Lloyd Simcoe

"Simcoe" redirects here. For other uses of Simcoe, see Simcoe (disambiguation).

Lloyd Simcoe
Actor	Jack Davenport
First Seen	"No More Good Days"
Last Seen	"Future Shock"
Name	Lloyd Simcoe
Status	Alive
Job	Physicist
Saw in Flash	Himself with Olivia Benford

Lloyd Simcoe is a brilliant quantum physicist and Associate Director of the Plasma-Wakefield Program at NLAP (National Linear Accelerator Project) in Northern California. Following the tragic death of his estranged wife during the GBO, Lloyd has suddenly become a single father to his autistic son, Dylan, whose interest in magic inspires Lloyd to learn and perform tricks.

Utterly at sea as to how to care for Dylan, Lloyd seeks out the help of Dylan's doctor, Olivia Benford, the woman he was in bed with in his flash forward. Lloyd and Olivia have a strong connection and a possible future together, but, until recently, they have valiantly fought against it. Now that Lloyd’s gone public and acknowledged at least partial responsibility for the GBO, he has become an outcast, more exposed to danger than ever before.

Character Biography

Pre-GBO

Lloyd Simcoe attended Harvard University in 1998 and got his Ph.D. there. He had an apartment above the cigar shop Leavitt & Pierce in Harvard Square. Olivia Benford was originally also going to attend Harvard and live in the building next door. However, her husband Mark Benford got a job in the Los Angeles FBI field office, and she followed him to Los Angeles instead. Simcoe met his wife, who would be killed in the Global Blackout, after she moved into his building. ("A561984")

Lloyd worked at Stanford University as a physicist. He won the MacArthur Fellowship and was a finalist for a Nobel Prize. ("Playing Cards with Coyote") He and his wife were separated, and he rarely saw his son, Dylan. He was running an experiment at the National Linear Accelerator Project (NLAP) which he thinks is the cause of the GBO. ("Scary Monsters and Super Creeps")

Flash Forward

Formula from Lloyd's flash

Lloyd was shirtless in an unknown house (in actuality, the Benford house) when he received a text message, supposedly from Simon. He says he has to "make a call." He walks downstairs to the living room and sees toys strewn about the floor, presumably Dylan's because Dylan was "close by." He sits on the sofa and talks to someone who he says is an unknown person, which is later revealed to be Mark Benford. He then hears a woman (Olivia Benford) behind him and turns his head toward her. However, the flashforward ends before he sees her face. His feelings during the flashforward indicate the two are romantically involved. While reading the message, we see a formula written on a mirror in something red, possibly lipstick.

In "Revelation Zero, Part 1" it is revealed that Lloyd called Mark Benford to "talk about the QED".

Post-GBO

Lloyd's wife was killed in the aftermath of the blackout, and his son, Dylan, was badly wounded. Dylan arrived at the hospital and was saved by attending surgeon Olivia Benford and her intern, Bryce Varley. Soon after, he becomes fond of Olivia and enjoys how good she is with Dylan, while Lloyd himself has a difficult time pleasing the autistic child.

One night at the hospital, after entertaining Dylan, he receives a call from an unknown accomplice, Simon Campos, stating that "we're responsible for the single greatest disaster in human history." ("Black Swan")

Lloyd has trouble building a relationship with his autistic son at first, but warms up to him after visiting his late wife's home and discovers Dylan likes magic tricks. Dylan's autism proves to cause some problems for his father when he runs away from the hospital on Halloween in search of the Benford's home (the address he recognizes from his flashforward). Soon after arriving at the house, Lloyd recognizes the living room from his flashforward and Olivia's voice when she returns home. Lloyd later returns to his car to find Simon, who berates Lloyd for not keeping in touch with him. Lloyd expresses regret about being involved in the cause of the flashforward, considering it killed twenty million people, and the two drive off together. ("Scary Monsters and Super Creeps")

Simcoe defeats Campos in a poker game with the stakes being whether they go public with their experiment. ("Playing Cards with Coyote")

Myhill, Simcoe, and Campos subsequently call a press conference in Palo Alto, California in which they announce that their experiment was responsible for the Global Blackout. Soon after the press conference Lloyd goes to the hospital in which his son is in. He gets him transferred, only to be kidnapped the day of the transfer by the two men who where attending the ambulance. ("A561984")

Trivia

• Though they share the same name, Simcoe differs somewhat from his namesake in the novel:
  • The two are of different ages (the one in the novel is somewhat older) and live in different countries (although in the novel it may be that Simcoe is only temporarily working at CERN; most researchers there are not associated full-time with the facility).
  • In the novel, Simcoe's fiancee has a daughter who dies in the flashforward, while in the series he has a son, who, although injured in the same sort of accident that killed the daughter in the novel, survives his injuries.
• Lloyd has appeared in 17 of 22 aired episodes.

Unanswered Questions

Unanswered questions
Do not answer the questions here. Keep the questions open-ended and neutral: do not suggest an answer. Avoid questions that are unlikely to be answered. More details...

Theories for these unanswered questions should go on this article's theory page.

• What connection does Lloyd have to the GBO?
  • Why does he think he is responsible?
  • Was his involvement entirely voluntary?
  • Did he realize what would happen when he did get involved?
  • What was the higher purpose of the "experiment"?
  • What connection does Lloyd have to Simon?
• If he was connected to the GBO, why did he have a flash forward and blackout himself?
• What is Lloyd trying to tell Mark on the phone in their flashforwards?
• What's the contents of the text message sent from Simon to Lloyd in Lloyd's flashforward?
• Why did Lloyd book a flight which left an hour after his and Simon's press conference but didn't take it?
• Why is there a not-so-old picture of Lloyd, Dylan and Dylan's mom in their house when Lloyd said they separated when Dylan was little?
• Considering the role some people believe he had in causing the blackout, why doesn't he have better personal security?