FlashForward Episode 1.21 Countdown

It's April 29th, the day everyone saw in their flash forward. The world is about to catch up to its future.

Lucas Hellinger used the flash forwards to do some future-casting. He invested money on sure things and got out just before trends in the real estate market and dot.com companies went south. The bad guys could also use the flash forward technology to manipulate geopolitics. More information is needed from Hellinger, but the only person he'll talk to is Mark Benford. The only thing Mark wants to know is the date of the next blackout.

Hellinger claims to have seen many different versions of the future that all started with his current conversation with Mark. In every scenario, Mark will lose control. Then he'll lose everything. Hellinger wants to be released from custody. If that doesn't happen, Mark will most certainly die.

Mark gives Demetri a CD containing 15 different covers of "Islands in the Stream." He wants Dem to pick a version to dance with his bride in Hawaii. Zoey is thrilled when Demetri actually shows up at the airport, but not so jazzed to learn that her fiancé slept with Janis in Somalia to get her pregnant. Zoey is still going to Hawaii, but no longer wants Demetri to join her. Their future together is suddenly most uncertain.

Bryce and Nicole have plans to spend Flash Forward Day together. Things change when Nicole finally reveals that Keiko is being held in an immigration detention center in Los Angeles. She didn't mention it before because she thought Bryce would choose Keiko over her. Judging by his reaction, she may have been right. Later, Keiko learns that her mother has come to take her home. They have an 11 o'clock flight back to Japan. That's an hour after the time she envisioned meeting Bryce in a local Japanese restaurant.

In Afghanistan, Khamir struggles to save Tracy's life. Aaron is confident his daughter will pull through, as that's what he saw in his vision. One of the captured contractors tells Aaron that Jericho wasn't killing people. They were doing experiments for the global blackout. They kidnapped Tracy because they needed to know why she was awake. Tracy takes a turn for the worse. Khamir does his best, but cannot save her. Aaron is devastated. This is not how things were supposed to play out.

Simon wants Janis to get him access to the mainframe of the linear accelerator. When Demetri shows up at her front door, Janis wants him to pretend that he never came by. That's not gonna happen. At first he wants to take the fugitive scientist in, but then Dem realizes it may be best to help Janis and Simon complete their mission.

Lloyd thinks he may be on the verge of a breakthrough in his research. He desperately wants to be with Olivia. He believes certain conditions must be met today. Olivia needs to be at her house with him at 10 p.m., but she is driving somewhere else with Charlie. As Lloyd and Dylan stand outside the Benford home, Olivia tells him via cell phone that she will not be with him in that house tonight.

The tachyon constant is a theoretical number/particle that appears in something Hellinger drew as well as the blueprints left by Dyson Frost. There's a company called Tachyon Offsite Information Systems that warehouses data. Mark wants to storm the building, but Wedeck and Vogel worry it's a trap. They're right. Mark demands answers from Hellinger, who knows exactly how to push his buttons. Hellinger says over and over that Mark is going to die today and that Charlie will be better off without him.

As predicted, Mark loses it and attacks Hellinger. Wedeck tosses him out of the building leaving Mark to wander the streets aimlessly where others are busy partying on Flash Forward Day. A man who gave up drinking in his vision hands Mark his old flask. The temptation is too much. Mark tasks a swig. He's drinking again, just like he was in his flash forward.

Mark is downing drinks at a local pub when he gets into a bar fight with the pushy guy seated next to him. The clock on the wall reads 6:48. A short time later, an anguished Mark is tossed into a jail cell. With the time of the flash forward just hours away, Mark Benford is nowhere near where he's supposed to be. At least, not yet.