All That Glitters:
Written by: Thania St. John
Directed by: Michael Grossman
Original airdate: September 25, 2007
Synopsis:
Shoppers in downtown Eureka are startled when a decorative iron statue of Pythagoras suddenly turns to pure gold. Jack’s investigation eventually leads him to Christopher Dactylos, the statue's egotistical artist. Dactylos gives Carter an odd lecture about medieval alchemists and their dreams of turning metal into gold, before he retreats into his underground laboratory.
More objects downtown begin to turn golden, including utensils at Café Diem and even a bracelet that Zoe's boyfriend, Lucas, just gave her. Although some people think the town has hit the jackpot, Henry discovers that the metal is changing composition because of a bizarre quasi-bacterial infestation. He warns that, as load-bearing steel beams turn into softer gold, buildings will collapse. Worse, the bacteria soon mutates, becoming a strain that corrodes gold until there's nothing left but a rusty shell, putting Eureka's entire infrastructure in danger.
Jack and Henry trace the bacteria's origin to Zoe's bracelet. Lucas tells Jack that he made the bracelet in an advanced art class at Dactylos's studio. Jack again confronts Dactylos, who admits that he has tested ancient alchemical procedures on metal in his studio. By making Zoe's bracelet out of that special metal, Lucas unwittingly unleashed the Alchemist's Curse: a metal-based plague that tricks its maker into believing he has succeeded in creating gold, only to betray the user by mutating into progressively more dangerous forms.
While Carter is distracted by the crisis, Henry, Stark and Allison intensify their obsessive, secret and conflicting quests to understand the mysterious artifact that killed Henry's beloved Kim and gave Allison's son Kevin his special powers. Stark uses his covert connections to sneak Beverly Barlowe back into town, hoping that she can be persuaded to share her knowledge of the artifact.
Allison, Stark and finally even Henry talk to Beverly privately. She tricks them into revealing their secrets to her, stokes their mistrust of each other and demands ethically questionable favors in exchange for her knowledge.
For now, Jack needs Henry and Stark to help defeat the Alchemist's Curse (which they suspect may also have ties to the artifact). As the metal corrosion is becoming catastrophic, the massive Global Dynamics edifice itself is groaning and shaking, near collapse. Although Stark contrives an antibody with help from Kevin, and Jack crawls into the unstable building crawl space to administer it, Henry reveals later to Jack that the bacteria has mutated again, this time into something that targets people. An angry Henry confronts Alison, bringing Beverly along but before she can react, the building goes into an automatic lockdown as the new mutated bacteria is detected, trapping Carter, Beverley, Henry, Allison, and Stark inside.
Advanced Research:
Christopher Dactylos was played by Michael Shanks, best known for his role of Daniel Jackson in Stargate. He was seen in Smallville as Hawkman, a movie called Escape from Mars (scientists travel to Mars and just survive against what the planet has in store for them, with Allison Hossack, vet from previous episode), a few TV movies like Under the Mistletoe, and MegaSnake. He was the lead in the 8 episodes Canadian series Unspeakable, about the emergence of HIV and Hepatitis C in Canada in the early '80s and the tragedy that followed when thousands were unnecessarily infected by tainted blood. He is currently in a Netflix movie called Time Cut (high school student accidentally travels back to 2003 and decides to stop the serial killer who murdered her sister).
A Night at Global Dynamics:
Written by: Jaime Paglia
Directed by: Michael Lange
Original airdate: October 2, 2007
Synopsis:
Following Henry's announcement that the Alchemist's Curse contagion has mutated into deadly flesh-eating bacteria, the Global Dynamics defense computer kicks into action, locking some people in and keeping others out. It transforms Allison's office into a panic room by lowering it far below the Earth's surface and sealing it off completely. The four people in the office — Allison, her son Kevin, Henry and Beverly— are trapped together.
Having glimpsed Beverly, Jack demands that Stark stop keeping secrets and explain what's going on. Stark reveals that Kevin has been mentally enhanced but physically weakened by the mysterious artifact from. If Stark can't break the link between the boy and the artifact, Kevin will die so in desperation, Stark took custody of Beverly from the DoD to help him.
Donning protective suits, Jack, Taggart and Stark hurry into the heart of the Global Dynamics complex, hoping to reach Allison, while at a remote computer terminal at Jack's house, Fargo and Zane guide them through the locked-down building. After they survive contamination scares and attacks from the defense computer, they discover the truth: Henry lied and there is no flesh eating bacteria.
Inside the panic room, Beverly tells her she works with a consortium of people who have the world’s best interests in mind and want to protect and care for Kevin, preventing him from being a lab rat for his entire life.
Henry reveals that they can escape using a Subatomic Reconstructive Transport, or S.R.T., which can teleport a person out of Global. Allison is reluctant to send her son through the untested machine, especially after Beverly endorses the idea, but Kevin is weakening so Allison must let Henry try, but not before she gets into a fist fight again with Beverly because… reasons? Allison gets the upper hand when Henry comes in and wants to explain, with Kevin backing him up.
Stark guesses Henry's plan, but says that the process filters out impurities, and while it COULD disconnect Kevin from the artifact,
Henry needs to use Kevin’s original unaltered DNA in order to be successful. With help from Fargo and Zane, Jack and Stark manage to survive more of the building’s defenses while Taggart leads other survivors to safety, even overcoming the computer’s attempts to trick them.
Henry says he was fooling Beverly, realizing that the alchemy formula could help Stark and Allison to separate Kevin from the field, however he cautions that his autism will likely return. Beverly confronts them, begging them to not disconnect him, but Henry is insistent. Beverly pulls a knife on him but Jack and Stark show up just in time to capture her at gunpoint. Stark informs Henry about the need to use the original DNA, and blames Henry for keeping secrets instead of coming to him, but Henry says nuh uh, it’s your fault. Regardless, Allison provides the DNA file she was given long ago by Stark and they send Kevin through. He appears in the next room safely transported.
Jo convinces the General to not use thermal cleaning to destroy all organic material in the building while Fargo and Zane work together to gain access to the building’s systems and reset it, finally succeeding. Beverly escapes by using the teleporter.
Stark later asks Allison to marry him again while Henry takes the blame for the entire incident, turning himself over to the DoD.
Advanced Research:
Sean Millington has around 50 credits to his name, all primarily guards, security officers, and slaves. He was featured prominently in a 21 Jump Street episode as an athlete who is accused of drug use, stars Kareem Abdul Jabar.
Before opening the door to the morgue, which he believes could potentially be filled with "zombies," Taggert melodramatically says "You want every single second." Matt Frewer, who plays Taggert, starred in Dawn of the Dead (2004) where his character's dying words are "You want every single second."
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