FlashForward

 

FBI Special Agent Mark Benford's vision offers details of a project called "The Mosaic Collective" complete with a board of clues which he believes refers to work that he will do to investigate the FlashForward itself.

Is this a self-fulfilling premonition? Mark is prompted to begin setting his vision in motion by seeing himself working on it. Would he have become involved in the investigation (as Demetri does by dint of being Mark's partner) if his vision were of something else?

The words on the project board are written in Demetri's handwriting on yellow note sheets, and as Mark and Demetri begin setting up the board we are shown Mark's vision taking shape.

But Mark's vision also has two negative points to it. He is drinking heavily and it seems a group of armed men is converging on his location.

We discover that Mark is a recovering alcoholic and his hopes are of changing at least this part of his vision. His AA sponsor, however, hopes that his own vision comes true in its entirety as he was shown his presumed-deceased daughter still living. Demetri had no vision, and presumes this foretells his death occuring before the Flash Forward date.

If Mark's gun is the one used to kill Demitri could it be that Mark is being framed? If Mark is a fugitive at the time of the FlashForward, this could explain why he is in his office looking at the Mosaic board with gunmen closing in on him. It could also explain his drinking to take the edge off.

Still of Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford © ABC Studios

Dr Olivia Benford, Mark Benford's wife, loses a patient she was operating on at the time of the Flash Forward. Her vision shows her sharing an intimate moment with a man she's not yet met.

During the chaos following the Flash Forward an injured child is brought to the hospital and responds to Olivia by name before she can introduce herself. Olivia is adamant that she has never met the boy, however, his father is revealed to be the man about whom Olivia had her vision. And Olivia's daughter recognises the injured boy from her vision.

Do children experience the Flash Forward on an additional level? Charlie is already emotionally attached to Dylan (the injured boy) and he to Olivia. Dylan, who is autistic, knew Olivia by name and face despite not featuring in her flash forward. [Edit: Dylan saw photographs with names in his flash forward - explaining how he recognised Olivia.] However, Mark said he also felt the fear and anxiety of his Flash Forward, as did Nicole with feeling that she deserved punishment, which suggests adults also experience it quite deeply.

Olivia's flashforward seems to be falling into place when she is left comforting Dylan Simcoe after his father is abducted at gun point in front of them.

Still of Sonya Walger as Dr Olivia Benford, © ABC Studios

The FBI's Agent Al Gough and New Scotland Yard's Inspector Fiona Banks cross-reference their Flash Forwards, which involved a meeting they held together at Fiona Banks's office. Both their visions involved a bird flying into the window. Gough notes that the date of his vision was the 30th of April 2010, eight hours prior to his colleagues' visions on the 29th of April 2010, and works out that this is due to the different time zones - making it appear to be a precognition of the exact same moment worldwide.

Gough, however, decides to change the future. He is aware that he will be responsible for the death of a young mother and the guilt and pain he feels about this during his FlashForward leads him to choose suicide for the sake of her and others who had no flash (like colleague Demetri Noh).

What happens to Fiona Banks's future now that the person she was supposed to be meeting with is dead? Will the young mother still survive, or will something else cause her death? And, if she does survive, what will she be doing on 29 April?

In FBI Agent Janis Hawk's flash forward she was pregnant and having an ultrasound scan. We later learn that Janis is lesbian. Janis also undergoes a surgical procedure after being shot that will make it next to impossible for her to conceive and carry a baby. Where does this leave Janis's flash future?

Still of Christine Woods as Janis Hawk, © ABC Studios

So now we know that it is Mark who will supposedly shoot Demetri. Right now we're wondering how this could possibly happen. Mark cares about Demetri and is doing everything possible to prevent the death of his FBI partner, including losing his job.

However, all we know is that it is Mark's gun that is used to kill Demetri. So... will it be Mark standing behind the gun, or someone else framing him?

And is Mark legitimately working on the Mosaic case in his flashforward, or has he broken into his former office illegally? Are the armed men really the good guys - an amped up security team?

- The date: 29 April 2010
or 30 April 2010 in London due to time zone differences

- A name: D. Gibbons
Di Di Gibbons's credit card cloned --> leads Benford and Noh to Pigeon, Utah --> ambush in doll factory --> hacker was also collecting info on the flash forwards
Charlie says "D. Gibbons is a bad man."

- A photograph: partially melted doll's head
Taken by police photographer at doll factory

- Chess pieces
Left as a taunt by "D. Gibbons" at doll factory

- A CCTV capture: Suspect Zero - the only person who didn't "black out"
Measurements: Suspect Zero is male
From mobile retrieved at doll factory: D. Gibbons was speaking to Suspect Zero by mobile phone during the black out --> "So that makes two people awake at the time"
Photo enhancements --> ring on hand (Guess what's in The Case...)

(Audience knowledge: Simon is Suspect Zero; his FlashForward is actually a memory of a murder he committed on the day of the Blackout)

137 Sekunden | Photo of elderly man
Investigate dead crows --> Perhaps the flashforward has occured before...
Somalia --> structure in the desert --> Simon claims to have designed it in 1992 but photo was taken in 1991

- A tattoo on a man's arm: three stars
Woman witnesses shooting and records it on mobile phone --> shooter has the triple star tattoo --> Mark shoots triple star man first: dead end? (How popular are triple star tattoos?)
Triple star shooter takes The Case from his victim

- Blue hand
Assassin (attack on Janis) has tiny blue hand stamp --> Gough and Noh follow blue hand sign posts --> corpse found with painted blue hand --> passport in name of Rutherford --> Gough opens "The Rutherford case" (linked to his flash forward)
ProjectGhosts.com site --> suicide club --> arrest of "Jeff" (well waddya know... it was the cylons all along)

- A friendship bracelet
Made for Mark by Charlie --> burnt: dead end?

- Hydra
Drug-enhanced memory

- Red Panda Resources
Drug-enhanced memory

- "Help Us" on Crown Cheese Steak take-away menu
Drug-enhanced memory
--> Mark drives past building and remembers talking to Lloyd on the phone during his FlashForward. He recognises grafitti of a 8-ball --> crashes through the door leading to rescue of Lloyd Simcoe.

Simon is an idiot and if it is true that he and Lloyd ran an experiment based on Simon's understanding of Quantum Physics then it is no wonder they stuffed up.

Simon explains the Schrodinger's Cat Quantum Physics analogy using the story of a cat locked in a box with a poisoned sardine. That places the cat's fate squarely in its own paws; of course the cat is going to eat the sardine. That analogy indicates that the cat has a choice (even though it is unaware of the consequences of its choice to eat the sardine).

THIS IS INCORRECT!

Schrodinger's theory is based on chance, not choice.

Schrodinger's theory (to put it as simply as possible) uses the fact that quantum particles occupy two opposing states at the same time. Bullet points will make this clearer:

- The cat is placed in a box where its death is determined by the spin of an atom (let's say that if the atom spins UP the poison is released, if it spins DOWN the cat lives).

- At all times an UNOBSERVED quantum particle spins up and down at the same time...

- ...therefore the UNOBSERVED cat is both alive and dead at the same time.

- It is the act of opening the box to OBSERVE the cat that either kills the cat or allows it to remain living. This is because the act of observing the particle locks it in the SPIN UP or SPIN DOWN position at the time of observation. This is pure 50/50 chance; no one can know what state the particle will be in when they observe it and lock it.

- And this is why FlashForward is rather interesting. Does the act of observing the future "lock" it into position?

Dominic Monaghan, Photo by Steve Granitz, WireImage.com, source

FlashForward promotional images and still photographs copyright © America Broadcasting Corporation

Lens content copyright © Elsa Neal, 2009-2010.