Search results
- Overview
- Summary
- Trivia
- Unanswered Questions
"The Garden of Forking Paths" is the seventeenth episode of season one of FlashForward. It first aired in the United States on April 22, 2010 on ABC.
Previously on FlashForward
•Mark Benford tells Demetri Noh that he has moved out of his house. ("Queen Sacrifice") •Olivia Benford tells her daughter that both she and Mark love her. ("Queen Sacrifice") •Lloyd Simcoe asks Olivia if she can remember any of the formula he wrote on her mirror. ("Queen Sacrifice") •Lucas Hellinger tells Lloyd that he can walk out if Lloyd tells him what he needs to know. ("Revelation Zero, Part 1") •Nhadra Udaya tells Mark that he will kill Demetri on March 15, 2010 using his service weapon. ("A561984") •Demetri Noh and Zoey Andata prepare to destroy Mark's weapon and find it has been stolen. ("Blowback") •Dyson Frost kills Kent Nelson. ("Let No Man Put Asunder") •Zoey tells Alda Hertzog that she thinks Alda knows more than she has told the FBI. ("Blowback") •Zoey agrees to marry Demetri immediately, but Dyson Frost abducts him. ("Let No Man Put Asunder") •Frost speaks to Charlie Benford at a carnival. ("Let No Man Put Asunder")
Before the Blackout
Six months before the Global Blackout, Alda Hertzog is walking with a man, who tells her about Dyson Frost. He explains that Frost is difficult to work with, but is needed since he is one of a few who understand the physics involved with flashforwards. Before stepping into Dyson's hideout, the man says, "Just know that if he gets too unmanageable, we may ask you to take care of him." Alda answers that Hellinger need only tell her what to do. They enter a building with an array of dominoes on the floor. All of the dominoes are black except one long white string. Frost greets the pair by telling them to be careful of the dominoes. Hellinger introduces Alda to Frost. Hellinger explains that Frost helped them engineer the Raven River experiments. Dyson corrects him, saying he invented it, and noting that he is one of the few participants still alive. They discuss being on schedule for October 6. Frost says that he has set up monitoring stations to track the waveform's propagation and, if Campos and Simcoe find their dark matter, the project is on its way. When asked whether the QED is ready, Frost shows Hellinger and Hertzog the first ring. Hellinger is amazed that Frost was able to fit so much circuitry into so small a space. When he hands the ring to Alda, Frost takes it back; he then runs a video recording of Hellinger telling Alda that she may need to take care of him and tells them to leave. Alda asks about the dominoes and Frost explains that the white dominoes represent his path of escape; he then kicks over the first domino, setting off a chain reaction.
Alda's Escape
Zoey Andata meets with Alda Hertzog to try to get more information from her about Demetri's fate. She reminds Alda that today is the forecast date of Demetri's death, but Alda is uncooperative and sarcastic, as usual. Alda says she wants a hearing and she will talk then. Zoey responds that she has already filed for a hearing, and is waiting for a court date. Alda says that is not good enough and that Zoey should make it happen today. Zoey arranges a hearing for Alda on the same day based on a fictitious claim that Alda needs medical care. Before walking into the court room, Alda makes eye contact with a window cleaner. During Alda's hearing, Zoey tries to make a case that Alda has appendicitis and that she needs a CAT scan, but is unsuccessful because Alda has already had medical attention twice recently and nothing was discovered. Judge Sandoz chastises Zoey for bringing a frivolous matter into her courtroom. Alda, from her perspective, fulfills her part of the bargain with Zoey by telling her that in her flashforward she overheard that Demetri's body was found in "Building 7", but that is all she knows. While Alda, Zoey and escorts are waiting outside the court room to be transported, the window where Alda Hertzog's accomplice was waiting explodes and Alda jumps through it, escaping.
Production Notes
•Jack Davenport (Lloyd Simcoe) was credited but did not appear. •Peyton List (Nicole Kirby) was credited but did not appear. •Dominic Monaghan (Simon Campos) was credited but did not appear. •Brían F. O'Byrne (Aaron Stark) was credited but did not appear. •This is the first episode in which Rizwan Manji (Maneesh Sandhar) appears without a surgical mask. •Lawrence A. Mandley (Kent Nelson) appears only as a corpse.
Cultural References
•The Garden of Forking Paths: This episode shares its title with this short story by Jorge Luis Borges, which deals with the idea of multiple possible timelines, much like Frost envisions. The short story contains the exchange: "In a riddle whose answer is chess, what is the only prohibited word?" I thought a moment and replied, "The word chess." •Superman: The young boy at the train station gives Mark a Superman backpack per Dyson Frost's request. •Dr. Seuss: Charlie retells of her encounter with Dyson Frost, in which, they discuss Dr. Seuss books like One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Horton Hears a Who!. •Rain Man: When told that the homeless man who was killed by Frost was possibly a savant, Vreede remarks, "Like Rain Man, or something." Rain Man tells the story of Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond, a man with autism of whose existence Charlie was unaware. •Oedipus: Vreede explains that the image given to Charlie by Frost is Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' painting Oedipus explains the riddle of the Sphinx. Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family. •Lost: The picture the boy gives to Mark (from Dyson Frost) has the number "423" on it, meaning Demitri has 4 hours, 23 minutes to live. This is possibly a reference to "the numbers" in Lost: 4 8 15 16 23 42.
Literary Techniques
•Irony: Mark was able to angle the gun above Demetri's head before it went off, avoiding his death, but the three bullets meant for Demetri's chest shot through the chest area of Demetri's photo that Frost had pinned to his Garden of Forking Paths.
General
•How will Demetri's rescue alter everyone's future? •What does "The End" mean? •What do the diving suit photos and the schematics mean? •Is there any direct connection between those two clues? •Is Demetri really safe? •How did Alda know where Mark and Frost were meeting? •Who recovered Mark's gun from building 7 after the rescue? Is it accounted for?
Flashes
•Who told did Alda about building 7 in her flashforward?
Synopsis. Demetri ( John Cho ), having been captured by Dyson Frost, awakens to find himself in a room with a very large writing board full of information, not too unlike Mark's wall at the FBI. Included on that wall is March 15, 2010, with his picture next to it. However, the wall is the least of his problems.
Apr 23, 2010 · FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" Review. Dyson Frost's chalkboard of probable futures was fascinating, but it was probably for the best that it all got washed away. Something...
"Flashforward" The Garden of Forking Paths (TV Episode 2010) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
FlashForward: The Garden of the Forking Paths. by Josie Kafka. “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to play out.” “The Garden of the Forking Paths” is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s insanely complex, and I think it’s one of Borges’s subtlest meditations on information, perception, and time.
Apr 22, 2010 · Mark explains Frost’s “garden of forking paths,” concluding that all of the paths led to one point at the top of the wall: the date December 12, 2016, simply marked “The End.” Commentary ...
