FlashForward: Queen Sacrifice

The whole time I was watching this episode I thought to myself that it was in contention to be the best episode of FlashForward ever. They finally addressed the mole issue which had been known to exist since episode two or three. A fire was lit in Lloyd to actually decipher what he experienced in his flash. Mark was thankfully in a role that suited his sour disposition and informed all his colleagues that he was truly a two faced jerk. Bryce and Nicole shared a first kiss. Keiko gave up a life of sexism in Japan for a life of sexism in the USA, at least temporarily. Olivia and Charlie got to go to the park and have a fun day. Heck, even Dyson Frost had some interesting character bits considering he can see almost two decades into the future!

That was all welcome and good until the final reveal that Janice is the other double agent. I know it is trendy to through a twist into television shows every so often in order to keep them fresh, but Janice, really? Janice is the one character on this show that has not had a consistent flaw which I have found unbearably annoying. In fact, when Janice apprehended the rouge agent after shooting her driver off the bike I turned to my wife and said, "figures it was Janice the rest of them are idiots".

Janice's turn was not hinted at in anyway until this episode. Some people may argue that the unpredictability of this twist is what makes it awesome. However, I would counter that a good twist is one that is uncalled upon initial viewing yet obvious to the viewer upon reflection of a characters past actions revealing that he/she was up to something more. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Janice. The only hints that Janice was up to something nefarious were dropped in this episode and that is simply poor story telling.

My only hope for Janice is that she is a super cop. Perhaps she realized something with up with Simon and baited him into confessing. She never admitted that she knew anything other than the fact that she thought Simon killed his uncle. Beyond that she just talked about the importance of redundant moles.