Episode Report Card Erin: A | 211 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT The bitch is back.
By Erin | Season 4 | Episode 21 | Aired on 2005.05.18
After we've had a few minutes to let that sink in (and pause the TiVo so that we may get even more wine, even though it's a weeknight and we really shouldn't be FINISHING A GALLON BOTTLE), we return to the Conference Room of Endless Expositions, where Jack is delivering the rundown on the Russian situation. According to the Russians, it's just, you know, an industrial accident. Yeah. Because industrial accidents always end up creating a big hovering shiny red ball in the sky. Syd's all, do they honestly think that story's gonna last? She asks Marshall if he's been able to come up with any theories besides an alien attack. Marshall says that it's pretty obvious Elena and Sloane have constructed a giant Mueller Device and, judging by his calculations, it's about six blocks in diameter. Damn. I'm just thinking about how it's roughly six blocks to Lincoln Avenue from my apartment and how it takes me ten minutes to walk it and by the time I get there, I'm pretty much ready to stop for a cocoa. Six blocks is BIG, y'all.
What's really more terrifying than Clifford's size, though, is how, when I did a search on "Mueller Device" on TWoP, I came up with page four of the FIRST RECAP EVER of this show. Like, I know it showed up at the end of Season One and then again this year, but I never referred to it as "Mueller Device," and even though I'd read every recap since this show began, I didn't remember that it was the device that Sydney fucking STOLE that kicked off the whole bizarro Rambaldi storyline that none of has been able to EVER figure out. I'm just…wow. I know this means nothing to any of you, really, but this will forever be remembered as the day I realized I can't recall jack shit about this show.
So, back to the action at hand. Marshall says that the Russian government is keeping mum on the whole Mueller thing but, judging from what's leaking out via the various feeds and conspiracy theories, the citizens of Sevogda are going postal. Mass violence, aggression, inability to reason, a heretofore unseen need to kick small children and puppies, egregious lack of senses of humor, supremely bad hair days -- the Sevogdans got it all in spades, people. Jack surmises that the water supply must have been infected with the orchid juice, priming the Sevogdans to be susceptible to the Mueller Device. It's a credit to every damn actor at that table that they don't all bust out laughing. It's another one of those "So they infect the water with the ancient orchid and then the people become zombies and the big red ball in the hahahahaHAHAHAHA!!! Stop looking at me like that, Vartan! Dammit! Okay, CUT! Can we BWAHAHAHAHAHA" moments. "So what you're saying is, a large red ball plus contaminated water equals a city full of homicidal maniacs," says Marshall, neatly and hilariously summing up the ridiculousness of the situation.