Sunday, November 8, 2009

FlashForward - The Gift, S01E07

We have learned more, and we have even more questions to which we want the answers. That is the continuing premise of FlashForward, and I continue to be intrigued by the questions and satisfied with the fullness of the answers.

In Thursday's episode, we finally learnt that the future is not set in stone, as Simon (Dominic Monaghan) indicated last week. It can be changed; those future 2 minutes and 17 seconds are not a guarantee.

The proof was huge, when Agent Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) decided that he was going to kill himself, despite having had a flashforward. He could not bear the guilt of a future act in which he would accidentally kill a woman, a mother of two, and so he threw himself off the top of the FBI building.
The scene was moving, and brilliant, the pain of his fellow agents mixed with the hope that his act offered. Now Demetri (John Cho) knows that he can avoid his own murder, after all the British agent will not end up meeting with Al over the Rutherford case this April. Mark (Joseph Fiennes) and Olivia (Sonya Wagler) can try again, knowing that it is possible that Mark will not drink and Olivia will not leave him. Even Nicole (Payton List) and Bryce (Zachary Knighton) hint at a different future, with a mutual interest that may replace the importance of the girl Bryce saw in his flashforward.

The point is, of course, that action must be taken to change the future. Al made a decision to end his own life, despite having the hope of knowing he was to be alive in April. The Ghosts, as the people without flashforwards call themselves, have been dying without consideration of the future, possible killing themselves, but when April 29th comes, some of them might still easily be alive. It is not something anyone could prove until that date came. And it is hard to conceive of anyone thinking they would live ending their lives any sooner - but Al did. He did change the flashforward, which means that all our expectations have to change.

Anything is now possible.

No comments:

Post a Comment