FlashForward recap: Moving Things Along

Doc Jensen takes on the series' return and finds familiar territory, such as possible time travel, a grand conspiracy, and Big Themes

The second half of the two-hour spring premiere was a kind of Frankenstein tale, in which not-so-simple Simon revealed himself to be both creation and thrall to a fringe science cabal that nurtured his smarts into monstrous genius and then exploited his brain for their vague, allegedly villainous ends. (When a guy called Flosso says he's a villain, he must be a villain. Right?) However, by story's end, Simon had begun turning the tables on his makers/masters with one of the strangest assassinations seen on TV this season. Simon mounted Flosso's tubby chest and pushed on his emphysema-sick lungs, compressing death into him/life out of him — cardio-pulmonary ruination. Flosso said he was just a middle-man for bigger baddies, and so we must wonder how much Simon truly gained by murdering his ''Uncle Teddy'' — and if indulging his angry black heart cost him more of his soul in the process. —Jeff Jensen

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