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FlashForward

The Gift

Season 1, Episode 7, Aired Nov 05, 2009

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7.9

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Mark, Demetri, Gough and MI6 agent Fiona Banks investigate a Blue Hand club. A surprise visit sends Aaron back to square one about his late daughter. Demetri finally tells the truth to Zoey. Nicole volunteers at the hospital and decides to help Bryce with his flashforward.moreless

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Cast & Crew

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GUEST STAR
Clint Culp

Jack Barrow
GUEST STAR
Callum Keith Rennie

Dr. Maurice Raynaud/Jeff Slingerland
GUEST STAR
Gary Johnson

James

Jack Davenport

Lloyd Simcoe
Courtney B. Vance

Stanford Wedeck
Sonya Walger

Olivia Benford
Peyton List

Nicole Kirby
Brian F. O'Byrne

Aaron Stark
Joseph Fiennes

Agent Mark Benford

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Fan Episode Reviews (15)

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I hate the music clips!

4.5

"Poor"

By magorei, Oct 22, 2011

Flashforward is a good tv show with good actors and a good screenplay.I don't know why the need of making a music clip in every episode!This is kinda cliche and make me loose interest in this tv series. I realized the makers of the show think this creates a empathy with the viewers, with me its the opposite effect.It's not a sunday morning family show!Takes out the seriety of the situation described in the series. Hope they stop it.It seems like the producers are trying to lower the rating to All viewers...no blood, no cursing, no sex content...a show for the kids...not for me then.moreless
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The best Episode since the Show Begins.

10

"Perfect"

By joramjim, Nov 21, 2010

This episode have a very good story and the final scene is the best scene of all it had a Desperate Housewives and Greys Style. I think that if the next episodes are like this the show are going to be an excellent show in the future. I hope this show survives the critics. I hope that in the future at the final of the episodes they put a reflexion scene. And other thing the soundtrack becomes better than the other episode. One thing that i saw in this episode is that they finally put a sad piano theme perfect for the final scenes.moreless
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Wow! Much more like it!

9.5

"Superb"

By DonStants2, Nov 21, 2010

This was absolutely superb!

The ending completely took my breath away! And I was genuinely sad, because I really liked Al! The scene at the end was the most dramatic and realist of all the ones so far!

I really liked the whole "blue-hands" concept of the show, it just seemed so freaky and well shot/directed. I have no idea where its all going, but its interesting none the less.

Bryce and Nicole seem to have a bond going, but I am not to sure if I am interested enough in their story. The guy who lost his daughter also shows really good emotion in this again- he is quite a strong actor in this show! And Demetri and Zoey talk to each other about the truth- their chemistry isn't 100% but it is better than most of the couples in the show.

Olivia darting around Lloyd is getting a bit tiring- I think I find her tiring as a character, to be perfectly honest.

Overall, however, the ending of the episode was so poignantly done- I really didn't expect it, and its such a good plot device as it leaves us wondering if the future can be changed. Brilliant.moreless
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Great ending, very interesting turn.

8.8

"Great"

By JaCkKbAuEr2424, Nov 21, 2010

As the last ten minutes started unfolding, all I could think was "Wow." At first, I thought that the writers would sell us short and completely ruin the moment they had been building up to the entire episode, but nope; they surprised me and left me impressed. This was the best episode since the first couple and it appears Flashforward is finally hitting its stride (knock on wood, I wouldn't want to jinx it at all).

Where the last episode left off, Benford, Noh and Gough continue to look into the Blue Hand club, something that has been hinted at but avoided for quite awhile now. However, with Gough's flashforward beginning to come true, with the Rutherford case and all, they find it important to find out as much as possible about this Blue Hand. And sure enough, we get some eerie hints at what it is. The Blue Hand scenes were handled very well and actually gave me chills on occasion. For a show that has been tiptoeing around all kinds of intense stuff and taking the foot off of the gas pedal just when things seem to be getting interesting, it did a good job on actually giving us some minor answers, or at least moving things in the right direction.

With V starting up now, and Lost coming back in a few months, Flashforward was in danger of being left behind in the dust. I was starting to lose a little bit of faith in it, especially after the last couple of episodes, but I'm intrigued once again. Let's see if the show can pick up the pace.moreless
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Good in parts, adequate in others.

7.5

"Good"

By AvatarBlue, Jul 27, 2010

A v. apt first scene frames this episode perfectly. Finally too a lead from the Mosaic Clue Wall spans more than one episode, adding some continuity to the plot. I was beginning to think that the show was going to compartmentalise every facet of the investigation into neat episodic boxes, which would be thrown away before the next hour of screen time commenced. The character sub-plots continue to keep pace with the supposedly underlying main plot, but to be honest I just dont care about the character's issues between accepting fate or embracing free-will and ending the deterministic crawl to the next FF event. I know I should care about them by now, but the overplay on their hopes and fears just made me frustrated with them. If only there had stronger conspiracy scenes in the earlier episodes!

That aside, this episode mainly deals with the question of human acceptance of predicted events, namely perceived unavoidable death by some of the population. Yep you guessed it, I was disappointed that this was dumped into a few compact scenes. At least though these were spiced up by a Russian Roulette scene (ala Deer Hunter). Though even that scene felt a little flat - wht did only one of them have to take the test? If it were me Id have made all three take it!

The way the conspiracy plotline also gathers pace with the lead to HK is also good. Thankfully too the strand igniting the link to the shadowy organisation - Jericho is taking off, with more scenes dedicated to Aaron and his supposedly dead daughter. If only the rest of the story had some true action, these scenes would work well. As it is they just blur into the mundane trot that is the story.

However, the final scenes are what take this episode above an average mark. Well done for the way Al's demise was presented. It was v. sympathetically done. I expect though that in the next episode the whole cast wont be grieving in any way and this will be forgotten as quickly as every other non-major event that has taken place so far.

To mention dialogue in this review would mean that it registered above being adequate. There was nothing that was amazing here. As for camera work, well as per the previous episodes, this has been adequate to the task.

At least the settings and international locations bring some much needed eye-candy to the screen. A good episode, but nothing remotely special.moreless
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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (5)
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- Ian Rutherford's passport shows his natinality as "Scottish." There is no such passport nationality. Scotland, like England and Wales and Northern Ireland, is a country, not a nation. The nation is Britain, and the nationality British.
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- When Demetri was visiting the "AlreadyGhosts" page, the URL he had was "http://www.alreadygone.com" rather than the correct "http://www.alreadyghosts.com".
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- Opening image: fingers holding a bullet with the words "Not today" marked on it.
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- Fiona Banks was referred to as "our liaison at New Scotland Yard" in "No More Good Days". However, in this episode, she is referred to as Fiona Banks, MI6.
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- Episode's key word: Die
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QUOTES (11)
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- Reynaud: Fine. Throw me in prison. I don't care. It's all mapped out! Don't you understand? The script for this conversation has already been written. Whatever you've all seen is gonna happen. Al: What if you're wrong? What if April 29th comes and goes, and you're still alive? What then? Reynaud: You can run and you can hide, but you can't escape what's coming. No one can.
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- Demetri: (to Mark) Raynaud was right. It's happening, every single day. There's no way out. There's nothing you, I or anyone can do to escape what's coming.
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- Demetri: (voice-over reading Gough's letter) Dear Celia, I don't know your last name and I don't know where you live. But I know you have two young boys. Twins I believe. And I know you didn't have a flash forward. I understand how terrifying that is and how powerless you must be feeling. I want you to know that you are not alone and that your situation is not as hopeless as you think. Our paths were meant to cross. I didn't know how I didn't know when. But things have changed now. Things are no longer going to unfold as I had feared. My gift to you is release from that dread... from the feeling that you are no longer in control. We will never meet. I will never know you. So live your life. Live everyday and know that the future is unwritten; make the most of it.
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- Zoey: E-mailing your other girlfriends? Demetri: No, we, uh, broke up. This is just porn. Zoey: Oh, Okay.
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- Mark: Things have changed for everybody. It's a new world. Demetri: Yeah? I miss the old one then. Gough: Really? The one where you used to crash on my couch playing Madden till 4:00 a.m.? Demetri: Don't you mean futon, and don't you mean kicking your ass until 4:00 a.m.? Gough: What? Demetri: What? I said it. Gough: No, you didn't kick anything. You were... you were cheating. That's what you were doing. Demetri: Hey, man, what you call cheating, I call finding a way to change the game, my friend.
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- Stan: Why do a copy machine salesman, a librarian and a Scottish longshoreman all decide to get together to shoot themselves? Fiona: Because print is dead? Stan: Gough, say hello to your vision. You all know Fiona Banks. MI6, fresh off the plane from London. Fiona: Nice to meet you again... for the first time.
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- Gough: (reads text from website) "The Blue Hand. No limits. No fear. A place where ghosts can gather to embrace the inevitable." Stan: You've got to be kidding me. A death club? Mark: Like a book club. With bullets.
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- Demetri: Is that a cardigan? Gough: What? I was going for Average Joe. Mark: Back off, Dem. That jacket? Ridiculous. Demetri: Says the FBI agent in a police t-shirt. Good going.
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- Raynaud: I had a vision, a bottomless pit of darkness and indifference. Infinite in its nothingness, as if I never existed at all and I never would again.
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- Gough: Heading out? Fiona: Yes, back to my luxury suite. Gough: They still putting agents up at those crappy hotels by the airport? Fiona: Now you're just rubbing it in.
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- (After Al pulls the trigger) Mark: You got a death wish? You could have been killed. Al: (reads bullet from pistol) Not today.
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NOTES (4)
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- Christine Woods is credited but doesn't appear. Dominic Monaghan and Ryan Wynott appear briefly but have no dialogue.
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- In the beginning of the episode a Web address, alreadyghosts.com is given. The web link forwards to the show's abc website.
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- Music: I Will Not Forget (Skold), Hiding Place (APM)
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- International Airdates: UK: November 9, 2009 on Five Australia: November 9, 2009 on Channel 7 Norway: November 19, 2009 on TV2 Sweden: December 11, 2009 on TV4 Czech Republic: January 11, 2010 on AXN Finland: February 18, 2010 on Nelonen Latin America: April 6, 2010 on AXN Germany: April 12, 2010 on ProSieben India: October 19, 2010 on Zee Cafe Slovakia: January 17, 2011 on JOJ
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- Generation Kill In the Humvee scene, they are calling Godfather: the call-sign of Lt. Col. Ferrando, USMC 1st Recon Battalion commander from the miniseries Generation Kill. They also refer to themselves as Hitman Victor - Hitman was the call-sign for Bravo company of the 1st Recon Battalion in Generation Kill.
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