'FlashForward' Episode 1.09: 'Believe'

Episode Title: "Believe"

Written By: Nicole Yorkin & Dawn Prestwich

Synopsis: The spotlight shines on Doctor Bryce Varley (Zachary Knighton) as we learn the reason behind his blackout-botched suicide attempt and his consequently renewed faith in life — which has something to do with the beautiful Keiko Arahida (Yuko Takeuchi), a low-level Japanese business woman with a thing for sushi and tattoos. The Mosaic Team gets some insight into Demetri Noh's (John Cho) future murder, while Aaron Stark (Brian F. O'Byrne) struggles with the return of his daughter Tracy (Genevieve Cortese) and their shared taste for alcohol.

Lovesick: The episode's main plot dealt with Bryce's secret cancer affliction and his flash-forward romance with Keiko. I actually thought this story was the most watchable element of the evening — Bryce has had a decent amount of screen time, but getting this new angle on the character was very interesting. The revelation regarding Bryce's health reminds me of how "Lost" would peel back new layers on certain characters — Sawyer's real name isn't Sawyer, Locke was in a wheelchair — so that fascinated me. Still, it had no tangible bearing on the mythology, which is disappointing this far into the season.

Lower Your Glass: Given his daughter's connection to the enigmatic Jericho group, Aaron's story should really be heating up... but it's not. I don't mean to be insensitive, but the focus on his alcoholism and his daughter's similar downward spiral fell flat to me. I'm a big supporter of O'Byrne as an actor, and I think he did the best with what he had to work with, but the dialogue — "I can't be in the same room as that" — was so poorly written. What should be a serious, powerful topic came across as gimmicky and forced. Hopefully "FlashForward" won't harp on this story-line for too much longer.

Bad Call: Another disappointment was the minimal usage of the Mosaic Team. Really, this episode felt like the first half of a two-parter — we get a substantial lead on Noh's would-be killer, but it's left in the open for a future episode. I honestly would have preferred it if the episode stayed away from the Mosaic entirely and focused only on the character drama, as the tease regarding Noh's possible death was much more unsatisfying than it was intriguing.

What The Future Holds: This episode wasn't an entire waste of time as we got some excellent character drama in the form of Bryce and Keiko, and yet another closing montage set to a Bob Dylan classic, "Shelter From The Storm." (See, I can get music references right!) Still, the Mosaic and the Jericho plots were so poorly handled that it's hard to truly support this week's outing. If future episodes are similarly unbalanced — i.e., an emphasis on a B-List character while shortchanging the more important stories — then "FlashForward" is in for some shoddy installments.

Verdict: Despite the captivating performances by Zachary Knighton and Yuko Takeuchi, the Mosaic plot was so mishandled that I can't give this episode a full endorsement. It's further lowered by the poor writing of Aaron and his daughter's scenes, which could have been truly powerful if not for cheesy dialogue. With any luck, the next episode will make up for this week's lost ground.

The Future: Two weeks from tonight, Simon (Dominic Monaghan) and Lloyd Simcoe's (Jack Davenport) high stakes poker game from last week's episode pays off as they reveal their potential involvement in the blackout to the world. Noh and Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), meanwhile, head to Hong Kong to follow up on the former's alleged future death.

What did you think of tonight's installment? Sound off in the comments or on Twitter!

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