Eureka, Season 5, Episode 9, “Smarter Carter”
Written by Paula Yoo and Ed Fowler
Directed by Alexandra La Roche
Airs Mondays at 9pm ET on SyFy
“Smarter Carter” showcases two of the most entertaining characters on Eureka, Jack and Deputy Andy, as they each deal with personality-changing issues.
Allison’s brother visits town to meet her new husband, Jack. Since there is a high standard of intelligence in Allison’s family, her son Kevin finds a way to make Jack more intelligent to impress his uncle. The zeta waves in Jack’s brain (another aftereffect of the Matrix) cause the temporary fix to become permanent while wiping away his emotions. This storyline gives Colin Ferguson a third opportunity this season to play out of character and show off his acting chops. Ferguson shouldn’t be out of work for long after Eureka, which he’s been working on since 2006, comes to an end in a few weeks.
While Jack has a super brain, he develops a more powerful processor and installs it into his robot deputy. Andy, who is normally very chipper and nice due to his emotion programming, becomes power hungry (literally) and loses emotions (like Jack) while draining all the power out of Eureka. There is a great scene in which Andy goes to the Sheriff’s smart house to drain its power source and in the dark lighting he shows an incredibly creepy persona. This is a call back to the season premiere when the virtual Andy in the Matrix was evil and gave off a similar vibe. Kavan Smith continues to be the most underrated and underutilized actor on the show. Not only is he entertaining as Andy, he can convincingly pull off being an artificial being with semi-emotions.
It seems the Holly story arc will be coming to a close soon as Zane and Henry are getting closer to finding the solution. With only four episodes left, there are expectations for multiple episodes to be dedicated to the Beverly Barlowe storyline. The writers were originally planning on one more season, but since the episode order was shortened and the series is ending sooner they may feel rushed and struggle to successfully find closure. Beverly has been a concern to the people of Eureka for a long time. When last seen, she helped them save the imprisoned Astraeus crew, but she is still in hiding. What would be most satisfactory is to find out more background on the Consortium and the purpose of their existence. There have been many story arcs that bring trouble to Eureka, but none have lingered as much as Beverly and her mysterious plans.
The quality of this season seems to be following a similar path of many shows, premiering strong, reaching a lull in the middle of the season, and then ramping back up to an eventually incredible finale. Eureka is now in the ramping up process and the episodes appear to be getting more exciting each week. Though they may have been rushed to find closure, the writers will probably find an ending that will make their fans proud.
-Christopher Laplante