Many Happy Returns:
Written by: Andrew Cosby & Jaime Paglia
Directed by: Jefery Levy
Original airdate: July 25, 2006
Synopsis:
The town of Eureka buries Walter and Susan Perkins but while walking away from the cemetery, flashes of light appear accompanied by a dark figure appearing in and out surrounded by a white aura. Jack, getting back in his car, is surprised when the car goes haywire, radios, horns and sirens going on and off and then stopping as quickly as they started.
Back at the jail, Jack desperately tries to get his stuff which was lost on his move to Eureka when he and Lupo are interrupted by a very much alive Susan Perkins entering the building, asking for Walter. She explains how she came to town when her parents received a call that she had died. She explains how she and Walter split up years ago when Walter decided to move to Eureka and she didn’t want to go.
Allison explains that if they dig up Susan’s grave, they can use a special machine they have to compare the two Susans and find out if they are in fact the same person, although they do need to get permission from the new head of research, Nathan Stark, who also happens to be her estranged husband, recently returned to Eureka.
Jack ends up staying at an old abandoned bunker that Fargo redesigned into a smart home, controlled by an AI voice called SARAH, complete with a voice that sounds oddly similar to Fargo‘s, albeit feminine.
The next day, the scan reveals that both Susans are identical, and it’s revealed that Walter was working on stem cell research which allowed him to recreate an exact replica of Susan, aged up to 30 even though physically her tissues are no more than 7 years old.
Nathan confronts Jack about his interest in his wife but Jack shuts the conversation down. He then tells Jack about an incident he experienced the previous night where he thought he saw a dark figure in the labs that caused the machines to go haywire. Jack also had a similar experience in that there was a power surge in the bunker causing SARAH to go haywire. When they study the security cams from the bunker they see the dark figure recorded on them and manage to identify it.
Meanwhile, Allison has taken Susan to see technically her son, Brian, at school, looking depressed and alone. Susan has stated that she has no intention of getting involved because that isn’t really her son. When the car suddenly goes haywire like Jack’s, they see a dark figure appearing and disappearing where Brian was just standing. Allison recalls that it looks like the many pictures her son Kevin drew after having a nightmare the night before. They follow it into the school gym where the lights and alarms are going crazy as well and Susan steps in front of the dark figure that is approaching Brian. As the figure nears, Jack and company rush in and they can see that the figure is in fact Walter, stuck between seconds due to his experiment. Allison explains they can bring him back through temporal rehabilitation.
Jack asks if Allison thinks that Susan will stay and she hopes that she will. Lupo tries to tell Jack that something has come up but he doesn’t want to hear it until tomorrow, needing time alone. When he returns home, Lupo soon shows up revealing that Zoe has run away from her mother’s again to see him.
Advanced Research:
SARAH (Self-Actuated Residential Automated Habitat) is voiced by actor Neil Grayston. It is mentioned that Fargo recorded SARAH's voice, leading to playful references where Carter asks Fargo if he is "doing a girl voice".
There is an Oregon State Flag in Jack’s office. This is the first instance placing Eureka in Oregon and not Washington as previously established. Further reference will corroborate this throughout the show.
Nathan Stark was played by Ed Quinn. Previously he was best known for playing lead as President Hunter Franklin in The Oval (family and president move into the White House) and a lead in seasons 5 and 6 of Two Broke Girls. He did 11 episodes of the One Day At a Time reboot and 12 episodes of Mistresses (scandalous lives of four girlfriends, 4 seasons).
Blink:
Written by: Andrew Cosby & Jaime Paglia
Directed by: Jefery Levy
Original airdate: August 29, 2006
Airing number: 7
Synopsis:
Jack , Lupo and Taggart investigate a car crash but find a body littered about the scene, something that wasn’t the result of a Bigfoot attack as Taggart tries to imply. Jack calls Allison for assistance when they find an embedded microchip in the body, but due to the protocols she has to inform Stark who calls in his team to override the sheriff and take the body for an internal investigation.
Earlier, Stark met with Fargo and another scientist from Section 5 named Milton, whose team has been working hard on an anti missile shield, ending up with progress far ahead of Fargo‘s team. With a deadline imposed, Fargo and his team resort to a miniature spy fly camera to find out that Milton and his crew are taking a drug to help them make their fantastic progress. Henry comes to the same conclusion after he uses a scan he took of the discovered dismembered body, telling Jack that whoever would be using a drug like that would need a massive intake of food. At home, Zoe brings over her boyfriend Dylan who is going to help tutor her, while Jack plays the part of intimidating dad with a gun. While Jack studies his notes and calls Henry to analyze the chemical he got from Fargo, someone rushes in at super speed and steals the bottle back and scrawls a message on the wall to back off.
Jack heads to the Global Dynamics and accuses the guys from level of being behind the death, but Stark needs actual proof, which he gets when Fargo, having stolen Milton’s drug, comes racing into the cafeteria at 588 mph, grabbing food and eating voraciously. Milton and his team are put into solitaire to come down off the drug while Jack waits until they are ready to break and talk. Eventually he confronts Milton with his tape recorder and asks about what happened, eventually getting him to start confessing but as he does, his voice slows down and is reduced to a slow mumble. Speeding up his tape recorder, they find the proof they need, including the number of people involved with an altered version of the drug, MPH, one of which is Dylan who had access to the drug as well.
Allison confronts Stark about the drug, concerned because her son Kevin is in a study for his autism, and was possibly in the group that revived the drug as well. Shark reveals to her that Kevin is in the placebo group and that any progress he has made is because of her.
Jack and Zoe head out to find Dylan but he finds them instead, pulling Jack from the car at superspeed and confronting him. Zoe manages to stop the car safely and join them. Dylan reveals that he was the one who cooked up the drug and attacks Jack several times before he manages to take the boy down with a baseball he had even screwed around since trying to get the town interested in creating a baseball team earlier in the day.
Back at Global Dynamics, Stark calls someone and requests a new Section 5 study to work on the altered form of MPH.
Later, the town takes part in a baseball game with Jack, however, they use special glasses and bats to play a holographic version, with Jack hitting a fly ball and getting called out while Allison hits a major home run.
Advanced Research:
This episode's events are out of sequence with other plot lines. This was done to put stronger episodes earlier in the season to attract more viewers. The creators were able to make minor changes through edits and they redubbed dialogue in later episodes (for instance, they removed the explicit mention of Zoe's first day at school) to minimize audience confusion.
Fargo makes reference to Nancy Kerrigan when talking to Stark about competition. She was a figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. Assailant Shane Stant struck her in the leg with a baton to break her knee, a plot planned by rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, to prevent her from competing in the 1994 Winter Olympics.
The licence plate on Jack’s cruiser is DSG-384. Disuccinimidyl glutarate (often called DSG) is a chemical tool used in research laboratories, particularly in biology and chemistry, to glue molecules together, specifically proteins and peptides.
The drug referenced in the trial is Methylphenidrate Hydrochloride (MPH). This medication is one letter different from the generic name for the ADHD medications Ritalin and Concerta, its generic name is Methylphenidate Hydrochloride.
A double-blind study is a rigorous clinical research design where neither the participants nor the researchers know who is receiving a particular treatment or a placebo. This method, often considered the "gold standard," prevents bias by ensuring that participant expectations and researcher behavior do not influence the results.
You won’t find any credible source about Gigantopithecus Americanus, however Gigantopithecus Blacki was the largest known ape to have existed, standing roughly 10 feet tall and weighing up to 660 lbs, inhabiting Southeast Asia from 2 million to 300,000 years ago.
Zoe’s nose piecing has switched sides from the pilot.
Mach 5 is 3700 mph
Carter's Car Totals:
Many Happy Returns
Car electrics messed up twice
Blink
Unknown possibility but we're not counting it
Total 3
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