We got word this week that Eureka has been renewed for a third season. That's great news! It gives the writers thirteen more episodes to fix all the stuff they screwed up over this past season! Woo hoo! Y'all can start with Allison! To give credit where it's due, they got plenty right, like the addition of the Baldwin, Zoe's integration into Eureka life, and Lupo's continued kickassness, but when your one overarching season-long plot stinks to high heaven and manages to insult career women, autistic kids and anyone with an IQ higher than 111, maybe it's time to go back to the plotty drawing board and hatch something new. Either that, or you could just keep pulling Stargate actors out of the pantry; there seems to be an unlimited supply and they come with a built-in fanbase. When we last saw the crew of the U.S.S. Plothandwave, a mutated Midas virus had been let loose on the bloodstreams of Eureka, and Allison, Kevin, Henry, and Beverly Barlowe's Breasts had disappeared down into a long tunnel in Allison's hermetically sealed office-on-rails, leaving Carter and Fuzzy staring impotently after them. Lead characters in peril? Check. The town in jeopardy? Check. Fate of the world resting in the balance? Check. Thirteenth verse, same as the first!
"I SWEAR TO GOD, IF THIS THING TURNS INTO A ZOMBIE ATTACK, I'M QUITTING" -- With the airborne biological hazard in play, Global Dynamics takes on a life of its own and sets its "Code Red Security Breach" response system in motion. That means quarantining some people, and evacuating and decontaminating others. Meanwhile, Allison's "Panic Room" comes to rest a hundred feet below the lowest level at GD. The infallible commlink from the PR to GD isn't working, so she's incommunicado, not to mention suffering from a severe attack of Mommy Anxiety as Henry and Beverly Barlowe's Breasts make threatening noises at Kevin. With Allison out of the Captain's chair, General Mansfield puts Fuzzy back in charge, telling him via satellite that if he can't contain the threat, GD will have to undergo "thermal cleaning" -- a scorch and burn scenario that would mean the end of all GD research (and a number of researchers). Fuzzy's determined to avoid that at all costs, so he and Carter hook up with Taggart to see what the heck's going on. They go down into the collapsed part of Section 4, trying to reach the communications mainframe or something, so they can re-establish the connection to the Panic Room. Fuzzy almost bites it when the floor collapses, but Jack saves him. Fuzzy's airtight suit rips, though, so he's now been exposed to the virus. Oh noes!
Unaware of the drama just over the hill, the party's still going hearty at S.A.R.A.H. Lupo and the Baldwin have come out of the closet (literally, not figuratively) and resumed their chaperoney duties, but before Zoe can do more than ask her floppy-haired boyfriend to dance, Fargo comes in bearing news about the pathogen and imminent peril. He connected S.A.R.A.H.'s CPU to GD, and with help of a periscope that descends from the ceiling, he tries to establish communications with both Carter and with Allison. No dice. He tries some secret back way into the computer, with no luck. Then the Baldwin tries to help, which Fargo really doesn't appreciate, and they have a little dick-measuring contest right there by the chips and guacamole until Jo says perhaps my favorite line ever in any Eureka episode: "Boys, there's plenty of back-door access for everyone!" *snortgigglesnort* Yes, I'm twelve, but I bet you are, too, because you can't tell me you didn't laugh at that! Fargo and the Baldwin manage to put aside their manly posturing (imagine two dogs fighting over a bone and you've pretty much got the picture) and settle in to work on the problem in earnest.
Down in the Panic Room, BBB compares Kevin to DaVinci, Tesla and Einstein, saying a mind like his comes along only once every few hundred years. Remember that the Akashic field Kevin's connected to is probably killing him, so I'm not real sure what BBB thinks she's going to get out of him. She tells Allison he's better off with her "private consortium" than with the DOD, arguing that her group is best equipped to handle the power of the Field responsibly. Allison tries to stall them, saying they've got enough supplies for a year, but Henry tells her, in a very menacing tone, "One way or the other, we are taking your son." This Henry sucks. Henry takes Allison and BBB into another room where he shows them a prototype SRT - Subatomic Reconstruction Transport - a teleportation device, in other words. He wants to use it to on Kevin. I don't know. "Beam me up, Henry" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Henry exposits that SRT hasn't ever been used on people, only primates, but that the trials using unique DNA markers were successful. Oh, and the reconstruction coordinates have to be within one kilometer of the current site, or else you might end up with your head in one place and your ass in another. I hate it when that happens!
Lupo continues to stall General Mansfield and his threatened thermal cleaning while the Baldwin and Fargo happily hammer away at the back-door. Unfortunately, GD sees their fiddling as a threat (and really, who wouldn't?) and goes into defensive mode. It starts shooting at Carter, Fuzzy, and Taggart, then tries to microwave them. It's got layers and layers of additional security, clever bugger that it is, so the Baldwin and Fargo have their work cut out for them as they work to over-ride the system.
Larry the Asskisser and some other GD employees holed up in the morgue, thinking it was safe, but when Carter et. al. find them, Carter says they should all be dead since the virus is airborne. The upshot? Henry LIED. LIED. LIED. There's no virus. He cooked the whole thing up to…well…I think it was to get Kevin out? Honestly, I'm not really sure at this point whose motivations are what and why. Either it's too complicated, or more likely, I just don't care. Taggart escorts Larry the Asskisser and his cronies out while Carter and Fuzzy keep working their way down to the Panic Room. They have a little heart to heart about how Fuzzy used to be a megalomaniacal butthead who only cared about himself and his stupid project, but now he'll do whatever he can to separate Kevin from the Akashic field, because he'll do anything for him, and for Allison. Hey, writers, you ever heard the phrase, "Show, don't tell"? I know, you've only got thirteen 42-minute episodes to work with, but since this one concept is pretty much the key to your biggest plot, and I think you failed, utterly and entirely, to get across in any meaningful way that Nathan Stark could give a shit about Kevin Blake as anything more than an extension of his mother and the possible link to that project Fuzzy loves so much, well, you blew it. If he'd said, "Kevin's the key to my dream," I'd have bought it. But sudden paternal devotion trumping scientific curiosity? In Stark? I don't buy it for a minute. Sorry, guys. It doesn't help that Kevin is still, basically, a blank slate. Maybe they could have spent a little less time on Zorro flashbacks and a little more time on making us care about the pivotal plot device of the season. I'm just sayin'.
Jo, the Baldwin, and Fargo come up with the idea of "tricking" the GD computer into thinking Carter and Fuzzy are dead, and that works. I'd like to see a whole episode with just these three and their romantic and work-related hijinks. They could call it Eureka 2.0: The Less-Annoying Love Triangle.
Down in the Panic Room, Allison and Beverly Barlowe's Breasts have a hair-pulling catfight, which Allison wins. She knocks BBB out, but does not, as logic would indicate, tie the bitch up or sedate her or any of sixteen other things a reasonably smart person would have done in those circumstances. Instead, she leaves her there and faces off with Henry, a mother lion prepared to do whatever it takes to save her (dying already!) cub. Kevin asks her to hear Henry out, and we learn that Henry hasn't really been working with BBB at all. He, like Fuzzy, just wants to save Kevin! It's all about Kevin! Everyone just wants to save Kevin! *yawn* Henry's convinced that sending Kevin through the SRT will separate him from the Akashic field, thereby saving his life. Allison's all for that. I'm all for it, too, if it means the end to this interminable plotline.
Carter and Fuzzy get down to the Panic Room while the Baldwin and Fargo continue to disable security functions up top. It's all very tense and dramatic, especially when Fuzzy tells us that if they use the SRT on Kevin, it will disintegrate him, since his DNA isn't the same as it was before the Artifact mind-raped him. Henry tells Allison that Kevin is likely to go back to being the way he was before -- meaning, autistic -- after the subatomic reconstruction. She's sad, but Kevin tells everything's going to be all right. BBB show up, battered by still perky, and try to stop Henry, but Carter and Fuzzy burst in just in time and disarm her. They fiddle with something and go ahead and SRT Kevin, who we think for a minute has disappeared into the ether forever, but then reappears in the Panic Room, naked but apparently whole. It's hard to tell whether he's back to his autistic self or not -- he does talk to Allison, but I don't know whether we saw enough to determine his level of communicativeness. While they're all distracted, BBB escapes into the SRT and beams herself somewhere, we know not where. Fuzzy says she's dead, but that would be too easy. Wouldn't it?
Jo manages to talk General Mansfield into not annihilating GD, giving the Baldwin and Fargo enough time to prove that there's really no biological threat at work. She hands out congratulatory hugs to both the Baldwin and Fargo, though I'm pretty sure the Baldwin gets a congratulatory grope as well. I've enjoyed getting to see Lupo's girly side, and this episode in particular let her be smart and capable and girly and sweet all at once, which is just how I like my Lupo. Given the looks on the Baldwin and Fargo's faces, I'm not alone.
In the aftermath, Jack appears to wordlessly concede the romantic field to Fuzzy, who's cuddled all up with Allison and Kevin on the couch. It's no great loss at this point, since Allison and Jack have rubbed each other in all the wrong ways all season. I'm not sure how Fuzzy ended up winning that lottery, but I'm not happy about it. I'm not even won over by his on-his-knees proposal and declaration of love when Allison tries to thank him for saving Kevin. "I don't want your thanks," he says. "I want you. You and Kevin are my family and I won't be happy until we're together." Well, as long as you're happy, Fuzzy. I despise the damsel-in-distress role they subjugated Allison into this season, and nothing any of the menfolk around her -- including Carter, Fuzzy, Kevin, and Henry -- do can salvage her. FIX ALLISON, damn it!
Henry takes the fall for Fuzzy and Allison. Yeah, I don't know, either. More of that unexpected devotion, I guess? As he's hand-cuffed and steered away by The Authorities, Carter clasps his hands and says, "You're not alone. You have friends." Henry seems somewhat appreciative of the sentiment, though if that was supposed to be some kind of redemptive moment for the two of them, it fell a little short of the mark. The camera lingers for its final shot of the season on Henry's hat and coat, hanging on a door in his garage. What's behind the door? Maybe we'll find out next season.
Well. I wouldn't say they wrapped it all up with a bow, but they came closer than I expected. The memory wipe thing seems to have been…forgotten, with all its threads still left dangling. You know Beverly Barlowe's Breasts are still out there somewhere, though depending on the coordinates she entered, one boob might pop up in Topeka and another in Des Moines. And of course, nothing can erase the Akashic field. Like BBB, it's out there somewhere, guarding its secrets, hoarding its knowledge, and waiting for the next idiot to come along and fuck with it. Something to look forward to!
One Final Romance Round Up:
Allison & Stark - Nauseatingly warm and fuzzy
Allison & Jack - The memory wipe obviously swiped the UST, too
Jack & Callie - We'll have to wait until next season, since she's MIA
Zoe & Lucas - "Hey, chia pet, wanna dance?"
Jo & the Baldwin - Hot and spicy…with a side of Fargo?
delicious
digg
yahoo
Stumble this
Technorati Tags:
