Eureka: Phased and Confused (Episode 306)

Welcome back to Eure-caps.  Last week we were stuck with a Eure-run, but now we’re back up and running.  Let’s begin.  Carter is trying to fix his old walkie talkie – a relic from his rookie days.  Vincent needs help at Diem because Lex has decided to go green in the middle of the restaurant.  Carter puts a stop to Lex’s recycling drive, but not before we meet Chuck, Eureka’s recycling guy.  Hey, if they can have a poop guy, they can have a recycling guy.  Zoe enters in a new yoga outfit with mat to match.  Lex has convinced her to go to a 3-day seminar at an ashram, but Carter says she can’t miss school.  Zoe is mad…what a surprise.  Lex can’t stay and fight because she’s going to get a tour of the recycling center.  

Carter has women troubles.

Zane and Thorne explore the outskirts of town and find their way to the cryptex mentioned last time.  Thorne is worried that the wrong combo could lock them out for good.  But Zane has devised a program to crack the code.  6.8 billion possible combinations and he gets it on try number one.  Score one for Zane.  The side of the mountain opens up like the Red Sea parting for Moses, and inside is a deep, deep elevator shaft.  Zane is going in, hoping to find another way back out.  Oh, and radios won’t work down there.  Naturally.  Meanwhile, at Tesla High School, Zoe’s old friend Pilar is working with algae when the wall collapses.  Rather than get an “old” person, she gets Zoe and her boyfriend Lucas, and the three of them go exploring Scooby-Doo style.  There’s lots of old trinkets down there. 

Meanwhile, Carter asks Henry to fix his old radio – what a waste of genius!  Carter gets a call and finds Lex trapped in her car as it begins to slowly crush itself.  She was on her way to the recycling center, but apparently her car lacked the proper clearance.  The security system activated and is causing this.  There should have been signs up, but alas, nothing.  Then, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s this week’s mystery!  A masked man enters the scene sporting nifty rocket boots.  He tries to de-active the security system but accidentally turns on the lasers.  The lasers have their way with Carter’s jeep, and then finally the hero turns it all off (thanks to Henry shouting out what he should do).  The musical score sounds a lot like the main theme to “Superman” and the hero flies, landing on Carter’s car.  He breaks a window, gives a little send-off, then it’s off into the wild blue yonder once again…after his rocket boots malfunction and burn Carter’s roof.  Lexie asks “Who was that masked man?”  Carter replies – “Trouble.” 

Lex is being checked out by G.D. doctors to make sure she’s OK after almost being crushed to death.  Fargo is there with a gift of strawberries, and Chuck comes with a bouquet of recycled flowers.  Lex is fine – all that she was really hit with was the equivalent of radiation from a microwave oven.  Carter is worried and he and Lex tell Allison that she’s having a baby.  Allison congratulates them, but assures Carter that she’ll be OK.  Lex wonders who this “Captain Eureka” could be, but Carter is more interested in finding the guy and stopping him – he’s got the feeling this guy is going to cause more trouble than he fixes.  He and Allison talk about Captain’s rocket boots.  Off to the Human Flight Development lab. 

Dr. Gaz heads the department and he’s sent the bed-ridden Lex some balloons.  Carter questions him about rocket boots, but Gaz says that their lab is more about changing DNA structures to allow humans to fly without devices – turns out the “Skywalker 2000s” burned off a few too many toes for G.D.’s liking.  Now they’ve got flying bunnies with a tendency to escape!  Alas, no one has been using Gaz’s personal rocket boots, not even the man himself.  Off to find a new suspect. 

Scooby…er…Zoe and the gang are wandering and wandering, lost in this underground “city”.  Just then, a noise!  A stampede of rats chase them down the halls and some stairs, and Zoe takes a bad fall – in her haste, she slipped on and into a puddle of mysterious purple stuff.  Hmm…makes you think about the season opener, doesn’t it?  At G.D., Allison tells Carter that nearly everyone in Eureka would probably want to be a superhero.  “Everyone?”  Yes, Allison wanted to be Wonder Woman.  Not going to lie…I could totally see that.  Fargo enters with what looks like an aspirin for Carter.  Nope, it’s really a super-duper high tech phone that Thorne wants him to beta test.  He places it behind his ear and it digs into his skin!  But now, all he has to do to call someone is think of them and say their name out loud.  He tries to call Zoe, but the thing is still buggy and electrically shocks Carter – it doesn’t do so well with names starting with Z, A, or an umlaut.  Who knew?  Carter and Lex are in the car talking about responsibility when there is an unpleasant sound.  They pull over and there’s a huge gas leak.  Carter calls Henry and says it’s at a rocket fuel station.  He must be careful because even the slightest spark could set it off.  Zane might be able to shut it off from G.D., so Carter tries to call him.  Unfortunately, a Z-name causes the phone to shock him and the zap sets off an ignition!

Captain Eureka arrives on the scene (but strangely his rocket boots don’t catch fire) and uses a handheld device to essentially create Superman’s ice breath ability.  He blows out the fire…in the direction of Carter’s car.  It’s barbequed.  Captain Eureka then walks THROUGH the chain link fence.  Whoa.  Lex thanks him and they’re off.  Henry determines that a plasma surge was the only thing powerful enough to cause the rocket fuel line to leak.  That means it was deliberate.  Carter thinks the Captain is creating the disasters in order to fix them.  Is there someone who would have made a device like the ice-breath machine?

Let’s meet Dr. Lee, a scientist a little to attached to his subject – a whale.  The item is similar to a prototype artificial blowhole used to track this whale (named Maureen…who is a bit of a flirt).  Lee also seems to have a thing for Lexie, but let’s face it, and this point, who doesn’t? 

Back underground, Zoe is really hurt.  It is both bruised and purple.  Then there’s another noise.  Rats?  Nope, just Zane.  At G.D., Carter, Allison, and Fargo are talking about possible suspects again.  Fargo points out that most superheroes make their own equipment, so going department to department might not work.  And also like most comic heroes, the guy is usually doing it for some girl.  Looks like Lex could be the damsel in distress.  Once again underground, the gang wanders into an old command center from the 1930’s.  Pilar says it looks like a “pre-historic Apple Store.”  Of course, Zane says don’t touch anything.  So what does Lucas do?  Give you one guess.  Everything goes haywire and huge doors come slamming down, locking them inside. 

The emergency lights come on.  It’s a drop-lock security system – when the power goes out, the system locks down, like a bomb shelter.  An extra power supply would be able to reactivate the system, but naturally, Zane’s spare is on the other side of the metal door.  In the G.D. sick bay, Carter is hoping to use Lex as bait to lure Captain Eureka.  By telling Vincent where Lex is, the whole town is bound to know within moments.  Carter hasn’t heard anything from Zoe, so he thinks that she ran off to the ashram after all, and he’s worried.  Then, the Captain appears!  He hits the device on his chest, shutting it off.  After Lex assures him that she is ok, Carter enters, wanting to take him in.  Capt. switches on the chest piece again and runs through Carter and Jo.  When he makes his daring escape through the wall, he leaves a piece of himself behind…a finger. 

No upside down kiss for you, Lexie.

Zane has figured out a way to send out a ULF signal, but will only be able to broadcast a series of numbers.  They network their cell phones for power (enough for just a few seconds), but now they have to decide what numerical code to send.  And they better hurry, they’re running out of air.  Henry has been examining the finger, but everything about the composition is wrong.  There’s no way to get a fingerprint, but they could get a DNA sample in time.  The problem is that he has been quantum phasing.  No, that’s not like “Quantum Leap”-ing.  What this means is that everything in this dimension operates on the same frequency.  His chest piece must be changing that frequency ever so slightly, allowing him to pass through solid objects.  The problem is that his molecules are always changing, and that’s how he lost his finger.  Allison tells Carter there is no quantum phasing department at G.D., but Section 2 had a scrapped project like that a while back.  Carter asks where the physical prototypes go when a project is shut down.  Why Jack, they get recycled, of course, just like everything else in Eureka. 

Meanwhile, Henry’s computer, which apparently is hooked up to Carter’s old radio, is getting the message “12393 3955 4891” over and over again.  He hurries to G.D. with this message to find Carter.  He says the first few numbers represent a latitude and a longitude (a place on the globe), but he doesn’t know what the rest means.  The coordinates are the spot where Thorne had asked Henry to perform the radiation scan.  That’s going to have to wait, because it’s time to find Chuck.  Chuck’s place reveals that he doesn’t know how to hide a superhero costume or his gadgets.  He’s in trouble, in more ways that one.  Chuck is literally stuck in the wall, partially phased through. 

Chuck is set up in what looks like a purple tanning bed.  These lights are keeping his body from phasing on their own.  Seems that’s why the project was shut down – all test subjects’ bodies couldn’t adjust to phasing and their molecules started to do so on their own.  Since some could be on different frequencies at different times, their bodies literally fell apart.  Chuck doesn’t want Lex to know about this – he doesn’t want her to worry.  Turns out it was about a girl all along.  Carter’s head phone rings and it is Lex.  She can’t find Zoe, and found out that she isn’t at the ashram.  She thinks she might have run away, but Carter is pretty sure that she’s past that phase.  Lex left her a message, and then it clicks – the message Henry received.  Carter rushes to find Thorne so that she can tell him what is that location.  He knows the message is from Zoe because the last four numbers is actually Zoe’s birthday.  Mark your calendars, Zoe Carter Day is April 8^th.  Thorne shows Henry, Allison, and Carter a set of blueprints of the underground bunker.  These plans are from Eureka was even built.  There is the entrance at the high school, but it is closed off.  The message must have been sent from the transmitter in the control room.  They all want to know how Thorne knows so much but she won’t say.  The doors that came slamming down are 20 inches thick, made of titanium and steel.  It’ll take too long to cut through the doors, and they’ve got to hurry because there clearly isn’t much air left down there.  At a minimum, there are four doors blocking the way to the main generator.  The only way through is to use the phase generator.  Carter will do it, but Chuck still wants to be the hero.  However, he’s too weak to do it, so it’s got to be Carter.  Allison doesn’t want Carter to use the machine because she can’t lose him.  She’s clearly still hurting over the loss of Nathan.  Henry warns him that it is not going to be comfortable passing through such thick material, so he’s got to press onward.  Carter turns on the machine and passes through the first door. 

Carter comes through the other side, and is in a considerable amount of pain.  He keeps going, and the last door is a real doozy.  He gets through and turns off the phase shifter.  Only problem is that his body has already adapted, and he cannot hit the switch because his hand passes through it.  The quick solution is to use an electrical charge to zap the machine on.  Carter still has his head phone, so he decides to call Zoe, creating a spark and turning on the machines!  Lights, air, and open doorways.  Carter goes to hug Zoe and passes through her.  Pretty weird. 

Carter is lying in a no-phase tanning bed, but luckily Allison and Henry came up with a solution.  They always do!  They were afraid it might not work, so Chuck volunteered to be the guinea pig.  Again, he wanted to be the hero.  They’re back to normal again.  A G.D. doc examines Zoe, scanning her (especially her purple ankle), and Lex tells Carter that she’s scared to be a mom.  He doesn’t do the best job of reassuring her, but hey, since when has Carter been the sensitive type?  No, Carter is aggressive, so he tracks down Thorne.  He says that he knows that she is looking for something, and that he needs to know what it is.  What does Thorne say?  “No.”  That’s all.  She never meant for anyone to get hurt, but she will simply not tell him.  Carter’s mad, and assures her that he isn’t going to let this go. 

Thorne goes to her office and accesses her super-secret wall safe.  She grabs an item from it and goes to the underground entrance at the high school (which is now being looked over by an armed guard).  We see that she’s holding some sort of elaborate key, and she makes her way into the bunker. 

So what is the underground bunker?  What’s going to happen to Zoe and her purple ankle?  And what the hell is Thorne up to?  Until next time folks…