Eureka S1E2
Despite my comment in last week’s post on Episode One, about Eureka being a light-hearted science fiction show, Eureka has its sobering moments. Episode Two opens on a funeral. The scientist who caused the near disaster in Episode One and his wife (Walter and Susan Perkins) have died leaving their son, Brian, behind.
This is the kind of scene that never used to phase me. Now that I have a kid of my own, thinking about things like how much pain losing both parents would cause a child just about crushes me.
The melancholy is paralleled by Jack feeling guilty about being farther away from his daughter, Zoe, now that he’s taken the job as sheriff in Eureka. He’s struggling to get settled, his stuff hasn’t arrived, and he’s sleeping at the sheriff’s office jail cell while waiting to find a permanent place to stay.
Power surges and electrical disturbances start happening all over town. Susan Perkins walks into the sheriff’s office demanding to know why her parents got an invitation to her funeral. On top of that, people are seeing a non-corporeal figure in the middle of the night.
In the way that can only happen in science fiction, Brian Perkins gets both of his parents back. Sort of. And to cap things off, Zoe shows up to stay with her dad, who now has an AI powered house to live in. The AI in this show is way better than ChatGPT, except it’s a little needy.
What irks me about this episode:
1) There are some inconsistencies with the pilot episode. For example, the aesthetic of Global Dynamics, the facility where all the weird and secret science takes place, has entirely changed. This kind of thing is to be expected, pilot episodes are a kind of beta test, but it’s still a little annoying.
2) Allison Blake’s husband, Nathan Stark, from whom she is separated, comes back to town. The show wastes no time putting Nathan and Jack in a pissing contest with each other. I mean, it makes sense these two would become rivals. Allison is the potential love interest for Jack (don’t hold your breath, it takes a while), but given Jack has been in town for about two seconds and nothing has happened between him and Allison at this point, it’s a bit too high school straight out of the gate. In my humble opinion.
What I like about this episode:
1) It shows the community rallying around Brian. Even when his parents are gone, he is taken care of. I wish in the real world every kid could count on their community like that.
2) This episode starts to develop the characters in some entertaining ways. I particularly like that Henry, the NASA engineer/mechanic/inventor, also turns out to be a certified coroner. Which comes in handy when it’s time to compare the dead Susan Perkins to the living one.