Synopsis: Jack, Allison, Jo, Fargo, and Dr. Grant all begin to hallucinate. Each is followed and provoked by a specter from the past that they have unresolved issues with (Jack sees Nathan Stark!); Beverly Barlowe manipulates Dr. Grant, convincing him to sabotage a weapon being developed at GD.
Review: So, the hallucinations were brought on by insecurities and didn’t disappear until the gang was able to work through their respective issues. Pretty banal stuff. But the back and forth between Jack and Stark was some of this season’s best and funniest material. (Side note: did anyone else kind of want James Callis’s hallucination to take the form of Tricia Helfer? You know, for old times’ sake?)
Jack admitted that he’s always been in love with Allison and the confession was enough to vanquish Stark (although, I’m sure he’s already made this exact confession two or three times this season). After their exes disappear, the two long-time friends head off to the bedroom, presumably, consummating their relationship.
Will their coupledom usher in the series’ decline? Probably not. The show has been pointing to this moment since it began. Anyway, we’ve already seen them together. (In one of the best episodes of the series, which also happened to be set in an alternate timeline, Jack and Allison were married.) Drawing out the will-they-won’t-they thing for another season would have been a mistake.
And then there’s Beverly Barlow. I can’t believe that Dr. Grant trusted her. (When he was sitting across from her at Café Diem, didn’t he notice the way the light caught the crazy in her eyes?) I know that I said it last week but it bears repeating: Ugh. Although Beverly does inject a certain amount of mystery and darkness into an otherwise whimsical show, she’s basically a flat character. She has some grand purpose that is never fully articulated and that kind of nebulousness is annoying. Eureka is so quirky and it deserves a villain with more personality. A villain who is, I don’t know, playing both sides of the fence. A villain like Larry. Someone needs to make that happen.
With only one episode left, this has been an important season. The gang has developed more than ever, it seems like the writers are really starting to understand who these characters are, and as a viewer, I feel that I’ve become more invested. Emotions that may have been hinted at in the past have been explored in greater depth and, in a way, this episode, with all of its pop psychology, was cathartic. For better or worse, everyone’s feelings have been exposed and resolved and now the finale is free to focus on the Bridge Device.
Odds and Ends
- Nathan Stark. Shirtless. I think I may have been waiting for that moment my entire life and never realized it.
- The Zoe-Zane relationship makes me uncomfortable. I know, I know, age ain’t nothin’ but a number, but Zoe is the epitome of “barely legal” and it’s hard to imagine that an overprotective dad like Jack would be so accepting of the coupling.
What did you think?
