13:23:54Z

So I'm playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 because I am of course a giant comic nerd. I stopped playing it for a while but I decided to pick it up again, and I finally unlocked the Hulk, which was pretty much the whole reason I wanted the game in the first place.

Overjoyed by having a legitimate reason to scream "HULK SMASH!" at the top of my lungs, I went to merrily smacking around legions of redshirted minions. After defeating fifty of said minions, I am awarded with a prize: Hulk's alternate costume!

"Excelsior!," I thought to myself, for that is the comic-nerdiest of all exclamations. "Not only will I be able to play as the Hulk, but I will most assuredly get to play as my favorite version of the Hulk ever, and the Hulk that is widely regarded as being the star of the best Hulk storyline of all time. I will get to play as The Green Scar Hulk from Planet Hulk!"

I tell you, my nerd glee had reached a level I can only describe as being the exact opposite of the rage we all feel at Greedo shooting first. I pumped my fist into the air whilest simultaneously opening the menu screen with my other hand. Beads of sweat rolled off my forehead as I began to shake in anticipation of the awesome that I would soon be witnessing.

Then, with my heart pounding and my eyes widening so as to absorb as much of the soon-to-be-projected-image of Hulk in his Planet Hulk armor, I selected the Hulk and pressed the L2 button: Swap Costume.

The image of Captain America's shield logo came onto the screen as the game accessed the information. Surely there was no more appropriate seal of approval for what I was about to witness. Only Superman's S was more worthy of acting as the intermediary between the already Incredible Hulk and the even more tremendously glorious Green Scar. I leaned forward. Any moment now, the only possible costume any competent developer would ever give Hulk as an unlockable would be mine to behold.

Oh how those seconds dragged! I assure you, true believer, that in those moments my heart beat no less than a thousand times and my life flashed before my eyes so many times that I began to quote large portions of the lecture I got for running across the street without holding my mom's hand when I was four. Outside my window, a flash of light was followed almost immediately thereafter by a crack of thunder. The heavens themselves were trembling at the magnificence of what I was about to witness!

The game froze. So did my heart. For one terrifying moment I was sure the game had been destroyed, fully incapable of rendering the sheer transcendent majesty I had been promised. Six different blood vessels popped in my brain, but somehow I survived.

I now wish I hadn't.

For in the next instant, the game unfroze, and I gazed upon the true face of horror.

Jeph Loeb's Red Hulk stared back at me.

I screamed the name of every god and devil I knew as I flung myself away from the ghastly image. I shut my eyes and begged it to be untrue, for reality to be a lie, for these terrible nightmare to end!

And I realized that it had. This could not be reality. This was beyond hell. This was Red Hulk.

I did the only sensible thing and quickly gouged out my eyes. With no tools close enough to assist in the job, my own fingers would have to suffice. The contaminated jelly seemed eager to go, for I had little trouble at all in scooping them out and stomping them on the floor.

Alas, even the perpetual darkness of blindness offered me no sanctuary from Jeph Loeb's creation of mediocrity and stupidity. The sight was burned onto the surface of my brain. Once seen, it could not be unseen.

I wept tears and blood from empty sockets. I beseeched the heavens to deliver me from this torment, but I was given no answer: save for the terrible grinning after-image of Red Hulk.

So I warn you, my nerdly friends, save yourselves! My sanity and my soul are surely lost to this debacle, but you can be saved! Do not gaze upon the Red Hulk! It is not enough to avoid reading Jeph Loeb's cliche-riddled garbage! It is not enough to deny him any payment for a comic that must surely be written on a parchment of human flesh with ink made of his own excrement. It is not enough to read the Incredible Hulk by Greg Pak and pretend that Jeph Loeb's Hulk does not exist.

No! You must be ever vigilant! The Red Hulk is always there: ever watchful with his worse-than-comics-in-the-90s style and his Marty-Stu villainy. You must be prepared for Jeph Loeb and his soulless minions to foist this foul fiction on us at any time.

Do not dismiss my warnings as the rantings of a blind fool. Every word I've written here is the truth! Do not repeat the arrogance that led to my own downfall. It's too late for me, but you may yet be saved from this terrible fate.

As another great man with at least one missing eye once said, albeit often through an impostor: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

(PS: It's a good thing I learned how to touch-type all those years ago, or writing this without eyeballs would be very difficult.)

More Roman Polanski hatred

2009-10-27T02:48:28Z

List of celebrities who support Roman Polanski

I'm sure these celebrities won't mind if we download their movies, books, or television shows from now on. I mean it's not like it's piracy-piracy. If Roman Polanski can rape a 13-year-old girl and get away with it, then surely it's cool if I download Lord of the Rings, right?

What's that? "Pirating" movies is the single worst thing a human being can do? Gotcha, Hollywood. You keep on spending millions of dollars lobbying against file sharing while simultaneously begging the government to intervene on behalf of a child rapist.

Or in other words: fuck all y'all.

Choose your Immortality!

2009-10-25T19:36:24Z

CHOOSE YOUR IMMORTALITY

Who wants to live forever? According to a poll conducted by my imagination, darn near everyone. The only roadblock is this: what kind of immortality do you choose? Well I'm here to help you as I now present several forms of immortality, as well as the pros and cons that go along with them. Read, think, and then let me know which one you choose. I'll make sure to have your immortality in the mail no later than six weeks from the time I'm capable of mailing concepts like immortality.

#1. Not All It's Cracked Up to Be Immortality: You will live forever and you will not age. FOREVER. You are flat out incapable of dying no matter what. Atomized? You come back to life. Beheaded? You come back to life. Drowned? Asphyxiated? Burned? Boiled? Doesn't matter. You cannot die. You will live until the end of the universe, and when that's over? Who knows. Maybe you float around in neverending nothingness, or maybe you get to be the creator of some new universe.

Pros: No achilles heel to worry about. You cannot be killed. You heal instantly. You might even be invulnerable.

Con: Boredom. If you get trapped somewhere, you're there for a long, LONG time. The human race will almost assuredly evolve past you within just a few thousand years, making you very lonely unless you can get some kind of robot companion or something. Plan on being very cold for the last few million years after every sun winks out.

#2. Highlander Immortality: You know the drill. There can be only one. You're immortal unless you get beheaded, but if you're trapped underwater or left with a sword in your brain you'll either be wake up and die over and over or you'll just be dead until someone yanks the sword out.

Speaking of swords, get used to using one, because you'll have to fight to survive. For some reason you can't just pack an uzi, shoot your opponent, then chop his head off while he's recovering, so instead you'll have to get real good with a sword real fast.

Pros: Sexy adventures and a tendency to meet famous people from history. Vague mystical powers. Potential to win "The Prize" which, depending on your canon, is either some form of telepathy and mortality, the chance to make a star baby with your retconned girlfriend, or an unknown power that everyone wants. The more immortals you behead, the stronger you will get, but this is also vague and hardly ever seems to mean anything. Also: you can hide your sword seemingly anywhere, so you could always get a job smuggling antique swords across borders if you were really strapped for cash.

Cons: You won't know your immortal until you die once, and then you're stuck at that age. The death must also be violent. So you have to be ballsy enough to let yourself get shot or stabbed or something in order to find out if you're an immortal. Are you willing to take that risk? Also: You're probably going to get beheaded, but you might get a few centuries of living in first. Lastly: can't have kids.

#3. Clone Immortality: Technology. It's always great, right? Never backfired once in all the history of humanity, right? So how about this: when you're going to die you just upload your memories and personality into a computer, print out a fresh new body, and then download those memories and personality back into the new body. Presto-chango, you're going to live forever!

Pros: You can decide to opt out if you ever want to just die. As technology gets better and the ability to alter the genetic code is better understood, you could probably add new features to your clone body. Eventually you might be able to create a body that regenerates perfectly with no cellular degeneration, making you truly immortal except in the case of injury or disease.

Cons: Giving people the ability to alter their bodies means a substantial portion of the human population would eventually be women with 32ZZ breasts or guys with 20 inch penises. Also: it's not REALLY you who will be immortal, it's just a copy of you. The actual you is now dead, but that becomes a Theseus Paradox, so you get to spend the next few millenia in a constant philosophical depression as you wonder whether or not you are really you. Lastly: you are beholden to the technology that clones you (until such time as your body is simply made to regenerate perfectly), which means you may be forced to do the bidding of whoever controls that technology.

#4 Vampirism Immortality: You're a vampire. Someone sucked you, you sucked them, now you want to just keep on sucking forever and ever.

Pros: Super strength, super senses, and an inexplicable ability to make teenaged girls squeal in your presence. You might be able to turn into mist, a bat, a wolf, or any number of other things. You might also have the power to mesmerize others, especially the aforementioned teenaged girls.

Cons: You might sparkle. Also: sunlight will almost certainly kill you, crosses and garlic will repel and hurt you, you might not be able to enter someone's house without permission, you will have to drink blood regularly in order to remain healthy, your skin is pale and clammy, holy water and other blessed objects burn you, and you'll be forced to make googly eyes at teenaged girls while being either A) sweaty, dirty, pale, and gross or B) far too invested in your own hair (all without ever being able to look into a mirror. Also, whatever physical age you were when you were bitten is how old you're going to be forever, so if you're a little kid, watch out for pervy vampires.

#5 Werewolf Immortality: You're a werewolf. Someone bit you.

Pros: You might get some super strength. You'll probably have better than average senses most of the time. If you're really lucky, you might be able to control your change into a super-wolf, but the chances are you'll just be a normal person almost all the time. On the other hand, you can only be truly harmed by silver bullets, and Ted Nugent is the only guy who walks around with a weapon loaded up with silver ammunition these days. So just avoid him and you should be good to go.

Cons: Three nights a week you're probably going to turn into a mindless killing machine, and the more you go around killing people the better the chances are someone is going to figure out what you are and either call Ted Nugent or get some silver bullets of their own. You're also an allegory for either homosexuality or STDs, so that might cause you to have some sexuality or self-esteem issues.

#6 Undead Immortality: Lich, Frankenstein's Monster, Zombie, Deadite, whatever. The point is you died and now you're back, only you're not exactly alive anymore. If you're lucky you're a super-powerful wizard or a re-animated super corpse. If you're not lucky you're a mindless zombie.

Pros: Finally an excuse to eat brains! If you're a Lich you might have some magic powers. If you're Frankenstein's Monster you're pretty strong. If you're a Deadite then you're really talented at slapstick.

Cons: Let's face it: someone is going to hack you to pieces, unless you're a lich in which case you'll probably avoid that fate, but you're going to have to deal with people constantly claiming you stole your whole "place your soul in a container outside your body" thing from Voldemort, which is going to get really annoying after a while. You also look like a skeleton wearing a crown, and that's just goofy.

#7 Robot Immortality: Upload your mind into the body of a robot! Maybe you get a full brain transplant or maybe you just scan and copy your mind over, but one way or the other your body is now fully robotic. Regular maintenance and upgrades means you have the potential to exist for as long as you can keep up repairs.

Pros: Process information with the speed of a computer. Super strength. Virtual indestructability depending on what you're made from. Perfect memory and recall.

Cons: Will forever be haunted by the question "What is this emotion you call love?" (Also you can have your head exploded by any logical paradox, which is bad for you because Theseus's Paradox applies in this situation also, and the chances are you'll try to think about it at some point. Kaboom.)

#8 Demigod/god/angel/alien/mythical legend Immortality: You're secretly the son, daughter, or abstract offspring of a powerful mystical being. Maybe it's some pagan god. Maybe it's an Esper. Maybe it's Kryptonians. Whatever the case, you have awesome powers, a legendary legacy to inherit, and probably some great destiny to fulfill.

Pros: Superpowers! Also you likely don't have to worry about missing out on the possibility of an afterlife because you can just go pop down to the Underworld or poke your head into Heaven any time you want and check things out. Life just got a whole lot mysticler!

Cons: You might be the last of your kind. If you're a demigod then you're almost certainly going to have to confront the concept of incest at some point. If you're an alien or magical creature then you're probably so different from everyone else you know that you'll never be ablet o actually live with them. Expect loneliness. If you're not a god or demigod, then you may wind up living to the end of the universe and then you're right back at #1.

#9 Reincarnation Immortality: You died. Then you were born. Then you died. Then you were born. Repeat forever, only with each repetition you remember a little more about your former life. Eventually you can start tapping into your old lives, but not until you reach a certain age. You might even meet your soul mate again and again and again.

Pros: Wouldn't it be nice to live your life over knowing what you know now? Wouldn't it be nice to be sixteen and know how to build rocket engines like you do now? Life will never get boring because each new existence will have its own set of circumstances.

Cons: Insanity. Eventually there will be so many past lives that when you reach the age of enlightenment your whole brain will just shut down trying to process it. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder does not begin to describe just how truly fucked up you will be.

#10 Healing Factor Immortality: You were born different. You heal remarkably quickly. You don't get sick. You can't be poisoned. You reached your peak age of healthiness and stopped right there. You're not invincible, but you heal very quickly. It would take a nuclear blast, a beheading, or near total annihilation in order for you to be killed.

Pros: You might get some enhanced senses out of the deal, and your blood may be capable of causing others to heal rapidly for a short time.

Cons: Ostracism when others find out what you are. You can't get drunk, high, or even just a little bit tipsy. BigConspiracy will hunt you down and attempt to slice you open to find out what makes you the way you are, and they may attempt to turn you into their own personal killing machine.

#11 Nanite Immortality: Combine numbers 3 and 7 and mix in a little 10. Nanites rebuild your body and maintain total and perfect health at all times. They may provide you with enhancements, powers, and alterations.

Pros: Possible superpowers, the ability to interface with machines, and a healing factor.

Cons: Whoever controls your nanites, controls you. One dedicated hacker introduces his own nanite strain into the air and suddenly you're a slave for the rest of time.

#12 Mind-Hopper Immortality: You were going to die, but instead you were all, "Man, funk dat!" and transferred your mind into someone else's body. Your incredible mental powers have allowed you to continue hopping from body to body throughout the ages.

Pros: You're a supervillain. You have mental powers that allow you to take over other people's bodies. Find the right body and whatever they can do, you can do.

Cons: You're a supervillain. You won't get away with this! Also, there's a possibility that your own reincarnated body will come around and defeat you someday, but that's really because the Wave Existence was manipulating things from behind the scenes and some other crazy nanite guy wanted to create and kill God.

#13 In Memoriam Immortality: You'll die, but you'll be remembered. Maybe you created a great work of art. Maybe you solved a great mystery of the universe. Maybe you saved a billion lives, created the perfect government, or wrote the greatest song ever. On the other hand, maybe you killed a billion people, created the most oppressive regime ever, or wrote "Crank That" The point is, you will be remembered for something great or something awful.

Pros: Hey, maybe you did something great!

Cons: You fuck. You might be Soulja Boy.

Write In Immortalities

#14 Energy Being Immortality:: You've ascended, transformed, evolved, reached enlightenment, or somehow or another left your physical body behind. Now you are more than human; more than mortal. You are an energy being. You can float around the cosmos and, I dunno...do stuff.

Pros: You know things that no mortal could ever know. You can do things no mortal can ever do. The answers to questions long asked by humanity may be yours to discover.

Cons: You're a bag of energy. Say goodbye to sex. In a few thousand years you'll probably forget you were ever human, and there's a serious chance you might get trapped in some spatial anomaly somewhere and go crazy, thus becoming a sea-monster analog for spacefarers.

So there you have it. Choose your immortality! Which is the unlimited life for you, and why? Have I forgotten any? Are you immortal already and wish to tell us all how great and/or horrible it is? Get to it!

Your prayers: ANSWERED!

2009-10-23T11:50:45Z

Dear everyone,

I know you. I know what you want. You want to know what's going on inside this fantastic head of mine. You want answers to burning questions. You want wisdom the likes of which hasn't existed since Aristotle and Plato's ghosts inhabited the body of Benjamin Franklin. You have questions.

Well I've got answers. Today is your lucky day. Ask me whatever you want and I will answer you -- maybe even truthfully! Maybe. I mean it's not entirely outside of the realm of possibility, that's all I'm saying.

So go ahead, ask away. If you don't, I'll assume it's because you're afraid of knowledge, and that really makes you look bad.

Love,

M. McGregor, the living legend (so dreamy!)