Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Eureka: The beginning of the end (of the season)

This week's installment of Eureka, part one of the two-part season finale (already?!), was extremely eventful. Drama, intrigue, alchemy--the whole kit and caboodle, at a breakneck pace. It also confused me a little, possibly due to the aforementioned breakneck pace, so we may need to work through this one together in the comments. (Bear with me, I'm operating on very little sleep and a long day at work.)

First, let's get the crazy science malfunction of the week out of the way: the town's turning to gold. Specifically, all the metal in the town, thanks to some kind of infectious, gold-creating bacteria. "Not so bad," you may think to yourself, but Henry points out that gold is substantially softer than steel, which makes up most of the town's infrastructure. Best exchange ever: “We’d be rich, but dangerously unstable.” –Henry “Like…Paris Hilton.” –Jo. Things take a turn for the even worse, though, when the bacteria mutates and quickly begins to corrode the gold, causing heavy metal objects to crash to the ground (including some of GD's support beams).

They manage to deduce that Zoe's bracelet, a gift from now-boyfriend Lucas,is the source of the bacteria, and that Lucas made it out of scrap metal from an artist's studio. Here's where things get a little crazy--the artist is also a secret alchemist, and claims that the metal must be infected with "the alchemist's curse," which causes chaotic mutation in metal until the society that dared to try and master the elements is destroyed. (See: Babylon, Atlantis, and the Maya.) In a scenario that's a bit too deus ex machina for my taste, Kevin uses his magic Artifact-given powers to complete the formula that will stop the infection. Despite not even knowing about the formula in need of completion in the first place.

Kevin, you see, is practically a normal kid now. Aside from the whole "being able to read minds" thing and all. Allison is really worried, especially when she thinks about what happened to Carl Carlson, the "invincible" scientist killed by his interaction with the Artifact last season. Allison, it must be noted, is being pretty darn cold to Carter, especially when it comes to all things related to investigating Henry, Kim's death, Beverly, and the Artifact. Stark seems pretty confident that Carter will never find Beverly, though. I wonder why?

Maybe because he has her locked up in a cell, out at his old lab. DoD transferred her there from Guantanamo so that Stark could speak to her first, after he promised DoD the evidence against her. BANANAS!!! Allison and Stark both offer Beverly potential freedom if she shares her information about the Artifact. She simply tells Stark that she knows what he knows, including that it’s capable of human interface, and that the energy release can be life-threatening if the cellular mutations aren’t reversed, “which is why he’s probably already dead.” She plays coy when Stark asks how to help "him," even though she totally knows he's referring to Kevin.

Stark tries to get Kevin to read Beverly’s mind, but Henry interrupts them to tell Stark about the alchemy developments, totally overhears everything, and sees the security camera video of Beverly’s cell. Oooh, BUSTED. Stark: “Guests usually knock.” Henry: “Friends don’t usually care.” Snap! Henry also recognizes a couple formulas in the alchemist's studio as part of Kim’s research on the Artifact, and tries to get Stark to let him help. Stark refuses, and so Henry breaks into Beverly’s cell. He's angry that she murdered the love of his life and all, but she claims to have left behind the evidence of her sabotage for Henry to find, because he’s the only person who could understand why she had to do what she did. She claims Kim's death was an accident, and goes on to explain the Artifact/Kevin human interface issue. She doesn’t believe that humans should or can control such power.

Later in the episode, and this is where things get confusing for me, we get an oddly sudden cut to Henry showing Carter a skeleton in the morgue that could have contracted a mutated version of the metal-eating bacteria which affects the iron in bodies and essentially eats people. Henry says he told Stark, but when Carter asks him what they’re going to do about it, Stark doesn’t know anything about the problem. Hmm. Meanwhile, Henry drops in on Allison, and explains to her that he knows what’s going on with Kevin. Oh, and that he busted Beverly out of her cell, and here she is! Of course, now GD goes into emergency security lockdown due to the mutated, people-eating bacteria, trapping Allison and Kevin with Henry and Beverly. Craaazy! And also confusing. Is the people-eating bacteria a real thing, or was it just a ruse for Henry to get Allison and Kevin alone? Everything happened so fast!

Well, anyway, it seems that next week we're going to see a lot more of Evil Henry. Like, to a scary degree. I kind of love it. Although I don't love Allison's new, super-professional look. It's so cold! Intense Mother Allison is way less fun than Flirting with Carter Allison, though I suppose they both have something to contribute to the show, and depth of character is usually a good thing. Can I also say that I love that Jo chaperoned Zoe's boy-girl party? And then got busted by Carter while making out in the closet with Zane? Awesome.

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