Okay. We get it. The show is about fate and free will. We understand that now. Please show us something else.
This week’s episode “Playing Cards with Coyote” gave audiences a healthy dose of discussion about predestination in nearly all of its storylines. Events did happen to advance the overall plotline of the show, but the themes were so heavy that they nearly drowned out what was actually happening.
Speaking of what did happen, here’s a quick summary. Aaron’s daughter Tracy showed up at the end of the last episode, and this week she confirmed that she was indeed in a gunfight while deployed. However, she was not killed (obviously), she merely lost a leg in the explosion. Mark shot and killed an ex-military man that was on the wrong side of the law in a somewhat suspicious shooting. Meanwhile, Lloyd, in a mounting crisis of conscience, played Simon in a game of cards with the stakes being whether or not the group of scientists should go public with their little experiment that caused the blackout and killed twenty million people. Lloyd won the game through cheating. At the very end of the episode, we met a new character that had sent a military group to kill someone in order to retrieve a set of rings. The rings apparently enabled people to avoid blacking out while the rest of the world had visions.
The biggest piece of new information to the show is the addition of the seven rings. There are so many “Lord of the Rings” and “Green Lantern” jokes that could spin out of this discussion, but we’ll try to be mature here. But, as much as FlashForward has distanced itself from traditional science fiction and fantasy stories, the “rings” feel like they could fit with any one of those tales. Perhaps someone will find a magic sword, too
The rings do make for an interesting plot twist. Case in point, we know that both Lloyd and Simon had flash forwards. They were obviously not wearing the rings during the blackout. The guy on tape at the football stadium had a ring on, but we still don’t know if he’s tied into the same group with Simon and Lloyd. In fact, in the midst of all of his charades, Simon wanted to investigate their experiment to make sure that their teams was actually the group who triggered the blackout. Others could have been involved.
FlashForward is strongest when it sticks to advancing the action and when it reveals new aspects of characters. This week had two character moments that stood out. When Mark shot the soldier, he took the next step into something more sinister. He isn’t necessarily a selfish character, but his need to prevent the predicted future goes far beyond professional curiosity. He is an obsessed man, and his mission is overtaking him.
The other character moment came when Lloyd revealed that he had cheated at the card game. After a tedious discussion on the science of predetermined chances, Lloyd introduced a new variable into Simon’s scenario: man’s desire to win no matter the cost. At the beginning of the episode, Lloyd was shown as a man with a strong conscience, ready to share his guilt with the world. But he is not a completely moral man; he still cheats to get what he wants. If he is partly responsible for the blackout, his history should show that cheating (in physics and in cards) does not always end well. Simon is also not likely to receive Lloyd’s cheating gracefully.
Tracy’s arrival signaled some interesting news for Aaron. Since she is alive and only missing a limb, then that means that Mike is either lying or has been brainwashed. Mike was a fellow soldier that served with Tracy, and in the last episode he told Aaron (and we saw through his flashback) that Tracy had been literally torn in half by the blast. It’s more likely that Mike was simply lying, and Aaron will have to be careful not to let Mike in on the secret that Tracy is home.
There you have it: some humor, some great character moments, and too much theme. Recently, one of the executive producers was released from the show, so we may see more consistent advancement of the plot in future episodes. We’re certainly hoping so.
Originally published at Sci-Fi Select
