Eureka S1E3

This episode opens with Jack, Jo, and Henry outside of Café Diem, the local watering hole, clearly preparing for a confrontation. They enter and approach Shady Guy sitting at a table. The look on Shady Guy’s face implies he is not surprised to see them. Jack places a hand on the guy’s shoulder with a ‘you’ll have to come with us.’ Then,

FLASH

Shady Guy is gone, Henry is nursing a bullet hole in his arm, and Jack has a gun in his hand. No one can remember what happened.

We then jump back to 24 hours earlier. Jack walks into Café Diem where Henry is entertaining a couple of old friends. Henry stands up to introduce everyone (and we all know where this is going) the guy across from Henry turns around to hold a hand out to Jack. It’s Shady Guy!

Dun

Dun

Dun

Henry’s old friends Jason and Kim (Shady Guy and his wife) are in town for a project they are working on. They have a demonstration to give the military and they are on the clock. Henry steps in to help, working with Kim on some of the math.

But strange things start happening. Henry and Kim get stuck. Deciding it’s time for a break, Henry picks up an empty coffee pot. Then, Jason walks in and solves the equation Henry and Kim have been stuck on. Henry steps back, amazed, and burns his hand on the pot full of hot coffee. Only Henry doesn’t remember actually making the coffee. Jack finds himself in the middle of the street. His ticket book is in his hand, but there’s no car and he doesn’t remember pulling anyone over.

Jack, Jo, and Henry figure out these gaps in their memories all have some connection to Jason. They go to confront him in Café Diem, bringing us back to where we started. Only, now we get to see what happens. Jason has a device that can erase the short-term memories of everyone in the room. Of course, Jack, Jo, and Henry forget this revelation. And so do all the witnesses in the café. All they know is, for some reason, Jack shot Henry. They do still realize something weird is going on. Why on Earth would Jack shoot Henry and neither of them remember it happening? The investigation continues.

It turns out that, for years, Jason has been using this device to make it look like he is making scientific breakthroughs that were actually made by someone else (most often his wife, Kim). He makes people forget their moments of inspiration then swoops in, copies their solution to the puzzle, and passes it off as his own.

What irks me about this episode:

This is one of those plots that only works if you don’t look at it too closely. It takes a few days for these strange gaps in memory to raise the suspicions of Jack and Henry. Sure, they are then made to forget their suspicions, but the weirdness still nags at them. At the same time, we are supposed to believe this has been going on for something like fifteen or twenty years and Jason has been getting away with it.

Was there never someone in the room to witness the breakthrough of a colleague who maybe then stepped out before Jason had a chance to wield his memory wiping device? Wouldn’t they come back later and say, ‘Wait a second, Jason didn’t come up with that. I was there, it was So-and-So.’

Was there never any record of these ideas coming from someone else, an email chain perhaps? A phone call or text that Jason couldn’t make disappear?

Did no one, Kim especially, ever question these frequent gaps in recall? You’d think it would lead to concerns about some kind of dementia.

What I like about this episode:

Lack of plausibility aside, there is something fundamentally unsettling about gaps in memory which makes for a compelling story. Ever been reminded of something you did while out drinking and then have a vague sense of the memory come back to you, only it doesn’t feel entirely real? Or it doesn’t come back to you at all, which is even worse. I enjoy a drink or two, but I didn’t have to experience memory loss very many times to decide that getting that drunk was sooo not worth it.

The idea that someone could remove bits and pieces of my memory as it suited them is disturbing enough that I found I could easily ignore the part of my brain saying ‘this doesn’t make sense because…’ and keep watching the episode. The effect these lapses have on the characters, and how they interact with each other as a result, is compelling on its own. For example, Henry and Kim have obvious affection for each other, but neither can remember why a relationship between them never worked out. It’s also one of those episodes where you can’t wait for the bad guy to get his comeuppance.