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RSS'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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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
Good episode EXCEPT for that Ghosthunters promo in the bottom right hand corner. It was quite distracting when the background was dark and the only time it went away was right before a commercial!! The SciFi channel is being run by monkeys or something, lately, not really caring how annoying some of the stuff can be - a couple of examples being that logo and the extra long wrestling ad. Wrestling? I still don't get it.
That being said, I am anxious to see how next week's show ends. I do agree that Allison has become such a rude person to both Carter and Henry, I don't care for that, and Beverly can just go away again, I have never liked her at all.
Okay, this is long, so one last thing - I love Jo and Zane, they are really cute. And it is also nice to see Zoe act nicer, since she has a boyfriend. But will Carter and the cleaner girl (I forgot her name!) EVER get to go to this cabin to "fish"?
Execllent Review...
Carter might get to use his old "brand new" waders at the end of the Season Finale. Although he seems abit nervous to be all alone with Callie..
Allison has gotten colder to everyone but Stark ever since Kevin and the Artifact merged.
Stark and Carter have to work together next week, this should be very interesting...
Poor Fargo, stuck on Level 4 still?
This show -- both storylines and characters -- has gotten too wrapped up in the Artifact related arc.
It should just step back to being a fun comedy about a quirky town.
If it manages to return for season 3 they need to make some changes or I'll just not bother watching.
I agee with Jeff. I don't care about the artifact and I wish we could just dump the whole arc. Just give me Carter trying to solve a mystery and keep the narrative simple and funny. Also this was a complete waste of Michael Shanks and his character.
I agree that the artifact plotline has gone on a mite long, but I hold off on saying that it should be completely dumped. This is because the entire idea of a town full of geniuses facing something that could potentially stymie the lot of them is what's called karmaic irony. In the end, it really doesn't matter how intelligent everyone at G.D. is if the artifact essentially nukes the entire planet. Smart or stupid, we'll all be dead. I think, and agree with other posters, that the fun and mild insanity of the first season was missing this time around. Sure, we now have more of a backstory for many of the main characters, and there has been time to understand what is behind some of the more-bizarre choices people like Stark have made, but this season has not been quite as fun. All there needs to be done is to bring that fun back, and Eureka will thrive for as long as they decide to do it. Also, they need to find the personality types of the characters and stick to them. Allison's weekly shifts are starting to make me dizzy. Stark is still a pompous ***, but at least his character has been filled out, and his arrogance does have a logic behind it. Henry, as well, is more three-dimensional this season, as his extreme grief over losing Kim is evident even when he is laughing and joking with Carter and the others (kudos to Joe Morton, an outstanding actor anyway, for bringing that kind of depth of emotion to the character...few men can act like they're smiling while never letting that joy reach their eyes). And Fargo? Either give the dude a real job with real responsibility, or kill him off. This is already a mostly-humorous show, so we don't need a buffoon for comic relief. Other shows do that, Eureka should be above stereotypical geek humor. Anyway, hopefully the season wraps up well next season. Even if the artifact is around next season, I'll still be watching, because I don't give up on great shows just because of a single element that I don't like. Otherwise, I'd have stopped watching television altogether a few decades ago.
I've been feeling the same way, Jeff and Cheryl. My only concern is that since the "quirky genius town" plots seem to be wearing a bit thin at times (secret alchemist? really? and don't get me started on that religion episode...), the show would go stale quickly without the Artifact plotline to move the characters forward. But yeah, I'm kind of hoping they can wrap it up next week and move on to something different next season.
The artifact plotline is lame, and ruins the vibe of the show... I'm pretty sure Beverly is evil (I can't believe Henry was so easy to con), and the whole shutdown in the name of the mutated bacteria was a ploy to get the kid alone.
I like Eureka for it's quirkiness. I really like Jo & Zane as a couple (last season's pairing of Jo and that old guy was gross). My only complaint is that Allison's feelings for Carter seems to have completely disappeared, which is so sad considering that was my favorite part of last season and sorta got me more invested in the show. The science this season is more 'fiction' than 'science'...too bad...also another reason why I originally got interested last season. I'm hoping the show will get a chance to find it's pace more, next season.
I don't blame the writers for spending so much of the season on the artifact storyline; they don't really have much choice with the fact that the shows sean is only 12 episodes. Imagine how different other popular shows with a continuing secondary story line would be if they got cut from the average of 24 episodes per seaon to a mere dozen?
Clearly there are some serious Idiota posiing as Executives at the SciFi channel and/or at NBC. I say that based on the no-customer-service decissions made of recent like cancelling fan favorite shows that aren't close to free to make like Reality TV Shows are (ie Ghost Hunters). What I would give my left nut to know is this, is there anything legal wise that we as fans of these shows can do? It's like the fans of TV shows need their own type of Union so we can threaten to boycott networks that make stupid programming decissons.
Nuff Said!
Does anyone know where they film Eureka aside from what is listed in IMDB... Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada (etc.)? Specifically the downtown section (or backdrop)?
Is that part of the show a set or facade?
Thanks!