FlashForward: Course Correction

Two days before the blackouts: At their laboratory in Palo Alto, Simon and Lloyd share a toast and prepare for their latest experiment, in which they’re going to attempt to simulate the Big Bang. Their giddy mood is dampened when Simon gets a call from his mom informing him of his father’s death.

The day of the blackouts: With a great deal of fanfare, Lloyd, minus Simon, activates a big, shiny blue particle accelerator. As soon as he does this, the blackouts take place across the world.

Present day: It’s now only a week from the date seen in the flash forwards, which means this season must be coming to an end. Hallelujah! As the world gears up for this event, Lloyd is interviewed on television, along with Celia, the woman who was saved from her flash forward-ordained death by cute Al’s suicide. Lloyd claims that people like Celia who have managed to avoid their fate are anomalies. He believes the universe will keep pushing toward the futures shown in the flash forwards. The universe is spiteful and vindictive like that. Lloyd also claims there’s no chance of another blackout occurring. Lloyd is a big old liar.

Simon meets with his kidnapped sister Annabelle on a bridge, while unseen assailants in a nearby parked van hold her in their rifle sights. Annabelle tells Simon her kidnappers want him to give them the QED ring, or they’ll kill her in twelve hours.

Back at FBI headquarters, Simon tries to bribe a random FBI agent into tracking down the license number of Annabelle’s kidnappers; van. Instead, the agent rats him out to Mark.

MI-6 Inspector Fiona Banks (remember her? Alex Kingston? Last seen back in, oh, Episode Seven and never referred to since?) meets up with Demetri at a crime scene. A man named Andrew Weeks, who had managed to avoid his flash forward-predicted death from a drug allergy, was murdered: Someone put rat poison in his coffee. Fiona explains to Demetri that there’s been a rash of murders of people who, like Demetri and Celia, had otherwise managed to escape their fates. Fiona has traipsed over from Merrie Olde England to investigate these murders, all of which have taken place in the Los Angeles area. I’m sure this raises all kinds of jurisdictional issues, but hey -- as far as I can tell, the Los Angeles branch of the FBI is currently being headed up by CIA agent Vogel, so clearly nobody’s being much of a stickler on jurisdiction these days.

Vogel, by the way, is not in this episode. This is a disappointment. The joys I get from this show are few and far between, but Vogel’s smarm can usually make me smile.

Among Andrew’s papers is a flyer for a Blue Hand gathering. Oh. Those guys again, huh? Much like Fiona, we haven’t seen them since Episode Seven. They haven’t been missed.

Mark calls Simon into his office, wondering why he wanted the information on the license plate. Simon ‘fesses up about Annabelle’s kidnapping, though he claims to have no idea what her kidnappers want with him. Mark gets shirty with Simon about how this puts the Mosaic investigation in jeopardy. You know, more than the investigation has already been jeopardized by all the various moles in Mark’s department. Simon steals the QED ring from the FBI, bids farewell to Lloyd, and takes off.

Demetri and Fiona interview the weird, creepy leader of the Blue Hand group, who is once again played by Callum Keith Rennie. His character name, apparently, is Slingerland. I feel reasonably certain I did not know that before this episode. Huh. Anyway, Slingerland claims to know nothing about Andrew’s death. He, like Lloyd, believes the universe will try to balance itself, and thus all the people who tried to dodge their deaths in their flash forwards are doomed.

Of course, it turns out Slingerland is doing his best to help the universe along. Demetri and Fiona discover Slingerland poisoned Andrew. They try to stop him before he can run over Celia; Demetri manages to kill Slingerland, but in the chaos, Fiona accidentally hits Celia, gravely injuring her. So Fiona and Demetri start to think that maybe there really is something to this whole “universe balancing itself” talk.

Olivia fusses over Baltar in the hospital. When Lloyd drops by, Baltar is delighted at the prospect of Olivia and Lloyd hooking up, as he’s seen in his multiple flash forwards. Vreede questions Baltar about a drawing of Mark’s evidence wall found among Baltar’s possessions. Baltar claims he saw the wall during one of his flash forwards

Meanwhile, Nicole is assigned the task of giving flu shots to people in the custody of Immigration. She looks through their medical records and sees one of the files is on Keiko. Nicole goes to tell Bryce she’s finally tracked down his mystery dream girl, but before she can, Bryce trumps her good news with his own: His cancer has gone into remission. He kisses Nicole exuberantly.

Mark tracks down the van Simon saw on the bridge. He finds Annabelle tied up in the back, safe and alive.

In Lloyd’s apartment, Olivia and Lloyd look over Baltar’s brain scans, then make out a bit. Brain scans make them randy. This gets a little awkward when Mark unexpectedly stops by to talk to Lloyd about Simon’s disappearance.

Now thoroughly suspicious of Simon, since he stole the ring and ran away and lied about his sister’s kidnapping, Mark and Stan analyze the security tape from the Detroit stadium during the blackout and prove conclusively that Simon is Suspect Zero. Since we the audience found out about this five episodes ago, the revelation lacks a certain dramatic punch. When Mark questions Annabelle about her ordeal, she tells him she overheard one of the kidnappers say Simon would cause another blackout.

Just a few more episodes, folks, and we can all put this show behind us for good.