Eureka 4.2 – Liftoff!
We open on SARAH, with a banner hanging over her door that reads ‘Congratulations.’
Up in Carter’s bedroom, he is getting all decked out in a tux. Henry enters and tells him that the bride needs him, she has cold feet. Carter grumbles his way down the stairs where Robot Deputy Andy asks is there is anything he can do. Carter tells him no and heads to the bathroom where the bride is waiting to get talked out of her cold feet by the sheriff.
In the bathroom, Allison is waiting, looking pensive. See, Carter and Allison had finally acknowledged their feelings for one another at the end of 4.1, and now they are getting marr… wait, no, Carter and Allison aren’t getting married, Robot Deputy Andy and SARAH are! That’s right; a robot is marrying a house. SARAH isn’t sure she loves Andy, so she wants to call off the wedding. Which Carter tells her is her right to do, so she does.
Later, at GD, Jo and Fargo do a walk and talk about the cancelled wedding until they run into Zane. (At the end of 4.1 Zane kissed Jo, because he knows something is up between them, he just doesn’t know what.) Jo stutters out an excuse and leaves Zane and Fargo. Zane wants to know why Jo is avoiding him, but Fargo wants to discuss the sciencey thing Zane is supposed to be building. Zane, ever the slacker says he’s working on it, and slouches away.
Meanwhile, at Café Diem, Carter and Allison are being all smooshy in their new couple-dom, which makes Henry and his Good Lady Wife hope that the honeymoon phase will be over soon. They discuss ever so briefly how they all expected Fargo to be a terrible head of GD, but he’s actually doing a pretty good job.
Which leads right into Fargo playing Spaceman Spiff in an old decommissioned rocket they have stored in a silo somewhere on GD property. Zane sneaks up on him and demands to know why Jo has been avoiding him. Fargo tells him to knock it off and get back to work on the rocket’s fuel cell. Zane says he has finished it and he’s already installed it. This is news to Fargo, because in his little Spaceman Spiff game, he has triggered all the launch protocols. Those words are barely out of his mouth before the rocket launches, sending Zane and Fargo screaming into space.
Meanwhile back in Eureka, Carter and the rest of the gang watch the rocket take off and head for GD to figure out what has happened.
Allison tries to get Fargo on the phone. But that doesn’t work because the upper atmosphere is out of his roaming area, so she, Henry and another lackey (Kenny, I think?) administer emergency protocols that put Allison temporarily in charge.
Henry informs her the rocket is on a collision course with the International Space Station with is housing 6 astronauts at the moment, and as is protocol, Allison sends some missiles to intercept the rocket.
Meanwhile back in the silo, Jo and Carter examine the launch site and discover that Zane and Fargo may have been on the rocket when it launched. Carter heads up to the command center to tell Allison.
Meanwhile, Zane and Fargo are totally on the rocket. Zane is freaking out, Fargo is geeking out. See, Fargo has always wanted to go to space, so he is loving this. Zane, who has always wanted to keep his feet firmly on the ground, is not. Fargo is looking serenely out the window at the majesty of creation when he notices three GD missiles screaming towards him.
Carter arrives at command central and disables the missiles just in time to save the rocket. This does not sit well with Allison, who tells him about the impending collision with eh international apace station. Carter aw-shucks’ his way around the room as everyone waits for impact.
Meanwhile on the rocket Zane freaks out some more about how calm Fargo is. With the missiles disabled, Fargo tells him they really don’t have anything else to do but enjoy the view until Henry and Allison figure out a way to get them down. That is until they look out the window and see the space station coming towards them (or vice-versa. It’s space and it doesn’t matter.)
Allison grouses at Carter for cancelling the missiles. Carter says Fargo and Zane might be on the rocket, and he didn’t want them to dies. Allison counters with the fact that they don’t know that Fargo and Zane are even on the rocket, and if they are, there is no way to know if they are alive or dead. But she does know is that the rocket is headed for the international space station where there ARE people that WILL die because of Carter’s actions. It’s pretty heavy for a moment there.
Up in the rocket, Zane and Fargo are trying to figure out anything that can move them out of the collision course. And when I say ‘Fargo and Zane,’ I mean Fargo tries to figure it out while Zane loses his lunch in a corner. See, the rocket had been stripped of all its vital systems to prepare it for experiments, and Fargo and Zane are lucky there is even oxygen enough for them to breathe in it.
Suddenly, Fargo is smarter than usual and begins to figure out a way to make the rocket to move by venting the oxygen to push the rocket out of the impact vector.
Basically, today is opposite day and Fargo is cool and Zane is a whiny girl.
Back in command central, everyone watches in amazement as the rocket moves out of the international space station’s way. Proving that there is at least someone alive on the rocket. Carter is happy about this development but Allison gives him some serious ‘you don’t respect my authority’ eyes.
Henry goes on an exposition mission and explains to us all that the rocket was being retrofitted with a Faster Than Light drive and that they were going to test if out with the Bosun Cloud Exciter. What is a Bosun Cloud Exciter? Well I just don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. It’s a science thing that will allow Fargo and Zane to return safely to earth. That is if Fargo and Zane can get the light drive on the rocket to work.
Meanwhile in the rocket Fargo is thinking the same thing, but Zane it turns out, has stolen an important part of the Bosun frozen thing and it wont work because in this reality Zane has not experienced the calming love of Jo Lupo and aside from being a huge tool, is still kind of a criminal.
In commend central, Carter and Allison talk about how he just burst in there and cancelled the missiles without talking to her first. Carter says he had a hunch and Allison usually trusts his hunches and Allison says he didn’t giver her time to trust him this time and they share a trouble in paradise moment before Carter notices that there is a light blinking on the control panel
It’s Morse (but a more sciencey version) Code from Fargo trying to warn them about the missing piece of the BCE but they figure it out too late and Henry turns on the BCE and causes an EMP and it takes out the whole town.
Carter and Allison try and figure out how they are going o get the ten miles to the site where Henry is working on the Bosun frozen without electricity, when Jo arrives with some horses and she, Allison and Carter get to Henry just in time for them to spew techno babble all over each other. To fix the Bosun frozen, the need a power source, but that also need to contact Fargo up in the rocket.
Jo goes to look for a power source under Eureka while Allison and Carter go to play with some old computers to see if they can get communication with the rocket.
Up in the rocket, Zane tries to get Fargo to tell him why Jo is avoiding him after their big kiss, but Fargo is a rock and does not tell Zane anything about the alternate realities and how Zane and Jo were kind of a Hot Item in another world… but then more oxygen leaks and it’s a cliffhanger as we go to commercial.
When we come back, Jo is preparing to jump into a 1,000 foot deep pit with only a zip line and a glow stick because she’s badass. At the bottom of the pit, she discovers Robot Deputy Andy. See, Andy had gone down into the pit to lament his cancelled wedding to a house and was partially protected when the EMP disabled all the electric equipment in town. Jo muses that Andy would be a great power source.
Out in the old radio shack, Allison gives up just in time for Carter to discover the thing that will save the day by accident. It a rotary phone!! Allison calls NASA from memory. See, when she was a kid, she called the number every day twice a day for 4 years trying to get into space camp. Adorable. Allison gets in touch with NASA and asks to be put through to the satellite people.
Up in the rocket, Zane and Fargo are well on their way to getting the damn thing to work when Fargo’s phone rings. It’s Carter! Warning him not to fire up the light drive, but the reception is pretty much terrible and Fargo only gets about half the message, but it’s enough to tell him things are not going great on the ground.
Allison and Carter get back to the Bosun Exciter and Henry tells Carter that he and his Good Lady Wife have got it as fixed as they are going to, now all they need is the power source Jo went after. Carter heads off to find her. When he gets to the pit, he finds Jo and Andy. Jo’s not strong enough to get partially disabled Robot Deputy Andy onto her horse (let’s ignore the fact that she just got him to the top of a 1,000 FOOT PIT with no trouble) so Carter takes Andy on his horse and heads back to the BCE.
Meanwhile in space, Fargo is ready to switch on the light drive. When he does, it doesn’t work but it does cause another oxygen leak. Fargo and Zane discuss how there isn’t enough oxygen for them to make the necessary repairs to the light drive. They are totally going to die up in space.
Zane and Fargo are totally boned. I’m so worried about them. I mean, I know that they are both series regulars and everything, but I don’t see how they are gonna get out of this one. What is it with all the comedy/science fiction shows always killing off all their series regulars in the first episode of the new season all the time? It’s so annoying. Especially since I have seen Zane and Fargo in commercials for “Eureka” on Syfy. And Fargo is featured prominently in a guest spot on “Warehouse 13” later this season. I just don’t think they are getting out of this one.
I’m so scared for their survival I can barley plotz.
Zane and Fargo are running out of oxygen and they are totally dying Fargo is starting to lose it. But its Zane’s turn to be the hero. He reminds Fargo that he has saved their lives twice already, and he can do it again. Fargo, his confidence renewed, gets back to work.
Meanwhile on the ground Henry and his Good Lady Wife have connected Andy up to the Bosun frozen and are ready to collect them (maybe.)
Up the rocket, Fargo is ready to activate the light drive again. But in case they die, he wants to come clean about Jo to Zane. But we cut back to the ground before we find out what Fargo actually told him.
Henry and Fargo press their respective buttons at the same time and faster than the speed of light, everyone is back and safe and no one is dead. Well, except for Andy who dies, but its okay because he’s a robot.
Zane and Fargo share a moment of mutual respect in the rocket before they climbed out.
Hugs all around.
Jo and Zane’s is particularly poignant as he calls her ‘Jo-jo’ which is a super gay little pet name, but it works, and she looks totally melty.
Allison gives Fargo back control of GD and meets Carter at Café Diem. They discuss how dating and working together will be tough, but they both think they are up for the challenge.
After his reboot, Robot Deputy Andy goes to SARAH and they talk about their relationship because he is a robot and she is a house. SARAH says she’s not sure she ever wants to get married, but I think they decide to continue to date. Or something. He’s a robot. She’s a house. It’s all very…. Science fiction.
Jo asks Fargo what he and Zane talked about up in the rocket, but before he can answer her he is pulled away by a general to Washington, where he is brought before a Senate committee headed by Mulan herself, Ming-na.
Senator Mulan dresses him down about accidentally launching himself into space before hinting at what will be probably be the overarching storyline of the rest of the season.
So there you have it. “Eureka” is back. Next week, I promise to be less long winded.
