FlashForward has its own mysterious set of numbers; one hundred and thirty seven seconds.  The first episode and a half referenced it as two minutes and seventeen seconds, but in “137 Sekunden” (german for seconds) we’re focused primarily on 1, 3, 7.

A German mass murderer has contacted the FBI claiming he has information about why the blackout lasted 137 seconds.  He arranges to have his sentence pardoned and be set free in America in exchange for this knowledge.  FBI Agent Benford agrees after some haggling with his own Agent Hawk and the German officials.  I wasn’t really sure about the details as the German official claimed the US had no authority but then later it appeared they had plenty in letting this man go.  Herr Geyer says his vision included being greeted and heckled a bit by a dopey customs agent.  Agent Noh verifies this with the pot-smoking dead beat who just applied to the customs agency after his vision.

Things take a turn, however, when Herr Geyer says that aside from some dead crows outside his cell window and his vision, he has no actual idea why the blackout lasted 137 seconds.  He says this after his release is secured and Agent Bedford is frustrated that he’s been played.  Which leads me to believe Agent Bedford is not all there as I wouldn’t have trusted a man sentenced to life for multiple murders with breathing on his own much less providing useful information.  Geyer leaves Bedford with an Autoban Book saying he might be able to find information in there.

Agent Noh is having a crisis of his own in relation to his vision of nothing.  His fiancée (played by Gabriel Union) is finally able to fly home after the airlines are all opening up.  She is one of about five people on this flight, including a nervous and alcohol requesting CEO of the airline itself;  there to ensure to the people that it’s safe to fly.  Agent Noh greets here and deflects the conversation about his vision again.  Later he just parrots her vision of a wedding on a beach.  We don’t actually see him, neither does she, but he assures her he sees the same thing.  However, in the early moments of the episode, Demetri gets a call from Nhadra Udaya, a woman claiming she knows he was killed but can’t given him any more information.  This frustrates him and he asks another agent for help tracing the call.  It can’t be traced so he gets the LUDs on the repeating towers.

Aaron Stark tries to convince his (apparent) ex-wife to sign off on paperwork that would allow him to exhume their daughter’s body from her military grave.  She refuses so he calls in a favor to Agent Bedford while he’s in Germany.  You need a warrant to do it without consent, so he has Noh draw up the paperwork.

We’re introduced to Stan Wedick’s wife Felicia (played by Firefly’s Gina Torres) as she recounts to her friend Olivia Bedford that her vision included a 10 year old boy she’s never met.  Olivia is again circumspect when recounting her vision to Felicia.  Stan Wedeck is prepping for a eulogy to the department and when he delivers it at the end of the episode, Felicia sees a boy in the first row look back at her.  It’s the boy from her vision and he is comforted or hushed by a woman in a head scarf who for a second looked an awful lot like Aaron Stark’s daughter.  (It wasn’t, but any time someone gets a lot of face time on screen, you get the feeling they’re important.)

Despite the setback, Mark Bedford dives into the Audubon book and asks Agent Hawk to check on crow deaths at the time of event.  The Audubon society tracks bird deaths and the data is available at the press of a few keys.  The number is dramatic on the easy to interpret graph.  Janis says so what, but Mark pushes on asking her to find similar occurrences.  They’re so tied up wondering when it will happen again, they failed to ask if it had happened before.  Sure enough, a report from Somalia in 1991 showed the same pattern of bird deaths also tied to a period of population unconsciousness.

We flashback to Ganwar Region of Southern Somalia in 1991.  A young goat herder is moving is herd along when they start getting panicky.  He notices a large number of birds gathering in the air and investigates.  Suddenly the birds drop from the sky and as he moves over the hill he sees a village where all the people are lying apparently unconscious.  We scan through the village to a tower at least ten stories tall.  The top appears to emit a shockwave or a cloud of gas.  It’s hard to tell as the sun is bright and the sky is hazy, but the tower itself should not be be part of a small goat village in Somalia.

I really hope our two main characters stop lying to everyone.  We get it, you don’t like your visions of the future.  But let’s put this in play for a second.  You hide things and lie and avoid confrontation with your spouse for three to six months.  They get suspicious, you get anxious and stressed, you can’t handle it.  You seek solace in another person or a bottle of whiskey.  The marriage falls apart because you don’t trust each other because you are lying from the start.  Even we can see it and this isn’t some magical fairy world or highly advanced science-fiction orbital platform around an alien world.  This is Los Angeles, present day.  Don’t for a minute think that these extenuating circumstances allow for the loss of basic human interaction.

If there’s one thing that will ruin a show (and I’m looking at you, Heroes) it’s the knack writers have of completely abandoning human nature in favor of plot twists.  You can’t have a major reveal or a good forward moving story, it would seem, without keeping the characters in the dark and it’s just frustrating.  Yes it creates conflict and yes conflict is what makes a story, but let’s not forget that these people are human beings and not sound bites.  The more real you make them, the more viewers will identify with them and thus the show as a whole.  If you make them lying and deceitful and unwilling to trust themselves and others, we won’t bother sticking it out until D-Day to see what happens.

(Incidentally, the show is calling April 29th/30 2010, “D-day”  The only reference that makes sense is to the Normandy invasion at the end of World War II.  The term then referred to nothing more than the plan that was carried out.  The D in D-Day means only “day” because the day and time of an attack have yet to be determined, so the D is left as a D.  An H would be there for the hour of attack.  It’s basic military planning.  What that means here is a little paradoxical as we know exactly when the date and time of the event is.)

Unless of course, this is how we really are; lying, deceitful and untrustworthy.  Then maybe we deserve to be put to sleep.

Three and a half (out of five) broken clocks.