Eureka: What About Bob? (Episode 302)

Put on you’re particle-accelerated thinking caps, because it’s time to head back to Eureka.  Things start off as business as usual.  Zoe’s still working at Café Diem, chatting it up with her steady man Lucas (chicks dig smart guys), and Carter’s still none-too pleased.  But Carter’s not at the café to eat – seems as if he doesn’t have much of an appetite.  Town gossip Vincent assumes it’s over Allison’s impending nuptials to Nathan, but turns out Carter’s more worried for his friend Henry.  Me too, frankly.  Seriously, one scene last week?!  Vincent’s been sending Henry care packages, so at least he’s got that going for him. 

At Global Dynamics, Thorne, Allison, and Nathan are having what will undoubtedly be many arguments about layoffs and cutbacks – seems G.D.’s lost 75 good employees.  However, in their absence, Thorne has given Zane his own department – the Consumer Research Lab.  What does this mean?  It means glowing Degree for Men product placements on the back of their uniforms.  Speaking of which, every single commercial break featured at least one Degree commercial, one staring “Zane.”  How obnoxious.  However, it was funny to see them testing a deodorant so resistant to heat one guy’s arm was on fire.  Over at the unnamed jail, Henry and Carter play “Guess Your Card” through the glass.  Henry’s bummed that he’s being transferred to a supermax prison in Colorado, and wants to talk about the weather.  Turns out he’s missing the little things in life, such as seeing a sunset.  Carter gets an emergency page from Allison – is there any other kind?

Carter arrives at G.D. the same time as Allison and they share sexual tension in the elevator.  They’re both “great.”  Oh, and it turns out there’s a missing person.  Alright, now to the plot – Bob Nobb from Lab 27 has gone missing.  He’s been part of a sealed biosphere experiment for 11 years.  It seems that this biosphere was created to simulate use for the Mars missions.  Carter tries to correct them about “attempted” Mars missions – looks like Eureka’s got another little secret!  Bob works with 9 other researchers, and the lab tech Derek has wanted to join the project but to no avail – he monitors from the outside, controlling everything from artificial sunlight to weather patterns.  He’s sort of like Cristof in “The Truman Show.”  Carter wants to go in to investigate, but no go – it’s a sealed environment.  Oh yeah, and it’s frakkin’ enormous.  Google Earth (not really) shows us how big the place is, and we zoom waaaaay in to a bloody shirt with the name patch “Bob.”  Uh oh. 

12,000 acres large.  A half a mile beneath the surface.  One missing scientist.  Sounds like a job for Carter!  Oh yeah, and Thorne thinks it’s a waste of billions of dollars.  She thinks Carter and Allison should go in, but again with the sealed environment.  However, there is no choice.  To enter, Zane needs to map out their bodily topography by injecting them with nanoprobes.  This causes a life-size hologram of an (almost) naked Carter to appear.  Once that’s done, it’s time to get clean, and getting clean is oh so dirty. 

Well folks, here you have it – Allison and Carter’s first nude scene together.  Sure, they’re back-to-back in a sterilization room being blinded by flashing light to kill microscopic organisms, but hey, they didn’t have to get in there together!  Turns out this isn’t how Allison pictured their first time naked together either.  This certainly peaks Carter’s interest.  After the pair don their clean suits, they enter the biosphere through some fancy holodeck door.  Everything in the dome is so real.  The forest surrounding them is, but the weather is fake.  How do they make the rain?  By recycling urine of course.  Um…gross.  Just then, a girl appears.  Her name is Teri and she’s there to take the two to the village. 

At Café Diem, Fargo and Vincent are up to some shenanigans.  Turns out that they used to hack into Lab 27’s video interface all the time, and the pair are “viewing buddies” for the best reality show ever.  The introduction of “new characters” has gotten them all hot and bothered.  Back in the lab, we find a plant long thought extinct – turns out Bob’s a botanical genius.  Like there’s any other kind!  At the village, turns out everyone hates Bob.  Only Grace, a lonely geneticist “sort of” misses him.  Teri’s parents, the Wallaces, tell Carter that there are no predators in the dome, so it couldn’t have been one of the animals in there.  Then, a scream.  It’s Teri.  Turns out she fainted when she saw “it.”  Whatever “it” is, it left some slimey goo all over the place.  Carter finds Bob’s shirt, and Bob’s not in it!  There’s something moving around in the bushes.  It gets away down a hole into a tree and leaves more goo.  And you thought the urine rain was gross. 

Back at Diem, everyone is watching the hacked feed.  Meanwhile, Allison and Carter are video chatting with Derek and Nathan.  They found a shoe near the goo.  Looks like they’re going to have to pull off the evacuation and shut down scenario.  The people involved in the experiment have been in a “clean” environment for so long, their immune systems won’t be running properly and will have to spend a long time in another controlled environment before being allowed to rejoin the rest of the world.  Carter spots a scale in the goo.  Ick.  At the sheriff’s station, Thorne approaches Lupo with a file, asking her to carry out a job that she’s qualified for.  While this seems like a compliment, turns out it is not.  The file holds plans to turn Eureka into every other town in the country – no more free food at Diem, parking meters on the street, charges for library cards, and, since no one even knows it’s around, the town museum will be shut down.    

Despite there being no predators in Lab 27, they do happen to have a high strength net.  Looks like they’re going after some sort of snake, based on the scale that was found.  The only problem is how did it get in there – there are no animal testing facilities in the dome.  No crazy experiments?  Where’s the Eureka we’ve come to know and love?  Oh, and Teri’s been in the bubble since she was a little kid.  That’s healthy.  You know what else is healthy?  Bob’s sex drive.  Yeah, turns out he’s nailed nearly all of the women in the dome.  He even keeps pictures up at his desk, including his co-worker’s wives.  Wonderful.  Seems now that Teri’s becoming a young woman, Bob’s been turning is attention toward her.  Dad is mad.  Well now Carter suspects everyone!  In one of the pictures, there’s something in the background that catches Carter’s eye – what we see is that it’s a video communication station that comes out of the ground.  Just like the ones found in nature! 

Allison and Nathan video chat for a second, expressing concerns for each other, and for Carter.  Remember last week when Thorne red-flagged most of the activity that’s cost Eureka an arm and a leg since Carter’s arrival?  Turns out that concerns Allison.  Guess she only came into the dome with Carter to “protect” him.  Ouch. 

At Café Diem, everyone loves the “injection of new talent” into their favorite reality show.  There is some brilliant dialogue here, where the viewers wonder which new character is the villain of the week, and if the inclusion of Sheriff Carter has made the show “too procedural.”  Outstanding. 

Carter talks with single-gal Grace.  Yeah, she and Bob were an item, but Bob was an item with everyone.  Bob would “plow” (their term, not mine!) one woman at a time, and constantly “rotate the crops.”  Bob loved a good agricultural pun or two.  So Bob breaks some hearts.  Carter catches Teri at the video comm. station and pushes redial, getting Nathan in the lab.  Nathan says that the gross goo has been analyzed and is human…sort of.  Carter hears something and finds Monster Bob trapped in the net.  He’s a reptile man!  He just barely manages to hiss a “Help me” before the commercial break. 

Thorne, always “The Fixer”, wants a total lockdown of the lab.  To protect the safety of everyone inside and out, it’s the best move.  Nathan disagrees.  Allison takes a blood sample from Monster Bob.  Could he have fish-scale disease?  Nah, too simple.  Turns out his DNA is being altered.  Bob is de-evolving, a process called atavism.  There is dormant DNA of many kinds of animals in our own DNA that, over millions of years, have been suppressed.  There’s only one person in Eureka qualified to deal with this situation – Henry Deacon!  Carter has an idea.  Nathan goes to see him, but reminds him he hasn’t forgiven him for what he pulled at G.D. last season.  Zane enters carrying a case.  What’s in it, Degree for Men?

Allison apologizes for keeping tabs on Carter.  It’s all good.  Just then, Henry is in the dome!  WHAT?!  Oh, he’s a hologram.  But who cares, Henry is back!  Zane uses his nanoprobes to broadcast Henry to help out.  Henry believes that if the biosphere has been contaminated, everyone should be getting sick.  Uh oh, the water ionization level is off.  That can cause people to de-evolve…apparently.  And since all of the water gets recycled – rain to drinking water to pee back into rain – that’s bad.  Teri enters and asks Carter to look under her shirt.  Damn!  Oh wait, she’s got a plant growing out of her stomach.  Everyone IS sick!

The water is causing macro-de-evolution.  It would be easier to fix if they knew what caused it.  Carter, Allison, and Holo-Henry go see Monster Bob.  He’s been sedated, but they lower the dosage enough to try and question him.  He remains “human” long enough to say he was watering his garden when he went all snake-like.  Then he has an animal freak out so it’s back to the meds for him.  At the garden, the investigators notice a perfect circle burned into the ground.  Could the burn have come from the artificial sunlight?  Yes, it did.  Derek did it.  He was trying to burn Bob like ants with a magnifying glass.  Turns out Derek and Teri have a (very) long distance relationship and he didn’t like Bob putting the moves on her.  He didn’t know it would cause them all to get sick.  They just want to be together - aww.  And Teri didn’t want to leave the dome, thereby destroying her parents’ experiment.  Double aww. 

Thorne makes her way into Café Diem and is charged $25 for a cup of coffee, while Lupo’s is “on the house.”  Take that, bureaucrat!  The two women have a brief conversation about balance being needed in Eureka.  Lupo sticks it to Thorne by asking if she thinks that one day they’ll thank her for everything she’s done.  Speaking of balance, the wonder duo of Carter and Henry find that it’ll take a few days to heal everyone, but by then it might be too late.  A scream – Monster Bob and Allison are gone!

The pirated feed at Café Diem goes dark, and Zoe beings to worry for her Dad.  Carter’s found Monster Bob’s trail.  Nathan decides he needs to enter the lab, too, but he’ll be packing heat.  Using Zane’s biosensor gun (the one that injected the nanoprobes), they can fire an antidote at Bob, but they’ll need to fabricate one quick.  Zane runs to the sheriff’s office to find Lupo at her deck.  He needs a big gun fast – Lupo’s been waiting her whole life for a man to say that to her!  Monster Bob is now almost fully Snake Bob, and he’s planning on eating Allison.  She wakes in a daze (and in a tree) and Nathan enters carrying his handy-dandy monster reversing rifle.  Thorne questions the whole thing, but Zane says you can always bet on the “Money Three” – Carter, Nathan, and Henry are an unstoppable trio.  Teri shows up to lure out Bob, he goes to attack, but Teri’s just a hologram!  Carter shoots him and he’ll soon be back to normal.  The picture’s back up at Diem and the viewers celebrate!  Zane give Thorne an “I told you so” look, but frankly she’s impressed with the gun they’ve made.  She’d like some info on Henry Deacon. 

Bob’s mostly human again, and hits on Allison in front of everyone.  “Once a snake, always a snake.”  The science team decides it’s time to end the experiment and they’re all going to leave the lab.  Before they leave, Carter takes Holo-Henry to see the sun set.  How sweet.  But Thorne is spying on them!

That night, Allison and Nathan celebrate with drinks at Diem.  Turns out the organic plastic used in the biosensor gun was developed inside Lab 27, and that’s enough to convince Thorne to keep it operational.  Zoe brings her dad a burger and is glad he’s ok.  Lupo was worried too, but, you know, in a tough way.  And then Henry enters Diem.  Yes, real Henry, not a hologram.  Looks like Thorne pulled a LOT of strings but got Henry off the hook.  He feels that he doesn’t deserve to be back after what he did, but he shares a lot of hugs with everyone.  Who cares, it’s Henry. 

And now, for part two of our continuing over-arcing mystery of Thorne, International Woman of Mystery.  Remember that museum that’s been shut down?  Thorne’s got some interest there.  She’s watching an old film of what looks like underground bomb testing, and even though the film is in black and white, there is an odd purple explosion.  She checks out the reel’s tin and it’s from the Department of Defense, and a warning about how it is classified and should not be opened.  Then, an old army vehicle crosses a bridge and a hand-painted wooden sign reads “Welcome to Eureka.”  What?!

There you have it.  How does the purple bomb relate to last week’s purple vial?  What’s the secret history of Eureka?  And can you find my (accidental) three rhyming sentences in this recap?  All this and more, next time!