We pick up again with Demetri in the parking garage, talking to the lady with the accent. By the way, I found out she was in Singapore, not Switzerland. It’s the same conversation as last week: he’ll be murdered on March 10. She won’t tell him what agency she’s with, but she does tell him that he’s shot three times in the chest.
Cut to Germany. A older prisoner is walking with a guard. They ask each other “The Question.” The guard tells him that he’s at breakfast with the wife; the prisoner says that he saw something that’ll get him out of prison.
Charlie and Mark are watching cartoons while Liv is making lunches and calling Nicole – who’s been flaking out since the first episode. She’s not mad, she’s just worried. Since they need to cover, Mark offers to take Charlie to work after school. Presumably, he wants to pick her brain about what she said about D. Gibbons last week, but since it’s the last time Charlie is ever mentioned, and Mark isn’t even in the country after school (we’ll get to this), there’s no way to tell where she actually ended up. Probably let loose in a hospital full of sick people, annoying nurses, and getting underfoot like last week.
Aaron drops by. Mark tries to tell Liv that the problem is with the phone – except she just called Nicole. He tells her that it’s a problem with his work line – except he called Aaron from the work line. Aaron points out that he really shouldn’t be lying to his wife. Mark tells him about Charlie’s visions and how they tie into his. Aaron says that if he’s convinced someone’s trying to hurt his family, then he’d do anything he had to, to protect them. The blackout changed all the rules.
Zoe is on a plane in Seattle talking to a guy who’s sucking down scotches like he’s scared to death of flying. She tells him that she’s finally heading home, having been stuck in Seattle since the blackout. Now that the airlines are up and running, she caught the first flight she could. She asks the guy what’s taking him to LA, and he says that since he’s the CEO of the airline, he has to in order to show that it’s safe to fly. Then he orders another scotch.
Demetri asks Al (the agent formerly known as Agent Bird) to run down the details on the call he took last week. It’s a “nuclear” priority.
Mark, Janis, and Vreede are running down leads that have been called in to the agency. None look promising – it’s stuff like a phytoplankton bloom and a toxic gas released by the inner Earth (which Vreede refers to as the Earth “farting”) until Vreede comes across one from a former Nazi who claims to know why the blackout lasted exactly 137 seconds. Mark asks if there’s a photo of him. He was on the board. Janis asks if it’s his “spidey sense” that’s telling him that’s a good idea. Vreede says the Nazi’s report mentions Mark by name. Stan isn’t thrilled about sending Mark and Janis to Germany to talk to the Nazi; he’d rather they’d track down Suspect 0 and D. Gibbons. When Mark points out that it’s the Nazi’s information that could lead them to either one, Stan agrees that they should book the flight.
Zoe and Demetri reunite in the airport. She’s all about telling him her flash forward. Demetri distracts her with sex.
Aaron walks into his ex-wife’s bar and drops the bomb that Tracy is alive. Kate isn’t happy with the news. Aaron tries to tell her that it’s a vision of what’s to come. Kate says that she’s in the bar with the same regulars, just like every day for the last five years. Aaron wants her to sign the paper that’ll allow him to exhume the body to make sure that the remains in the box are actually Tracy. She refuses.
After the “third time Zoe’s blacked out this week,” she insists on telling Demetri what she saw. It was their wedding. She saw him there, and he lies about seeing her. Zoe says that it means that their wedding day is 4/29. Demetri doesn’t know if they should commit to a date, Zoe says they already have.
Mark and Janis arrive in Germany. Janis isn’t thrilled about the location: it’s where the White Rose Nazi-resistance party were executed. The German agent points out that the USA eradicated its Native American population and practiced institutionalized slavery for 200 years. Touché. Mark also points out that they gave the world Britney Spears. The agent reminds them that their Nazi (Herr Geier) might look cute and fluffy, but he’s an unrepentant liar. During their meeting, he promises to tell them everything he knows if they’ll let him go with a full pardon. Janis is convinced that he’ll give them nothing, Mark is tied to the fact that he’s on the board.
Stan’s wife and Liv meet for lunch. Stan’s wife tells Liv that in her vision, she was putting a kid to bed that she’s never seen before. He was about eight or nine. In the next six months, the kid will come into her life and she’ll be his mother. She’s convinced the visions mean something.
Eventually Geier says that he’ll give them a piece; if it’s verified, they’ll pardon him and they’ll get the rest. Finally, they agree. He starts going on about how the Hebrew word for Kabala adds up to 137. He also notices that Janis has a ring on her left thumb. This is believed to be a sign that a woman is a lesbian. Mark wants more. Geier gives them the name of a customs agent that checks him in when he returns to the states. Demetri runs it down. There’s no active agent, but there is an applicant. Demetri visits, and the guy is thrilled to learn he actually made it. He remembers the German talking about having a murder to thank for his freedom. He woke up after the blackout and applied the next day. As Demetri’s leaving, he finds a bong. The applicant points out that if Demetri busts him for it, he’ll never make it as a customs agent. That means his vision won’t come true. So, basically, the future can be changed, and it’s up to Demetri.
While Mark’s in Germany, Aaron calls and asks if Mark can help him get Tracy’s remains exhumed. Since Kate won’t sign, there’s more to push through than paperwork. Mark asks if Aaron’s thought about what will happen if the person in the grave is Tracy. Aaron’s convinced he saw her. It’s what makes it a leap of faith.
Janis and Mark are in a German pub. She’s depressed about the fact that it’s not personal for Mark. He points out that in their line of work, they make choices like the one they’re making all the time. Letting the foot soldier walk to bust the kingpin. She points out that the guy they’re dealing with was a Nazi. Mark asks if she’s ever taken a leap of faith; he’s pushing this because it’s important in his flash forward. She’s resisting because her flash forward showed her pregnant with a baby she doesn’t even know she wants. They’re interrupted by Stan who calls to tell them that Demetri found the customs agent (no word on if he actually busted him, but considering this is Harold we’re talking about, I think not) and that he’ll start the arm-twisting with the State Department. Mark asks if he’s sure, and Stan starts talking about how, for the first time, people are doing things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do because their future dictates it. This is intercut with Demetri handing Aaron a warrant that allows him to exhume Tracy’s body, then walking away as the gravedigger gets to work.
Al finally returns the results on the call. It came into two repeater sites, and then the call disappeared into the cellular ether. Demetri asks if Al can pull the luds off those two sites (even though it was a ton of them) and he’ll start tracking them down.
Having obtained the pardon, Geier tells them that he blacked out like everyone else. He saw the city burning outside, and outside his cell, he saw a bunch of dead crows — FYI, a group of crows is called a “murder. Janis asks what this had to do with the Kabala and 137 seconds. Nothing. He played them, but he hands Mark a book: Birds of North America. It could be helpful. And now, he’s a free man.
Mark finally arrives home and wakes Liv up. He tells her that the trip went as badly as it could have gone without anyone being shot. He tells Liv that his mother always said that he should live in the now. Liv perks up and starts “living in the now.”
Aaron turns up at the bar and tells Kate that she was right: the body in the casket is Tracy. Aaron apologizes for going behind her back. She tells him it was all right.
The eight agents who died in the blackout are eulogized by Stan. He uses Aaron’s words about them all being “prophets now.” He can’t think of a prophet worth a damn who didn’t suffer or who God didn’t love. As he speaks, a little boy in the front row turns around and looks at Stan’s wife. It’s the same kid from her vision.
At the bar that night, they all clink glasses to “absent friends.” Demetri asks Al how many speeches like this he thinks have been given since the blackout. Al says dozens, every day, all over the world. This strikes a chord with Mark, and he and Janis head back to the office to look up mass crow deaths on the day of the blackout. They find that there was one. Then he asks her to look for previous instances. They find one in 1991 in Somalia. On that date, the CDC was also called in because of reports that the residents of the area reported a mass loss of consciousness. They’d been trying to prevent the future, but none of them have looked into whether it happened in the past.
Demetri decides that he wants to do the D-Day wedding. He tells Zoe that he wants them to “make their future happen.”
Flashback to 1991 Somalia: a little boy is leading his goats back to the village. He sees the crows gathering ahead of him, and as he stares at them ala Tippi Hedren, they plummet to the ground. He runs to his village and sees everyone passed out in front of him. There is also some sort of gas emitting from the smokestack in the middle of town.
I love the subtle way that they give us hints in this show. These tend to turn things on their ear, though. I was starting to think that maybe Bryce and Janis got involved in the next six month, and he was the baby’s father, but the revelation about Janis’ thumb ring makes me think I was completely wrong. I think, therefore, I should probably stop trying to come up with my own theories. It might work out best for everyone. Instead, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride.
