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Every good show must have it's boring episode, and tonight it was 'FlashForward's' turn

This review may contain spoilers.

Happy times are here again, at least that’s what they want us to believe at the beginning of "Playing Cards With Coyote".

Olivia (Sonya Walger) and Mark (Joseph Fiennes) are holed up in a hotel on the ocean, the woman Al (Lee Thompson Young) saved has found fame through his selfless death, and Lloyd (Jack Davenport) is showing off his magic tricks to his son. We’ve learned the future can be changed, thanks to Al, and that’s a reason to celebrate.

This can’t last for long though – and it doesn’t. Mark unknowingly gifts Olivia the lingerie that she’s wearing in her flash forward with Lloyd, and Tracy (Genevieve Cortese) is having awful nightmares from the war as well.

Lloyd is starting to regret being a part of whatever caused the black out, and he goes to his fellow scientists for help, including Simon (Dominic Monaghan) who quickly says no way are they telling people about their part in it. Simon tells Lloyd that they’re going to settle it over a game of poker, which is apparently how they settled their last major argument.

So, what better way to settle things, especially when 20 million lives where the downfall of their last game? We see the wickedness that lives inside of Simon this week, finally starting to piece together who he is (and apparently that is pretty dang evil). It’s about time!

What Worked

Sure, the episode worked, but not too well. We did see the stars on the board, but nothing really significant other than that. The card game wasn’t even exciting enough to care about, except for the fact that Simon lost to Lloyd.

We did discover that Lloyd is a cheater though, that was very interesting. He seems good, in that he regrets what they did, but he’s not above cheating. This will, undoubtedly, tick Simon off quite a bit.

What Didn’t Work

Aaron tells Mark there were 3 people in the humvee with Tracy when it exploded. So far we’ve only seen one other person, Mike (Mark Famiglietti). It’s doubtful this is something the writer’s missed, so perhaps we’ll find out soon? It seems odd that we haven’t seen anyone else in the car, not even a hint of another person.

This episode was…well…blah. There really isn’t any other word for it. It was just boring, not particularly funny, exciting, or suspenseful. Let’s try to pick it up for next week, okay?

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

"FlashForward" stars Joseph Fiennes, Jack Davenport, Dominic Monaghan, Zachary Knighton, Peyton List, Brian O'Byrne, Christine Woods, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Courtney B. Vance, and Bryce Robinson. "Playing Cards with Coyote" was written by Mark Guggenheim and Barbara Nance. It was directed by Nick Gomez.

"FlashForward" airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.