Filed under: Recaps & Reviews
"He lives with constant flashes of intrusive memory."
Flashpoint seems to always have villains that pull off the genius kidnappings that ultimately backfire. Last season, Spike was taken hostage for his computer skills. Earlier this season, a doctor was forced by a thug to save his son, and in "Forget Oblivion," a memory genius was kidnapped into helping commit a crime. The thing that made this episode unique, was that the writers introduced the unusual element of science fiction, and that the talking down routine was completely absent.
The episode started with Ed and Sam at target practice, wherein the loser had to buy coffee. Sam would end up missing his shot, while Ed got his. After hitting the target, Ed had a flashback to "Broken Peace," where he shot the girl dead. For winning, Sam would have to buy Ed a double double. Way to perpetuate the police stereotype of going to donut shops. |
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After avoiding getting kidnapped, Laney indicated that a couple of days ago, her patient, Elliot, had contemplated committing suicide. It turned out, that Elliot has a super power. He has a perfect memory of everything. Elliot is meant to be a foil to Ed, as they both have memories that they would both like to get out of their heads. |
Before Elliot could successfully off himself for good (what is with all these emotionally disturbed and suicidal people on Flashpoint?), a really generic bad guy came to kidnap Elliot into helping him and his gang out with a crime. So what was so important that necessitated kidnapping a memory genius? |
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This. Some firearm scientist had decided to make a real-life aimbot gun that fired smart bullets. In order to navigate the facility, the bad guy would need help from Elliot. Once the bad guy got a hold of the prototype gun, he shot Ed in the armor, and kidnapped him as well. |
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While being held hostage in the back of the van with Elliot, the barely suppressed side of Ed finally opened up. Ed talked about not being able to contain the memory of shooting May, and how it kept coming back over and over again. But this was not the time for mental health peer support, so Ed had to get Elliot to fake a seizure in order to gain control of the situation. |
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So instead of going the standard Flashpoint method of talking down a criminal, Team One went the way of using technology. Elliot got Spike the gun to bullet frequency, which Spike jammed, and caused the shot to go its properly mis-aimed way. Before any further harm could be done, Sam took the bad guy down with a lethal headshot. |
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At the end of the day, Elliot was reunited with Laney to make some progress on his therapy. Ed noticed how the intrusive memories affected Elliot, and thought about needing help as well, so Greg pointed him into the way of his own therapist. |
Most episodes of Flashpoint have a scene at the beginning and at the end of the episode, that show a little glimpse into the personal lives of the Team One members. The better written episodes, actually make the opening and closing personal scenes relevant to the episode's story. "Forget Oblivion," is one of these better episodes. Not only that, but the whole trauma of shooting the girl, seems to be the main storyline arc of this final season of Flashpoint. It should be interesting to see how all this comes to a conclusion.
Tags: Flashpoint, Forget Oblivion, Broken Peace, Blue On Blue, No Kind of Life, Hugh Dillon, Amy Jo Johnson, Enrico Colantoni, Sebastian Pigott, Person of Interest
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