Eureka (2006)/Many Happy Returns

Many Happy Returns
Season 1, Episode 2
Airdate	July 25, 2006
Production Number	102
Written by	Jaime Paglia & Andrew Cosby
Directed by	Jefery Levy
Stream
← 1x01 Pilot	1x03 → Before I Forget
Eureka (2006) — Season One

Many Happy Returns is the second episode of the first season of Eureka.

Following the funeral of Susan and Walter Perkins, Jack is confronted with a clearly alive Perkins who wanders into his office and a series of electrical disturbances which look an awful lot like a ghost.

Starring: Colin Ferguson (Sheriff Jack Carter), Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Allison Blake), Joe Morton (Henry Deacon), Jordan Hinson (Zoe Carter), Ed Quinn (Nathan Stark)

Also Starring: Erica Cerra (Deputy Jo Lupo), Neil Grayston (Douglas Fargo, S.A.R.A.H.), Meshach Peters (Kevin Blake)

And: Debrah Farentino (Beverly Barlowe)

Guest Starring: Jennifer Clement (Susan Perkins), Rob LaBelle (Walter Perkins)

Co-Starring: Zak Ludwig (Brian Perkins)

Plot Overview

At the funeral of Walter and Susan Perkins, a strange electrical disturbance appears like a ghost in the cemetery and briefly hinders Jack from getting back to the sheriff's department. When he gets back, Jack gets a crank call about a ghost. But, when Jo says that there's no such thing as ghosts, the thought recently deceased Susan Perkins appears in the police station, demanding to see Walter. She retains no knowledge of having a child or Walter's death and claims that she left Walter years ago, before he took his secret job in Eureka. To determine whether or not her story is true, Jack and Henry exhume the recently buried Susan and take both versions of her to the Global Dynamics facility to examine their molecular structure.

At Global Dynamics, Jack and Allison meet with Nathan Stark, the new director of research and Allison's husband. While Jack and Allison are at the lab, Jo drives the new Sarah Perkins to her place where she's saying for the time being. On their way, they stop at the Perkins house, where the new Sarah claims that it's exactly what she and Walter designed before they split up. At Allison's house, Brian as been taken in temporarily and given a place to live. Late that night, the same electrical disturbance from the cemetery causes the electrical appliances in Brian's bedroom to go haywire. Meanwhile, at the sheriff's office, Fargo pays Jack a visit and offers him a place to live in what looks like a fallout shelter but turns out to be a "smart house."

At the lab, Jack and Allison run into Allison's husband, Nathan Stark, who has moved back to Eureka. Later that night, Allison has allowed the Perkins' son to stay at her house with her own son. During the night they are waken by a toy which gives off an electrical-like force in their room. Meanwhile Jack is visited by Fargo at the police station who tells him about a project he has been working on. He takes him to what looks like a shack from the outside, but when they go downstairs in turns out that Fargo has built a house run by artificial intelligence named SARAH.

The next day, Allison finds her son making charcoal pictures of a shadowy man, presumably the figure from the cemetery. Later, they put the two Susans into the molecular scanner to determine whether or not they are the same person. Henry tells Jack and Allison that both Susans are the absolutely identical and that Walter rebuilt his wife cell by cell using his research in stem cell replication. Late that night, Nathan faces yet another electrical disturbance that caused an electrolyte imbalance. The next day, he tells Jack that he saw a figure that Jack describes as a ghost. Jack and Henry go to see Fargo about replaying the surveillance tape of his bedroom, on which they see the same "figure." Henry agrees to attempt to find the frequency of the "ghost" using his remote control.

Meanwhile, Allison attempts to convince the real Susan to accept her responsibility as a parent, even though she didn't give birth to Brian. The ghost appears again outside of the school and starts to wreck havoc in the gym. Susan realizes that the "figure" is actually Walter. Jack brings him back to the lab where Walter is stabilized in a machine that slowly brings him back into his native time stream. When Jack gets home, he finds that his house won't open the door until he apologizes for not coming home for dinner on time. Just when he thinks he finds some time for himself, Zoe shows up at his door wanting to know where her room is.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Espionage: Beverly briefly appears twice, once to stalk the new Susan Perkins and again to tell Nathan that Walter doesn't remember anything before the accident, leaving her safe to plot her next move.

Characters

• Susan: The real Susan Perkins comes to Eureka and decides, despite her desires to go back to her normal life, to pick up where the deceased clone left off and raise her son with Walter.

• Zoe: Jack's daughter, Zoe, ran away from home in order to live with her father in Eureka.

Referbacks

• 1x01 - Pilot: Walter's experiment was the central conflict in the first episode. Initially, it was thought that the blast he was caught in killed him. Also referenced is the Susan Perkins clone's death by poisoning from Beverly.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Many Happy Returns: The title of this episode is a reference to an episode of The Prisoner that shares the same name, Many Happy Returns. In the episode Number Six discovers the island that he was being held prisoner on is deserted and attempts to escape. This plot has nothing to do with the Eureka episode.

• George Romero: George Romero is most well known as the writer and director for the Dead series of films, starting with Night of the Living Dead and including Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead. All of his movies take place in a world where zombies have begun to rise from their graves and eat human flesh. The first scene Romero's first film takes place in a cemetery.

Henry: One too many Romero movies, huh?

Quotes

• Fargo: Um, you might want to be careful with this. It's a portable generator.
  Carter: So?
  Fargo: Ah, fission powered portable generator.
  Carter: Okay. Don't sleep on the nuclear powered device. Good safety tip.