FlashForward series finale

Cafe Society
1

For the most part I liked it. Obviously, it was originally meant to be just the season finale, and the announcement of cancellation came so late that I doubt they had time to actually change anything, and although the show had been on the bubble for awhile, I haven’t heard any stories of them filming an alternate ending ‘just in case’ like Everwood did.

Mark: I wanted to slap him when he started drinking. But at least he pulled himself together in time to warn the world of the impending blackout. And we saw foreshadowing of a kickass throwing himself out of a window at the last minute to escape a huge explosion. Unfortunately, this seems like a doomed endeavor given that it would be hard to hold on to the helicopter when he passed out due to the flashforward, and it would also be hard for the pilot to continue to fly. But hey, if he had to go, this was the way to do it.

Demetri: I half expected him to throw himself into the accelerator to stop the impending reaction, thereby saving humanity and also self fulfilling his lack of flashforward. The other of me expected him to get knocked out by a bad guy and thus similarly fulfill his flash forward. I’m glad he completely and utterly defied his fate in all respects.

Simon: He redeemed himself for the most part, although he was never truly a bad guy, just someone caught in the net of more powerful and nasty people. I wonder what he would have thought, had he seen this moment instead of being immune to the flashforward from the ring? OTOH, if I realized that the reactor was about to go off, I wouldn’t bother trying to hack it, I would start pulling out wires and pulling power switches. Or maybe even shoot it. Of course, what would a second potential season do without another FF. OTOH, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. After the second time the reactor amplifies the FF, there would be riots around the world demanding the thing be dismantled and burned to a crisp.

Olivia: I wanted to slap her too for pressuring Mark to let millions of people die for the sake of their relationship when she couldn’t even be bothered to resist the charms of Lloyd for a few months. Geez. At least she tried to change things at the end by going to the beach. OTOH she really does seem to be better suited to Lloyd.

Nicole: Her real problem was, hiding that she knew where Keiko was, wasn’t so much a crime against Bryce, since he had told her he didn’t care about Keiko anymore. Rather is was a crime against Keiko who didn’t deserve to be in a detention facility, and didn’t deserve to be left in the dark if Bryce no longer wanted to fufill their flashforward. So I think Mark was justified in being angry at her, not for being a dick to him, but for being a dick to Keiko. I’m glad she went off the road by accident, and not on purpose. I’ve heard behind the scenes, that originally she wasn’t going to be drowning, instead she was going to be undergoing a baptism (hence the whole winder washer prophet guy thing that was set up).

Bryce: While what Nicole did was a bit cruel, he was a bit of a dick to her, too, in setting her up for disappointment. OTOH he and Keiko do seem made for each other. I actually really liked their overall plot line. Unlike other viewers, I don’t consider romantically theme plot threads to automatically be soap operas. I wouldn’t have wanted to watch the series if every episode was solely a detective story about Mark looking for the conspirators. What a wasted potential that would have been! There’s so many other stories to explore with this premise of knowing your possible future, and I’m glad they took the time to get into those.

Aaron / Tracy: Her having a low pulse and being thought dead only for them to realize that she was actually alive was silly. But I liked his phone call with Mark.

Stanford: well he wasn’t reading a newspaper, but he was in the bathroom. Not sure what to make of that.

Janis: I liked her storyline, trying to stop the accelerator, with her baby issues acting as a way to get the gat code and simultaneously letting her escape to the hospital. I also liked that the gender of the baby was different. It was a little freaky when we see X-Files chick wheeling her out of the hospital though.

The flashforwards: this was a little bit confusing. There was no clear correlation with each character and a specific flashforward like we had before, except for the last one with Charlie. We saw several dates - March 2011, I think 2015 also? And the implied farther future date of an older Charlie. So there’s a baby baptism, someone loading a gun, Charlie saying they found ‘him’, a wedding… Not sure what to make of that.

It was emotional. Got a little teary. Not sure if that was legitimate or just the use of the Funeral song by Band of Horses. Either way it worked.

I’ll miss this show. Whatever problems it may have had, the mystery part of it was smartly written and had well paced pay offs. And it leaves me wanting more. Here’s hoping there’s some kind of follow up.

2

I saw the first episode, then missed the rest until the last three. Does my opinion count?

The next flash forward mentioned several dates because they were going to continue and happen more frequently until they overlap at some point-- leading up to a sort of divide by zero thing, and no time, maybe.

I really, really wish networks wouldn’t cancel shows without giving the writers a chance to chase the loose ends.

3

I am fairly certain Mark was going to wind up landing in the pool in front of the building, nearly drowning but winding up still alive.

4

Do you guys think it is worth watching over the summer? Did the finale wrap things up and end up serving as a series finale?

5

The series left me wanting more, but not because of unsolved mysteries. The series pretty much resolved all of the mysteries from the pilot and along the way, except for the two major of the conspiracy, and why did they create a global blackout. It definitely resolved all of the characters’ flashforwards. Besides the major 2 mysteries, the finale also gave 2 of the characters cliffhanger type endings, and gave the series itself a sort of cliffhanger.

6

A very nice job on the summary, jackdavinci…

I was underwhelmed with last night’s episode, but as it was cancelled just last week, I understand that the writers probably didn’t have time for a proper series ending.

I dont recall Mark nipping from the silver flask during the gunbattle in his office—Maybe the future is more malleable than they thought.
Overall, IMHO, FlashForward was quite a let down, mainly due to poor writing and execution, but I suppose in the end it was probably still better than most of the dreck (“Who Want’s To Marry My Closeted Gay Televangelist” or “Wife Swap—Neo Nazi and Hassidic Jew Edition”) that’s on network TV these days.

7

I’m still wrestling with the aftermath of the ending of LOST (I really need to get a life). In that light there was one detail in the finale of Flashforward I appreciated.

When we learn Olivia’s FF involves her being with another man - to the extent that that man’s kid feels like Olivia’s (and Mark’s) is his - that really ramped up the mystery: How can this challenged but stable marriage give way to some stranger mere months hence? What a delicious mystery.

FF to April 29 - in the moments leading up to 10:00, we see Charlie inviting Dylan into the home with the phrase “Me casa su casa” (sp?)" then remembering Dylan is autistic and spelling it out for him, “that means my house is your house.” Dylan takes it perhaps a bit too literally.

See writers of LOST: that’s how you do it! Mystery resolved!

(enough of LOST, please forgive me - I’ll take the black arm band off soon)

Overall I enjoyed the series. I was a fan of the book (which is similar to the show in premise and a few themes only - definitely not plotwise) and I think the show was a cool revved up reflection of the book.

To tell the truth, it’s probably better for everyone that it was cancelled though. The question from the beginning is “how can they sustain this show after April 29?” The only real answer is “more blackouts, I guess” and that seems weak. The series, truncated as it was, was self-contained enough to be satisfying. Better left wanting more than to depise it after getting more.

8

How did I miss that key word?

9

Sure she deserved to be there. She was violating immigration laws.

Pretty unsatisfying ending, clearly they thought they’d be back another year. Quite confusing about the multiple dates in the new flash forwards. Maybe something was different about this event, and not everyone flashed to the same time frame? Guess we’ll never know.

Seems futile to speculate, but maybe Noh didn’t have a FF the first time because at 10pm he still had the QED in his possession. Maybe they work on both ends of the event? Oh well, that would’ve been interesting.

And there was that damned kangaroo again…

10

I literally yelled “THAT’S IT?” when the credits started rolling. I had been almost thinking it was going to be 2 hours because to me there were too many loose ends to tie up as the clock ticked towards 9.

Too many new questions brought up for this episode to be enjoyable or satisfying. Leaving us wondering (like the Sopranos) is one thing, but this episode was obviously written with the assumption of another season.

11

I was surprised they didn’t include any footage of Demetri’s fiancee (though I hated her character, so I’m also glad), but otherwise thought they did a pretty good job given that they assumed the storylines would continue. The Bryce/Keiko arc was the most interesting one for me, and while I had a hard time caring to much about the other characters, I thought they handled their individual FF resolutions well. I can’t say I’m completely sorry to see it go, but the season had its moments.

12

In my world, she took her barefoot walk on the beach, then waded in the ocean, blacked out, was carried out by the waves and eaten by a shark. Yeah, that’ll do nicely as my official resolution for her storyline.

13

With Demetri’s family watching…and not lifting a finger to help. :smiley:

14

That was my thought exactly as the next blackout approached near the end of the show. I just thought, “OK, they are resolving some issues from the blackout, now they are running out of plot, so they have another blackout. They are really going to milk this.”

The other problem I have with the story concept, that I don’t think they addressed sufficiently, is that many of the conclusions were self-fulfilling prophecies that would not have occurred had the subjects not seen it in their flash forwards, which introduces a kind of infinite feedback loop. The best example is Bryce and Keiko. The only reason they met is that they were both trying to find each other, and seemed to bend over backwards to be in the appointed place at the appointed time. It never would have occurred just by happenstance; it was a private party and he wasn’t invited.

Tracey being thought to be dead and then coming back to life in the next episode was the cheapest trick of lazy writing.

I still want to know who sent the goons to kill Mark and his colleagues in the parking garage. It was implied that the President had something to do with it. I want to know why the fate of the President was not shown in the finale, when the VP’s flash forward showed her as President.

I also really want to know if ABC is going to throw us a bone and summarize what was conceived for the rest of the series.

15

Excellent point—What exactly had the assistant FBI Director Weddick (Mark Benford’s boss) covered up for the President (played by Peter Coyote) years ago—Wasn’t it implied to be some kind of sex crime?

What about Hott Blonde Terrorist (the one who shot Dyson Frost?) or the pet-shop lady who was giving Janice her marching orders?

Finally, will the little girl who played Charlie Benford be legally barred from ever “acting” again, under threat of death???

16

Good news, everyone!

Last night I finally got around to watching the finale. Then, due to undercooked barbecue or a malfunctioning thermostat, I had a very fitful sleep. But in my fevered state I dreamed resolutions to some of our questions!

Okay, first Nicole. In my dreams, she turned out to be the daughter of that conspiracy woman who first recruited Janice and was last seen wheeling her unconscious body out of the hospital. Nicole went back to high school, was befriended by Finn and Kurt, and joined the New Directions show choir! (Oh, yeah, I watched the most recent episode of Glee last night too).

Charlie-as-a-teenager is saying “They’ve found him!” in Dylan’s FF in 2015. She’s referring to Janice’s baby, who was kidnapped by the shadowy conspiracy and was being groomed to replace Simon.

Something happened to Mark too, but unfortunately I couldn’t remember what it was when I woke up. He couldn’t have survived by landing in the pool because that pool is only like eight inches deep – remember when Janice and Marcy the Mole wrestled in it?

So, I hope that gives everyone some much-needed closure.