Purple Haze:
Written by:
Story by : Andrew Cosby & Jaime Paglia
Teleplay by : Johanna Stokes
Directed by: David Straiton
Original airdate: September 19, 2006
Airing number: 10
Synopsis:
Seth works on his necrosomnium violacea plants, part of his grant work, using a drone to fertilize them and playing Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries on loudspeakers to stimulate their growth. Unfortunately the music has been keeping Fargo awake at night and he has decided to call Jack to deal with the situation, who tells Seth to stop playing the music past 6pm, a solution that is still less than ideal for Fargo. In fact, when Fargo later heads to bed, he is startled to hear Seth blasting the music once again, leaving him to trespass onto the property to cut the speaker wires. Seth comes after him, but before they can do anything, both men end up passing out.
Stark has dinner with Allison and they have a great time until he brings up work and asks her to move up their timeline and change their safety protocols to get a sample of the artifact. Allison is immediately turned off by the shift from pleasure to business. Stark leaves but while driving home passes out in his car while Allison does the same at home, along with all the residents of Eureka.
The next morning, Allison wakes up late to a call from Stark and she hangs up on him, saying she’ll be in when she feels like it. Henry, working on Eureka’s new cell tower, is short with Jack when he passes by and makes conversation, getting angry at having to explain everything. When Jack makes it to work, Jo is in a very peasant mood, with her hair down, and suggesting they go out dancing later in the evening. Seth shows up and accuses Fargo of attacking him, leaving Jack to go find him. Fargo admits to trespassing and vandalism and Jack starts to take him into jail when Stark stops him, claiming he is needed at work. Allison sides with Jack which causes Stark to get jealous and Allison happily encourages anyone to make a move on her as they continue to argue, eventually resulting in Allison quitting. Jack puts Fargo in a cell with Seth who was arrested by Jo after he tried to burn down Fargo’s house.
Allison meets with Beverly during her lunch break and dumping her problems on her, which leaves Beverly to get angry and telling her to just make a choice and do what she wants, telling her that she is sick of listening to everyone’s problems.
Back at Global Dynamics, Stark is working to convince Dr. Glazer to help him get past the security codes but he is hesitant, claiming their safety protocols were put into place by Stark himself. He dismisses Glazer to attempt it himself.
Jack goes to find Allison who has decided she wants Jack and undresses to try and entice him but Jack is the perfect gentleman and tries to let her down easy, knowing something is going on.
Jack tries to find Henry for help but he’s angry and drunk and refuses to help. After Vincent attacks a customer, he has Jo arrest him, and Jack asks the residents if they’ve had similar experiences with a blackout and after seeing they all have, and are also all on their phones, deduces that something must be going on with the new cell tower. He goes to dismantle it and gets help from Taggart who is more than happy to destroy it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to stop anyone from making more impulsive decisions. Beverly goes online and starts revealing all of her patients' secrets to the town media player. Jack shows up to stop her, but Allison has also shown up and the two women start fighting, with Allison even getting ahold of Jack’s gun and escalating things until Jack manages to disarm her and secure both of them to various objects in the room.
Jack returns home to Zoe and after seeing that they are the only two not affected, they decide, with help from SARAH, that Seth’s plants are hybrids that bloom at night and cause pollen to be released that has been affecting people. Jack heads back out to bring down the plants but Taggart stops him, choosing nature over machines again, but Jack manages to one up him and get ahold of his flame thrower again and Taggart runs off as Jack torches the fields.
As the effects of the pollen wears off, Allison and Beverly apologize and she commends Jack for not taking advantage and returns to work. She finds Stark trying to break into the artifact but manages to talk him down from his obsession and stop.
Jack goes onto the Eureka live stream and explains what happened and hands it off to Henry who surprises everyone by saying he has decided to leave Eureka.
Advanced Research:
We’ve seen David Straiton before, he directed Dawson’s Creek S04E016 “Mind Games,” and Heroes S04E01 “Orientation/Jump, Push, Fall.”
When watching this episode in production order, it is best to skip the scene from 4:15-5:15 where Allison and Nathan eat dinner together. The scene was likely added to create consistency with this episode airing later in the season when Allison is more aware of The Artifact and the events of “Invincible” which aired as episode 5 instead of directly after this episode. This does create another continuity error, as Allison states later in the episode that she doesn’t know what it is that Stark is obsessed with in Section 5.
There is an inconsistency with the texture of the rear wall of the jail cell, appearing completely different as brick in this episode.
Invincible:
Written by: Dan E. Fesman
Directed by: Michael Grossman
Original airdate: August 15, 2006
Airing number: 5
Synopsis:
Allison tries to get Jack to have his physical but he avoids it by deciding to go check up on a repeat 911 caller named Carl Carlson. He’s surprised to see Jack, expecting Sheriff Cobb who would often give him a drive to work on special days. Beverly co-opts Jack to drive him in, as Carlson demonstrates his phobia of germs by covering the sheriff’s car seat with plastic and scanning for bacteria. Once they arrive at Global Dynamics, Jack again uses Carlson by following him to his lab in order to avoid Alison trying to get him to take his physical again. As Carlson prepares his experiment, having to do with regenerative properties found within reptiles, his lab lizard distracts him which causes a whole vial of liquid to be poured into the centrifuge, causing it to explode. Both he and Jack appear fine but the incident leaves Stark to fire him, relieved since the man has not contributed anything in the last six years.
Allison slaps a monitoring patch on Jack to monitor his vitals, an automatic way to get his physical done. Jack offers to let Carlson stay at his hermetically sealed bunker, given his extreme fear of germs but later, Carlson calls Jack from a local bridge, leading Jack to rush out to find him. He pleads with Carlson to not jump, but the man is despondent having lost his work. Eventually Jack convinces him to not jump and tries to help him back over the railing but Carlson slips and the two men fall 50 feet down. Carlson gets up with a few bruises and scratches but walks away. Allison calls Jack since she saw his vitals spike, but he says he’s ok and gets up to try and find the missing scientist.
Elsewhere, Beverly talks with a holographic image and explains that they have found someone else to take Carlson’s place to try and infiltrate section 5.
Fargo, in charge of discovering why the experiment exploded, reports to Stark that a combination of a magnetic disturbance and atomic particles were found in the lab that seem to have originated from another lab, the one containing the artifact.
Carlson goes to Henry who lets him use his bathroom to clean up his cuts and scrapes, but when he goes to do so, he sees them heal on their own. He gets scared and runs off to Cafe Diem, feeling a renewed sense of self, and drinks a beer that was just sitting out, and then talking to Beverly and kissing her before leaving. He sees Stark and confronts him, and while Stark is dismissive, once he and Jack see Carlson stab his hand and the wound heals up, they take him back to Global Dynamics to figure out what happened. Carlson begins working on trying to perfect the formula but fails, learning that his cells seem to be regenerating.
Allison goes to Jack’s place and takes the patch back, confirming he passed his physical and helps him bandage his hurt ribs before they both pass out on his bed that has a special foam mattress that Fargo was developing. She rushes off in the morning to work with Jack following close behind. Stark notices Allison is still wearing the same clothes as the day before but she plays it off. Carlson, frustrated with his lack of progress, in a fit of rage, makes a tray of cells go flying against a wall without touching them.
Henry does some research and realizes from scans of Carlson that he is now somehow using 100% of his brain as posted to the standard 10%. When they go to see Carlson, he shows them a drawing he has been making that looks like the artifact, surprising Stark. Carlson starts to sense Stark’s thoughts about it, realizing that he just wants to study him. He causes a table to move between him and the two men and he leaves. Carlson goes to Beverly but he senses her thoughts about using him to get into Section 5 and leaves after making her lights explode.
Stark, Jack and Allison, along with a number of soldiers, try to apprehend him but he uses his powers and accidentally shoots Jack with them. They rush him to Global Dynamics, with Carlson saying he can help him. He takes Jack to the lab door outside of Section 5 and uses the artifact with his own powers to heal Jack. As Stark takes Jack out to the infirmary, Carlson closes the door and walks into the room containing the artifact, claiming he is ready to know what it is as the door shuts behind him, leaving Stark frustrated, obsessed with the artifact’s secrets.
Advanced Research:
Michael Grossman directed the Firefly episode “Safe.”
Saul Rubinek was Carl Carlson. He’s a working actor, many mostly one off appearances but was a lead in Warehouse 13 playing Artie Nielsen. Some of the shows he’s been in are Star Trek The Next Generation, Frasier, Lost, Law and Order, Stargate, Psych, and The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel to name a few. He’s a solid performer also appearing in movies in supporting roles as in The Bonfire of the Vanities, True Romance, and Nixon. He was born in a refugee camp in Germany in 1948 with his family immigrating to Canada where he got his start in acting.
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