EUREKA Goes Out with a Bang-Up Episode
Episode 513 “Just Another Day”
[featured image: Jaime Paglia on set]
This week, we said “Farewell” to our friends in Eureka.
It’s the series finale, and there are plenty of moments in the hour to draw tears. But they’re tears of fondness, for we will nevermore see Sheriff Carter be the smartest guy in the room by suggesting something not-so-smartly.
The town is being packed up and shipped out, having lost funding from the government. The DOD taking everything out, and of course, they take a stabilizer for the data transfer before the data transfer is done, and that sets off little wormholes sprouting up all over town. And when they start to intersect, it will mean Very Bad Things for anyone who gets sucked into one. Let’s say “slice and dice”. Right, Andy?
Fargo stages a sit-in to protest the shut-down, all the while entropy and mayhem are making the rest of the town go “phewww!” as wormholes create havoc. And Zoe – back from college – decides to sit in with Fargo, in a show of solidarity. Oh, those wacky college protester types…
Jo and Zane are snarking at each other, because neither one of them will admit they don’t want to leave the other one, when it appears they could end up on opposite sides of the planet. And while Zane helps Henry retrieve data that could help Grace, Jo is running around with Carter and Allison trying to figure out where the next wormhole is going to crop up.
While Eureka melts down, Henry meets with Beverly and convinces her to “do the right thing” and help Grace, which she does – anonymously, of course, leading the DOD to Senator Wen and her matrix prison. And that gives us Grace back with the family.
Some fun cameos, too. Wil Wheaton, of course, gets one last hurrah as Dr. Parrish. And Matt Frewer returns as Taggart, chasing a mutt all over GD. And James Callis returns with a really terribly weird (read that weirdly terrible) something-American? accent that seems like he’s trying to sound like a Howard Hughes clone. Uhm. That and the hat were just silly and distracting, but he bought the town, so we’ll just go with it.
And Felicia Day gets a rare opportunity to play Holly as a subdued young lady who actually takes her time to experience what’s going on. Normally, Holly is so frenetic and energized (much like Day’s other characters), and to see a quiet Holly slowly getting her memory back is a nice change of pace, and it gives Day something different to do with a character.
Carter’s final journey through the wormhole to fix them all (“It’s what I do,” he says) is a neatly packaged flashback/clip reel from the past five seasons (including Stan Lee!), showing us just how far we’ve all come in this town, and just what we’re going to be missing now that it’s gone.
With a couple of well-placed (and well-deserved) digs at Syfy, Jaime Paglia’s script neatly ties up loose threads, wraps them up in a bow, and hands it to us as a “thank you” gift. It’s a nice send-off for a show that’s truly been unique among its peers. And the ending – Carter and Zoe driving out of Eureka while first-episode Carter and Zoe are driving into Eureka – gives us the sense that things will be well in that little town no one knows about, where mad scientists dwell.
Farewell, Eureka. Glad to know you.
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[Official Show Site at Syfy] [Previous Episode “Double Take”]
