Mosaic Task Force

Episode Rating 7.2/10

October 16, 2009 - A few reviews back, I brought up FlashForward's cursory use of Phillip K. Dick's notion of "pre-crime." It's not clear if this theme will ever get explored as fully as it should since this series has a habit of merely dipping its toe into the waters of metaphysical debate, but in "Black Swan" we get a glimpse into the interesting world of "pre-medicine." It's not as exciting as "pre-crime," but at least the show's doctors, Olivia (Sonya Walger) and Bryce (Zachary Knighton), take the time to sort of hash out their reasonings a bit more than our FBI pals. It doesn't make for the most scintillating of TV, since we're not really invested in their characters (or their patient Ned, for that matter), and most of the debate happens during long, boring walks down hospital corridors. But at least I felt like the show was attempting to dig into one of the hundreds of philosophical topics that it's unleashed in just three episodes.

Olivia refuses to treat Ned (Keir O'Donnell) based on the clues given in his flash vision because she stubbornly doesn't want to believe that these future visions are something that can be taken as fact. Bryce, however, is all about the saving and healing power of the flash visions. This loft stance actually helped fill in his character a bit more and make him a touch more appealing. Listen, everyone on this show still takes very ham-fisted "time outs" to talk in heightened tones about the ideas of hope and destiny - but if they actually decide to turn Bryce into a pioneering practitioner of "pre-medicine" then he could actually become interesting.

According to the episode opener, we're now only 14 days out from the black out. So everyone just ignore the dead crow graph. Maybe it was projecting future crow deaths. Like those crow graphs are apt to do. I have to say, I really liked the opening sequence in this one – with the bus driving into the lake set to Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet." It's the most artistic thing that this show's done so far (well, that's worked anyway) and it gave the scene a great, detached feel. I think FlashForward could benefit from a more objective approach to this story. I feel like the fact that they try to hyper-personalize everything takes away from the story's ambition. The fact that we don't care about a lot of these characters, and aren't invested in their well-being, tends to make a lot of the scenes fall flat.

- ABC

Noh (Cho) and Benford (Fiennes) chillin' in Indio, yo.

I would like to comment on John Cho however. He's a very charismatic actor and he really does his best to make Agent Noh's actions believable and relatable. I'd much prefer to watch him that Agent Benford (Joseph Fiennes) – even though neither of them, 14 days out now, can figure out the easiest and simplest of solutions to their flash vision dilemmas. Why doesn't Noh just quit the FBI? There are big plays that these guys could make that could greatly effect a more agreeable outcome. Even Olivia thinks that transferring Lloyd's (Jack Davenport) son to a different ward will prevent her from inter-acting with him. But it's just like throwing a boomerang,and the son winds up back in her care. She's going to have to leave. If she wants things to change, then she's going to have to be the one who changes. Same with Noh. They have the ability to remove themselves, possibly, from their fate, but so far they're choosing not to.

Which brings us to the paradox. The future visions that the people are seeing of themselves are of themselves having been through the black-out. It's of versions of themselves who have seen their FlashForward visions of themselves being right where they are in the FlashForward vision. And yet they're still re-enacting the scene in the same way that they must have seen it before. Meaning Benford's future self must have known that he was going to end up right there, going over clues, drinking and about to be shot. And yet, he was there anyway. It means that Olivia's future self must have also already seen herself walking out and saying hello to Lloyd, but she's still doing it. It never ends actually. They're seeing future visions of themselves who've seen future visions of themselves. It's hard to believe that knowing the future won't change the outcome, especially when the knowledge is of you being in a specific place, doing a specific thing and feeling a specific way.

As far as the rest of "Black Swan" goes…Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) is still wondering why anyone wants to do anything. "You want to go to Somalia?" Why doesn't the director understand the very investigation that he himself started? He started it based on Benford's flash vision. Noh even questioned his logic about it. Nicole (Peyton List) is back, but I find myself not really caring. She saw herself being drowned. If it turns out that it's just her getting baptized by the priest, I'll s*** in my hat.

The blonde terrorist lady, Alda (Rachel Roberts), is back and giving "heady," vague answers to dumb FBI question in an attempt to make this show seem cultivated and egghead-ish. For no reason she tells Benford about the Black Swan theory, and then she shares a needless parable of a young boy with a candle. Then she compared Benford to the young boy in the dark when really he was the old man asking questions to the young boy and she was the young boy, sitting there, handing out pithy philosophical nonsense.

And finally, we caught a glimpse of Lost's Dominic Monaghan, entering in as…someone; someone who calls Lloyd and reveals that they might have been behind the black-out. Either that or they were behind Battlefield Earth. I'm not sure. He only made reference to a "giant disaster."

SOURCE: IGN