This Week in FlashForward - 5/27/10

This week's episode was both the season finale, as well as the series finale, with FlashForward wrapping up its one-season run, due to poor ratings. This is slightly unfortunate, as the finale left open a ton of room for expansion, and with the help of some better writing, FlashForward could have become a decent show. Oh well.

Series Finale: Episode 22 - "Future Shock"

Zach says: This episode is all about April 29th, and going through everyone's flash forward. Most of them did end up happening as they were seen, however, a few were a bit different, namely, with Olivia and Lloyd and how they weren't being intimate, although Lloyd did sweet talk his way into Olivia's house. It turns out, little Dillon wrote the formula on the mirror, and now he wants cookies for his work, because you know, it's his house too. Simon, while working to crack the database mainframe crap over at NLAP, texts Lloyd like he's "supposed to" which causes Lloyd to solve the equation.

The equation is actually for a wave, which determines when the next optimal time is for another black out, which just so happens to be within the next two days. However, Mark happens to narrow that window down a bit with the help of Gabriel's notebook and sketch of the Mosaic board, with the red threads pointing to specific letters, which form the words 10:14 pm, April 29th, which is in like, FIFTEEN MINUTES!!!! Oh, and the FBI building is also rigged to blow, and those masked villains are running about. Fortunately, being the bad ass that he is, Mark dispatches all of them, blowing each away one by one with a shotgun.

Then, the black out occurs. We see lots of interesting images, from who knows what person, but the most important one features Charlie, who has grown up quite a bit, and utters the words "They found him!" Then, the FBI building blows up and the episode ends.

So, there's a lot going on here for real at the end, and if the series truly is dead, then we might never know what will happen, unless they release some super DVD set with bonus features, etc. Bryce and Keiko DO meet up, which is nice; Janis is actually having a boy, but during the black out, Lita wheels her off someplace; and we don't really know what happens to Mark. I would assume he is the person Charlie is talking about in her flash forward, but that can't be said. I don't know how they could lose him, unless an agent with one of those QEDs takes him away, however, I don't even see how it's plausible he survived. He was running out of the FBI building, set to jump out a window onto a helicopter. He was on like, the 4th floor I think, and that floor totally exploded. So, if he didn't get out, yeah, he burned up, but if he did, he landed in the helicopter, which would have went down during the black out, so basically, there ain't no way he LOGICALLY survived, although I'm sure he did.....Also, total BS about Tracy still being alive...pft.

Overall, I thought the finale was pretty decent, and it's obvious they planned to have a bigger series, with more seasons, which would have addressed later story arcs, such as Jericho and Tracy, etc. It's unfortunate we will probably never get to see these, but it is what it is.
Zach's Score: 8/10

JDW says: I'll be honest, and I'm sure my recent FlashForward reviews will reflect this, I really stopped caring for this show in the last month or so. When it returned from its much needed hiatus, I was actually hopeful that things would turn out better, but after a decent return, everything fell flat quite quickly. So, knowing this was the SERIES finale, and no longer the season finale, I felt distanced from these characters, knowing that whatever happens, really won't matter because it's not a show I've invested as much time in as say, Lost.

But, the finale surprised me. Not only was it actually decent, but not everything played out 'exactly' as perceived in the original flash-forwards, there was some variation to all the events, so thankfully it didn't fully feel like we've seen everything in the first episode and already knew where it would go. And Mark, one vs twenty, with just a shotgun, was pretty hilarious and awesome despite it surely trying to be a serious sequence. But the final moments, with the second blackout and what we could kind of see were really intriguing, although didn't make much sense. Like, it said New Years 2015, and showed Charlie looking out the window saying, "They found him!" but she clearly looked 20 and not five years older than her current age.

It seems, like ABC's version of Life On Mars before it, the most interesting part of the series is the all too soon first season/series finale. At least in Life On Mars' case, there was no where else to go with a finale like they had, despite it's odd take that completely drifted from the UK original. But in FlashForward's case, the super-intriguing ending hints that there was so much more to come, and I would've actually been interested to see how they handled all of that. However, if that meant sitting through more awful writing like I did in this first season, then I'm glad the show ended where it did, on a semi-high note.
JDW's Score: 8.5/10

Overall Score: 8.3/10

Missed the episode? Catch it on Hulu