It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for! It’s Launch Day for Astraeus! All the last minute preparations are taking over GD, the president is coming to personally watch the launch, and everything seems to be going smoothly and on schedule. But this is Eureka. Nothing ever goes smoothly. Be warned, this recap does contain spoilers. And this being the season finale, some major events do happen.
The first sign of trouble happens when a charged particle burst slices through the president’s motorcade. Luckily, the motorcade was an advance team to determine any threat assessment, but the downside is that the president will not attend the launch. As always, it’s up to Carter and Jo to determine what happened. Tracing the source of the burst, they find a device belonging to a Dr. Plotkin (played by Dave Foley of ‘The Kids in the Hall’). Plotkin explains to them that his device is an energy collector that takes everything from the light spectrum and converts it into reusable energy. Plotkin is a crazed scientist who is attempting to do good after having spent most of his career creating weapons.
Since these collectors seem to be a threat, Jo, Carter and Plotkin have to get all of the collectors he has spread throughout Eureka and switch them off. In doing so, a new wrinkle occurs. Black holes suddenly start popping up all over the town. Cafe Diem is one of the unfortunate victims. It turns out that, like so many things in Eureka, one or two seemingly benign devices can become devastating when combined. It turns out that Plokin’s energy collectors, when combined with the energy of the newly activated FTL ion reactor for Astraeus, is expanding the many mini black holes that exist all around us. But with Plotkin’s collectors switched off and the power drain on the ion reactor repaired, the energy is dissipating. To keep Eureka safe from the remaining black holes, they set up the collectors around Lake Archimedes to draw them away from town. This causes all the mini black holes to combine into one large one that threatens to destroy all of Eureka.
The best solution they can come up with is to deliver one of Plotkin’s old bombs, loaded with anti-matter, into the heart of the black hole to cancel it out. Of course, it’s up to Carter to be the delivery boy. Shoving a bomb into a black hole is pretty much just another day at the office for him. A dangerous, scream-filled day at the office. In the end, the bomb is delivered and the black hole dissipates.
While all of this is happening, the preparations of Astraeus continue undeterred, and the relationships of Eureka reach their climaxes. Allison finally comes to the decision to move in with Carter, Fargo and Holly finally consummate their relationship, and Fargo and Parrish finally attempt to bury the hatchet. The big development is that Jo has decided to leave Eureka. The Astraeus evaluations forced her to realize how much she has lived her life trying to prove herself to somebody else. She has decided to leave to find out what she really wants out of her life.
And now we finally come to the launch itself. With the crew all packed away in their stasis chambers to survive the FTL jump and the countdown quickly approaching zero, it appears our heroes aren’t out of the woods just yet. The countdown clock suddenly accelerates, the destination has been changed, and the ground crew is suddenly locked out. It can only mean sabotage, but who is behind it is not as important as finding a way to stop the launch. Allison is still inside the Astraeus ship, but without a stasis pod for herself, she could be smashed into a pancake if the FTL activates. In a desperate move, Carter breaks open the cooling tubes of the ion reactor, causing it to overheat and shut down. It looks like it has worked, but the FTL suddenly activates, and Astraeus has gone…God knows where.
And that’s it. We’ll have to wait until next season to find out where they went. This season of ‘Eureka’ has been a tremendous one. Beginning with a bold change in timelines, we’ve seen new relationships develop and new characters come and go. ‘Eureka’ is never one to have a dull or uninteresting episode, and that is a rare accomplishment four years in. We’ve had serious shake-ups, but the heart of the show has always remained true. This continues to be a rare gem of a show that will be sorely missed when it ends next year.
In the meantime, while we wait for Season Five, there will be another Christmas episode in December. This time, it will be animated. That can only spell hilarious hijinks the way only ‘Eureka’ can deliver. Godspeed, Astraeus, wherever you just went!
If you missed last week’s episode, be sure to read our ‘Eureka: One Small Step’ recap to catch up.
