Eureka: Feeling hot hot hot!

In Eureka, if it isn't one thing, it's another. (In this case "one thing" refers to a breakdown of Eureka's underground cooling system, and "another" refers to Mild-Mannered Sheriff Jack Carter being transformed into Irresistible Man-Meat Jack Carter.) All in all, I'd call this episode a successful bounce back from the bottom-of-the-barrel junker last week, although it was totally Zoe-less, which is sad.

I really loved the opening scene, in which Carter and Jo are forced to act out a sexual harassment scenario in front of a bunch of G.D. employees. While I would never want to see the characters linked romantically, I love the great back-and-forth that Colin Ferguson and Erica Cerra have in scenes when they're together. Great platonic chemistry, if that's an actual thing.

Anyway, it seems the air conditioning in Eureka is on the fritz, and a bit difficult to repair due to its being literal "air conditioning." Eureka's cooling, plumbing, and everything else are run through an integrated underground network mimicking a biological system. You know, the inconvenient kind where if one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. And, of course, the guy who designed and maintains the system has gone missing. I still totally love finding out things about day-to-day life in Eureka, like the aforementioned high-tech cooling system, and the fact that women use lasers to pluck their eyebrows. It's the little details that really flesh out the Eureka universe.

At any rate, as Carter is trying to solve the Mystery of the Broken A/C (and, at this point in the chain reaction spectrum, Mystery of the Exploding Toilets and Crazy Shockwaves), he suddenly becomes irresistible to women. Like, Jo kisses him right in front of Zane, and Allison and the sexual harassment instructor get into a fight over him. While I can totally understand Carter having this effect over women, the good townsfolk are concerned, especially once they test him and realize that he's producing gallons of the hormone that causes sexual attraction. Best quote of the episode goes to Allison: "Carter, I can't have you running around out there! You're too irresistible. I thought I was going to tear you apart!" Awesome. Of course, in the end, it's a crazy spore in the underground tunnels that's causing all the harm, and once they rescue the similarly-affected tunnel scientist from his randy wife and flush the air of spores, it's no harm, no foul. Well, mostly. Carter and Callie have a few uncomfortable moments to recover from, which it seems they plan on doing at her uncle's cabin in the woods, so all's well that ends well, I guess.

In the meantime, though, Carter has started digging around about Beverly's role in Kim's accident, asking Allison for the files on Kim's death. Allison shares his request with Stark, who expresses concern that if Carter keeps investigating, the DOD will find out about Kevin's relation to the Artifact and want to experiment on him E.T.-style. To protect Kevin, Allison shuts down all research on the Artifact, revoking Henry's clearance to study it. Which, fair enough, but it looks like she caved to Stark's request to continue his research, which is totally sketch. He doesn't care about Kevin, Allison, he only cares about the Artifact! Duh! And wow, I think Evil Henry is going to rear his ugly head pretty soon--the dude seemed pissed. Just goes to show how awesome Eureka is, that they can take the most friendly, innocuous character and make him broody and menacing, eh?