Eureka: Losing my religion

At the risk of angering the many rightfully loyal Eureka fans who frequent this website, I'm gonna go ahead and say that this episode wasn't one of Eureka's finest moments. To me, it felt like they worked overly backwards in writing it--"You know what would be cool? Biblical plagues happening in Eureka! But hmm...what would cause that?" A fine process much of the time, but one that in this case led to a contrived and unbelievable result, in my opinion.

I mean, I'm willing to accept that a town like Eureka has a church, and that a few people in town actually attend it on a regular basis. There's no law preventing scientists from being spiritual, or even religious (aside from perhaps that big one...but we won't get into that here). However, I do take issue with the fact that a seemingly unrelated string of odd events--group laryngitis, red water in a fish tank, bioluminescent skin (which aren't even obviously religious in nature)--would send the genius scientists running into church to pray that the end times aren't nigh. There have been plenty of crazy, unexplainable events before that didn't cause everyone to abandon science altogether. That's not the Eureka we know and love! It just seems out of character to me, and thus distractingly contrived.

Plus, the cause of all the crazy problems seems similarly convenient. A grieving widow wants to go to heaven to see her husband again, and invents a crystal radiowave temporal-rift-creating machine, which just happens to cause the exact, but varied, biblical-style problems in homes with crystalline glass? I'm not quite buying it, which is surprising, because while Eureka's plots often seem far-fetched, the storytelling doesn't usually strike me as lazy. I'm also not quite sure what to think about Kevin/the artifact curing Allison vs. Carter curing her by turning off the machine. I'm sort of taking it as open to interpretation, although Stark seems pretty sure of Kevin's abilities.

A few other notes:

• Jerky Awesomington, or "Zane," is back! And dating a very, very hot-looking Jo. Like, wow. At any rate, I think it's sad that Jo's worried he's too smart for her, when she should really be worried that he's too much of a jerk for her. He totally bashed her practical job in favor of his theoretical work, which is just rude, even if he does believe his work is superior.
• Man, I can't wait for the Carter/Evil Henry situation to blow up. Now that Carter remembers Henry telling him that he blames Carter for Kim's death, and now that he saw Henry recklessly wondering whether Kim was on the other side of the "portal to heaven," I think he may realize the danger and extent of Henry's obsession (although probably not entirely what he did to Carter's memory). Although the episode ended with Carter confirming their friendship, I think Carter is probably feeling anything but.
• Carter looks really hot in his Sunday best (with no sign of the dry cleaner, hmm). And I sincerely hope that Zoe's fake tattoo (a cliché rose tramp stamp) isn't what she's really planning on getting. Because I expect better of Zoe.