FlashForward Episode 1.17 The Garden of Forking Paths

It's March 15th, 2010. D-Day for Demetri, who is strapped to a rigged chair in an abandoned warehouse. Across the room, a motion-activated device aims Mark's gun at Demetri's chest. He moves, he's dead.

Charlie is questioned about her encounter with Dyson Frost at the carnival. Her conversation included a discussion about Dr. Seuss books. Frost's favorite story is "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish." He gave Charlie a picture to give to her dad. It's of a portrait of "Oedipus and the Sphinx" by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. On the back, there's a message for Mark. He's to go to Union Station if he wants Demetri back alive.

Suspected terrorist Alda Hertzog instructs Zoey to get her a hearing in front of a judge if she wants info on Demetri's whereabouts. We flashback six months before the blackout to learn that Alda is in cahoots with the mystery man who visited Lloyd Simcoe during his kidnapping in Revelation Zero. His name is Hollinger and he introduces Alda to Dyson Frost, who works out of the warehouse that houses Demetri in the present day. Hollinger says Dyson Frost is the man who engineered something called the Raven River Experiments.

In the present, there's a massive blackboard set up behind Demetri in the warehouse. Frost explains that the lines on his blackboard are "The Garden of Forking Paths." They represent all the possible futures that follow each critical decision he's made. One of those paths leads to March 15th, the day he and/or Demetri will die.

Undercover FBI agents work surveillance as Mark waits for Frost in the middle of Union Station. A young boy delivers a backpack with a picture of Demetri and a cell phone. Frost calls Mark saying he wants to tell him when and why the next blackout will occur. First, they need to meet. Alone. Mark must follow all of Frost's instructions or Demetri will die. The clock is ticking. The race to save his partner is on.

Mark takes off through Union Station. He ditches the phone and his gun in a restroom trashcan. There's a secret panel that leads to the outside. Mark makes his way to a car Frost left for him. FBI agents give chase, unsure of what's happening. But they're too late. Mark is in the wind.

Zoey manages to wrangle a hearing for Alda Herzog. It doesn't go well. Alda doesn't mind. She never expected to win. She tells Zoey that in her flash forward she heard they found Demetri's body in a Building 7 somewhere. As Alda is being led out of the courtroom, an explosion rocks the room. A window smashes open. Alda dives outside. The hearing she desperately wanted was all part of a planned prison break.

Mark speeds out of city limits to remote desert area in the Antelope Valley. There's less than 90 minutes before the gun aimed at Demetri automatically discharges. Dyson Frost makes his way across the open terrain, gun drawn. Mark siphoned some gasoline from the car into his water bottle. He takes a swing, spits in Frost's face and quickly subdues him. The time for games is over. Mark only wants to know one thing. Where's Demetri?

Frost tells Mark that he already knows where his partner is. He gave Charlie all the answers. Frost says, "In the end you're gonna be saved by the lady you see every day." Frost is about to tell Mark something very important until he realizes they are not alone. BANG! A gunshot from a long-range sniper rifle hits Frost. He's down. The shooter, the recently-escaped Alda Hertzog, escapes once more.

Mark desperately tries to get information from Frost before he takes one last dying breath. But Frost is gone. Mark discovers blueprints in his backpack. There's no time to analyze them. He needs to find Demetri. The GPS in Frost's car shows that he's been to Ingres Street. Ingres is the name of the artist who did the Oedipus portrait. It can't be a coincidence.

Time is running out for Demetri as Mark races to the address of an abandoned army depot. There are dozens of buildings at the location. Demetri could be in any one of them. A call to FBI Headquarters lets Mark know that his partner is in Building 7. With only minutes to go, Mark finds Demetri, but he can't stop the timer. He'll have to move the gun. That means Mark's hand will be on the trigger if it fires, as predicted.

Frost said he gave Charlie all the answers. The Dr. Seuss "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" reference is a clue as to which wires to pull. With no time to spare, Mark disengages the lock to slowly move the gun upward. The scope beam edges up Demetri's body. TICK, TICK, TICK. BANG, BANG, BANG! Time's up! Three shots are fired, each one striking a photo of Demetri attached to the blackboard behind him. Thanks to Mark Benford, March 15th is now the day his partner lived.

The homeless man who was killed by Dyson Frost with Mark's gun is the same person who sent Olivia the text message saying that her husband was drinking in his flash forward. An autopsy suggests the homeless man was a savant. Agent Vreede hopes Olivia will be able to identify the corpse, but she's never seen him before.

An address book found amongst the homeless man's belongings leads to a doctor who treats savants. As Olivia and Vreede hit a nearby coffee shop, they run into a man who claims he knows Olivia. He says, "I have stood behind you here in this line on this day many, many times." His name is Gabriel and shows signs of being a savant. Gabriel says his friend, who is dead now, wanted to talk to Olivia about the Raven River Experiments. Before Vreede can stop him, Gabriel is gone.

Back at the warehouse, Mark pulls Demetri from his chair. This triggers a set of sprinklers to shower the blackboard, effectively erasing Dyson Frost's roadmap to the future. There were events on the board that occurred after April 29th. It could have broken the case wide open. Now, it's all gone. Mark recalls one element of the board. It was a date: December 12, 2016. After the date, it said "The End." Wedeck asks the question of the moment: "The end of what?"