Liftoff:
Written by:
Story by : Jaime Paglia & Bruce Miller
Teleplay by : Bruce Miller
Directed by: Mike Rohl
Original airdate: July 11, 2011
Synopsis:
It’s wedding day for Deputy Andy and SARAH however, she gets cold feet and cancels it. Zane hits on Jo but Fargo puts him in his place, ordering him to finish making the ion pulse engine dampener he needs. When Zane surprisingly finishes it, he goes to tell Fargo, finding him playing around in an antique test rocket he and Henry were planning to use. Zane gets into the cockpit with him, telling him he will give him the dampener if he tells him what is going on with Jo lately. Unfortunately after he closes the hatch door, the rocket begins launching because Zane had already installed the dampener and due to Fargo playing with the switches, the launch sequence was activated.
Jack and Allison continue their flirting but Allison is back to business when the unscheduled launch comes up as an alert, and she instinctively starts calling him Carter. Jack and Jo are desperately trying to find Fargo because they need his authorization to launch the missiles to take out the rocket before it kills the astronauts aboard the international space station. They also discover Zane is nowhere to be found, knowing that he would be front and center to make fun of them all for this monumental launch mistake. With no Fargo in sight, Allison, with Henry and Larry, decide to use her override codes to launch the missiles. Jack has a hunch that Fargo and Zane were on the rocket and cancels the missile launch at the last second which annoys Allison and the tension grows between them.
On the rocket, Fargo and Zane see the missiles explode and realize that they will hit the space station. Fargo vents their oxygen to steer them off course and while they scrape the station, it is otherwise undamaged and the astronauts stay safe. Zane however keeps panicking, scared of the lack of oxygen and not wanting to die. With the rocket having its navigation and communication systems down, Fargo manages to use an old military code similar to Morse code to try and communicate with GD.
Henry reasons that if Fargo and Zane can activate the rocket’s untested faster than light drive that he and Henry were going to originally test, then he could use the Bosun Cloud Exciter to pull them in safely. Fargo comes to the same conclusion but Zane tells him that the plan won’t work because he didn’t build the pulse dampener but rather took it out of the Bosun Exciter. Fargo tries to warn GD to not start the exciter but it’s too late as Henry powers it on and it feeds back, shutting down all electricity in Eureka.
Jo manages to get some horses so she, Alison and Jack can get around. Henry sends Alison and Jack outside of town to an old communication station which hopefully was outside the range of the feedback pulse. Jo heads to Grace’s lab where she has a protected and shielded energy source that could be used to power the exciter.
Zane has a rare moment of vulnerability and tells Fargo he feels like something has happened to his brain and memories, asking Fargo if he loved someone, wouldn’t he also want to know.
Meanwhile before she can find Grace’s power source, Jo finds Andy in Grace’s lab, sad and depressed about his and SARA’s breakup. Jo realizes that Andy could be used as the power source. Unfortunately, when Carter and Allison get to the old station, they find it inoperable. Luckily, Jack finds a telephone wire connected to an old phone that they use to get in touch with NASA to use their satellites and manage to briefly call Fargo, telling them the exact time to fire up the BCE.
As Zane and Fargo test their power, they end up having another oxygen leak but Zane comes out of his panicked stupor to get the power going. Facing possible death, Fargo starts to tell him about the other Zane. Back on the ground, Henry activates the BCE, Fargo activates the FTL, and everyone returns home AOK.
As everyone embraces, Jo gives Zane a reluctant hug who tells her it’s good to see her, using the nickname Jojo, leaving her confused as to whether he knows the truth.
Later, Andy, now repaired, goes to SARA and asks why she stopped the wedding. She admits she isn’t sure if she’s ready to be a housewife yet, but is still wanting to spend time with him and see where things go.
Jo asks Fargo if he and Zane discussed anything in particular but they’re interrupted by soldiers ordered to take Fargo to Washington where Senator Michaela Wen is set to question him about the events that occurred and his future in Eureka.
Advanced Research:
Ming-Na Wen played Senator Michaela Wen and she is everywhere. Her biggest claim to fame is that she played Mulan. She also starred as Melinda May in 136 episodes of Agents of SHIELD, was Fennec Shard in The Book of Boba Fett, and did voices for Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai. Before all that though, she started off with 79 episodes of As The World Turns in the late 80’s, she was then in The Joy Luck (with Tamlyn Tomita, relationships between Chinese moms and daughters), Vanishing Son II (again with Tamlyn, saga of the Chang brothers, gang fights, racist feuds in LA), and Hong Kong 97 (On Hong Kong's last day of British rule a corporate assassin carries out his orders to murder a corrupt general. Unbeknownst to him, his bosses have set him up for a fall, and he must now band together with an unlikely corps of friends to survive). She played Chun-Li in the 1994 Street Fighter movie and subsequent game, she was in Starquest (year 2035, cryogenic sleep traveling to nearby earth type planet but they find out something went wrong when they awaken 100 years later), One Night Stand (guy has one night stand, goes home to family, later accidentally bumps into her one night stand and everyone is with their spouses, with Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr, and Kyle MacLachlan), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (A scientist makes a last stand on Earth with the help of a ragtag team of soldiers against an invasion of alien phantoms), 118/331 episodes of ER, voiced Detective Yin in The Batman (series), Breakdance Academy (80’s football player want to turn his heavy metal band into a boy band for popularity), a several episodes of Stargate Universe, and she lead Super Cyclone (disaster movie).
Face Meat as discussed in the episode:
Reprise:
Written by: Amy Berg
Directed by: Matt Hastings
Original airdate: July 18, 2011
Synopsis:
Adorkable/Keet/Manic Pixie Dream Girl/rocket scientist Dr. Holly Marten has arrived in Eureka and meets Vincent who is partying up a storm, dancing along to his choice of morning music as he asks Holly what she’s listening to in ear phones. She talks about Neuro-Linguistic Programming that she has embedded into some mp3s to help her manage her social anxiety.
Fargo however is not anticipating her arrival, knowing she was sent here from Senator Wen’s office, and learns that GD was one of the places she was recruited for and subsequently one that she turned down for a job, due to her having a plethora of options available to her, having several degrees and being particularly notable in her field. Fargo turns on some gameplay music to help himself face off against his rival.
Henry plans a six month anniversary for him and Grace and lays the romance on big time while the song Melt With You plays in the background. Wanting their mornings to always be like this, they start working on a gizmo.
Jo is very happy with her new house and chats with Zane who was jogging nearby and he brings up the group‘s secret time travel trip, leaving Jo to head to GD to confront Fargo but before he can apologize he sees Holly and goes into attack mode, taking her to see the FTL drive. As she inspects it, Fargo activates it and sends her away to… somewhere, reasoning that Holly wanted to take the device apart and would learn about the bridge device being integrated into it so he had to take care of her.
Alison heads off to a conference, leaving Jenna and Kevin with Jack. They sit at Cafe Diem with Kevin annoyed because Jack has become domesticated and they can’t have fun anymore. Jo calls about what happened and Jack asks Kevin what hypothetically could have happened to someone who was sent through the FTL and Kevin goes gung ho about going to help. Vincent interrupts them to offer a martini while Kevin grabs Jack’s keys and takes off in his jeep. With Jo, Jack finds him in the woods near the BCE having found Holly who remains her positive adorkable self and is excited and intrigued by the whole experience, never having the chance to do much field work. Zane comes up with an idea to try and hide the origins of the FTL in exchange for Jo getting naked, telling her they have to talk about things but she says that they don’t exist as a couple in this or any timeline.
Alison ends up getting a flat tire and sees another car that is stopped with a young girl looking over the edge of the road at a crashed car, desperately trying to call to her father below. Alison climbs down to try and help but finds that the father must have walked away from the crash site in shock. Eventually they find him, and the girl calls for an ambulance and the man is saved.
Kevin says he doesn’t know why he went after Holly so suddenly as he and Jack head back to the sheriff’s office, taking back Jenna from Deputy Andy who stepped in to help babysit. Jo drives home and sees Zane who just finished torching her house, burning it to the ground. Zane is apprehended and handcuffed to a chair while Jo is put in the holding cell to calm down. Jack theorizes that both Zane and Fargo were acting crazy because of their exposure to the FTL, and Jo heads off to DG to get Zane checked out while Fargo continues his rants against Holly.
Jo tries getting in touch with Henry but he’s not answering his phone so Jack and Kevin head towards his garage when they see a bunch of rocks floating in the air. Holly shows up in lieu of Jo who is herding all the dogs who were let out of the animal behavior science lab at GD. She explains the rocks are still moving but at an imperceptible rate. As they discuss what would happen if a person got stuck in the stasis field, Kevin steals the jeep again to get back to the sheriff’s office to look something up on the computer, while he absentmindedly sings Bad Boys, the theme song from Cops. He complains that it’s been stuck in his head all morning and Jack checks out the playlist he had used which contains song titles that seem to mirror the behaviors of Vincent, Fargo, Zane and Kevin. Kevin explains that the jukebox in Cafe Diem is the server that holds the music for all of Eureka so they all have equal access and that there was an update that very morning.
Back at Henry’s house, he and Grace are already stuck in the stasis field embracing each other.
Meanwhile at GD they discover the stasis field will reach them in 7 minutes and Jo orders an evacuation. Jo, Zane, Fargo and Holly discuss the incidents and what could be happening. Holly comes to the realization that they were all not hypnotized but influenced, as in her Neuro Linguistic Programming tracks. Zane says that the jukebox downloads all music files from any outside source and could have embedded Holly’s NLP program into the town’s music, explaining the strange behaviors. They track the field back to Henry’s garage. Holly works on a fix and uploads it to the music server but as they try to make it out of GD, they too are caught in the field.
Having arrived at Henry’s, Jo shows up having been influenced by the song I Shot The Sheriff. As she goes to fire, Jack leaps into the stasis field. Kevin shows up and tries to explain to her why she should stop but she’s still under the influence. Kevin plays the song Why Can’t We Be Friends and she manages to break free and help Kevin get inside to disconnect the stasis field machine while she jumps onto Jack to take the bullet as the field drops and everyone returns to normal. Luckily, she was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Fargo is still angry about what happened and he and Zane confront Holly about being Senator Wen’s henchmen. She tells them that she is there to evaluate the FTL to see if they qualify for a 20 billion dollar grant.
Zane apologizes to Jo about what happened to her house, telling her that he wants to know what they used to be to each other. She kisses him, telling him that they are nothing to each other. He grabs her and pulls her close again and kisses her, this time for longer and Jo doesn’t pull away.
Allison returns to GD but has a headache, taking some meds to help. Inside her brain, a small device attached inside her glows. The scene shifts back to earlier in the day when Alison helped the girl but this time, we see there is no girl but Beverly Barlowe instead, who uses an accomplice to drug and sedate Alison from behind, telling him that they will make sure Alison remembers what they want her to remember, before sending her back to GD.
Advanced Research:
The girl, Bonnie, was played by Marie Avgeropoulos, who is best known for playing Octavia Blake in the series 100 for 100 episodes. She’s been in a few movies since then, such as King of Killers (Garan is a part of a group of international hitmen who are contracted to take out the most dangerous killer in the world, only to find out they are the ones being hunted), The Painter (an ex CIA operative is thrown back into a dangerous world when a mysterious woman from his past resurfaces), and Super Dicks (Stoner comedy, dicks or detectives investigate a doctor who gives people super dicks, some kind of glowing strong and impressive implants). She was also in the recent Queen of the Ring. In the past she was a lead in the movie Isolation (true story, pirates try to hunt and steal a young couple’s identities), A Remarkable Life (woman helps a friend overcome his depression after his wife cheats on him with a woman), Dead Rising: Endgame, Numb (couple in money trouble discover GPS coordinates to rumored gold and team up with mysterious hitchhikers to find it), Tracers (bike messenger wanted by the Chinese mafia escapes into the world of parkour), the series Cult (investigation of mysterious deaths surrounding the show within a show, 10/14), and Fugitive at 17 (teenage computer hacker on the run to find out who really killed her friend).
The dad was Cameron Bancroft. He got his start in 64 episodes of 374 episodes of Beachcombers (professional lumber salvagers in British Columbia), a lead in Love and Human Remains (guy comes out as gay, serial killer stalks the city), Just One of the Girls (Corey Haim, bullied teen disguises himself as a girl to hide), Moment of Truth: To Walk Again (paralyzed marine and his recovery), For The Love of Nancy (Tracy Gold, parent of an anorexic woman try to help her), She Stood Alone (female naval officer sexually harassed and legal battle after), Extreme (series with James Brolin, search and rescue in the Rockies dealing with romance as they face daredevils living the extreme life), To Brave Alaska (true story of two yuppies try to survive in Alaskan wilderness), The Cape (17/21, select NASA astronaut corps members train at Kennedy Space Center), and lead the series Code Name: Eternity (alien takes on human form to capture a rogue alien and a woman helps him understand human relationships and ideas while forming an alliance).
Felicia Day is here! She plays Holly Marten. She started off in shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer for a hot minute, movies like Bring It On Again, and even had a movie early on called June (young violinist working in a coffee shop by day, searches for true love and meets him but he’s engaged to a less than nice woman). Shortly after that she became addicted to World of Warcraft which inspired her to create The Guild (66, eventually crowdfunded), which led to her becoming a nerd heartthrob in things such as Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and a viral Guild music video.
She was in a not-so-great SyFy movie called Red: Werewolf Hunter (modern day Little Red Riding Hood), and voiced various roles for a few video games as well as half of the 60-some episodes of Annoying Orange. She’s done voices for Skylanders Academy, Stretch Armstrong & The Flex Fighters, Spider-Man (series), guest starred in a few episodes of Supernatural, and recently was a lead in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival. She was in a 2024 movie called Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox (with Danny Trejo, Keith David, and Joel McHale, what if you kill your younger self) and just last year was in the movie Exes (Two former FBI partners framed for terrorism and on the run in a war zone must team up to survive - only problem is they're divorced - and absolutely hate each other, with Mark Sheppard).
Jo’s house is at 4020 Coriolis Loop. Jack’s bunker was previously established to be at 3 Coriolis Loop.
Songs featured in the episode:
FULL PLAYLIST: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXf6ZeVRuFV8&si=kanc9Rl0_Nv6ZhEk
Get the Party Started by P!nk
Eye of the Tiger by Survivor
I Melt With You by Sugarcult (Continuity error lists the original Modern English version)
I Shot the Sheriff by Bob Marley & The Wailers
Why Can’t We Be Friends by War
Burning Down the House by Talking Heads (referenced only)
And She Was by Talking Heads (referenced only)
Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads (referenced only)
Bad Boys by Inner Circle (referenced only)
99 Red Balloons / 99 Luftballons by Nena (referenced only)
Hips Don't Lie by Shakira (ft. Wyclef Jean) (referenced only)
Further Playlist:
There are a couple of visual effects errors; the songs and artists are on the wrong labeled columns, and later they click on I Melt With You by Modern English but the cover opens.
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