The Black Swan

I want to summarize the whole "Black Swan" idea, first of all, because it is important and we see several examples of the theory in play during this episode.

Basically, until the late 17th Century, people believed that Swans were only white. This is because they had never seen a Swan of any other colour. Then along comes this black swan. Apparently it shook the then scientific world to it's knees. Until then, a black swan didn't exist. It did, but based on past observances, and the fact that no one had seen one before, it wasn't even considered a possibility.

So, when there is a high impact event so huge that it is beyond our human understanding, something we have been unable to plan for, it is called a 'black swan event.' There are no indications from the past to predict the event of the future.

And we all rely so heavily on our logical reasoning, our ability to use inductive reasoning to predict future events based on facts of past events) that we sometimes fail to prepare for the unexpected.

Which explains why no one but Mark was so interested in the event of 1991 in Somalia. It was so unreal, and only one small black swan, that not even the boss, Stan, could grasp the possibility that Somalia could be the key that unlocks the mystery of the GBO. But more on the Black Swan events later.

I knew immediately that we were looking at a flashback to the instant of the GBO (okay, they did point us in that direction with the obligatory 14 Days Ago title page). I giggled at the music. Was that Bjork singing? I think so and it was so funny as people started to drop. Another example of the chaos that the GBO caused. Here we have a lovely serene day at the park. A homeless dude looking for lunch in the trash bin. Some grown man walking with a green balloon. Cyclists getting their exercise. Couples walking along the waterside.

And then they all fall down, planes in the sky crash into each other and a bus speeds perilously close to the couple napping by the water on it's way into the lake.

At the end of the 137 seconds, we see two people in the bus, about to die if they don't get out. The man is unbelievably calm as he helps the woman kick out the window and swim to the surface.

Cut to the present and that same man is sitting on a hospital bed telling them where he was when the GBO occurred. Olivia is surprised that Ned Ned (yeah, I don't get it either but I'm going to let it roll) didn't come to the hospital immediately. He calmly tells her that he didn't NEED the hospital then. At Bryce's prompting, Ned tells them of his flash.

He's in a dance club, he's wearing leather pants, he's confident and by the way, his skin is black. I probably wasn't the only one thinking; "Yeah, riiiiight". But this episode is called the Black Swan for a reason, and I promise, we will get to it. If you haven't already.

Zoey and Dimitri meet for breakfast at a quiet coffee house and Zoey gently reminds him that he hasn't charged Alda Hertzog with anything yet and he can't keep her locked up without charges for much longer. She tells him he is almost out of time for holding her without charges.

I loved that Mark was playing with his daughter and almost spit my International Delights Cinnamon Coffee across the room when he was pretending to pretend to have a British accent! And the Eggbert reference was a hilarious shout out to Joseph Feinnes' amazing performances in many Shakespeare plays.

Nichole shares a quiet breakfast with Aaron Stark and we learn that Tracy had once been Nichole's babysitter. We also learn that Aaron suggested Nichole as a babysitter for Charlie. While Nichole doesn't tell him of her vision, Aaron tries to ease her troubled mind.

Olivia and Bryce are discussing the problem of Ned. This is where we begin to see a clear example of the Black Swan Theory. Olivia is obsessed with not allowing her vision to happen that she is becoming consumed by it, which in turn, affects how she sees and deals with her patients. She fails to expect the unexpected. Bryce has accepted his vision and is using it to help guide him in his present day decisions.

Ned is very ill. He is bleeding internally and needs surgery. Bryce, however, does a little research on pigment diseases and causes of pigment discolouration. He attempts to tell Olivia of his findings, but she is so rooted in her need to avoid the future that she misses the obvious and insists on operating.

Mark, Stan and Al Gough are discussing the Somalia incident in 1991. Mark and Al can't get any information from the CIA regarding the blackout in Somalia, so Stand tells them they have to move on. Mark and Al discuss a hacker they'd busted a while back. Yup, I too think they will use this hacker to get into the CIA database, most illegally of course, to get the information they need. I think Somalia may be part of the key that unlocks the mystery of the GBO.

Dimitri is interrogating Alda Hertzog, the blond terrorist they were chasing when the GBO occurred. It is through Alda that the Black Swan Theory is explained. Since I've already summarized it earlier, I'm not going to go into it again. Needless to say, this has got to be one of my favorite scenes. We see Dimitri's rapid wit.

Alda admits to very little, but tells Dimitri that she's just a pawn in the game and that it is her associates that they really want. Okay, I just loved Dimitri's rapid response! "Honey, your associates died on the day of the blackout. They're super dead." Ha ha ha ha. I was laughing so hard at that line I missed her response...the second time I watched it. She redirects Dimitri to a restaurant in Indio California and reminds him that he is running out of time.

Dimitri has a chip on his shoulder that's the size of a giant grandfather clock and it's about chime nice and loud in his ear!

He convinces Stan that they need to follow up on Alda's lead, reminding them that they all had cases before the GBO. Stan agrees and sends Mark and Dimitri to the restaurant in Indio to investigate. Once there they realize that they may have been given a bum steer, until the manager hollers to the cook to get the FBI guys some burgers, which is when the fun begins.

The cook takes off like a shot and, of course, Mark and Dimitri give chase through a trailer park, no less. Mark finally tackles him and they search him. He's carrying a case full of high grade weed and is arrested. Mark and Dimitri fight, and finally Dimitri tells his partner about the mysterious phone call and his supposed murder. Again, Mark tries to reassure his partner by telling him that just because someone says it's going to happen, it doesn't need to come true.

Yay, Nichole is back and this makes not just Charlie happy, but her parents as well. Her vision was very troubling to her and after seeing it, I can understand why. She saw her own murder by drowning. And the guy who is drowning her looks familiar, but I just can't put a name to his face...yet. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Nichole visits the priest of her church, which she doesn't attend as regularly as her sister, Paige. She fears that she is being punished in the future for something she hasn't yet done and wants to counter that by becoming more involved with her church. What priest would turn down help, even in the hardest of times when everyone is seeking redemption by volunteering?

Bryce continues his research on pigment colour change and realizes that Ned exhibits all the symptoms of Addison's Disease. His calm demeanor in the face of danger indicate a lack of adrenalin. The internal bleeding not stopping. Pigment change. Olivia doesn't want to hear it (can we say unable to prepare for the unexpected) and preps for surgery, during which Ned crashes, and she realizes that Bryce was right. She administers hydrocortizone and brings Ned back to the land of the living.

As Ned was crashing I had the most unbelievable thought and shared it with my daughter. What if Ned dies on the table and his organs are donated. What if one of those organs went to a black guy, who, on April 29th was in a club celebrating his recovery? My daughter almost wet herself laughing at the thought.

Lloyd Simcoe finally faces facts and goes to his ex-wife's house to find out more about his son. It's sad walk through the house as he sees photos of his family, the calendar on the fridge with all of Dylan's appointments, his toys, his books. Lloyd spots a book about magic and takes it.

He uses the magic to reach his son, who then, finally calls him daddy. We also get to see Lloyd's vision. He is in a room that is unfamiliar to him, he sees his son's toys on the floor and there is a woman, but that is all. He doesn't see the woman because as his head turns, he wakes up.

Mark asks Al to find the hacker. He's ready to find out what's going on and it appears that he's not above breaking the law to do it. He thinks the CIA has information that they need.

Nichole and Mark talk about her vision and she spills it all. Since she saw her killer's face, Mark promises to send over a police artist to help her create a composite sketch. He will help her, he promises.

The very last scene we see it the one I've been waiting for and anticipating for weeks now. It did not disappoint me.

Lloyd Simcoe is at the hospital and growing more comfortable being with his son. His cell phone rings. It's Simon. Simon wants him back at the lab working. I couldn't quite make out exactly what he said, but it appears that whatever Loyd and Simon are doing either caused the GBO, or they are trying to avoid another one from happening. Either way, it looks like Lloyd knows more than he's letting on, or maybe what he realizes.

Simon is played by Dominic Monahan! Oh Boy, I think, this is going to get interesting.

WHAT I SAW (or noticed):

The dude with the green balloon must have been trying to re-enact a scene from his childhood. How many grown men do you see walking around holding a balloon?

I have feared that Olivia's determination to avoid her vision would endanger her patients, and finally we got to see it. Both Dylan, whom she transferred to Physiotherapy with an infection, and Ned both nearly paid an ultimate price for her obstinacy.

There's something not quite right about that priest, and what the heck is he thinking just giving a girl who is deeply troubled the brush off and, to ease her rejection, a T-shirt? I don't like this guy. I need to see another view of him, because my first thought was that it was him drowning Nichole.

Six passports for Alda Hertzog? The lady reminds me of Ben from Lost. Do all evil people speak a gazillion foreign languages?

Speaking of LOST, a friend of mine pointed out how Ned's calm demeanor was so Ben Linus like. Thanks, Yaba, I caught that and felt shivers run up my spine. Do you think he was told to play it that way? Great catch Yaba.

Alda Hertzog knows more than she's is letting on, but not enough to warrant them keeping her locked up.

As Mark is talking to Alda and she is talking about the Black Swan Theory, he remembers the kangaroo hopping down the street on the day of the GBO, then we see the kangaroo in Dylan's bedroom.

QUOTES:

This episode was full of them!

"Whatever we saw, we saw it for a reason"

"All I can hear is the clock ticking. Everyday! What do I do?"

"You get some help. You get past the fear and then you fight!"

I was expecting this:

"Just take the battery out of the clock, you dummy"

"You're wasting your energy on trying to find what or who caused the blackout. The more important question is why"

"If you tell me where this light went, I'll tell you where it came from"

"It's time I got out of the dark"

"The future saved me"

screencaps courtesy of SeanyB at flashforwardbog.net

Let me know what you saw. Did I miss something? Is there something that you think is important?

What are your expectations for Simon? Were you as excited as I was to see him?

What does he have in store for us?

WHITE TO PLAY - Or It's Your Move Bobby Fisher

Once again, I am not going to write a complete recap of the episode.

I'd like to cover Charlie's revelations first, though, as I think that her vision will connect Dylan's, Olivia's and Mark's visions and validate some points for their futures.

As White To Play began and I saw the children laying on the ground, unconscious, I thought we were seeing Charlie's vision. But alas, it was only a more updated version of Ring Around The Rosie. In the post GBO version the children fall down, mimicking the GBO and then jump up and ask each other what they saw. The fact that Charlie doesn't take part in the game is telling. After all, from what we have seen and heard, Charlie had one of the more ominous visions that we know of. It is at this point we get confirmation that neither Olivia nor Mark saw their own daughter in their visions, which is downright terrifying to think about.

I want to quickly touch on the symbolism of the children singing Ring Around The Rosie first of all. It is a nursery rhyme that was commonly chanted during the Plague and was designed to teach the illiterate and uneducated about the spread of the killer disease. It could be nothing, but my first thought was that we were seeing the rapid spread of "Flashforwarditis" as humanity comes to terms with what they saw.

Charlie recognizes Dylan while at the hospital with her mother. Her panic and concern are very real and painful to watch. This validates, to Olivia, what she herself saw in her own vision and connects the man on her couch to the boy in the hospital bed. Later, Charlie reveals that there was also a man in her vision and that he is a very bad man. His name is D. Gibbons, the man her father is hunting.

This leads me to suspect that this D. Gibbons has possibly kidnapped the children and could he be using them as a means to force either Mark or Lloyd Simcoe to do something? We will find out, I'm sure, in the coming months.

The FBI is our next stop on this milk run of facts and things are getting interesting here. Many people didn't believe that Stan Wedeck was telling the truth about being in a meeting when he described his vision last week. I need to rewatch because I am confused by what I saw. I know that both his present (the time of the flash) and his future involved the porcelain throne, it's afterward that confuses me. Was it in his flash that he performs CPR on the agent who drowned in the urinal, or after he awoke from the flash? I'm thinking the later, but I'm not sure.


We meet the Assistant Director of Homeland Security, who arrives to find out why a field office took it upon themselves to actually investigate something. How assuming of them to spend millions of dollars collecting and comparing visions in an effort to figure out what caused the GBO! Her tune quickly changes as they reveal Shadow Man in the ballpark in Detroit. Now, like all governmental processes, you know who is going to take credit for this don't you?

Didi Gibbons arrives at the FBI, six cupcakes in hand. It was unclear if she was brought in or came of her own volition, but I'm going with a voluntary action here. If she were brought in would she have grabbed a six pack of cupcakes? I doubt it. But her story was interesting and led to some rather interesting facts.

Basically Didi Gibbons' vision shows her on the phone arguing with the credit card company about a charge to her account that she did not make. Happens all the time, right? I know it's happened to me. The charge was in Pigeon, Utah and Didi has never been to Pigeon Utah. What was interesting was her argument that the FBI, specifically Mark Benford and Dimitri Noh, had already dealt with this problem.

This leads Mark and Dimitri to check on Pigeon, Utah and find that a bus ticket was purchased using a credit card. In Pigeon they meet Sheriff Keegan, who had had the bus depot staked out for the arrival of D. Gibbons. Just when Dimitri has Mark convinced it's a wild goose chase, mark notices the doll manufacturing company and questions it. Sheriff Keegan's explanation that it's bankrupt and empty, plus Mark's memory of the burned doll's head, prompts them to break in. It's not so empty after all as they watch a shadow cross the office above several times.

Was I the only one who thought the dolls hanging was way too creepy? I literally shuddered at the sight. And I gasped when the little red light went on as Mark stepped on the pressure pad. It's rigged, I thought.

What we see in the office is startling. Several computers immersed in what looks to be water. A chess game on a computer screen. It's the aftermath that provides Mark with the chess piece and the photos of the burned doll. However, D. Gibbons, escapes through what looks to be a dumbwaiter shaft just before the place explodes.

Later we learn that the computers were used to hack into numerous systems around the world, even the FBI's own Mosaic site. The FBI conclude that someone else is investigating the GBO, but for what purpose we've yet to learn.

Dimitri is still an enigma to me, but certain things are becoming clear very slowly. Like Charlie, I think Dimitri will be a key to help unlock the mystery of the GBO. He and Janis have a quiet moment where they talk about their futures and she convinces Dimitri to add his flash to the Mosaic along with her. Maybe someone out there will have an answer for them both.

It's a bit shocking when Dimitri gets the call. A woman named Nhadra Udaya (?) tells him that she was reading in the bureau news that he had been murdered on 10 March, 2010! Man that sucks for Dimmitri. So, the question for him is, does he work toward changing that future or will what he does cause the murder? Can he change what appears to be his fate?

Which beings us to what the man in the doll factory muttered just before he set the place to blazes.

He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice fold.

It's a quote by Bishop Porteous (I googled it) and it's pretty self explanatory, isn't it?
However, I have a thought. Bear with me. I carry a spare tire on the back of my Jeep. In the winter I carry booster cables, a small tool box and a first aid kit. I also carry chocolate bars and a few candles. It's called preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best in any situation. Just because we prepare for the worst does not mean it is going to happen. Hey, that sounds just like what Mark said to Olivia! I've driven may thousands of kilometres without a flat tire and rarely needed to pull out, and use, the first aid kit. But is doesn't hurt to be forewarned and forearmed than completely helpless should a situation arise, right?


THINGS I NOTICED:

• The FBI traced cell phone activity and found that the cell phone they took from the doll factory called the man in the ball park 30 seconds into the GBO.
• Since the military is patrolling and guarding certain areas of LA, we can assume that all large cities are under Martial Law
• Olivia is adamant that she will not allow her flash to come true and is doing everything she can to avoid Lloyd Simcoe
• Dylan took news of his mother's death much better than his father did. A bit too accepting, if you ask me
• There is obviously a conspiracy afoot with the revelation that more than one person was awake during the GBO. I think the GBO was a test run for something bigger.

A FEW QUESTIONS:

1. Why didn't Olivia and Mark see their daughter in their visions? Are they so caught up in their own futures that they forget their daughter?
2. Will Dylan's vision of the future include Charlie and the bad D. Gibbons?
3. Does Stan Wedeck wonder why both his future and his present (during the flash) involves the porcelain throne?
4. In light of the phone call telling him of his pending death, does Dimitri end his engagement? Will he seek solace with Janis, thus making her pregnant?
5. Will Didi Gibbins keep bringing cupcakes to the FBI?
6. Does the FBI allow all it's visitors to see sensitive materials. I saw the way Didi's eyes quickly scanned what was on the computer screen at Janice's desk. Never trust muffin men and cupcake ladies.
7. By burning the bracelet his daughter had made for him, has Mark already changed the future?
8. Why didn't Lloyd recognize Olivia if they are lovers in the future, or did he just stare at the fireplace for 2 minutes and 17 seconds? Talk about dull. Even Stan's flash was more exciting.
9. Who is Nhadra Udaya and where was she calling from?
10. Where has the babysitter disappeared to?
11. Will the circuit judge forgive the FBI for the death of his daughter-in-law? She didn't have a flash either and now she's dead.
12. When will we see Dominic Monahan?

On the thought of Dominic Monahan. His character's name is Simon and I don't think he'll be a very good person. I think also we will see him with Lloyd Simcoe. Not sure why I have that feeling, but I thought I'd get it out there.

I have some thoughts on Aaron Stark. He seems to be the character of reason and I'd like to do him justice, so I'm going to do a separate post on his role in this episode. It will likely be up tomorrow or Saturday.

What were your thoughts? What did you see?