FlashForward returns from it’s winter hiatus with a two parter in two hours.  After a quick recap of recent events, including Mark Benford’s probation from the bureau, we pick up with a window washer in LA (Gil Bellows) blacking out while on his rig high up on a skyscrapper.  He falls but is miraculously saved as his tether snags at the last second.  During this action and a sweeping view of the world during the blackout, a voice is narrating about togetherness.  We see the main characters wake up as the narrator talks about God and waking up out of chaos.  The window washer is the narrator.

Over the course of the two hours, the Window Washer becomes the moral thread of the story.  He tells us that we’re not alone and that if we open ourselves up (to God) that we can find a little love.  His message is that of love, sharing and compassion.  This adds broader values to the show which till now has been that of scampering suspicion and depression.  No one trusts each other or themselves and the visions of the future are turning into albatrosses.

To wit, Benford and Wedeck begin the episode yelling at each other.  Director Wedeck tells Mark that he’s doing everything he can to follow up on leads Mark’s vision has given them but his rogue antics are sabotaging everything.  Part of his probation is to see the bureau shrink.  He can come back when she says he can come back.  In the mean time, the FBI MOSAIC task force moves on, now headed by Agent Vogle (CIA) much to Agent Noh’s chagrin.  Vogle doesn’t like Benford and Noh’s actions, plays by the book but is smart and resourceful.  He makes our main character agents look like chumps.  The team is investigating the disappearance of Lloyd Simcoe.  The job was professionally done; EMTs were called to a faked 911 call at which several men jumped them.  The FBI figures if they can find one of the cell phones, the can find the ambulance and then Lloyd.  Lloyd is being kept in a basement and refuses to talk.

The second story revolves around Nicole.  She and her sister take care of their mentally unstable mother.  She’s a hoarder among other things.  It’s obvious Nicole is stressed about taking care of her and feels she’s a burden.  Mark and Olivia have more married talk but we don’t deal with them much.  It was a bit refreshing not having Mark be so moody and tight and Olivia not covering for her vision.  Mark visits his therapist and long and short of it, they use a drug to open up the repressed vision.  What he’s forgot is a conversation he had with Lloyd on the phone.  This comes into play later.  However the drug trip sends him to a bar.  He calls his sponsor Aaron from his car just outside.

Janis takes Simon to Lloyd’s house to try and find clues.  She is jumped and the masked men take Simon.  They dump Simon in the same basement as Lloyd.  They’re questioned by the man who showed up at the end of “Playing Cards with Coyote,” Flasso (played by the refreshingly undramatic Ricky Jay) and he asks Lloyd specifically for a piece of scientific data.  Lloyd refuses to tell him so they cut Simon’s pinky finger off with a cigar clipper.  What they’re looking for is a number, an amount of energy Lloyd and Simon’s experiment generated.  It turns out the blackout may not have been caused by Lloyd, but it helped amplify something Flasso’s people were doing.

Nicole finds her way to the Window Washer’s/Narrator’s gathering.  It’s the Sanctuary group, the fliers we’ve seen around the hospital.  Window Washer Timothy is the founder/preacher.  He’s not religious, but he wants to help people and make sure love is spread.  His vision is in a packed theater of screaming fans as he tells everyone his message.  He comes off a little creepy but as of yet there’s little doubt he’s sincere.  She opens up to him but with Bryce’s backing.  Eventually she takes some of Timothy’s talk to heart and ends up decorating a wall of pennies with her mom and Bryce.  They’re only 1989 pennies, the year she was born.

Lloyd has unsuccessfully tried to push a menu with Help Us written in blood on it out the basement window.  Flasso finds it, shows Lloyd some surveillance photos of Dylan and asks for the information again.  Lloyd caves and gives him an astoundingly large number, one quadrillion volts.

Mark follows up with his MOSAIC investigation on his own.  He tracks the menu down to a new location but nothing nearby seems to fit.  The owner tells him they used to have another location.  Mark goes there but it’s all dark and locked up.  As he drives away he remembers his flashback on the phone with Lloyd where he says he wished Lloyd was behind the eight ball when he came crashing in.  At first that line seems metaphoric until we see an 8-ball painted on the door.  Mark crashes through with his car and saves Lloyd but Simon escapes, running into Flasso in the ambulance.

Once treated at the hospital by Olivia and turned over to Agent Hawk, Simon keeps trying to lose her.  They make their way to Canada where Simon visits his family who is keeping vigil for his runaway sister.  He also visits his old mentor and physics professor to ask him how to stop another blackout once it starts.  Apparently the experiment uprooted consciousness and he’s looking for a way to anchor it.  Janis finds him again and they head home.  At dinner, Flosso, a.k.a. Uncle Teddy arrives.  Apparently, thanks to family friend Teddy, genius Simon was able to afford college and work at the institute he’s at now.  Flasso’s been keeping him under his thumb this whole time.  Even now, Simon’s sister was kidnapped as assurance that Simon continue to play by Flasso’s rules.  But he also has a secret about the blackout.  He was the dark cloaked man in the ball park.  Flosso had him wear a ring that kept him awake, he also provided an alibi for leaving the country; a dead dad (killed.)  Flosso also shows Simon his dead professor friend in the trunk.  Simon loses it and kills Flosso.

“Revelation Zero” shifts the show from Mark as main character to Simon and Lloyd as major protagonists.  The black out was caused by and may happen again because of something they did.  They both understand it and Simon, more than anyone, seems poised to either help repeat it or help stop it.  The revelation in this episodes seems to be that what Mark is doing is to play second fiddle to Lloyd.  They’re still going after D. Gibbons leads and Mark has plenty of wall clues to check on, but with concrete information like what we heard from Lloyd, Simon and Flasso, do we care what happens to Nicole, Bryce and Aaron?  I don’t.  Aaron still has his daughter’s story line, Noh still has his eventual murder to sort out and Bryce is still looking for his Japanese girlfriend, but they pale in comparison to Simon’s story.

I’ll bet you that between now and the season finale, all we’ll get will be the small stories.  We’ll probably see more of Aaron’s daughter and her squad-mate Mike.  The leader who helped her will likely be tied in to something Mark is doing in Somalia.  Bryce and Nicole are looking to move closer and closer together, but what happens to Keiko?  Introduced in one show and completely forgotten?  Probably.

It’s a weird thing to happen in the middle of a season, but I think FlashForward is trying to wipe the slate clean.  I think it’s trying to start over.  I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but they’re apparently abandoning a lot of story in order to push through a more interesting one.

Anyone else immediately make the leap from Dominic Monaghan wearing a special ring to another more legendary ring story?  Can’t help it.

The two parter set up a lot for the rest of the season.  And while I wouldn’t really rate this one incredibly high (they could have done this all over a full season) I am looking forward to what happens next.

Four out of five broken clocks.