Thursday, October 8, 2009

Flash Forward Extra Credit Blog #2

In episode #2, we watch Officers Benford and Noh discover the real D Collins who arrives at the Los Angeles' FBI office b/c of her vision. She's complaining to her credit card company about the charges racked up on her bill. She didn't do it, she said. She doesn't know anything about pigeons.

Pigeon, Utah is where Benford and Noh head next. The sheriff of Pigeon tells them that she didn't have a vision (like Noh), and when the shooting starts, she ends up dead. Uh-oh, you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking. Demetri Noh is toast and will not marry the love of his life and dance to "Islands in the Stream."

In the rubble of the blast at the doll factory, they find a melted cell phone which Agent Hawk is able to get some numbers off of. Soon, we discover that the person who used this phone also was awake during the black out (or can we assume that?) because apparently the phone called the dark. mysterious guy at the Detroit baseball stadium (called Detroit's Outside Super Stadium) who was caught on film being awake.

At issue:

1. The officers interpret dark mystery guy (DMG)'s movements as deliberate and fully aware of what is going on, as if he was involved in the conspiracy to make the entire planet lose consciousness for 137 seconds. I would disagree with that assessment. I think, judging by the man's movements, he looks disoriented, shocked, and not exactly sure of himself. Logic also follows that if he was involved in the plot, why would he be somewhere where he knows that he would be filmed like at a live baseball game? Why would he want the world to be able to see him? (It will just be a matter of time before we see the man's face when the image comes back from the supercomputers at the NSA).




2. What was the deal with the whole elaborate bomb at the doll factory? The 2nd mystery person (2MP). Hard drives left in fish tanks full of flammable liquid? 2MP standing near them with lighters - how did he get away w/o blowing him/herself to pieces? How did Benford and Noh survive this blast? It looked pretty wicked, but then again, Hollywood blasts tend to big on bang, small on substance. Again, maybe I missed something, but Benford jumps to the conclusion that 2MP was looking for the cause of the black out too. Why did he jump to this conclusion? What was his evidence?



3. I've got a theory on how Agent Hawk becomes pregnant. Near the end of episode 2, it seemed that she and Demetri shared a nice moment together, and that made me think that either the two have a history or maybe they might hook up before he dies. She falls for him, they have a fling, he's killed, and a piece of him lives on in the baby girl that she's carrying inside her (and for some reason having an ultrasound at 10 pm at night? - not a normal time for these procedures). What do you think?


4. Mark and Olivia Benford's daughter, Charlie, seems to be the key to unlocking the secrets here. She doesn't want to play the "blackout game." She recognizes the boy, the son of the man who is supposed to have the affair w/ Olivia but doesn't recognize his father. And did anyone catch a mention of nightmares? Is it possible she's having additional visions? Last, Benford burned the friendship bracelet in a fleeting hope that by destroying his daughter's gift he'll change his destiny. But I have a feeling Charlie will notice the first one is gone and make him another one; I came to this conclusion based upon the observation that in the flashbacks, the one Benford was wearing was brighter and more vivid in color whereas the first one was sorta blah.
Your thoughts on this idea?

5. Thinking about the intern, Bryce, and the babysitter, Nicole, and both of them turning to God for the explanation why the blackout occurred, why is it these two in particular turned to God? What were they doing at the time of the blackout? Did that have anything to do with their explanation?


6. The big picture: why would the blackout happen? What could be the overall purpose and how could this actually happen?

Pick 3 of the 6 questions above and answer them by 11:59 p.m. Friday, October 16.

9 comments:

  1. Daniel Sherwood

    2. The deal with the whole elaborate bomb is the guy who made it obviously is doing something he shouldn’t be. He’s got the whole computer system and etc. set up so he needed to make something that would allow him a quick get away. I’m sure he realized the fact that when he was trying to escape he would need to get away himself so the bomb he made was solely for destroying his computer information (which explains how Noh and Benford aren’t hurt). Benford discovers that the guy in the doll’s warehouse was trying to hack into the mosaic (which is directly related to the blackout) and he finds out that the guy’s cell phone completed a call to the guy that was in Comerica.

    3. I don’t know how she’ll become pregnant and by which ways, however I don’t think that that it will be with Demetri. I feel like Demetri is very loyal to his fiancé and wouldn’t sleep with someone else. I do like your theory though, and that is definitely plausible for the whole “live on in my baby” idea. And that Agent Noh could end up escaping his fate and have to live with the fact that he impregnated a co-worker and that he cheated on his girlfriend etc. Her ultrasound was not at 10 P.M. at night, if you look at her flash-forward it’s sunny out so she may have moved from now until then and is getting an ultrasound somewhere else where it’s the morning rather than ten at night.

    5. I think Bryce especially has reason to think that the blackout is related to God because the blackout kept him from ending his life pre-maturely. Think about how it would feel to be close to killing yourself and then be stopped by some other mysterious outside force, anybody in that situation would think that it has to do with God. The babysitter I’m not so sure about, because she wasn’t really doing anything all that special, I mean she was being mischievous but it’s not like she was doing anything majorly detrimental to her life. Maybe she just is a religious person.

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  2. 1.In response to your statement about the man in the black coat, the DMG, looking disordered and confused, I disagree. I think that the man seemed extremely sketchy. To me, he was looking around to see if anyone else besides himself were conscious, but in a bad way like if whatever he used to create the black outs worked or not. If this guy really did help in the planning of these black outs, he has to be some-what psychotic, which could explain why he didn’t think to be in some place where he wouldn’t be caught on camera during the unveiling of his great plan.

    3. Your idea about how Hawk becomes pregnant is clever, but after seeing the most recent episode I believe that Demetri wouldn’t cheat on his soon to be wife. He seems faithful, and really loves her so much he wouldn’t dare tell her his vision and the tip he got about his murder. I am however really confused how his fiancé had a vision of their beach wedding, if Demetri is expected to be dead. They didn’t clearly show his face in the glimpse of her flash forward, so I’m stuck. Does she end up marrying someone else? These future flashes could be relying on free will. Now that mark burned his daughter’s bracelet, in six months time when the vision is supposed to come true, maybe everything Mark saw will come true except he won’t be wearing the bracelet. I’m eager to see how this plot is going to continue to develop.

    5. I guess that the intern and babysitter turned to religion to explain the black outs because they were both up to things not so keen in God’s eyes. (Obviously, the Intern’s actions were graver than the babysitters.) Potentially, they were brought up in religious households and were taught that suicide and “fooling around” before marriage were things God’s not a fan of. They could both come to the conclusion that God is doing stuff, like creating these black outs for a reason, to put “mankind back on its track”. I’m not exactly sure about my response, it’s just a thought.

    Ani

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  3. 1. I would have to disagree with the fact that the DMG has nothing to do with the blackout. First of all, why was he calling the man at the stadium ? And why aren’t they both passed out somewhere because of the black out? Second, the doll factory is supposed to be vacant but its very fair from that. There was a lot of scientific equipment and I think the dolls dropping down was sort of a booby trap to notify the man of any intruders . Why would you be in a “vacant building” where you need to be notified of intruders if there wasn’t something fishy going on ? I say take him in! Even if he’s not responsible he’s obviously a weirdo and is doing something illegal. Third, he was saying some sort of weird phrase before he dropped to lighter into the fluid…it sounded like it was related to the black out.

    4. I think the bracelet was older bracelet looked different too, and I think that its just his fate and no doubt she’ll notice that the bracelet is gone and her feelings will be hurt so he’ll give in and ask her to make another one…or he may claim that he lost it and she’ll be like “its okay daddy, you can have mine” or something like that. And he will wear it, but this time he puts it on the hand that it was in the vision because so much of the “flash forward” is already happening that he thinks it won’t make a difference.

    6. The big picture is this : the two mystery guys are working together on some type of global scandal and maybe they used to be scientist and they have come up with a chemical that makes people hallucinate or see the future….maybe the mystery guys aren’t the bad guys maybe they just discovered this thing and didn’t want to release it because they were scared it would get into the wrong hands OR maybe I don’t know but the reason but the point of the black out is hide something that the mystery guys are doing or to show the world of significant things that are happening in their futures maybe it’s a warning….telling them to change the lifestyle they live, or the environment they are in.

    shar rogers

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  4. 1.I would have to disagree with your statement about the dark mystery guy being shocked, disoriented, and not exactly sure of himself, during the duration of the blackout. ‘Suspect 0’, in my opinion, looks shady and I have a feeling that he wanted to be seen. He was the only one in the stadium that was awake, and he didn’t seem surprised what so ever. Why would someone go to a public place, fully aware that him/she might/most likely be filmed? I think that he has something to do about the blackout and wants to officers to figure out this mystery.

    3.I also got the feeling that something might happen with Agent Hawk and Demetri, which results in her being pregnant, with his child, making her ‘flash forward’ come true. After the incident in Utah, Demetri starts to believe that his fate is going to happen. He met a lady in Utah, who also didn’t have a vision and then, she ends up dead a couple minutes later. I think that Demetri will try to stop his fate, but I also think that he might give up on trying stopping his fate and do whatever he wants before he is ‘suppose’ to die.

    4.I think that Charlie has the key to unlock the secret of what was the cause or who is the cause for the blackout. In the beginning, she didn’t want to play the game, ‘blackout’ because she was scared of what she actually saw. And in the end, she mentions to her father that “D Gibbons is a bad man”, how ironic, because that is the man that Benford is after. I think that if he can get any information out of his daughter, he could possibly figure the situation. I also had a feeling that Olivia, Charlie, and the boy in the hospital were in some way, connected to one another. In this circumstance, I think that fate is going to happen because they have this connection between one another.
    Annie 2nd hour

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  5. 1. I believe that suspect zero at the baseball stadium certainly does have something to do with the blackout. Otherwise, the suspenseful music would not have come on in the show when they showed the footage of him walking around in the park. Also, they disguise him in the surveillance video to look like a shady guy so clearly, they are making him a villain to the show. The show needs a reason for the blackout and this is it. The villain or the one who caused the blackout needs to be introduced somehow in the show; it is not a matter of how smart the villain is whether to be caught on the surveillance footage or not, but rather for the sake of the show. To this point, the series has been about predicting the flash forwards and Mark trying to solve who or what may have caused them.

    2. Mystery person two sets off the bomb at the doll factory and it was indeed harmless to people who were standing merely feet away from the explosion, and yes it is Hollywood. The same goes for the beginning scenes of lost. How did these people survive what appears to have been a deadly plane crash. We just have to watch the show and remember that it’s a show. Beyond this, I believe that if it wasn’t for the sake of the people wanting the Hollywood action, the explosion only would have blown up the computers because that was what the bomb was designed for.

    6. To answer why the blackout happened, I tried to put myself in the bad guy’s shoes. And so I asked myself, what would be my motive to blackout the whole world for 137 seconds? I thought about it and came to the conclusion that it doesn’t make sense for some secret villainous organization to have caused this because they would have no incentive and they wouldn’t be able to pull it off anyway. Perhaps the blackout was an act of God to test mankind, or a physics experiment intended for time travel gone wrong, or it was a side effect from that huge object that was seen in the sky after the blackout. Perhaps when all the flash forwards are put together some sort of message will be revealed, some horrible event that can be stopped if the people only realize what is going to happen. At this point, the possibilities are endless and completely unpredictable.

    Nawar Dimitry 2nd Period

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  6. 1. I do believe that the dark mysterious guy does have a part in the whole blackout. However, if he does I think that he has actions indirectly caused the blackout. Cause in the video he seemed confused and in shock that everybody suddenly in Comerica Park just blacked out. And if he had intentionally caused the black out I’m sure he would have had more sense than to show up to a Tiger’s game. But I do believe that if they keep on investigating him then he will lead them to who the masterminds to the black out were.



    3. I think that your right about your theory about Demetri getting Hawk pregnant. I even speculated it when I first saw the end of the first episode and the 2nd episode. I think Demetri foreshadowed it when they were talking about putting their “visions” on their website. Demetri said that it ruins plans to be wed when the groom had a vision that he is dead. What I think will happen is that Hawk will persuade him to tell his fiancé about his scheduled date to be murdered. I think hearing this the fiancé will call off the wedding and will want nothing to do with him (I know it sounds harsh). Hawk will then make a corny assumption that I think the father of my baby is suppose to be you and she will probably say that she has love him all his life. Then she’s reminded of his death, but she’ll look on a positive note believing she has a piece of Demetri.




    4. Charlie is definitely the key to unlocking things. It was hinted when she said that D Gibbons was a bad person and when she screamed at the sight of the son of Olivia’s lover. I do think that she has recurring dreams and that she keeps on having nightmares about the future. I think she knows more than she lets on to. I don’t think that she knows that her dad had got rid of the bracelet that he threw away, however I do believe he’s going to find an identical one near a crime scene and make a discovery that his daughter is involved (not saying that she’s a bag guy). But maybe she’s kidnapped by D. Gibbons, because her father’s investigation is close to connecting Gibbons with the blackout and he left her friendship bracelet to bait the dad into following her.


    Collin Parson
    2nd hour

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  7. 2. The man who set off the elaborate bomb is most likely doing something that he shouldn’t be doing. When the man set off the bomb, he obviously made sure he didn’t blow himself up or anyone else. All he wanted was for the machinery and the computers to get blown up because there was obviously something in there that he didn’t want anyone finding out about. How Noh and Benford actually did survive is most likely all Hollywood. In real life they probably never would have actually been able to be 100% okay after that. Benford says the man in the warehouse was trying to break into the mosaic, which was supposedly connected to the blackout. There is something fishy going on here and I am starting to believe that the man in the warehouse knows a lot about the blackout.
    3. I would have never thought about Agent Hawk and Demetri that way, but I would have to agree that it is a good idea. I do think that there could be a random man in the next couple of episodes that could be the baby’s father. Demetri is about to get married, but seems very faithful to his wife. His wife’s visions are very iffy though. I think that her vision is with some other man that she has yet to know about though. From only seeing a couple episodes it is hard to infer much about Demetri. I can’t tell if he is the type of guy to cheat on his wife because he knows he is going to “die.” I guess we will see in the next couple of episodes how it all works out though.
    4. I believe that Charlie saw way more than anyone else in their vision. She has a lot of answers that she is not willing to share as of right now. There a lot of clues that relate to the fact that she knows a lot about what is going on. She says Dee Gibbons is a “bad” man, she doesn’t want to play the game with all of the other kids, and she knows the boy that is sick in bed. I feel like Charlie saw the real vision. I think that she saw what her mom is going to end up doing and what her father is going to end up doing also. I do believe that Charlie has the key to unlock a lot of information that is needed for all of the unknowns we have seen.
    -Sammi

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  8. 2. I think that the deal with the elaborate doll factory is very shady. The guy who blew up the whole building seemed very prepared that someone was going to come in, and he had the whole place ready to blow. I’m sure that the information on those computers that he blew up had something to do with everyone’s flash forward. Also, the guy that they noticed was still alive during the flash forward at the baseball field had a conversation with the guy that blew everything up. I’m not really sure how Benford and Noh are still alive after they were just in a major explosion, but it’s a show. Benford said that the guy was looking for a reason for the blackout, but I think that he was the reason of the blackout, and all of the information of why it happened was in those computers that are now destroyed.
    3. How agent Hawk becomes pregnant I don’t think is a mystery. I think that she becomes involved with Noh during the 6 month period till April. Just because she saw in her flash forward that she was pregnant, first doesn’t mean that it was with Noh, it could have been with anyone. I think that Demetri will try to stop his fate, but in the end he probably will still die, unless the fact that he didn’t see anything in his flash forward means something else.
    4. I think that there is something special about Charlie. She seems to be very informed about the boy in the hospital, as well as Gibbons. She couldn’t have possibly seen all the information that she did in the 2 minutes and 17 seconds, so maybe she is seeing additional visions? I think that Charlie knows more about everyone’s flash forward that we don’t know about yet.
    Becca

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  9. 2. I think that benford jumped to conclusions about the 2MP because everything seemed to come togeher within there flash forwards. The 2MP came out of no where and tried to kill thefor no reason. With that evidnce he has something to do with the blackout. If he didn't he wouldn't of been secretive or hidden.

    3. I do agree with the procedure being late at night is pretty wired. Most ultra souds are done within the a day appointment. Agent Hawk and Demetri did share a moment together and its definetly a good posibility that the have a child together.

    5. I agree, I do think she will end up making another braclet because its meant something to her and she wants her dad to have it.I don't think him burning will change anything. He knows whats going to happen and trying to change it but I dont think it will be as easy as burning braclet.
    Jasmine Cain 2nd

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