| Aired on 01.10.2014
The sans-serif font of futuristic doom tells us it's DAY 2. We're still in the isolated arctic. Three different science-y types are describing what Peter did to them: "He held me down, he put his mouth over mine like some kind of animal … I've never felt so violated … I was choking. I couldn't bloody breathe." And one of the science-y types points out that the CDC squad is only talking to three of the six people who got Peter's special loogie treatment. There are three more running around – Doctors Tracey, Raver and DeKlerk.
Hatake checks in on the CDC folks – Sarah's still being all winsome and brainy, Julia's cautious and jaded, Alan's issuing orders like a boss – and hands over dossiers for the missing scientists. We see that Dr. Tracey is a lady, and she's an assistant researcher in epidemiology. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of her. Anyway, Alan says he'll go hunt for these guys personally. Hatake is all, "Have fun! I'll be helping by issuing you a goon squad that can take these people down by force." Alan is not thrilled at this idea, but too bad for him.
He takes out his bad mood on Julia – whom he calls "Jules" – by smacking down her suggestion that she help track these people down because containment is more important than diagnosis. And he also tells her he's the boss of her, at least right now. Julia responds to this by swiping her hand over the security lock and leaving before she says something equally stupid right back at him.
Meanwhile, my girl Doreen has her earbuds in and is listening to some swingy 1960s-style instrumental music as she dissects the dead, bald monkey. I am not really sure depriving yourself of one of your senses as you work alone in a complex filled with contagious rageballs is the best idea, but I bow to the superior survival skills of the fictional veterinary epidemiologist.
Julia's working with a bunch of sexless little mice when she hears a series of thumps and thuds above her head. She gets out of the mouse holding room right in time to avoid seeing one of the infected looming over her.
Meanwhile, the three scientists who didn't immediately run are busy being cranky because they're in isolation and, to add insult to injury, Sarah's busy trying to tell them it's going to be okay. The one woman in the crew, Dr. Sulemani, decides to insult Sarah because we need another chance to get her brainiac bona fides, but even Sarah's raft of degrees and big brown eyes fail to make the doctors feel lucky to be in the presence of an actual PhDorable.
| Aired on 01.10.2014
The male regulars all head into Dr. Tracey's quarters – a mess – and they figure Dr. Tracey was trying to get out. "Where the hell did she go?" asks Alan.
The answer: Right over Doreen's shoulder. Dr. Tracey looks like hell – red-rimmed eyes, shiny with sweat – and she's paranoid as all get out, shouting, "Who sent you? Don't you come near us! You hear me? You can't take me to isolation. They'll do terrible things to be there. They'll take me to the white room like Dr. Hvit. I want off this base!" Doreen is less focused on trying to figure out what in hell any of this is about and more focused on making sure she's not going to be assaulted and infected by the crazy delirious lady.
Julia watches camera and security footage of Peter's work while Hatake watches her. She jumps at another noise in the ducts, and Hatake asks if she's okay. She's mostly not, since the man she used as Exhibit A in her presentation "Alan, I want a divorce" was last seen skittering around up there. Hatake advises her to get some sleep, lest her mind play tricks on her.
Julia then sees two racks of lab animals fall over sideways from the force of the animals, reviews the footage to make sure she saw what she thinks she saw, then asks Hatake exactly what Peter was working on. Answer: not mutagens.
The three loogied scientists continue to squabble, since Dr. Sarah's credentials failed to soothe their frayed nerves. One of them is much more bald and sweaty than the other two, and he's convinced that his compadres are going to turn on him. The man is in obvious pain, and Sarah finds out that she'll have to get to another level to get him any morphine.
Good news! Balleseros has found one of the three runners. (This one is Dr. DeKlerk from the aerosols division.) The bad news is, Balleseros did the full-body tackle in front of a boatload of scientists who do not approve of his methods. DeKlerk's sudden seizures do not make anyone feel good about their chances of remaining uninfected.
One of the scientists gets uppity and demands to know why they're not being evacuated. Alan gives a self-righteous speech about how evacuating this crew would likely spread the mystery virus throughout the general population, so no, he's not going to let this collection of scientists play Patient Zero or live out their personal Randall Flagg fantasies. Thus chastened, everyone returns to their rooms.
Julia then saunters up and reveals that Alan had used that speech in situations. Alan is unrepentant. He is also not very happy that Julia's elected not to work on what he asked her to. Rather than keep it professional, Julia decides now is a great time to conduct a referendum on their interpersonal interactions.
| Aired on 01.10.2014
Sarah's made it to the level with the morphine in it, and she's locked herself in the little supply cage to get the drugs. It's a good thing she's closed the door and is encaged, because Peter has just popped up outside the cage and is circling around her, muttering, "You're here for a reason." Sarah's all, "Yeah – YOU." And Peter replies, "No, not you. WALKER." Then he makes a 10-foot vertical leap back into the ducts from whence he came.
Julia's gone back to hang with Hatake, and she's found Peter's injection logs for the lab animals. In reviewing his work, she's discovered that the reason she and the other scientists are seeing two types of infection (i.e. the type that turns you into a puddle of goo versus the type that turns you into a goo-spewing madman) is because Peter was experimenting with two variants of the virus – Narvik-A and Narvik-B. Julia asks Hatake what those are and he non-replies, "I encourage my staff to push the envelope. To try and new and untested formulas." Well, that appears to be working for you.
Julia then pushes to replicate Peter's research so she can assess the results herself, and Hatake makes a huge show of being skeptical about injecting more rats before grinning.
Dr. Tracey is still monologuing at Doreen all, "I should have known. You move a few genes here, accelerate the replication cycle there, you've got yourself the perfect weapon!" and this is all very interesting and fragmented exposition, but really, all I want to know is, will Doreen be okay? Because right now, she's my favorite character, and if she dies early on, the show will collapse under the weight of its own bug-eyed seriousness.
Going by how Tracey just collapsed after attempting to spit goo in Doreen's face, I'm going to say Doreen is going to be fine.
Meanwhile, Alan has rushed to make sure that Sarah's okay. He also sees the huge stash of used-up painkillers that Peter used, and figures that if Peter has the presence of mind to self-medicate, perhaps he can be reasoned with. Yes, because rational behavior is the one thing Peter has displayed consistently throughout the last episode and a half.
The sequence where Peter has waylaid Balleseros in the vent system and knocked him out really doesn't advance the "Peter is a rational actor" thesis.
Julia's running the rat tests. The Narvik-A rats have turned into piles of black goo, while the Narvik-B rats are all bald and traced with black veins. As Julia reports the results, Hatake sighs blissfully, "It's been a long time since I did real lab work … I miss it. The precision, commitment, sacrifice, all leading to the joy of discovery." This resonates with Julia, as her mother the cellular biologist used to say similar things before she died. Mom did not die of any hideous plague – she just died too early, when Julia was a child. Before we can get into the rest of Julia's backstory, we see a rat going absolutely bonkers, holding down another rat and disgorging a boatload of goo into its mouth.
| Aired on 01.10.2014
Sarah's trying to treat Haven's pain, but she's getting a lot of lip from the other two doctors. Then they escalate to physical threats. Dr. Jordan promptly calls Daniel to see if he can do anything about this. Meanwhile, Balleseros heads up to the top of the base to see who's trying to escape via the elevator.
Daniel has decided those unruly scientists holding Sarah hostage are going to be in so much trouble -- he's told his dad. Hatake is all, "Look, you can keep hostages all you want but – oh, Dr. Farragut, what the HELL?" Alan's come in to negotiate with the two hostage-taking doctors, and it's when he zips off his bunny suit that he gets their attention: "Now we're in this together."
Cut to Sarah and Alan free from the isolation chamber. They congratulate each other on how professional they were and Alan comments on his gambit with, "It was low-risk anyway, what with the lack of airborne transmission." Julia comes in before things can get unprofessional because she'd like to kill everyone's good mood with the Narvik-A and Narvik-B rats.
"I think the Narvik-B virus rewires the brain to create a perfect contagion machine," Julia says. "Like Peter," Alan says reluctantly. He realizes that they are now dealing with two different viruses.
Meanwhile, Balleseros has found out who's trying to escape: the scientist who asked earlier to be evacuated. He's about ten minutes away from turning into Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining and he tells Balleseros, "If you knew what was going on here, you'd be getting the hell out yourself. The transgenic experiments, the virus vaults – unregulated research sounds great until you're actually doing it. What they did to those monkeys was an abomination." Balleseros asks the scientist to come back inside, but he's determined to go to freedom, sweet freedom, where he can conduct as many press conferences as needed to get the word out. And once the scientist says that, THAT is when Balleseros stabs him in the kidneys. So, I guess his "I haven't fired a gun since Basic Training" assertion may still be technically true, but for all we know, he's been puncturing kidneys around the globe for years. I'm just kind of curious as to where he's going to hide the body in the frozen wastes.
We see Sarah's hands shaking as she puts on her gloves but she shakes off Julia's concerns. Right before they go off to do some science, Doreen shows up, with Tracey in tow: She's managed to knock out the other woman and haul her down for study. Because Doreen is a BAD ASS. I love you, Doreen. Please survive this season.
| Aired on 01.10.2014
In the scene, Haven fakes a seizure so he and the other two isolated doctors can become considerably less isolated. They stage a breakout and lock the scientists in the containment chamber with Tracey.
We cut to Hatake in a main office, looking at the empty isolation chamber, and as Alan enters, he grits, "This virus was less of a danger before the CDC arrived." Alan points out that his people were the victims here – it's Hatake's employees who did the hostage-taking and assaulting. He also gets pissy about the monkey attacking Doreen, and about Peter's general research. Alan pushes for complete transparency as a component for solving this whole epidemic in the making. Hatake doesn't really say anything in response to that.
Alan then heads into Julia's quarters to apologize for the whole escape incident, then gets a little personal, admitting that he didn't want Julia on the search for Peter because "I lost you once …" Julia says she appreciates it, but Alan doesn't need to keep looking out for her. "I don't know that I can stop," Alan says.
Okay, you know how the field of frozen monkeys was the creepiest thing in the premiere episode? The creepiest thing in this one is how Hatake has a scrapbook full of pictures of Julia, all of which appear to be surveillance photos. That is so unnerving, in fact, that I can't be bothered to be worried about him actually turning out to have silver eyes.
Hatake isn't really the man that Julia has to worry about at this very moment. She's in her shower, trying to scrub some of this miserable day away, when Peter approaches her, forces her to the ground and vomits his black goo into her mouth. Will she retain the presence of mind to monitor her own symptoms and help unravel whatever it is that Narvik-B does? We'll see week.