EUREKA Has that Crazy Robot Smell

Episode 511 “Mirror, Mirror”

There’s another ghost in the machine! And it looks a lot like Apollo’s hand!

SPOILERS AHEAD

More Holly-centric storytelling this week, as nuHolly gets zapped by a brainwashing Flashing Screen of Doom that makes her do all sorts of strange things – like suddenly deciding to study the people-printing technology that saved her life.

Fargo flush from his success as a crop-duster, doesn’t really think twice about Holly’s new interest. He’s just really glad she’s back, and so he signs off on her request for gear and supplies, all the while patting himself on the back for his contribution to the latest Eureka experiment: nano-modules that would turn into tiny mirrors to reflect sunlight back out of an area of the planet – turning the tide on global warming.

The fun part of that plot bit: Carter and Jo both setting aside their entire morning because they anticipate something going wrong and the whole thing ends with an explosion or goo.

When that doesn’t happen, they’re pleasantly surprised. But of course, this is Eureka. Even when things go right, they don’t go right for long, as brainwashed Deputy Andy (whom nuHolly zapped) helps her diabolical plan to print copies of … everyone?

Wha-huh?

OK, this is pretty much the plot of the episode, with the b-story centered around Major Shaw coming back to take custody of Grace and oversee the transfer of evidence in the investigation as the DOD takes over.

Of course, Henry being Henry, he feels obligated to turn himself in. Even though it wasn’t him involved in the espionage, he still feels like he should take responsibility for the other Henry’s actions now that he’s part of this timeline. The fact that altHenry recruited Senator Wen in the first place only reinforces Henry’s guilt. Only Carter and Jo aren’t having any of that.

Meantime, Zane and Allison figure out that something’s going haywire with nuHolly, and Zane tries to get to the bottom of it while still trying to figure out how to help Henry from being caught up in Shaw’s investigation. Real Jo drags her feet while real Zane hacks into the data to erase any evidence that Henry was the Consortium’s ring-leader at Global Dynamics. Of course nuJo happily turns Zane over to Shaw when it gets figured out.

The mirror particles get loose because the control mechanism has been stolen – so nuHolly can run her sekrit lab – and Andy has Carter going around to each and every single possible suspect looking for it. Of course, Carter’s idea of the garage door clicker is pure Carter swerving into the answer to everything, and when he figures out Andy’s been smoking something, it’s too late, because nuCarter is almost done cooking.

My biggest problem with this episode is the behavior of the copies. The show has established that nuHolly is the result of for-real Holly’s memories imprinted as data, so there was something already in existence to get transferred into the new body brain matrix. So how is it that the copies of Henry and Jo act like their templates? At least, enough to fool people long enough that it’s too late to do anything about it.

Major -10 plot point there, because there’s never an explanation as to how nuHolly is able to put memories and behaviors into the copies. It can’t be just that she’s using copies of their zeta waves or brain scans from the matrix, because Henry was never in there. And all of that data got wiped anyway. Right?

So, who’s trying to get out of the matrix? This is the hand on the screen that Jo has seen before, and she recognizes it before she gets body-snatched. Could it be Senator Wen? Not likely. Some have speculated it might be Nathan Stark, but that theory doesn’t really hold up either. If he’s been caught in the system for all this time, why wait until now to try to get out?

As we swirl around the drain toward the final episodes, this cliff-hanger leaves us only with Zane, Fargo and Allison to figure out what’s going on with everyone. Will they be able to fix things? Look for Shaw to play into it, I’m sure.

>>>>

[Official Show Site at Syfy]     [Previous Episode “The Honeymooners”]