Eureka Recap: Phased and Confused

As is often the case these days, things begin at Cafe Diem. Lexi is busy recycling the garbage while Fargo and Chuck, who’s in charge of Eureka’s recycling program fawn over her.

Lexi has convinced Zoe she should leave school for three days to go learn yoga. Sheriff Carter’s not having any of that nonsense, leaving Lexi and Zoe furious with him. Meanwhile, The Fixer Eva Thorne and Zane are breaking the code on her super-secret project. It turns out the cryptex opens a mountain fortress of some kind. I want a mountain fortress! Or not, can you imagine the property taxes on one of those things?

In a development that must surely be related Zoe and two of her friends find a mysterious hole in the wall at their school. Yes folks, within the course of a few seconds not one, two or three but five people walk into mysterious holes in walls. Have any of these people lived in Eureka for very long?

Meanwhile, Lexi has got herself trapped in a force field as she was trying to find the recycling center. Why would a hippie move to the most super-scientific place on Earth again? There’s no need to fear because.. dah dah dah, Captain Eureka is here! This guy looks pretty goofy, nice job to whoever costumed him. He tries to turn off the security system but makes it worse, adding lasers to the force field crunch. He does eventually sort of save the day, but not before trashing the roof of Jack’s sheriff car.

Lexi goes to the hospital where the guys are still fawning over her. Wonder if they’ll feel that way after finding out she is not only pregnant, but hasn’t informed the father? Now Carter has to talk to Eureka’s flight expert, who did work on the “Skywalker 2000″ boots. Nice Star Wars reference, guys. They also slip in an “It’s a Bird, It’s A Plane” in joke. But those boots were scrapped and the scientist hasn’t left the lab all day, crossing him off the Captain Eureka suspect list.

Allison explains that all scientists deep down want to be superheroes, and even reveals that as a kid she wanted to be Wonder Woman. Um, stop the other storyline right now, I want to hear more about Salli Richardson’s Wonder Woman obsession. Like everything. Fargo has yet another Eureka prototype gadget for Carter, a phone that goes right into your brain. He’s creeped out as I would be. Carter only has to speak the name of the person he wants to call and in theory it will reach them.

But it wouldn’t be Eureka if the phone worked the way it was supposed to. Lexi and Carter pass a rocket-fuel leak and call Henry for advice. He suggests they call Zane, but Carter’s brain phone accidentally causes a spark that starts a fire. Here comes Captain Eureka with a gadget that puts out the fire, but completely trashes Jack’s car. They’re not getting along.

Meanwhile Zane runs into Zoe and her gang, one of whom accidentally turns on the security system locking them all inside the secret facility with little air. They use their cellphones to send a numerical signal to Carter.

Carter, figuring out that our would-be hero has a crush on Lexi, tries to trap him by starting a rumor that Lexi’s hurt and blames the Captain. He shows up but walks right through the trap using his phasing power. But he doesn’t make it all the way through, leaving a finger behind. Allison tells Carter the discarded gadgets are recycled, leading him to realize Chuck is Captain Eureka.

Chuck’s already phased into a wall and can’t get out. That gadget was discarded for a reason. The user begins phasing uncontrollably, eventually falling apart. Also, Lexi can’t find Zoe and Carter realizes the numeric message was for him, it was Zoe’s birthday and the latitude and longitude of her location.

But there’s 20-foot thick titanium walls in the facility, meaning Jack will have to wear the defective phasing suit and hope they can fix him later. He gets through all four walls but now he phases uncontrollably and can’t turn the power back on. Luckily, he still has brain phone and uses its spark to restart the system. Go, go, defective Eureka gadget!

Carter and The Fixer face off, and Thorne still won’t say what she’s up to. Carter isn’t letting it drop though. We end with Thorne in the secret lab with a computer chip of some sort. It’s OK, Thorne, Carter will just end up having to save you and the rest of the town later.

Pictured: Ever Carradine as Lexi Carter — SCI FI Channel Photo: Liane Hentscher