Everybody in Eureka is excited about Astraeus, the latest big project from GD – and this one is a doozy. Utilizing Fargo’s new FTL drive, they will send the first manned mission to Titan. As is the case with so many scientists, their passions lie in an undying desire to go to space. Needless to say, nearly everybody in Eureka is trying to get on the twenty person crew. This means interviews. Lots and lots of interviews. Fargo and Holly need to weed through over three hundred candidates, and neither of them have what you would call strong people skills. During the interviews, we see that Holly is being built up as a potential love interest for Fargo with what may be one of the most adorably awkward flirtations ever seen on television. We didn’t see too much of that last week, but that probably has more to do with the fact that Fargo spent most of the episode in a Survivor-fueled paranoid rage against Holly. Now that they can be themselves around each other, the cute awkwardness just makes me passionately want to see the two of them get together.
This episode also marks the most welcome return of Wil Wheaton’s snarktastic Dr. Isaac Parish. Trying to bully his way into Astraeus with his own project that uses banana slugs as a food source for interstellar travel, his overblown sense of entitlement and holier-than-thou attitude is in full swing. It’s also clear that, in this timeline, there is some very bad blood between him and Fargo that goes way back.
Speaking of alternate timelines, we also learn that Allison’s abandoned dream of turning her thesis about medical practices in space into a book actually came to fruition in this timeline. Not only was her book published, but it has become required reading in the scientific community. Her book is affectionately nicknamed “The Blake,” and her reputation has instantly made her a front runner for Astraeus.
The main new piece of tech for this episode is a device that Zane invented called PAL: a set of contact lenses that projects information from a super computer that calculates the probabilities of something bad happening. He gives them to Jo and Carter to help make their jobs more efficient by giving them the ability to see an incident happening before it actually does. Things become sticky when the two of them see the PAL predict a devastating catastrophe striking Eureka just before breaking down. The two of them now have to resort to traditional methods to figure out how and why this happens.
We do have a new wrinkle when Henry points out to Carter that the PAL detected a high security risk with Allison. It is clearly tied to whatever strange implant Beverly put in her, but now the wedge between Allison and Carter that we saw beginning two episodes ago is going even deeper. This story and the continuing Astraeus storyline should make for an interesting rest of the season. As always, I cannot wait for next week. If you missed last week’s episode check out ‘Eureka: Reprise’ Episode 412: Recap.
P.S. Keep your eyes open for a completely unexpected and fun cameo this week.
