Eureka - Episode 208 - E=MC...?

Wouldn't you think that in an episode about the dumbing down of a bunch of really smart people, they'd tone down the jargon a smidge? No such luck! The sciencebabble came flying so fast and furious, and from so many different directions, I basically just ducked and scribbled a bunch of question marks on my notes page.

"I'M SORRY, JACK. I JUST REALIZED THIS IS HOW YOU MUST FEEL ALL THE TIME" -- Jack and me both, Henry. We open on a new location, a cyber cafe in downtown Vancouver a nameless big city. A guy who looks like the youngest, smarmiest Baldwin huddles at a monitor, completing what looks like a pretty iffy transaction. He asks the waitress for directions to the back door, but before he can make his escape, he's arrested by the FBI as a mysterious man says into his cell phone, "I think we've got a live one." They take the Baldwin to FBI HQ, where he's picked up by...Allison Blake. Nice to see the her out there in the "real" world.

She takes the Baldwin (his name's Zane Donovan, but I'm committed now) back to Eureka, straight to Carter's jail cell (it's the hottest room in town!). Carter exposits that the Baldwin is some kind of massive hacker. Oh, and he's also the world's foremost particle physicist, with a specialty in string theory. In fact, he's so special, the Spidaro Foundation gave him its award for the super string thing and then stopped giving the award entirely, because he was so very, very special. And he just stole $3.1 million from the border patrol account for drug interdiction. This guy? The Baldwin? Huh. Oh, and he got expelled from MIT, Yale, and Cornell. Guess that killer smile only got him so far.  The mystery man reveals himself as Sam Lovejoy, Eureka's 'talent scout.' Hi, Sam! Welcome to the jungle! He says he'll take his $25,000 -- "standard brainiac rate" -- and asks for it in cash, saying he needs singles because he's chasing down a paleontologist in Vegas. Hee!

The Baldwin and Lupo square off, romance-wise, with the Baldwin making snide comments about Jo's way with a gun, and Jo threatening to use it on him. They corral the Baldwin with a set of matching bracelets -- Jo and Carter can hit a button and send an electrical charge through the Baldwin's bracelet. It's some kind of fancy emergent gravity thingamabob.

Meanwhile, over at GD, Henry, Allison and Fuzzy (Is he now working at GD again? Is all forgiven? Did I miss a memo?) have decided it's the perfect time to recreate The Big Bang, right there in a GD lab. This is where my husband turned to me and said, "That's just stupid." I hear you, hon. Oh, and they've brought the Baldwin in to observe the experiment. He tells us it's a keonic inflation device, designed to recreate the origin singularity in an observable containment field. Yowza! It takes twenty-four hours to run, but if it works, it has the potential to rewrite every cosmological theory in existence. Once the induction starts, it's a runaway cycotron bomb, but fortunately, they've got some kind of layered particle field to contain the explosion, and as long as whatever it is stays above 200, they won't blow up GD, Eureka, and blow a hole in the universe. That's comforting! Henry says he'll stay in the lab to monitor the containment field.

But first, they take time for a little al fresco lunch at Cafe Diem, including wine. *facepalms* Are you shitting me, Eureka? Your top scientists (one of whom doesn't even work there anymore) are fucking around with the origin of the universe, and they're having wine with lunch? They actually toast with it. I can't even. I. *takes a deep breath* Moving on...Vincent's serving up some yummy looking chicken, as Carter and Sam Lovejoy (love that name!) chat about how Eureka is the only place Sam really feels like he belongs. He says they're his "peeps." Carter tries to chow down on the blue plate special -- "Gimme two breasts, all wet" -- except the Baldwin tells him that chickens are raised jammed together, wading in their own feces, and puts Carter off his feed. I don't know; the Baldwin strikes me as a meat eater, but okay, I'll roll with it. I'm sure it's an insignficant plot point, anyway. *eyeroll* Carter locks the Baldwin in the jail cell for the night, but gives him the remote so he can watch a baseball game on TV. Gosh, what could possibly happen next? Ah yes, when Carter comes in the next morning, the Baldwin has used Carter's credit card to decorate his jail cell. He finagled the remote into the computer or something. He also ordered Lupo nineteen boxes from Liza's Lingerie. "I had to guess the size. You should really try them on; I'll make popcorn," the Baldwin says. Oddly enough, Lupo doesn't shoot him on sight.

Thoroughly soused on Vincent's best Chardonnay, Henry, Allison and Fuzzy fire up the Big Bang experiment. Henry sees the numbers on the containment field dropping, and it seems to confuse him, then he turns on wrestling. My husband again turned to me. This time, he said, "This must be where the dumb thing starts." Well, I certainly hope so! Yes, the dumb thing has started. Carter finds Henry huddled over cartoons as the biggie experiment starts banging all over the place. Carter finds Allison and says, "What happens if Henry falls asleep at the wheel while the big bang goes boom?" Allison looks at him and says, "Do my shoes match my dress?" She's very, very cute when she's dumb. Is that the message the writers are trying to send? That being dumb is freakin' adorable? Let me get this straight, Eureka. This is the first time we've seen Allison Blake laugh all season, and it's because she's stupid? You suck! Somehow, the GD employees revert to about age ten, or maybe twelve. Old enough to be hormonal, witness Allison and Fuzzy's sticky sweetness, but young enough to be enthralled by yo-yo's and silly string. Carter tells Lupo and the Baldwin what's going on, and they both seem to recognize that Carter's in over his head. "We usually have smart people to lean on," Lupo says. "Science smart." She says the Baldwin should help, and he looks mildly less smarmy than usual. Carter tries to find an unaffected doctor, but ends up drafting a reluctant veterinarian into service. "If you brought me a marmoset in cognitive decline, I'd be happy to help, but I don't do people," she says. "You do today," Carter says.

Lupo and the Baldwin continue their mating dance, which involves tasering (on her part) and probing into the specs for the bracelets (on his part). He calls her "Jo-Jo," which shouldn't be cute, but sort of is. I think she's falling for the guy!

The vet says the only thing all the dumb people have in common is low levels of GABA in their bloodstreams, but she doesn't know why, or how, or what to do about it. They pool together everyone in the building who's not dumb, including a botonist, a nutritionist, and a butterfly doctor. Carter explains that the Big Bang experiment is melting down, and the people in charge of it are incapacitated, so he's bringing everyone together to find a solution. They're not much help, but they do lead Carter to realize that it's possible that the Baldwin is responsible -- something about a frequency and particle string something or other. When Carter gets to the office, of course, the Baldwin is gone. He's a slippery little sucker! Carter uses good old-fashioned investigative techniques to track down the missing Baldwin: he calls the Baldwin's mother. He finds the Baldwin at a cabin where he vacationed as a kid, and brings him back to Eureka, reading him the riot act for causing the big bang problem. The Baldwin is confused and denies having anything to do with the dumb thing. Carter tells him if he'd stop being a selfish jackass, he could be part of a community. "What makes you think I want to be part of a community?" the Baldwin asks. "Because we all do. And you're smart enough to know that." Ooh, good one, Carter!

Now firmly on board, the Baldwin says it would take him eighteen hours to rebuild the containment field. Oh, and the reason the Spidaro Foundation doesn't give out the string theory award anymore is because someone stole all Mrs. Spidaro's money. Excuse me while I get out the shoehorn to help that little plot point fit in better. After throwing around some ideas of how to reinforce the collapsing containment field --"Duct tape!" says Allison. WOW, she's cute when she's like this! -- they end up using the Baldwin's bracelet to help build just enough extra protection to keep the Big Bang from being any bigger or bangier.

Unfortunately, saving Eureka yet again that doesn't seem to solve the dumb problem. The experiment wasn't the cause. Carter finds Henry at Cafe Diem and tells him that CDC and NIH are on their way. The vet's going to run some tests on all the affected people. Dumb!Henry tells Carter that he's a good friend, and that he feels bad for keeping things from him. Carter asks what kind of stuff. "Like Beverly, and what she did to Kim." Carter's inner radar starts pinging madly, and he presses Henry to tell him more about it, but Henry's off again, distracted by Vincent's yo-yo. It turns out it's not just GD employees who are going dumb, either. Sam Lovejoy and Vincent have also regressed. They manage to find the common element -- Vincent's chicken. Remember the wet breasts? Yeah, them. Carter and the vet (the vegetarian vet) make a trip out to the organic chicken farm that supplied the chicken for the lunch. It turns out the farmer has only one, perfect chicken that she bred and cloned. And she's only growing "the parts people want to eat," using stem cells so she doesn't have to kill anything. Okay, maybe it's not as bad as jamming them together in windowless buildings, wading in feces, but still...ewwwwwww. So, since she only grows parts, using some weird kind of grow lights, and the...parts...aren't connected to any kind of neural transmitter system, the meat makes people dumb? No, no, it's because the grow lights emit a GABA blocker. Of course! Geez. This show makes me tired. And hungry.

So the dumb goes away (along with most of the fun), and Allison rewards the Baldwin by giving him first crack at the data results from the experiment. "After Nathan, of course," she says. So they're giving a scientist who just got fired for recklessness first dibs on the most important data, like, ever? *flaps hands* I may not be Eureka smart, but even I know that's just...dumb.

Carter sets the Baldwin loose, saying he learned that the Spidaro Foundation is going to be giving out its award again, since SOMEONE gave an anonymous $3.1 million donation. Awwww, the tin man got his heart! Carter even gives him a hint about Lupo: "Ask her to the ballet." So I guess he really did earn Carter's approval. I kind of hope the Baldwin becomes a regular; he's both an insider and an outsider, and he adds a nice dash of spice to the Eureka stew.

In a strange little subplot, Zoe comes in to the bunker all pissy that being the Sheriff's daughter keeps all the boys from coming to her yard, particularly some boy named Jasper. Carter tells her later not to let labels define her, so she goes over to the boy she likes and tells him sure, she'll go away with him for the weekend to his parents' lake house. Uh, okay, looks like Zoe's going to be the sheriff's daughter a while longer, since Carter slaps the Baldwin's electrobracelet on her wrist. Hee!

Romance Round Up:

Allison & Stark: Sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g
Lupo & the Baldwin: Has potential if he can get the taser away from her
Zoe & Jasper: D.O.A.