Surface/Episode 12

Episode 12
Season 1, Episode 12
Airdate	January 9, 2006
Production Number	112
Written by	Chip Johannesson
Directed by	Marita Grabiak
← 1x11 Episode 11	1x13 → Episode 13
Surface — Season One

Episode 12 is the twelfth episode of the first season of Surface, and the twelfth episode overall.

Dee and Rich meet a mysterious benefactor while Miles undergoes physical changes.

Guest Stars: Jason Davis (Sean), Martha Plimpton ("Mr. Big"), Stephen Michael Ayers (Dr. Paul Blum), Melissa Ponzio (Ann Tracy), Linsey Godfrey (Caitlin Blum), Louanne Cooper (Mrs. Bennett)

Plot Overview

Suspicious of the man delivering the fax at their door and his attempts to get them to sign it, Dee and Rich barricade the door and climb out on the balcony. Deceiving the pursuing agents into thinking they climbed down, they enter an adjacent room and Rich takes a steak knife from the room service tray. They make their way down the stairwell and are stopped by a government agent. Rich holds him off while Dee runs down to the bottom floor. Rich joins her with some of the other man's blood on his shirt and his gun, although what happened to the man is unknown.

The two meet Anne at her home and show her the agent's wallet, identifying him as John Copeman of the Agency of Strategic Intelligence. Anne plans to contact a Marine colonel at SOCOM, Jack Cooper, to see if he could give them insight on the situation. Giving them use of her laptop, they check the MSNBC message board to see if there is anything new. Intrigued by an email from 'Plausibility T. Figurehead', they respond and Anne's laptop is hijacked. A heavily altered voice provides her with a sequence of proteins and when she successfully provides the last one the voice offers to share information. Possessing high resolution satellite photos of them using the laptop, the voice offers them a good faith gift at the public library by giving them a dewey decimal code for a book.

At the public library they find the book to be Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species and next to it is a pouch with fake identies, credit cards, and an untraceable cell phone. The cell phone rings and the voice offers to give them information on the creatures in exchange for the tissue samples they collected from the creature's eggs. Dee sends a secure video email to her exhusband to get the tissue samples from the oceanographic institute where she had them tested. He brings them but accuses her of abandoning her son.

With the tissue samples in hand, they follow the directions given which lead to an empty field. On cue, a light two-seater propeller airplane lands and a blonde woman in black uniform steps out. Telling them that only Dee can go, Rich is initially against it but agrees to stay behind as Dee follows the logic that if they meant them harm 'Mr. Big' would have done it already. Dee is flown blindfolded to an undisclosed location and is unmasked in a labratory. Because of the scientific knowledge her escort knows, Dee figures out that she is 'Mr. Big', the voice on the phone. Mr. Big works for 'the Corporation', an amalgam of small controlling forces that the government at large is mostly unaware of. Mr. Big specializes in RNA enzymes that are used to remove and replace sequences of DNA to improve them. She recognizes her work in the tissue samples that Dee provides, suggesting that the creatures are at least in part engineered by humans.

Miles has made a miraculous recovery from his attack in the water and he asks his doctor if he's could be changed in some way by the creature that bit him. His doctor passes it off as a discussion about hormones and puberty. At home, Caitling extends an peace offering by providing Miles with a private webcam of Nim's holding tank so that he can still see him even though he's banned from the aquarium. She invites him to a night-time beach party which he goes to even though he's grounded.

At the party, the two sit down to kiss but when they get close Caitlin is shocked by an electrical spark from Miles. While they are talking, a boy that Caitlin knows goes missing in the water and Miles knows immediately that he's been attacked by a creature when he sees lighting sparking off the water. The search party finds a severed arm. Later, Miles is asked to come to the Aquarium because Nim has gone out of control and attacked an attendant. Noting that the attack happened at the same time the boy was killed on the beach, Miles is able to calm Nim down with an offer of salt.

Miles begins to go through several changes, including a strange effect where his eye changes shape. He also gets angry in sync with Nim's violent outbursts. At the funeral for the boy killed in the attack, Miles sits alone and Caitlin tries to talk to him. Telling her that he's sick, she tries to console him. The two kiss, with no electrical spark, but afterwards Miles's hands are covered in a stick substance where he touched Caitlin's face. She reacts in horror as she realizes he is no longer entirely human.

Notes

• While browsing the message board, Dee and Rich see a message related to a killing in North Carolina. This is likely in reference to the events Miles is involved with.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Dee's ex-husband is getting married, perhaps suggesting it will be more difficult for her to see her son in the future.

Trivia

The Show

• The protein sequence question starts with Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, Thymine, ___ to which Dee responds Uracil. Uracil is the fourth nucleobases in RNA, filling a similar role to Thymine in DNA.

Quotes

• Dee: You made this animal? (Mr. Big nods) Why? Why would you...why would you do such a thing?
  Mr. Big: (ponders this) Because we could?