This week’s episode of Touch is brought to us by the number 2013-1026.
The episode starts with Trevor and Martin talking about Lucy’s death, while a creepy unnamed man looks on. Trevor continues to give some hope that Lucy is still alive (after all, Aster Corps is very good at faking deaths) saying that her body was found in her car in the desert. I noticed that there was no mention of a gun shot wound, so either they fixed up her corpse real nice, or there is another body. In any case, they are both relieved to know that Amelia’s body wasn’t also found, though Martin can’t stop blaming himself for leaving the two alone.
Inside the house, Amelia and Jake talk, and Amelia says that when her mother died everything turned white. She heard Jake’s voice calling to her, and she came. But she says that Martin will just turn her into the police, so she can’t stay. Instead, she tells Jake that they have to stop Guillermo first. Amelia notes that Jake has a fever, and say that they most be getting close.
He puts 10262000 into the cipher, and Amelia says he needs to show it to his dad. Then she tells him to follow the numbers so he can find her. For those who don’t remember, 10262000 is the number from the time Guillermo almost killed Jake but hesitated. It’s his birthday, and the day Guillermo’s wife died with child.
Anyway, remember that creepy guy stalking Martin and Trevor from two minutes ago? Well, he shows up at Guillermo’s, who is studying an archeologist, and gives him the address of Martin and Jake. When the creepy guy asks what the father did that made Guillermo so angry, Guillermo tells him that he going to kill the little boy instead. The creepy man naturally understands that he’s about to die because why else would someone creepier than him tell him that, he gets stabbed in the throat.
Now we meet two new people, one of which is Nell, the archeologist on website Guillermo had been looking at. She is going to a sleep clinic because she can’t sleep anymore, and its sort of insinuated that this is because she is one of the 36, and they all have troubles sleeping. She leaves her husband Simon, and her baby behind, and the audeince is left guessing at whether or not she’ll die a horrible, grisly stabbed-in-the-neck death like everyone else who runs into Guillermo does.
Next, Jake is lying awake in bed looking very perturbed when Martin walks in and realizes that Jake has a fever, something he apparently gets when he’s very closed to being murdered by one of the 36… or at least I think that was what Amelia was trying to suggest. Anyway, Trevor evidently spent the night, and gets a wet cloth for his forehead while Martin tells Jake that Lucy is dead. Then, Martin asks to meet Trevor at Breakwire so they can investigate the number Jake points out on the cipher, and Jake says his first words (in reality, not the special 36 space-time continuum) to Martin as he’s about to leave. “Find him.”
Roll credits.
Avram comes to take care of Jake, and he and Martin discuss the new numbers Jake is writing (2013-1026), and they decide it’s about two numbers intersecting, which is supposed to mean something to us viewers… I think. But we don’t have much time to focus on that because guess what?! Calvin Norberg returns in the next scene!
His part in Touch is obviously not done despite his losing his mom, his co-worker, his best friend, and his brother, which is awesome because he was one of the better parts of this show. Who else close to him can die? My money’s on Rigby. Anyway, he’s watching a press conference with Ms. Farrington explaining some horrible events that happened in an Aster Corps facility when he gets a phone call telling him to come meet her. By the time he hangs up, it’s evident that he feels he has no choice in the matter.
Meanwhile, Martin finds Trevor at the increasingly worker-less Breakwire and gives him the number with a dash in it, and tells how his son’s fever disappeared the second he spoke. The number with the dash bring up something with a morgue, and he and Trevor dash out the door to start a series of convoluted events that will hopefully save the world from something we don’t know it needs saving from.
It’s around that time that Guillermo gets a knock on the door by a man suspicious enough to ask what a smell is (obviously dead creepy guy), but not curious enough to figure out what it is. He asks for rent, and then leaves none the wiser after Guillermo says he is not staying another night.
His next victim, the archeologist, Nell, meanwhile calls her husband from Chicago saying that it will take her some time to get to her destination. Simon obviously knows that she is special, and asks her what she sees. She tells him what she sees in the past, and then hangs up when her flight gets called.
Avram, with Jake, wonders why Jake tries to change numbers, and basically is the audience’s voice of “What the heck is going on in this show?” He concludes that the number finds Jake, so I think that what we have to assume. Jake doesn’t manipulate unless the numbers tell him too, which sort of echoes the idea that has been touched upon in the series which is that god is in the numbers. Jake ignores him, and finds a newspaper with an ad for bus fare to the Los Angeles airport (where Nell is going), and despite Avram’s protests that he is not a detective, they leave to go wherever Jake has decided to take them.
Trevor and Martin, as journalists, go to the morgue. The man with the number at the morgue is the creepy guy who Guillermo slashed. Martin doesn’t know who it is, but recognizes Guillermo’s MO, and he understandably freaks.
Meanwhile, Farrington meets with Calvin to tell him that Aster Corps is in serious trouble, and that they need to make sure the people who deserve the blame get blamed. She tells him that person is Tony Rigby, and then asks him to find him so she can take care of him. Then she regrets that she put her money on Rigby, and asks Norberg to come back and work for Aster Corps, which he scoffs at. She then tells him about the sleep clinic, and insinuates that Aster Corps have 6 (and another one coming today) of the 36 when he only had 1. That, naturally, gets his attention.
Avram calls Martin at the morgue telling him that they are on a bus, where Amelia is. Martin, understandably, is very happy to hear this, and so is Trevor. Avram then relays that Martin must find Guillermo today and stop him, or more innocent people will die. Then Trevor and Martin go to the hotel where the body was found. When the Avram and co arrive at the airport, Jake runs after Flight Number 1026, while Martin and Trevor go to the address where the body at the morgue was found. There, Martin talks to the manager of the hotel and lies their way in as US Customs Agents who apparently don’t need warrants when he finds that someone matching Guillermo’s description had stayed there.
At the airport, Jake and Amelia find a crate addressed to Dr. Nell Plimpton (presumably the same crate that was supposed to arrive with the now delayed Nell) and Jake writes something on piece of a paper that Avram is so surprised by that he has to run away for a cellular signal to call Martin (where he assumes that Jake and Amelia will listen to him and stay put). On the piece of paper that Jake handed him isn’t numbers (or are they?), but symbols, something Jake has never done before. Ignoring Avram, Amelia and Jake follow the crate as someone moves it.
Martin and Trevor go into Guillermo’s room, and find a blood stain. Martin tells the manager to call the police, when Avram calls again to tell him about the hieroglyphs. In the room Guillermo rented, there is a sheet of paper with hieroglyphics, which Martin assumes matches the symbols Avram is telling him about. There, at the airport, Nell finally arrives, In the background, Guillermo sees her and follows, but not after stabbing some dude in broad daylight to take his car. Good thing the guy didn’t cry out or anything. Also, Guillermo… dude. Why didn’t you just rent a car? Surely public murder wasn’t really in your game plan.
Anyway, Jake and Amelia sneak onto the truck with the crate, leaving poor Avram there to be terrified about his missing and highly sought after child genii.
Farrington gives Calvin a tour, and shows him the sleep clinic which is basically a Four Seasons with a Quantum Physics. She explains that the 36 have sleep problems, so they come to her willingly. There, they scan their brain patterns while the sleep, and Calvin, despite his reservations, decides to rejoin Aster Corps because this whole endeavor is everything he ever wanted… Apparently. Farrington then asks him about Martin Baum, and he says that he can’t help her find him. She doesn’t look like she believes him and we’ll just have to see if that modicum of distrust is important in later episodes.
Amelia and Jake get out of the delivery truck and look for room 226 (which Amelia, despite being super smart, verbalizes to make sure they are going to the right room).
Trevor calls Martin from Breakwire (he’s evidently given up on his business) to tell him that the hieroglyphics were from something that Nell discovered. Martin gets a phone number for her, and he calls her husband. There, he lies about being Nell’s driver, gets an address from him, and heads straight there. On the phone, Avram says he lost Jake and Amelia, and Martin figures they are at the university. Martin goes, and tells Avram to wait at the house in case they show.
At the university, Amelia and Jake find the crate and open it up to find the hieroglyphics. Jake takes out a red marker, and writes the number 3185 on the crate, and Amelia realizes the glyphs are numbers.
Jake starts shaking when he writes 926, and Amelia realizes that this is because the man Guillermo is there. This is important because it tells us that Jake isn’t really sure his plan is going to work. As Nell arrives, Jake and Amelia run away. Guillermo limps as he follows close behind Nell, where he takes a knife to her throat… but oddly… doesn’t actually slit her throat, which explains is because he has to wait for Jake and Amelia to arrive.
In the nick of time, Martin arrives, and Jake communicates via his super math mind to Guillermo that Nell isn’t the one. Guillermo loosens his grip, and Nell runs away to find Martin who tells her to call for help, just before doing it himself and then pulling the fire alarm.
Guillermo attacks, and they start fighting in a church as the sirens fill the air. Before the cops arrive, Guillermo kills himself by slashing his throat after apologizing to god for not finding the nest of 7. Jake comes in and takes Guillermo’s necklace right before Amelia comes through the door. There, in the presence of Guillermo’s corpse, the Martin and Amelia embrace, both grieving the loss of Lucy.
And then, my favorite scene happens, and it is my favorite scene if only because it has the most reality. Martin lies about his name to the cops, and tells the detective a story of why they were all there when the mysterious man that no one knows was trying to kill people and then himself. Obviously, nothing is adding up properly to the detective, and he says that there is an awful lot of people wandering around an archeology building on a Sunday afternoon to make this a plausible story. He lets Martin go, though, but not without telling him he has to come in to the station the next day.
Before they leave the building, Jake grabs Nell’s hand, and Martin translates that Jake wants to show her something. It’s the crate by her office, Jakes opens the crates to reveal the numbers he has written on the crate. Nell is far too happy to see the hieroglyphics be deciphered to be questioning.
The episode ends with Martin asking Avram about the nest of 7, which he replies to that no one can understand the ravings of a madman, but he does it in such a way that suggest that he knows exactly what the nest of 7 is. Martin finds Amelia and Jake playing chess, and he goes to sit down next to them. He tells Amelia that they are going to have to look for her father, and she says that they can look but they won’t find him. When Martin asks how she knows that, she says she just knows.
Amelia goes to bed, leaving the chess game unfinished.
All in all, an episode I enjoyed, if only because it puts an end to the Guillermo plot line. It’s back to Aster Corps, and mystic symbolism, and I’m getting re-psyched about this show.
Catch you all in the next episode!
