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Eureka: Mirror, Mirror

... in which Holly’s new lease on life and Global’s “smart dust” test don’t go according to plan.

I feel like I’m starting to quote Dr. Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) an awful lot in regards to this show, but: Oh, boy.

I’m seriously conflicted about the developments in this episode. On the one hand, it’s nice that the various elements from the season appear to have been leading somewhere. The Matrix, the z-waves, and the resurrection of Holly --- even Major Shaw came back into play this week. However, I’m really unhappy that we appear to be back to the evil NPC versions of our characters. Or worse, skinjob versions of our beloved favorites possessed by enemy agents. We’ve only got three hours left! I don’t want to spend it with half our cast as evil versions of themselves. Hopefully, the skinjobs don’t result in the real Henry, Carter, and Jo being sidelined for an entire episode. Ack!

I’m also somewhat conflicted about the latest turn of events with Holly. She sure didn’t get to be herself for very long, did she? I’m getting rather tired of them “fixing” her every week, only to have her broken again at the top of the next episode. That plot doesn’t exactly carry much dramatic weight after the fifth or sixth iteration. That said, I’ve never been totally comfortable with her Frankenstein resurrection from the dead, so exploring various pitfalls of her undead existence does kind of work for me. Maybe they shouldn’t have brought her back from the dead after all. If Buffy has taught me anything, it’s that the dead never come back right. As a fan, Fargo should really know better.

Despite my issues with the overall thrust of this episode, it did have some good character stuff sprinkled throughout. I particularly liked the small beats in the Jo-Zane relationship, and the wonderful “confession” scene between Henry, Carter, and Jo. Jo and Zane were functioning marvelously as a couple this week! I loved Zane refusing to risk Jo’s integrity to help Henry, instead getting his own hands dirty and keeping her relatively out of the loop. “You’re a straight arrow. That’s what I love and kind of hate about you. I’m not gonna be the one that gets your hands dirty here.” Even better were their happy, content smiles when she kissed his forehead in gratitude after realizing what he’d done for her and their friend. So sweet! It made Replicant Jo having him arrested for it all the more aggravating! But they’re happy, so of course it is time to bust out the external threat to the relationship. Gah!

Henry’s confession scene was the highlight of the episode for me. Joe Morton, Erica Cerra, and Colin Ferguson were all fantastic, with the latter two wonderfully conveying their shock, hurt, and confusion at the news that Henry was a traitor, followed quickly by relief, panic, and desperation to protect him from himself. The lack of musical scoring allowed the tension and the emotion of the moment to come entirely from the character relationships and their shared history, and I found it utterly compelling. “Grace is sitting in a cell because ‘Henry’ showed her the way. If you’re going to punish her, then you have to punish me. And do not try to absolve me by using some technicality of quantum physics!”

It’s a shame this plot thread got sidelined by Evil Holly’s machinations. I hope Grace telling Henry to comfort himself with the knowledge that he made her a better person, and then promising Jo that she’d never reveal anything about Other Henry’s role in the Consortium, isn’t the end of that arc (or the last we see of Grace). If so, her exit was rather rushed and devoid of emotional payoff. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what kind of resolution to expect with only three hours left.

Other Thoughts

So I’m confused about Other Henry’s relationship with the Consortium. Last week it sounded like he and Grace were spies long before the Einstein Bridge Device struck. But this week it sounded like she was having doubts and he was still a collaborator, then all of a sudden he was new man. Other Henry was apparently involved in the recruitment of Senator Wen; did she know him and believe our Henry was a fellow conspirator? Did Beverly? Shouldn’t we have seen some hint of this when Beverly and Henry were working together to get everyone out of the Matrix? Is that why she thought things were tense between them? Because they used to work together but had a falling out when he left the Consortium?

I’m also wondering what exactly Other Henry meant by the Senator being “aligned with our goals.” She’s been shown to have fairly nefarious goals and tactics. Does this mean Other Henry wasn’t as idealistic as I thought? Was he perhaps more like Dark Henry from Season 2? Say it ain’t so!

Major Shaw wasn’t as fun this visit. Too much hardass, not enough “stand-up guy.” Boo.

I was really amused by Jo and Carter guessing at which type of disaster would strike during Fargo’s crop dusting adventure, and later being surprised to get some free time when things seemingly went well.

Carter: “So what do you figure? Is he gonna blow something up, or get covered in goo?”
Jo: “Why are you so pessimistic?”
Carter (wide-eyed disbelief): “Really?”
Jo: “Right. I think I’m gonna go with goo.”
Carter: “I’ll go with explosion.”

Allison: “Well, how do you like that? Everything went perfect.”
Fargo (over the comm channel): “It worked!”
Carter (at a loss): “I cleared my whole morning for damage control.”
Jo: “Me, too.”
Carter: “Coffee?”
Jo: “Sure.”

Grace (to Henry): “You made me a better person. So if you’re looking to take responsibility for something, take responsibility for that.”
It looks cheesy written down, but Tembi Locke did a good job conveying Grace’s determination to convince Henry he did nothing wrong, which minimized the cheese factor on screen.

Evil Andy is such a jerk. So condescending and snarky (but in a mostly chipper way). I want my sweetly positive Deputy Andy back.

Jo: “Zane, I need you.”
Zane: “Right here in the hall? Why you naughty little minx, you.”

After Jo and Carter’s encounter with their reflections, did anyone else wonder if we’d suddenly switched to a mirrorverse during the commercial break?

Final Analysis: Not to go all Star Wars on you, but I have a bad feeling about this.

Jess Lynde is a highly engaged television viewer. Probably a bit too engaged.

6 comments:

  1. Oh ! What a nice surprise after a mega crazy day at the office ! LOL

    Another great review, yay and kudos Jess. I share your feeling and you made me LMAO.

    I have checked on a nameless web site (nameless, because Billie has suffered enough) the synopsis for the remaining ep's. Hum....Where will the writers take us to ????

    In 2 weeks, it's all over. To be continued...

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  2. I'll admit I'm also feeling some Holly-related fatigue. It was a truly cool plot to begin with, but it's time for them to resolve it. Which I bet they'll do, since we only have two more episodes.

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  3. I am just a little worried that we are so far into this odd plot that we will lack a chance to say a solid goodbye to our eureka favs.
    I just want them to resolve it and give me some closure and let me mourn in peace!

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  4. Nice review but I gotta disagree a bit with you. I like the new direction and it seems logical to me. Think about the new DOD security which pretty much guaranteed that anyone who can gain access to all that surveillance can attack Eureka from within especially now that we have two programmable characters.

    I might be wrong but I still cant shake off the feeling that Shaw has a bigger part to play, either as the villain or the eventual Hero who gets to help save Eureka.

    I have go with the view you pointed out, of exploring Holy's "undead" nature, as cause to the writers exploring all the possibilities of what might go wrong. As The show was abruptly cancelled my guess is they had originally intended to have a full circle season 5 in which we started in the matrix with Evil good guys then eventually the Matrix will come to play in the real world especially as Holy came from there and Wen was placed in there.

    Finally I'd like to say I loved the way in which the plot developed with everybody so preoccupied with the smart dust while the real and greater threat was going unnoticed.

    As the show originally had a season 6, I’m afraid this plot will more than likely be resolved quick enough to give us time with our beloved characters as themselves. I think that was more likely next season's main agenda, one final plot that just concludes all the characters stories.

    Oh I remember saying this a few weeks back, A plot was coming that has to engulf the entire town and it seems like this is it

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  5. There was one scene in this episode that had me dying of laughter.. The scene where carter and fargo are talking about smart dust disaster..

    Fargo " This was suppose to be my legacy as GD director, but now i'm going to be known as director screw up"

    Carter " Fantastically they're calling it Farmageddon"

    lol... One of the gazillion reasons i love this show.

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  6. Rewatching, and I have to point out, Henry's video was archived evidence from the old sheriff, who retired 6+ years before Season 5 in the original timeline. Beverly and Wen both treat Henry as not consortium. Of course this probably more inconsistent writing than planned.

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