Numb3rs: Episode 318: "Democracy"

This Eppesode features conspiracies, the annual "did they really kill themselves" plot line, Oswald Kittner, great family moments, a Canadian hockey table, "the wrong computer nerd to mess with," absolutely no sight nor reference to Amita and some obvious fandom shout outs. Methinks the Numb3rs team just told us that not only do they love us, but also are willing to commit to a long-term relationship. Cal Sci: The scene opens with Charlie leaving a night class, telling another student that next week's class has been moved to Friday at 10. I'm all panicky that since all crimes are shown in the first thirty seconds and if anyone harms one hair on Charlie's head, I will somehow break the law of physics and jump through the screen to defend the king of adorkableness. That is of course, if someone hasn't invented Wonka-vision. The musical theme of extreme creepiness (a phrase which here means increasing volume) indicate danger is approaching. In this case, danger is called Rachel Lawton, who passes Charlie a list of names. All of whom are people with whom she's worked and three of them are now dead. She wants Charlie to enlist his brother's help and despite the fact Charlie's clearly thinking Rachel's a cuckoo-bird, he agrees. She rushes off in to the night. La Maison d'Eppes: Charlie's telling Alan all about the crazy-conspiracy theorist / statistician Rebecca but Alan admonishes him for doubting her theories. Sometimes it takes a crazy mind to spot an almost too crazy to be true conspiracies. Morgue: And of, course, she's dead. It appears to be an intended overdose the ME, who is not Claudia, and therefore completely irrelevant, tells us. Don is sure that investigating Rachel's theories aren't going to go anywhere, but Charlie doesn't look so sure. Fortunately, the brothers have the commercial break after the title flash to sort it out. Cal Sci: Oswald! It's Oswald! He's come to tell Charlie that he's not the Cal Sci type of guy as his skill at tests is next to nye but Charlie could not say good-bye, as he fanboy's Oswald, that's no lie. While all this is going one, Charlie's worked out that it's a 1/10000000 chance that Rachel and three other co-workers are dead. Although, there's more! Turns out the last name on her list also perished in a horrible car crash, making the odds 1/700000000. That's over a million times less likely than surviving an asteroid field (720 to 1) so even my less than mathematically minded brain understands that there really is a Big Damn Conspiracy. IHOF: Now the Fedcakes are involved, and even though David gives us all the exposition about the victims, Colby pipes in that there's no connection. Another autopsy is ordered on Rachel Lawton to see if all five deaths have really just defied the odds. As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go off to do what they do best, research, Don's concerned that Megan may be leaving the team. The fandom does some calculations, realizing that it's about time for Diane Farr's maternity leave. Cal Sci: Millie's arrived with some journal articles Rachel had written and she and Charlie discuss the dangers of being a statistician. I don't know why it's such a surprise that it's a dangerous profession, as anyone who ever had to take a stats class in university has wanted to kill the professor out of sheer boredom. Charlie turns his thoughts to Oswald (not like that) and his concerns that his muse won't be applying to Cal Sci. Millie makes the jump everyone on the planet, other than Charlie, has already made. For a guy interested in skateboarding, girls and stats, Charlie just needs to get Oswald involved in this case! After a montage of Oswald showing his mad skater skillz, Charlie makes a bad pun about breaking the law -- of physics, that is. "Is Sir Isaac Newton going to come and bust me?" Oswald replies. Charlie instead enlists Oswald's help in the case. Somehow, I think the writers are going to gloss over how Oswald's going to get security clearance. Morgue: David and Colby are talking to another ME that is still not Claudia and still, therefore, irrelevant. They're looking for a flash drive, which, as opposed to the neat little key I wear around my neck, can be contained in anything from pens, key chains, rubber duckies, or, as in this case, a watch. Cal Sci: Charlie gets around the whole security clearance thing by asking David and Colby, who are waiting in his office. Somehow, I don't think that's how the Fedcake chain of command works. Right away proving his worth, Oswald recognizes the watch as a flash drive, and shows how it works, he just needs a USB cable, which, for some odd reason, David carries around in his jacket pocket. The flash drive contains a bunch of statistics that confuse both Charlie and his wonder boy. Wonder Boy is sure the problem is going to be tough. "The best problems," Charlie says knowing he's hooked Oswald, "always are." With that little moment of gloating, we have this week's NPAL. IHOF: David's found one connection between the victims; they all work with stats but Megan's found another. Three out of the five all worked for the Tuttle Foundation. Megan's discovery is trumped by the ME, who is not Claudia, who has discovered that Rachel was really smothered with a pillow. Later, Howard Meeks Will Bailey is brought in to tell the Fedcakes all about Tuttle. The FCC believe he was involved in a whole bunch of bad shit in New York, but since witnesses disappeared, a case could never be made. Don hopes that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will learn something after their interview with Tuttle. Tuttle's: Tuttle is inexplicably chopping wood, but his constant denials that he knows about the victims or about their deaths, make it clear it's a conspiracy. Of course, as if the audience didn't already know this, Tuttle is vague about his work, and declares himself a greedy bastard. He's bad! We get it. Cal Sci: Millie's explaining to Charlie why he's having such a hard time convincing Oswald to come to Cal Sci; Oswald wasn't raised in the "church" of academia. Personally, I would've argued that it's because Charlie is a crappy salesman. Oswald's ears must've been burning, as he arrives with news that something is hinky about Rachel's numbers but he isn't sure what. Millie and Charlie both inform him that when people fake stats, they use too many 3s and 7s, and not enough 1s and 2s. Really? I just read a study that say 37% of 7337 people like to travel to math conferences on 737's. I wonder if that's true or if I just made that up? With that, Millie exits, and for the first time ever, Charlie's probably glad Larry's in space. He uses Millie's good-nature as a selling point for Cal Sci. Whereas if Oswald had the same conversation with Larry, he'd probably run away screaming. Oswald's all concerned that he won't be able to figure out what the numbers means, but Charlie has a solution, meta-data. Personally, I don't understand his whole Schenectady NY zip code analogy as I understand meta-data as this: the easiest way to get yourself a guest-starring role on Numb3rs, is to know David Krumholtz. IHOF: After hearing David and Colby's description of the the conspiracy theorist Sheriff from Roswell, Megan diagnoses him as a "self-absorbed type A sociopath." I ask myself, aren't those really just synonyms? She's also made another interesting discover, 4 of the 5 victims consulted on political campaigns. Again, I wonder how long it will be before the Fedcakes realize the biggest clue in solving the case is always the opening grid? Cal Sci: Charlie and Oswald, using Megan's information, start the arduous process of comparing Rachel's numbers to voting returns. Please! Faked votes in California, don't they know that sort of thing only happens in Florida? La Maison d'Eppes: In a moment of comic relief, when Alan suggest Don just move back into the family abode. With that, Charlie comes in with the new information that Rachel's numbers are voting results. More interested in his son's well-being than the fate of democracy, Alan's concerned about how Charlie's taking the murder of someone he once knew. In the most disturbing moment of character-development, Charlie insists he's been working with the Fedcakes too long to have things surprise him. "What, I have two jaded world-weary sons?" Alan asks. Don confirms it, and he even has the shrink to prove it. IHOF: Charlie's found a match to the faked election results, the County Supervisor of the Sixth District, Jason Brasher. Brasher beat a three-term incumbent, which is apparently, surprising to people who've never heard of Joseph Lieberman. This is the connection the Fedcakes were looking for, all five victims worked for the campaign and Tuttle was Brasher's biggest contributor. Sixth Victim's: The auditor of the election, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern learn, just "accidentally" died in a freak pool accident. IHOF: David, Colby and Will Bailey realize that they need a live witness to prove the election was fixed. Ha! Good luck on that one boys. I wonder who they'll ask to help? Cal Sci: Colby's playing darts, probably because he's forgotten why he's really there. Okay, maybe not, but Colby hasn't done anything stupid in a while, and I needed to put in a dig somewhere. What David and Colby want is for Charlie to analyze the alleged conspiracy, as apparently, all conspiracies can be mathematically analyzed. He talks about the sheer difficulty in keeping the JFK conspiracy under wraps, but Oswald insists that's why we know all about it. Charlie's going to use his math skillz to find a living witness. IHOF: Colby and Will Bailey interview Brasher, who clearly knows nothing about the election being fixed. A politician who knows nothing? Fill in your own joke here. Later, Will Bailey moans to Don about how difficult it is to prove the election was fixed, so the pair talk to the manufacturer of the electronic voting machines, who insists there's no way the machines could be tampered with. Oh, that lovely crime-show staple, once a character explains there's no possible way for something to happen, the audience can intuit that is exactly what really happened. In the space of about two minutes, Charlie does what would take the average super computer six weeks to do, identify two types of people the Fedcakes need to talk to, a demographer familiar with LA county and a computer programmer who consulted on the voting machines. Meanwhile, Don and Will Bailey confront Tuttle about his involvement in fixing the election and swear that they will dig through every one of his companies until they find hard evidence. Tuttle isn't scared. Since he has more money than god, the Fedcakes don't have enough resources nor manpower to find anything. The Fedcakes should consider hiring me, because look what I found out about Tuttle and all I used was Google. When Charlie and Oswald come to the IHOF, the teams managed to locate two people fitting Charlie's analysis, demographer Austin Parker, who is in the wind, but as his credit card has been used, the team is sure he's alive, and Jane Alliano, a computer programmer "out of town" and who hasn't left a trail. David and Colby assume she's dead. Oswald figures that Austin Parker is the Fedcakes only hope. To quote Yoda, no, there is another. Parkermobile: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern confront Parker about coming forward about the Brasher election. Parker's sure that, with the 6 other deaths, the Fedcakes can't protect him. He's also sure that Tuttle used his data on precincts where the vote would be closest, to know where to hack the machines as no one would question the results. It's a good thing that Parker managed to say all of this before kicking the pair out of his car because as David and Colby are walking away, Parker's car blows up. IHOF: Megan's ducking the director's calls so she chooses to go interview Jane Alliano's sister to get out of the office. Alliano's: Stuff happen. The sister says Jane's been distracted. Something about Jane never being away /or contacting or something for such a long time. I would've paid attention but I spent the entire scene staring at the dog. Once the conversation turns onto the dog, I get more interested. Jane, apparently, treats the dog like a child. Well, I ask you, who wouldn't? It's the dog that leads to the Fedcakes' success, as Colby and David manage to catch Jane as she tries to meet up with her puppy in the park. IHOF: Jane agrees to testify, saying to words soon to be immortalized by the fandom, "They picked the wrong computer geek to mess with." Math Garage: Don and Charlie are discussing the case, while Oswald beats the pants off of Alan at table hockey. "This must be a Canadian hockey table." The four determine why Tuttle was so set at fixing the County Supervisor's election. The County Supervisor controls everything the county buys, including voting machines. Having rigged voting machines in LA could potentially rig state-wide elections, and with the number of electoral votes California has, California could become the new Florida. Oswald compares it to a champagne fountain, proving that the analogy virus is spreading, fast. IHOF: David's found out that the company that makes the voting machines gets it's parts from a company called SDKG electronics. Megan tells us that SDKG was founded two years ago. Well, duh, again, the Fedcakes should've asked me about the SDKG. I know all about them. They were founded two years ago but have rapidly expanded due to the internet. What was that? The sound of the entire fandom laughing? The sound of thousands of people cheering at the first obvious internet fandom shoutout? Of course, now that I know that a shout out is possible, forget campaigning for the lime-green fluted bowl to win best supporting prop in the Nummy Awards, I'm campaigning for my own shout out! Later, Colby explains how Alliano's programming affects the votes, when Tuttle does a drive-by, which is laughably intimidating. Cal Sci: Oswald tries to identify Jane's supersekrit code, but can't. This means Charlie will have to write an algorithm to run on the super-computer but he needs Oswald to convince Millie to let him jump the super-computer queue. "I'll tell her the fate of democracy's at state." You do that Oswald, but don't mention you mean the fate of this eppesode, not the fate of the political system. That died a while ago. IHOF: Charlie explains that the vote-altering code is in the operating system itself, which doesn't leave any evidence. To insure they don't lose their only living witness, Don orders that Jane be taken somewhere safe. Escorting Megan, who is dressed as Jane, the Fedcakes capture the team of hitmen sent to assassinate the witness. The hitmen, dressed a crew of construction workers, are all security for the voting machine's company. The head of company admits to everything, exonerating Tuttle in any wrong doing. Considering the man might be executed for killing six witnesses, Tuttle's really got to be holding something over his head to make him want to take all the blame. Tuttle's: Taking a page from the Horatio Caine Handbook for Catching Bad Guys, Don confronts Tuttle, promising to eventually catch him. Tuttle laughs as he has the political sway to turn Don into a pariah at the FBI. Obviously, Tuttle has never read the Horatio Caine Handbook for Catching Bad Guys, as it explicitly states that any righteous law-enforcement officer, wearing sunglasses, will eventually win out against the bad guy. The only rule Don didn't follow, is that he actually looked at his suspect. IHOF: Somehow, the whole sordid story was leaked to the press. Don insists it wasn't him but Will Bailey is suspect. La Maison d'Eppes: Don is bitching to Alan about leaking the information to the press, when the real culprit steps forward. Charlie wrote an article for the Journal of Political Science, explaining the math behind the connection between Brasher, Tuttle and the fixed results. He insists, that the journal sent out advanced copies to the press, and they picked up on the story. As Charlie uses math, and not conjecture or the sunglasses of justice, everyone, from himself to the Fedcakes, are in the clear. Oswald comes in with a major announcement. The high he received from seeing work that he helped with, being a major story on CNN has convinced him to apply to Cal Sci. Don and Alan share the fear that La Maison d'Eppes is being taken over by mathematicians. Oh Don and Alan, how could you not have realized two years ago that it was too late? IHOF: Megan receives a call from the director, ordering her to report for that special detachment Don mentioned at the start of this eppesode. Curious as to what the special detachment is? It's called a propectomy, when major characters are surgically removed from the large props that have plagued them over a nine month period. Either that, or Diane Farr is going on maternity leave. Hey, you know, Spy's an excellent baby name.