White to Play

"White to Play" is the second episode of the first season of the television series FlashForward. The episode's teleplay was written by David S. Goyer and Marc Guggenheim, from a story by Brannon Braga and David S. Goyer, who also directed the episode. It originally aired in the United States on ABC on October 1, 2009.
In the episode, Mark and Demetri travel to Utah to investigate a man who might have some information about the global blackout, while Olivia meets Lloyd Simcoe, the man she saw in her flash-forward.
Plot
The episode opens with a group of school children lying motionless on the ground. Mark and Olvia's daughter Charlie stands over them. After about a minute the kids stand up and tell each other what they saw while they were playing "Blackout". A boy approaches Charlie and asks what she saw; when she refuses, he grabs for her favourite toy, ripping it in the process. Upset by this, Charlie runs away, out of the school yard and down the street where she is confronted by the military who are manning checkpoints in the aftermath of the blackout.
At his next Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Mark criticizes a man who claims that the blackouts caused him more pain and caused him to drink more. Mark tells him to go and take a walk rather than sharing his pain with the group. After the meeting Aaron reminds Mark that it wasn't just him that had a flashforward - it was everyone in the entire world. Mark and Olivia are then called to Charlie's school. At the school her teacher tells Mark and Olivia that the kids were playing "blackout" and sharing what they saw in their visions but Charlie refuses to. Mark explains that he and Olivia are using the "she will tell us when she is ready" approach to Charlie and the blackout, but the teacher disagrees telling the parents that they should talk to her about what she saw. Back at their family home Mark shares his thoughts with Olivia that Charlie was not in his flashforward meaning that she must have been with Olivia. Therefore she may have seen the same man from Olivia's flashforward that his wife saw herself having an affair with six months in the future.
At the FBI field office, the team is joined by the cabinet secretary who wants to know why their department believes that they should be investigating the blackout and flashforwards. Mark tells her that in his flashforward he saw himself investigating it and that if someone else saw themselves investigating it too then he will share his information, but until then his flashforward is the only thing to go on. The team then show her the website they have set up called "The Mosaic" in which people from around the world can share their experiences online. The Secretary is angry that the team have used their own personal funds to finance this until they show her the footage of the baseball game in Detroit with the lone figure walking across the back of the stadium. This gets her attention and she wants to know more.
Mark and Demetri meet in his office where Demetri sees the friendship bracelet that Charlie made for her dad. Demetri asks why Mark is wearing it and Mark tells him he has it on as so not to upset his daughter. Demetri however believes that Mark is wearing it because he saw himself wearing it and in doing so he is making the future happen. As they discuss this further, Janis arrives and tells the pair that a woman by the name "D. Gibbons" has come to the office looking for Demetri. D. Gibbons reveals her name to be Didi Gibbons and tells the team that she owns a cake shop and has come to see them as they were referenced in her flashforward. Janis runs a background check on her and she has no convictions of any kind, suggesting that she may not be the same "D. Gibbons" that the team is looking for.
Olivia takes Charlie to the hospital and sets about fixing her toy. While doing so she meets Lloyd Simcoe, the father of the young boy (later revealed to be called Dylan) seen in her flashforward. He speaks to Olivia about his child and he informs her that his son is autistic making him hard to look after. Olivia asks if they have ever met before or if he knows her. He claims he doesn't know who she is. After fixing Charlie's toy the pair prepare to leave the hospital when Olivia asks Charlie if she knows who Lloyd is. Charlie does not recognise the man but does seem to know his son - whom she refers to as Dylan and asks her mother who hurt him. Olivia then meets with Mark to explain that she met the man from her flashforward and that he is the father of the young boy she operated on whom Charlie seems to know. Before Mark can look into it further he is called away on a lead to Utah where Didi Gibbon's credit card has been used to purchase a bus ticket. Mark and Demetri then fly by helicopter to Utah.
In Utah, Mark and Demetri meet Sheriff Keegan who tells the pair that she, like Demetri, did not have a flashforward. They wait at the bus stop for the suspect to appear although they never do. Benford then notices an abandoned warehouse which the trio enter, only to discover it is a doll making factory. The three of them head up some stairs and Mark stands on a pressure switch which activates the dolls - a sort of in-house alarm. The pair rush to the top of the flight of stairs where they see a man masked by the dark. They look around and see the man is using computers and software to hack something. Mark orders the man to surrender but the hacker quotes Beilby Porteus with the line "he who foresees calamities suffers them twice over", and thus forewarned, he has been able to activate an incendiary device, starting a major fire, and destroying the computers and warehouse in the process. Mark and Sheriff Keegan order the man to stop but he escapes, shooting Keegan and killing her in the process. In the aftermath of the fire, investigators arrive and photograph the site. Mark notices that one of the photos that has been taken of a burnt doll is the one that will appear on his office noticeboard in the future.
Back at the Los Angeles field office, Mark, Janis and Demetri watch as the call records from the hacker's retrieved cell phone are recovered, via its IMEI. The mystery man made a total of six calls, five prior to the blackout and one during it. The possible destinations of the sixth call include the baseball stadium in Detroit, where the other mysterious figure, who was the only one awake in the CCTV footage, must have received the call. The team deduce that at least two people around the world were awake at the time of the blackout. Demetri and Janis then chat again over what they both saw during the blackout and add their experiences to the online site hoping to gain some answers about their future. While leaving the office, Demetri receives a phone call from an agent in Hong Kong who tells him that during her flashforward she was running over some old case files, one of which included details of his death. She continues and tells him that the file said that on the 15th March 2010 Demetri will be murdered. (This may be an allusion to March 15 being the Ides of March. In William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, Caesar is also forewarned about, and later murdered on, that date.)
At the Benford home Mark and Olivia awaken during the night and discuss Olivia's meeting with Lloyd Simcoe. Mark tells her that she did the right thing by telling him. She notices that he has lit a fire, in which he has placed and burnt Charlie's friendship bracelet, taking on board Demetri's advice that he should not wait for the future to just happen. Mark and Olivia then go to bed with Mark saying goodnight to Charlie first. She then tells her dad that D. Gibbons "is a bad man".
Production
Cast
*Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford
*John Cho as Demetri Noh
*Jack Davenport as Lloyd Simcoe
*Zachary Knighton as Bryce Varley
*Brian F. O'Byrne as Aaron Stark
*Courtney B. Vance as Stanford Wedeck
*Sonya Walger as Olivia Benford
*Christine Woods as Janis Hawk
*Lee Thompson Young as Al Gough
*Lennon Wynn as Charlie Benford
*Ryan Wynott as Dylan Simcoe
Cast Notes
Regular cast member Peyton List is credited for this episode though she doesn't make an appearance as Nicole Kirby. Guest cast include Shohreh Aghdashloo as Nhadra, the lady who tells Demetri Noh of his upcoming murder, Lynn Whitfield as Anastasia Markham, Stephnie Weir as Didi Gibbons and Marina Black as Sheriff Keegan.
Reception
This episode was watched by 10.73 million American viewers, with a 6.7/11 overall household rating.
This episode was watched by 4.25 million British viewers, an increase of 150,000 viewers.

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