Hosted by Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

What’s the bigger piece of sci-fi: that everybody on the planet can be knocked the you-know-what out at once, or that an imprecise recitation of Schroedinger’s Cat can work as a pick-up line?…

… No, really, let me know. If the latter is even close to plausible, I’ve still got the monologue on my DVR so I can transcribe it. Meantime, let’s see what the Table thought of “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps.”

SUPER CHO + JETT JACKSON TEAM-UP HOUR! Demetri is like Midas on this show. But it already looks like he’s starting to burn out, no?

Mahsino: Like I said in our first roundtable for this: Demetri’s back must be tired from all this show carrying he’s doing. Yeah Stan and Al are lightening the load, but still… I’m just hoping his “murder file” was just a cover up for witness protection and he’s in a short coma during April 29. Yeah, it would be really convenient, but I’ll take it.
Diana: I like the Demetri/Jett Jackson pairing much better than Demetri/Shakespeare. Mahsino, I’m with you. I’m hoping his lack of a flashforward and his murder can be explained by something else.
jen*: Great to see them together, and any pairing with Fiennes is gonna suck in comparison to one with Jett Jackson – from jump. I liked the ~Blue Hand~ exposition without our British buddy, but I’d love for Cho to get a revelation of his own – maybe some way to change his “destiny”?

Ok, so this week we confirmed that Charlie the Hobbit is 1) evil; 2) involved with Lloyd and a group responsible for the Blackout; 3) proficient in some bizarre hyper-nerd variant of game. What I’m wondering is, could he possibly be *the* Big Bad?
Mahsino: He can’t be the big bad, we’re not even midseason yet.
Diana: And he’s literally not that big. Is it just me, or did he look less like a hobbit when he was on Lost? His close haircut and lack of facial hair forced me to focus on his nose as I was watching. I digress.
jen*: Naw. He doesn’t have the fill-in-the-blanks to be the Big Bad. He just seems like he’s stuck on himself enough to not have been worried about the whole knocking people out for 137 seconds thing. He’s a worker bee.

The scene with Dylan on the bus was clunky (for example, how the hell would the bus driver know *that exact address?*) but the inclusion of the Mexican/”Cholo”/Chicano passenger was interesting. You don’t often see a character of that fashion portrayed as sympathetic – even if he did threaten the bus driver’s life.
Mahsino: Yeah, that could’ve gone horribly, horribly wrong. Instead it was just- not bad? The whole suspension of disbelief also hit me when he agree to stop off at the exact address, did the busdriver not have a radio to call dispatch to get CPS?
Diana: It was a bit unrealistic. I was mad at the bus driver for hounding Dylan about $1.55, so I didn’t mind when the passenger stared down the bus driver like he was crazy.
jen*: Riiiight. Drop him right *at* the house? Whatev. School-bus drivers don’t do that. And, it was nice to see that the passenger was friendly, but tres noticeable that it was supposed to be surprising. Brown people can actually be nice, y’all – surprise, surprise. But we always gotta keep that skreet edge. “I will put you down like a sick dog…” – Not the best threat I’ve heard, but still apparently effective. So, overall – this interaction didn’t totally suck, but, coulda used a lil less extremism.

I don’t exactly care for the Bedfords, but the scene in the living room was sublime in its’ awkwardness. And I was actually in Mark’s corner during his dismissal of Simon … but he lost me again in the kitchen argument. How’d you feel about it?
Mahsino: Every time Mark get’s mad at his wife’s flash forward, I half expect him to lift his leg up and pee on her to mark her as his territory. I get that he’s projecting his future failures onto her, but this is ridiculous. I feel like it’s never occurred to him that the reason she leaves him might not just be because he drinks again, but because he’s a sanctimonious asshat. Either way, I do find his leaps of logic to be either good writing/acting in regards to being believable in real arguments.
Diana: Frankly, I was glad to see his wife call him on his BS because he was being a class-a asshat. At the same time, I thought she gave up a little too quickly on working out their issues. But something about their characterization just doesn’t make you want to invest in them as a couple.
Arturo: They’re just unbelievable stiffs, both of them. That’s what happens when you stick melodramatic characters in what could/should be a sci-fi thriller.
jen*: Completely blah. I did feel like she gave up a little early, but then I figured – if he’s been this annoying *sober*, he must’ve been a real prick on the sauce. Somebody, somewhere made a mistake in making him the lead, because I spend each episode wishing HE was the one with no vision/murder in his future. These guys really do remind me of the Bennetrellis: stars by pure chance that I completely do not care about.

… And then there’s Janis. “Why am I crying?”, I thought, was a well-placed line for her situation. But it was nice to hear that Maya still cared, no?
Mahsino: I’m neutral on Janis. I put her in the same category as the nanny in that I don’t know what her purpose is or why I should care about her. And I don’t like Maya, I’d imaging that looking up a potential suitor on Mosaic would be as creepy as Google/Facebook stalking them. Not a good look. Either that, or it’s my general negative disposition of tv characters named Maya (mainly from that other show that shall not be named).
Diana: I was really relating to Janis. The fact that she almost lost her uterus and her confiding that she had never thought about having children until the flashforward and now faced with the prospect of losing her fertility made her character very realistic. I won’t lie, I was broke down.
jen*: I felt for Janis and her sitch, but I’m no fan of what they’re doing with her character. I loved her reason and common sense on the Nazi issue, and wish she could’ve had more power. I loved her no-quit attitude that led her to take down her attacker while she was bleeding out on the pavement. But discovering that her chances of pregnancy are now tenuous, at best, wasn’t as sympathetic for me and it should’ve been. Maybe cuz I thought her flashforward was kinda boring in the beginning. It’s like the rest of her personality getting fleshed out was superfluous exposition on the way for us to get to her Quest-For-The-Baby.
Mahsino: Thinking back, although her logic skills are pretty sound and she’s kinda badass, what grinds my gears is the fact that she managed to get an ultrasound at 10pm at a doctor’s office.

Open Mic!
Mahsino: Joseph Fiennes must really be in shape from all the running he does on this show.
Diana: I was mad that they dressed Dylan up as Flavor Flav for Halloween and then, when he went missing, his father told the security guard he was dressed like a pimp. WTF?
Arturo: That got my antenna twitching, too. My theory: Lloyd just went to some generic shop and got what was billed as a “Flava” outfit. Add to that some lack of cross-cultural awareness and there you go. At least Dylan wasn’t “acting the part.”
jen*: I also caught that pimp business. Not cool. But also, could someone please tell me about this kangaroo? If it got loose from the zoo during the chaos, wouldn’t there have been a few more wild animals that got out as well? Where are the lions and tigers and bears?
Diana: Ooh, Jen, that kangaroo thing is odd. This is the second time it’s hopped by for no apparent reason. On another note, I was also freaked out about all those bodies with blue hands.
Mahsino: Maybe since Mark seems to be the one who keeps seeing the kangaroo, it symbolizes his constant jumping to conclusions.

Character bios and images courtesy of Flash Forward Wiki and ABC