Lower Decks

Just some inching forward on the investigation into the cause of the flash forwards, or at least into who wants to stop the investigation. Mostly character development this week, but wow, what an ending. Not one, but two twists.More on that ending later. This week we meet (again, for the first time) MI6 agent Fiona Banks. She’s the agent that Gough saw in his flash forward, they were together when a bird smashed into the window then Gough got a phone call. She’s flown to L.A. to get started on the seemingly inevitable Rutherford investigation. Rutherford was one of the three bodies found last week and we learn that all three died at their own blue hands. There’s a web site that’s popped up for a group calling themselves Already Ghosts. It’s apparently aimed at people that didn’t see anything in their flash forwards.

Mark, Demetri and Gough get themselves into a Ghosts meeting. Their ticket to entry is Gough’s willingness to play Russian Roulette. Inside, they find all manner of self-destructive behavior from fights to electrocution. Demetri gets it. These people know they are going to die, so what do they have to lose? Each meeting is led by a “Dr. Reynaud,” referring to a medical condition that can cause the fingertips to turn blue. Tonight’s Reynaud shows up with his hand painted blue and puts a gun to his own head, at which point the agents identify themselves and tackle Reynaud before he can finish himself off. Reynaud’s real name is Tim, and he tells the agents that the Ghosts use the Mosaic web site to track down others who are already marked for death. He doesn’t tell them much else.

So that’s most of the main story line where else did we go? Demetri misses an appointment at the printer’s for picking out wedding invitations, which causes a huge blow up with his fiancee, Zoey. Eventually Demetri tells Zoey about his lack of a vision during the black out. She insists that she saw him in her vision of their wedding, and she chooses to believe that hers is the one that will come true.

Only a few brief Olivia sightings. The most relevant one was Lloyd telling Olivia that he doesn’t want to come between her and Mark, so he’s having Dylan transferred to another hospital in different city.

Nicole volunteers at the hospital, probably trying to make up for whatever sin she expected to be (deservedly, in her thoughts) murdered for in her future. She ends up working with Bryce, using her skills speaking Japanese to help him find the Japanese woman he saw in his flash forward.

Aaron meets Mike, who served with Aaron’s daughter, Tracy in the army. Mike gives Aaron Tracy’s pocket knife which Aaron had in his flash forward. Aaron takes it as a sign that Tracy might still be alive, but Mike tells Aaron that he was with Tracy when their Humvee was attacked and that he watched her die. Which leads to the second twist of the episode. In the final scene, Aaron comes home to find Tracy, alive and waiting for him.

So why recap the second twist first, because I thought it was the less important of the two. To get to the first, we have to fill in some of Agent Gough’s story. During the episode we find out that the phone call he received in his flash informed him that someone had died, to which he replies, “I killed her.” Gough and Banks discuss the bird that they saw fly into the window and Gough suggests that they could tape the window and avoid having the bird crash into it. Banks thinks the bird would simply crash into another window, but Gough doesn’t seem so sure.

The next day, Gough leaves a letter for “Celia” on Demetri’s desk and tells Demetri to make sure it gets to the right person. As Demetri reads the letter, we see more of Gough’s flash forward. The woman who died is named Celia, and she’s been taken off life support. Her two sons will be placed in foster care. Even though the cause of her death was an accident, Gough feels responsible. Demetri figures out where Gough is going and he, Mark and Stanford find Gough on the roof. Gough tells them that he’s going to change the future. He isn’t going to let his flash forward come to pass. Then he jumps to his death.

Talk about a game changer. I’ve been waiting for someone to do something significant in an attempt to avoid the future they’d seen. Mark burning a friendship bracelet didn’t really count. This is something that can’t just be corrected. Sure, someone else may cause Celia’s accident and she may still end up dead. Agent Banks may well end up reviewing the Rutherford case when a bird crashes into her window, but she won’t be with Agent Gough. Without a doubt, something has changed. And if one thing can change, can’t everything?

For the first 95% of the episode, I was disappointed. It was fairly slow and not terribly interesting, but those last two scenes were worth the wait. I’m looking forward to seeing how these occurrences, particularly Gough’s death, affect the other character’s views of their own flash forwards.