Written by: Amy Berg
Directed by: Chris Fisher
Original airdate: August 27, 2010
Synopsis:
Beverly talks with Grant, reminding him of the group that he and her father Adam Barlow started that has grown now into thousands of followers dedicated to keeping watch over scientific developments in order to control their progress and avoid another repeat of the creation of nuclear weapons. She tells him that their latest concern is a directed EMP device or DED that is due to be tested at GD.
Meanwhile Jack, Allison, Jo and Zoe are having a barbecue at Henry and Grace’s house when Grant finally arrives. Henry and Grace show off her PTSD therapy devices, adapted now for the two of them, allowing them to share their memories through them. Suddenly a power surge causes the radio to turn off with a spark but otherwise everything seems fine.
At GD, Fargo and Zane test the DED with Mansfield watching and it successfully works but afterwards there is a transient anomaly from one of the couplings that goes off and knocks Fargo for a loop. Mansfield tells them to fix it and be ready for the next test in a week.
Jack flirts with Allison but is called away by Deputy Andy. Allison watches him leave when suddenly Tess appears from behind and admonishes her angrily for dating Jack.
Jo sits at Cafe Diem and is confronted by Zane who comes on to her and tells her he is calling off his flirtation with Zoe before leaving suddenly.
At the DaVinci Bridge, Andy tells Jack he’s been hearing something odd when the bridge starts to suddenly collapse under their feet. They manage to escape and Jack takes Andy back to the sheriff’s office so he can repair himself. When they arrive, Jack is surprised to see Nathan Stark sitting at his desk. Nathan tells Jack that he was floating around in space-time after dematerializing until a GD experiment went wrong and managed to pull him back in. He manages to convince Jack he’s actually there by hitting him and then heads off to find Allison as Jack, confused, tries to help Andy, who had collapsed.
Fargo meets with Jo who is giving a tour to a group of gifted students when Mansfield comes over and speaks over Fargo in a show of manhood and control. One of the students asks Fargo how he can allow him to speak to him like that.
Grant goes to Allison and asks about the DED, pointing out that it is a weapon even if they aren’t calling it that. She tells him that they have to do some work for the military, in order to be able to also work on scientific projects that can help mankind.
Jack confides in Henry that Stark has returned, but Henry is disbelieving, laughing about it. As they talk about how Nathan could actually have been pulled back, Allison calls and tells him that she needs to talk. When he arrives at Café Diem, Jack sees Allison sitting with Nathan. Jack wants to leave but Allison convinces him to stay so they can clear the air and Allison watches as he takes a seat next to Tess. Vincent comes over and asks what he can get for the two of them. His question makes them realize that Nathan and Tess are not actually there, but are hallucinations. Suddenly a loud noise outside draws their attention and they see Jack’s jeep, crushed.
Zoe prepares to go hang out with Zane. He shows up and Jo tells him to please go easy on her but he’s confused and just leaves with her.
Back at GD, Grant finds anomalous readings in the DEDs energy and suggests they dismantle the whole project, seeing that it is already shut down and still showing signs of problems. Mansfield refuses and tells Grant to leave, since he doesn’t really belong there being a historian. Fargo sees one of the students from the tour still hanging out and goes to confront her, taking her to see Jo who says she’s in the middle of something with Zane but he points out that he can’t see Zane and she realizes she can’t see the young girl, Jessica Lansky, Fargo’s fifth grade bully.
MRI scans show that they are all fine except their brains do show signs of increased gamma activity. They realize that they were all together at Henry’s barbecue, and reasons that the power surge they experienced could have amplified his and Grace’s neural implants, causing the others’ minds to create a link with someone from their memories, resulting in the hallucinations. They reason that in order to get rid of them, they need to deal with their fears and issues with those people. Before they can act however, the garage begins shaking and the roof caves in much the same manner that the bridge and jeep did. They head off to try and find an acoustic oscillator that could be responsible for the occurrences.
Grant goes to meet Beverly again and sees his old friend, Adam Barlowe, Beverly’s father. She convinces Grant that the machine needs to be shut down and gives him a security code.
Henry and Zane can find no trace of the oscillator so they decide to try a dampening field to control the DED’s energy buildup which is nearing critical and will fry all electronics in Eureka. Jack investigates the bridge again and is confused why the bridge was affected first instead of GD. Together, he and hallucination Stark work out that the original event must have been at the barbecue and every event since then has been moving towards GD.
The DED dampening field doesn’t work as Zane and Fargo work on a different section of the computer to fix it, leaving Grant alone with his hallucination of Adam who prompts him to enter Beverly’s security code in order to turn the dampening field off. When he does he is hit by an electrical surge from another resonance event and heads off to the infirmary. Mansfield shows up and orders them to prepare the DED for removal, not wanting to risk destroying every project at GD. Fargo and Henry argue that it doesn’t matter where they take it, because whatever is targeting the machine can hit it from anywhere but Mansfield is adamant. Jo gives Fargo a pep talk about deserving the job he’s in and to ignore the little girl’s insults.
Jack brings Allison a frequency detector from Henry to try and find the oscillator and eventually they track it down in the woods. Jack goes to shoot it, but it suddenly shuts down. Jack realizes that maybe the device was just a distraction. Alison calls Jo and they realize that the DED was ambushed while being transported, and stolen.
Back at GD, the group discusses things and they realize that there must be a mole inside of the company helping whoever stole the machine. As Fargo looks at the computer data, they find traces of Zane’s handiwork.
Mansfield shows up to reprimand Fargo, but Fargo fights back, telling Mansfield that he gave him his recommendation and it was ignored. He adds that he has already filed a report with the Department of Defense. Mansfield leaves, knowing that he’s been outplayed. With that move, Fargo’s hallucination disappears
Zane goes to Jo wanting to talk about something but she interrupts him and tells him that she’s done romanticizing their relationship, and if he wants to be with Zoe then he should go do that. She hands him back the ring that he proposed to her with in the original timeline, and he is shocked that she has it, asking why she has his grandmother’s ring. Jack comes in to take Zane away for questioning and Jo, shaken, realizes that the Zane she just talked to was not the hallucination, but this timeline’s actual Zane.
Back at home, Jack defends Zane to Allison, reasoning that this isn’t the type of thing that Zane normally gets involved in, despite his shady past. They both decide to sit and talk about their issues. Allison tells Jack that she’s afraid of how the relationship they are starting could end given her past relationships. Jack understands and asks her if she is too scared to miss out on them. Jack tells her that he has been head over heels in love with her since the day they met and the two kiss, ready to move forward together as their hallucinations disappear.
Grant confronts Beverly and realizes he was used by her to get the machine. She tells him they didn’t steal the weapon to use it as a weapon, but for its power source. She shows him a new bridge device they created in order to send Grant back to his time and really change the world.
