Another web site!

ABC loves ARGs.  Lost had a whole campaign based on the fictional story behind what happened to flight 815 and the Dharma Initiative.  Now FlashForward follows suit with several alternate reality sites, all of which lead back to the series portal on ABC.  We can now add www.alreadyghosts.com.

“The Gift” ends up being Agent Al Gough’s episode.  His flashforward shows him investigating a case with a British MI6 agent, Fiona Banks (Alex “ER” Kingston.)  The case they were investigating will be The Rutherford Case.  One of the three people killed in the blue hand abandoned house is named Rutherford.  He will be investigating this case still six months from now.  The whole reason Agent Banks is here is because she saw it in her FlashForward and  Rutherford was reported missing off a British cargo ship.

Investigating the deaths with MOSAIC shows these people are Ghosts; those that didn’t have a flashforward.  Ghosts meet in most major cities to celebrate the inevitable, which we find out means torturing themselves because they’re going to die anyway.  Demetri and Al discuss inevitability and fate and typical FlashForward topics throughout the show.  We find out Al’s flashforward has him taking a call from his lawyer.  Apparently he accidentally killed someone.  Part of his vision is also with Agent Banks and during their discussion of the case, a bird hits the window and dies.  Al suggests to her they tape the window.

The other major story is that of Aaron Stark.  Someone from his daughter’s Army squad finds him and gives him her pocket knife, an artifact he saw in his vision.  He views this as a sign that she is alive and is quite hopeful for a time until this young man, Mike, tells him that there’s no way that could happen because it was with her when she was killed.  We see Mike’s memory of the attack they suffered while in their Humvee.  She was trapped in the vehicle when an RPG tore it and her to pieces.  Aaron is shaken, but he starts thinking positively; a bit relieved now that the truth is out.  He knows Mike has had a hard time finding work after his deployment, so he gets him a job.

Mark, Demetri and Al investigate a Blue Hand Ghost meeting.  It turns out to be debauchery to the nth degree with scenes of Russian Roulette, electrocutions, beatings and any other number of ghastly activities.  They eventually follow the mob who is there to see The Raynaud (Callum Keith “BS:G’s Leoben” Rennie) or the rotating leader of the Ghost group.  It’s a bit of a cult following, but of people who have no future.  The agents take him down and question him, showing him the dead blue hand’s photo, saying he shot at an FBI agent.  The Raynaud doesn’t care if they put him in prison, everything’s already written.

Lloyd Simcoe comes to Olivia at the hospital, apologizing a little too heavily for his interference in her life.  He says he’s moving to San Francisco with Dylan.  She’s happy about that and pushes to get some paperwork through for him.  Nicky helps Bryce interpret his flashforward.  She’s volunteering at the hospital and through a bit of luck we find she knows Japanese.  We also find Bryce is a talented artist and his vision is of a Japanese girl with a kanji symbol behind her – the symbol means “believe.”  Demetri tells his fiancée about his lack of a vision after she thinks he’s being distant and dodgy with his feelings.  After all his doom and gloom and yelling at Mark about it all coming true, he does an about face when presented with love and endeavors to push on regardless.

Al, however, cannot live with what his future holds for him.  Despite all he tells people about being able to change it, he can’t live with the idea of taking another person’s life and leaving abandoned children.  He writes a note to this Celia from his vision, leaves it to Demetri to take care of, then goes to the roof and jumps off.  Nothing magic saves him, he’s dead.  Can everyone change their future?  Agent Fiona Banks tapes the window.  Aaron Stark’s daughter is waiting for him at his home.

“The Gift” makes the viewer question fate.  The entire show does, yes, but this episode specifically.  People in this fictional world walk around in a fog of knowing.  For the first time in human history, they (until now) believed in one fact; that they would be alive in six months.  Save for the ghosts, those who had visions at least assumed they’d be alive in April.  Agent Al Gough disproved that.  His actions at the very least showed that the future is not written.  Now, whether or not this Celia still gets shot remains to be seen.  In many time line sensitive shows, it’s not the who but the what that’s usually important.  Not who killed this woman, but that she died.

I’m not sure where the Blue Hand and Ghosts and The Raynaud come into play yet.  They seem emo and unestablished and too nihilistic to mean anything other than a diversion to the FBI team.  I believe The Raynaud, despite his flock’s desire to see him shoot himself, is not an important figure in the story nor do they have answers to what happened.

The problem with what happened is that ABC keeps showing teasers for an episode in which Dominic Monaghan says “I know what caused the blackout” and then doesn’t say what it is.  That’s too much too soon.  There’s no mystery and now we’re just watching the action.  Give it a full season before revealing that a physicist and his team are somehow responsible for the blackout.  You do it two episodes in and we suddenly don’t care; especially if it turns out to be something to do with quantum mechanics.  As much as I love the subject, you can hear the remotes clicking when the subject comes up.  Dancing with the Stars is on next, I don’t think names like Heisenberg, Bohr and Schroedinger are going to get many extra viewers.

Still, this was a well paced, acted and written episode.  Despite my hang ups over what was done IN the show, the production value at least warranted some higher marks.

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