Eureka: Stupid is as stupid eats

Tonight on Eureka, we learned what the show would be like if it were about a secret town full of morons working on government research. Shockingly enough, it seems that such a town wouldn't last very long. We also learned that Stark is way more fun when he's dumb, and Allison is way less hot.

Apparently (and sensibly), GD has a talent scout who travels the country searching for geniuses to recruit. His current find is a troublemaking young particle physicist who's been arrested for stealing millions of dollars from Border Control. Unfortunately for Carter, the new guy (we'll call him "Jerky Jerkington") is both incredibly obnoxious and incredibly smart, and manages to pimp out his jail cell with items purchased with Carter's credit card. Yep, he can hack a computer from his cell using nothing but a remote control.

Over at GD, Stark and Henry have built a device that will recreate the Big Bang in a contained facility. You know, just another one of those completely harmless little projects. At a GD barbeque, Jerky Jerkington refuses to eat the chicken because he's against the conditions chickens are kept in and killed under...and kind of grossed out by eating the results. Nice! I hereby rechristen him "Awesome Awesomington," although it's a wee bit clunky for a nickname. (In case you couldn't guess, I'm vegan.)

Back at the lab, Henry switches from carefully monitoring the device's containment shield to watching professional wrestling. Hee hee...I love that enjoying wrestling is a metaphor for burgeoning stupidity. I have an ex-boyfriend who would probably take offense at that suggestion. (However, though I appreciate the tongue-in-cheekiness of the reference, I'm not sure Dexter's Lab qualifies as stupidity fodder. It's pretty quality for a cartoon...and his teeny little accent is so cute!) Anyway, Henry's not the only stupid one--most of GD seems to have regressed to elementary school.

Upon being rounded up by Carter and a GD veterinarian who is unaffected, the other still-smart scientists point out that if radiation from the Big Bang device were the cause of the stupidity, only someone with a background in string theory and other fancy-pants molecular physics could have set it to the proper wavelength. Someone like...Jerky Jerkington (yeah, we're clearly back to the original nickname), who has coincidentally hacked his high-tech restraints and escaped. Upon his apprehension, Jerky categorically denies putting such an important scientific advance at risk, and helps shore up the containment field so that GD isn't taken out in the Bang.

Unfortunately, no one is getting any smarter post-Bang, and the veterinarian discovers that it couldn't have caused the stupidity after all. Ruh-roh. After a quick trip to Cafe Diem, Carter realizes that all the affected people ate chicken at the barbeque (there's a message here somewhere), and he heads out to the organic farm that supplied the meat. I start to reconsider my gloating when the farmer boasts about having ended the "avian holocaust" on her farm thanks to her technique of growing chicken meat in a lab. And, of course, the substance she's using to fuel the growth is what's making people dumb. Sigh. So...um...I guess the message is to stick with tofu or with actual meat, instead of trying play some kind of mad scientist middle ground. Or, don't mess with nature. Or chickens. Or something. With the stick of a needle, the dummies are cured of their stupidity, although Stark and Allison seem to have grown closer in the meantime. Hmm.

Jerky Awesomington decides to stick around Eureka when the Big Bang data and Jo's comely, polyester uniform-clad figure prove too tempting to leave. Carter's on board with this decision once he finds out that Jerky stole the money for a charity in the first place, and he even gives the guy tips on how to ask Jo out. Zoe is having less luck with the boys, though, with Carter intimidating the object of her crush into oblivion. Hey, at least he's not forcibly stuffing toxic chicken down the dude's throat...