TV Recap: ‘FlashForward,’ “The Gift”

Damn you FlashForward. Damn you.

In big genre shows like this, you always expect death to come a-callin’ and many times the one to go is a character that we really care about. But the difference between the deaths on say, Lost, is that there are a number of remaining characters to care about once the dead person is dead.

This is not the case on FlashForward. The only character I really began to like over the past few weeks was Agent Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young), so of course he commits suicide in “The Gift.” Shoooooooot. However, I have to appuald the writers for finally crafting a really damn good episode (even better the one in Washington) that took some chances and opens up the story moving forward. In continuing with my comparisons to Heroes, this is FlashForward’s FutureHiro-meets-Peter-in-the-train moment. So yeah, Al jumped off the FBI building to his death. He was really the only major character where we hadn’t seen all or at least most of his flash forward and we finally got that info here. It seems that his actions somehow lead to the death of a woman with kids, and the guilt is just driving him nuts. That woman, Celia — as we saw him type in the computer a few weeks back — did not have a flash forward and in his vision, Al learns that his meddling to keep her safe actually causes her to die. And though he hasn’t quite showed it in the time that we have seen him, Al’s been really, really struggling with this and eventually he figures out that the only way to keep her alive is to make certain that his flash forward doesn’t come true — so he cannot be alive.

A few things about Al’s death: First, this type of storytelling is exactly what I have been clamoring for since the beginning of the series. Al’s strife and eventual suicide had a greater effect because we didn’t see his vision every six fucking minutes since the pilot! Instead, we were sort of confused, there was some tension built and then boom he’s dead. THAT’S HOW THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLAYING IT WITH MOST OF THE CHARACTERS. I hate to yell, but that just seems so obvious.

Secondly, I do have to kudos to the writers for pulling the trigger on this though, because now we do see that flash forwards can absolutely be altered. It’s concrete. This opens up other characters to move forward with their lives a little bit instead of continuing to piss and moan like they’ve done for nearly two months. With fate given so much agency in the first slew of episodes, the show lack all urgency and made everyone boring as hell. Let’s hope this changes it up.

Finally, the way the episode’s structure played with Al’s death worked really well too. The book-ended readings of the letter by first Al and then Dem was a very nice touch. When used at the beginning of the episode it did not quite make sense, but was certainly more emotional resonant when Dem read it later as everyone seem more relieved because they could maybe make their own future — which in itself is pretty crooked, as they feel so because a guy killed himself. Edgy.

The blue hand stuff worked well here too, and the scene with Al, Dem and Mark walking into the party criticizing each other’s outfits was the first “funny” moment the show has been able to hit on-the-mark as far as I’m concerned. Plus, it was also the first time that we saw people in this world reacting to the blackout in a way that they should. It makes total sense that all the people who know they are going to die would band together through Mosaic and start a kooky cult. People are nuts and self-destructive. The Russian Roulette scene was very effective as well.

The other sub-plots with Aaron learning more about his daughter (and her eventually showing up at his door) and whatever else is going on with “other doctor” and “babysitter” were pretty boring, especially when contrasted with the Al stuff.

Alas, this was definitely the best episode of the program to-date. Let’s hope it moves forward in this direction and stays away from the melodrama with Mark and Olivia. Less of them = better program, IMO.