I don't want to get ahead of myself, but the episode wasn't half bad. I'm guessing it's an anomaly because the episode was centered in Somalia, so don't get excited. The producers have created a show where the characters never follow up on leads week to week, leaving threads hanging until a later episode. Somalia will probably be addressed in a later episode, just not next week. This causes a disconnect in the urgency of matters for the viewers if they see characters move on without doing more. Although the showrunners have been switched, there's been no change, and with that comes the still decreasing ratings. I'll ride out the rest of the season, because I have no expectations anymore.
The team is captured by Abdi, an bloodthirsty warlord who executes the fodder among the group and keeps the others. After a daring escape, they are recaptured by Abdi who tells them what happened in 1991 and his flashforward. People installed the pylons and activated them while Abdi was outside the village. He came back and found everyone unresponsive, and after seeing a black camel, ran off. Later, he came back to find no bodies. In his flashforward, the quotes Lincoln in a speech to all of Somalia. He is not a conquerer, but a peacemaker.
They enter the last remaining pylons where Simon confirms his design and find a video with the villagers explaining what they saw. They had undergone a flashforward and had not died as Abdi had believed. Dyson Frost appears and says that they flash two weeks into the future. They go deeper and find a mass grave filled with the villagers including Abdi's mother. Incensed, he is about to shoot Simon, the only person who was indirectly involved. Vogel shoots him, ending the possibility of Abdi's flashforward of being a savior.
Mark and Olivia again had their problems which was a snoozefest, and Nicole wants to become a psychiatrist. Who cares?
Whatever momentum build up each week is always destroyed by the almost episodic nature of the show where people turn towards other leads each week, letting new revelations go untouched. I found Abdi a great character, and part of me says the final shooting was too much in an episode that already featured several executions.
Score: 8.7/10
