Dear John: The Racialicious Roundtable For FlashForward 1.16

Hosted by Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

He smokes, he sings, he stares down paranoids … “Let No Man Put Asunder” was all about Demetri. Kind of odd, in that an ep named after something you hear at weddings focused nearly exclusively on the groom, but what the heck – the Roundtable didn’t mind him being the focal point of an episode. Mark who?

I guess we should’ve known something big was up when Demetri both talked down *and* shot up the Lone Gunman there all by his lonesome.

Andrea: Demetri is full of awesome sauce, full stop, with a caveat. (I’ll address this shortly.) And it’s about time the writers start realizing who the show’s emotional center is….and it isn’t Mark Shakespeare.

jen*: Dem is awesome – no doubt. I could definitely see him carrying the show from here on.

Diana: Dem’s the man.

Mahsino: I dunno, I hate reckless, illogical thought processes more than I love Dem. When he was doing that I could help but think, wouldn’t it be a bitch if he gets shot here and dies the next day?

I thought the “meet-cute” with Zoey was actually … well, cute. Good for her to take the initiative, I thought.

Andrea: I didn’t think it was cute at all. My heart actually sank when Demetri rebuffed Zoey’s offer with such a derisive snort and the added nastiness of, “There’s not a chance in hell I’d go out with you!” The implicit end of his sentence was, “You fucking (Black) bitch!” (Mind you, she was doing her job.) There’s a peppery battle-of-the-hetero-cisgenders exchange that rom-coms seem to think meet-cutes should consists of (I wholeheartedly disagree with that premise, but that’s me), but Dem’s and Zoey’s exchange just seemed extra. I’m sort of surprised that they got together at all after that, let alone lived together and got engaged.

Mahsino: I have to agree with Andrea, it was uncomfortable.

Arturo: I actually didn’t catch that subtext, mostly because, if Dem’s character were prone to such displays, we might’ve seen more inklings of that up ’til now (racism=”edgy” in tv-land, after all.) Although it’s Demetri’s fault for not pointing out that it had (likely) been weeks between the incident and the trial, so the guy would’ve had plenty of time to change his facial hair.

Diana: It would have been better if they showed a follow-up–a “do over” meet-up when he realizes she’s hot.

jen*: Definitely. Jumping from “no way in hell” to “I wanna marry you” with no ‘this is how they *really* fell for each other’ in the middle just made it awkward.

Slight detour: so, Secret Agent Aaron Stark is mildly more interesting, thanks to Wedeck. I just wish we’d find out whether Jericho is tied to the GBO or not, already.

Andrea: If the rumor is true and FlashForward may not return next season, the creatives may be juicing the arcs with all these “oh sh-t” moments to justify another season. Stark’s upped storyline is a part of that effort. It’s unfortunate that it took the threat of cancellation for the behind-the-scene folks to act right.

Mahsino: I have this sinking feeling that the writers are just throwing stuff up on the wall and hoping something will stick. I would like to say that Jericho ties into the GBO because that would make sense for the storyline, but then you have stories like Bryce and Keiko that have nothing to do with the main plot, so it’s hard to tell how random this is.

Page 1 of 3 | Next page