FlashForward Episode Nine: Believe

Any huge Bryce fans out there? This is your lucky night. Four weeks before the blackout: Bryce and another doctor examine X-rays. The doctor tells Bryce his cancer has metastasized in the liver, and the prognosis is grim. Huh. This seems like a fairly ginormous part of Bryce’s backstory to spring on us now, and it feels pretty random. Afterward, Bryce wanders in a daze through the parking lot. While backing out of his parking space, he dings a shiny red ’63 T-bird. The driver bawls him out, so Bryce pulls forward, then backs up again, repeatedly hitting the car. He gets out and walks away, ignoring the driver as he bellows at him.

Two weeks before the blackout: In Tokyo, a young mechanical engineer named Keiko practices smiling in the bathroom mirror before she’s called in for a job interview at Nakahara, a major robotics firm. She shares her impressive credentials (she specializes in biomedical engineering and robotics) and her less-impressive hobbies (guitar and salsa dancing). The humorless panel doesn’t look especially charmed by her, which is their loss, because she’s adorable.

Still pre-blackout: Olivia snaps at Bryce for being flaky and spacey during surgery.

Keiko, clearly unhappy at her new job, winces her way through a congratulatory celebration with her friends and family.

The day of the blackouts, Bryce tells a psychiatrist he hasn’t told his friends or family about his illness. Then he heads out to the pier and sticks a gun under his chin. The blackouts hit, and his flash forward happens: He’s sitting in a sushi bar. Keiko approaches him tentatively. They smile at each other, and he says, “You’re really here.” He takes her hand and sees she has the kanji for “believe” tattooed on his wrist.

Post-flash forward, Bryce regains consciousness on the pier. In Tokyo, Keiko regains consciousness on the floor of her apartment, smiling and laughing.

In the present, Bryce learns Japanese from tapes in a room surrounded by his paintings of Keiko. He suddenly rushes to the bathroom and vomits.

Mark calls Aaron to fill him in on his investigation into Jericho. Conveniently enough, they’re headquartered in Santa Monica. Mark ends the call and answers Olivia’s phone while she’s in the shower. He sees the anonymous text message Olivia received about how he was drinking again during his flash forward. When Olivia gets out of the shower, he snaps at her for not telling him this earlier.

At the hospital, Olivia discovers Bryce’s central line on his chest for chemotherapy. He confesses he’s had renal cell carcinoma for a year -- he had his kidney removed just before he transferred to the hospital. He’s okay with it, though -- he now has something to live for.

Tracy fixes dinner for Aaron. When she pours herself a glass of wine, Aaron informs her she can’t drink in front of him -- he’s an alcoholic, so he can’t be around drinkers. Tracy flounces off to drink alone.

Mrs. Levy, a representative from the NSA, meets with the FBI gang about the surveillance footage of Suspect Zero in the Detroit stadium She’s been able to make out an alpha symbol on Suspect Zero’s ring. When Stan asks for a more detailed analysis, she refuses to provide it in front of Demetri, who has been red-flagged as a risk by the NSA, thanks to the phone call made by the mysterious woman who contacted Demetri to tell him about his upcoming murder. A recording of the call exists, but Mrs. Levy refuses to give Demetri any more information.

Keiko sits in her cubicle and stares glumly at a robotic arm picking up jellybeans. Whoa. Keiko, I know any job where you sit in a cubicle is going to suck by definition, but you’re watching a robotic arm pick up jellybeans. How bad can your job possibly be? She goofs off by watching footage of Bob Dylan concerts on her computer, then gets summoned into a big meeting. Her coworker explains that, since she’s the only woman in the department, she has to serve everyone tea. Keiko reacts to this suggestion with something less than wild enthusiasm.

Mark and Aaron clean up after an AA meeting. Mark explains that he’s freaked out that someone told Olivia about how he’ll be drinking in the future. He mentions that he only told two people about that, Aaron being one of them, and while he stops just short of outright accusing Aaron, Aaron reads between the passive-aggressive lines and picks up on Mark’s meaning. Aaron calls him a son of a bitch for suspecting him, smashes a few chairs, and tells Mark to get a new AA sponsor. This is the most vim and vigor we’ve seen from Aaron thus far in this series. Hell, he had less of an emotional reaction when he discovered Tracy was alive.

Keiko visits a tattoo parlor. The tattoo artist scoffs at her at first because she looks like a clean-cut office girl, but Keiko insists she wants to get inked.

Mark, on a mission to alienate all his friends and coworkers, next accuses Stan of texting Olivia about his future drinking. Like Aaron, Stan reacts poorly, though he stops short of smashing chairs. Instead, he coldly orders him out of his office.

Bryce chats with a patient, using the rudimentary Japanese he’s learned, and shows her his drawing of Keiko. The patient identifies the symbol on Keiko’s t-shirt as the logo for a sushi bar in Tokyo. Bryce thinks this might be where he meets Keiko in his flash forward.

Olivia snags Bryce a spot in a medical trial in Houston for a promising new drug, Trifecuab. Bryce refuses, because the testing might kill him, and he wants to stay alive for Keiko. Olivia argues, quite reasonably, that the drug might be the reason he’s alive in the future. She urges him to go to Houston. So Bryce gets on a plane and goes to… Tokyo. He shows the drawing of Keiko around to the chefs at the sushi bar. One recognizes Keiko and tells him where to find her.

Keiko considers quitting her job, over her mother’s protests. Her mom also insists Keiko marry some random office guy. When Keiko refuses, her mother threatens to kick her out of the house. While Keiko is delightful, there’s something a little smug and condescending about the scenes in Japan. The peripheral players -- Keiko’s mom, her employers, the chefs at the sushi bar -- are drawn too heavily on stereotypes. The result makes me cringe a little.

Mark manages to get the recording of the phone call between Demetri and the mysterious woman from the NSA. Demetri, Mark and Vreede listen to it. Vreede identifies some distinctive electronic music in the background as part of a nightly light show in Hong Kong. Stan won’t give his approval for Demetri to go to Hong Kong to investigate. Because they’re rebels who aren’t bound by things like direct orders, Mark and Demetri decide to sneak off on their own.

Bryce shows Keiko’s mother his drawing. She decides to be a butthead and tells him he doesn’t recognize her, then shuts the door in his face. Bryce calls Nicole, depressed he can’t find Keiko. Nicole urges him to come home.

Mark apologizes to Aaron for accusing him of sending the text to Olivia. Aaron complains that Tracy has become an alcoholic. Gosh, this is a fun plotline. In fact, between Bryce’s stage-four cancer and Keiko’s spirit-crushing life and Mark accusing all his friends of betraying him, this is just a fun episode.

Bryce returns to Los Angeles. He exits the plane… followed by Keiko. Neither is aware of the other. We see Keiko’s flash forward in full: She arrives at the sushi bar and meets with Bryce... and the sushi bar is in Los Angeles, not Tokyo.