FLASHFORWARD 1.11 & 1.12 - "Revelation Zero: Part 1 & 2"

WRITERS: Seth Hoffman & Marc Guggenheim (1.11) & Quinton Peeples (1.12)
DIRECTORS: John Polson (1.11) & Constantine Makris & John Polson (1.12)
GUEST CAST: Ricky Jay, Gil Bellows, Michael Ealy, Lindsay Crouse, James Cosmo, Brian T. Skala, Josh Kelly, Hannah Marks, Ryan Wynott, Lennon Wynn, Cynthia Addai-Robinson & Barry Shabaka Henle

[SPOILERS] I'm one of those people who find it hard to quit something they've started, even if it seems likely something's future is doomed. It may take me awhile (years in the case of, say, The Wire), but once I start a first chapter of anything, I'm usually in for the long haul. FlashForward is one such show. It arrived in a blaze of publicity last year ("the new Lost" ABC's marketing men barked), only to quickly struggle to keep anyone's attention because the characters were so thin and uninvolving. It limped to a mid-season finale and went on hiatus for many months (recently losing two showrunners, Marc Guggenheim and David Goyer, who were both assumedly unable to make this show work.) "Revelation Zero" is a two-part "restart", in many ways. You could definitely feel the writers trying to approach the material with a different attitude, but while it proved mostly diverting and had a few entertaining sequences and reveals, there was a sense of desperation to everything.

Picking up where we left off, if you can remember that far back, or bothered to watch the "What Did You See?" catch-up special, Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport) has been kidnapped by a gang posing as paramedics, and is being kept in the basement of an old fast-food restaurant by their leader, Teddy Flasso (Ricky Jay), who wants to know how many electron volts were generated by the plasma wakefield experiment Lloyd conducted on 6 October. It appears that Lloyd's experiment wasn't actually responsible for the blackout, but it did amplify its effects worldwide. Meanwhile, Agent Benford (Joseph Fiennes) has lost his badge over his exploits in Hong Kong and has been ordered to see a therapist, who helps him remember more of his inebriated flashforward vision using a special drug. And, after the injection, Benford remembers receiving a phone call from Lloyd about the fact there's going to be another blackout. Dum-dum-duuuh! Despite being benched by Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), Benford is nevertheless continuing the investigation into Lloyd's abduction himself, using photos he's taken of his office's evidence wall.

CIA Agent Vogel (Michael Ealy) joined the FBI's Mosaic investigation, teaming up with Agent Demetri Noh (John Cho) to find Lloyd's kidnappers and their fake ambulance. Cutie babysitter Nicole's (Peyton List) prominence on the show took a step forward, too, as we met her crazy mother (she wears a bathrobe adorned with angel wings and spends her day gluing pennies to the wall, so she's clearly cuckoo.) Nicole's increasingly worried about her flashforward showing her being drowned by a man (as you would be!), so she went to see Timothy (Gil Bellows), the leader of a motivational support group called "Sanctuary" that helps people deal with their visions. Timothy used to be a lowly window washer but, as we saw in a beautiful opening sequence, survived a near-death experience while cleaning a skyscraper's windows as the blackout struck, and has now come to embrace his vision of helping people embrace theirs. Anyway, he theorizes that Nicole was actually being baptized in her flashforward – although I've never heard of a baptism where adults are submerged and struggle for 137 seconds, so that theory felt like a stretch!

Egotistical scientist Simon (Dominic Monaghan) is also now part of the Mosaic investigation, but is later kidnapped by Flasso's men while at Lloyd's apartment with Janis (Christine Woods) looking for clues on a laptop. Simon finds himself detained with Lloyd in the basement and tortured as a means to force Simon to tell Flasso what he needs to know about their experiment – which, it turns out, Simon didn't actually attend himself. Fortunately, a "HELP US" note Simon managed to scrawl on an old menu, manages to become a vital clue for Mark (who remembers said note being pinned on the evidence wall in his flashforward) and traces the menu's restaurant to where Lloyd's being held.

The first half of "Revelation Zero" actually contained a decent amount of fast-paced fun and, if a little unwieldy at times, it did a decent job of reminding us about the show's premise. I liked seeing Vogel take charge of the FBI's investigation, and we got some insight into Nicole's family, but perhaps the biggest surprise was learning that Simon's actually part of Flasso's outfit. Indeed, the only reason he was kidnapped and tortured by Flasso (losing his pinky finger to a cigar cutter, ouch) was to ensure nobody at the FBI will suspect he's in league with the bad guys. On the downside, Joseph Fiennes continued to give a tiresome performance that feels like he's sleepwalking through scenes. I think he's aiming for brooding gravitas, but he's hitting stoicism at best.

The second half of "Revelation Zero" packed in more answers than I was expecting, even if I didn't swallow too many of them. It was a Simon-centric instalment that revealed his back-story and role in Flasso's gang all these years. We learned that Flasso is the Campose family's "Uncle Teddy", beloved of his mother and brothers living in Toronto, Canada, and a man who's been masterminding child prodigy Simon's career since the age of 13. Flasso's men apparently killed Simon's father just to give him an alibi for his whereabouts during the blackout (the funeral), and he now has Simon's missing sister held captive to ensure his continued obedience.

During the blackout, Simon was actually ordered to a sports stadium by the mysterious D. Gibbons (another of Flasso's cronies) and given a front row seat on the world's blackout. This confirmed he was the ambulant "Suspect Zero" seen on security camera footage back in the "Pilot", having been spared the K.O effect of the experiment thanks to a special ring provided by Flasso (one of the finger rings we saw Flasso take receipt of earlier in the season, you may, but probably don't, remember.

The curious thing about Part 2 was how it basically amounted to watching Simon escape custody from the startlingly inept Janis, only to be caught again by her in literally the next scene. It became rather comical watching him feign allergic reactions and escape out windows every few minutes, actually. Still, "Revelaiton Zero: Part 2" at least managed to turn Simon into a more interesting character, which Dominic Monaghan seemed to relish playing -- particularly when he got to kill the annoyingly calm Flasso with heart-compressions to the chest after he called his bluff about threatening to kill his sister.

Overall, FlashForward's in a period of transition, that much is clear. You could almost view these episodes as a fresh start, and they definitely had more of a superficial grip by virtue of all the answers, information dumps and twists that were thrown into the melting pot. The downside is that the second part felt too preposterous to me; the kind of episode that's entertaining to watch, but has you questioning its logic every few minutes, and becoming aware that the writers are throwing everything they've got at the screen in a desperate bid to keep your attention. On ABC, these episodes sunk to a low 6.49m in the US, the show's worst ratings since its premiere achieved 12.47m last September, so I doubt FlashForward has much hope of being renewed now, but maybe it can build on this energetic second wave of energy and craft something worthwhile out of the debris. There were certainly signs that there's life in the show yet, if they can just find the right way through the story.

Asides

-- Simon's flashforward of strangling a man turned out to be a falsity, because he'd killed that man (his dad's killer) shorly after the blackout. Quite why you'd claim that was your flashforward vision is beyond me, though! Isn't it much easier to claim you were just watching TV or cooking a meal? Y'know, something normal that's not going to draw attention to yourself!

-- I have to say, it's been a fun idea casting real life magician Ricky Jay as a man in some way responsible for the biggest "magic trick" ever.

22 MARCH 2010: FIVE, 9PM