The sans serif text of the frightening future (Frightura?) tells us that it's day five. Because Balleseros hasn't been creepy enough in prior episodes, he decides to start this one off by setting fire to the field of frozen monkeys. Once the flames go up, this is when we learn that the monkeys have merely been frozen in a state of suspended animation and so are now thawing out in the fire … just in time to be burned to death.
So what I'm getting from this is that we're going to see the dead rise in future episodes.
Anyway, in addition to being a creepy monkey-burning murderer, Balleseros is also ready to be a disappeared creepy, monkey-burning murderer. However, his anonymous overlords won't pick him up until he retrieves a certain Dr. Hvit. So now Balleseros has to head back inside and start looking for Dr. Hvit. You can imagine how thrilled he is by this.
And now, a montage of Alan Sciencing away. Once he's done Sciencing, he Talks Science at Dr. Duchamp until the latter grasps that thanks to Alan's brilliance, there is a reasonable chance that SODRA might work to cure patients without that pesky "70% chance of death" side effect. That is, if they can get Alan's modified version of SODRA to pan out in in vivo experimentation. Dr. Duchamp's all about trying animal experimentation right away, which is Alan's cue to say, "I need to brief my veterinary pathologist, Doreen Boyle, first."
On his way to go get Doreen, Alan is waylaid by Daniel, who grumps about Alan's failure to check in every hour on the hour. Alan is all, "FLOW, badge monkey, have you heard of it?" and hustles off, unrepentant about making the head of security's job harder. (Which, to be fair, is not an unreasonable approach given Daniel's obvious loyalty to Hatake and Alan's distaste for the researcher.)
Sarah comes out of the nods in time to note that Dr. Van Eigem is being loud and in pain and much worse than she was before. The most useful thing she does in this scene is impart the knowledge that the University of Wisconsin did a study and found that fantasizing about delicious food helped minimize pain. The second most useful thing is noticing that Sarah bears more than a passing resemblance to Gizmo the Mogwai. Let's hope nobody feeds her after midnight.
Balleseros is busy going through Hatake's computer looking for Dr. Hvik, but finding nothing. When Daniel comes in and hotly inquires as to what Balleseros is doing and why he's in Hatake's chair, Balleseros takes that as his cue to swing his booted feet up on the desk and make a show of not going anywhere. He asks where Dr. Hvit is, and Daniel growls, "There's no-one on this base by the name of Dr. Hvit. Now get out of (Hatake's) chair."
Balleseros stands up and proceeds to mash away at any and all of Daniel's buttons, telling a story about favela gang culture that is meant to suggest that Hatake adopted a vulnerable child solely to turn him into a blindly loyal criminal tool. Daniel's all, "Whatever, smirky. Ass out of Dad's chair."
Speaking of Daniel's papa, he's just run into a knife. On purpose. Because dealing with an abdominal stab wound on Level R is not an issue when you've got some sort of weird subduing power over the "vectors" (i.e. crazed infected people)? Who knows why Hatake does anything?
Speaking of Level R, Julia's pounding on doors begging to be let in, but nobody's biting. Jaye's telling Julia that she's wasting her time, but Julia counters that she's trying to organize everyone because they'll have a better chance of survival if they band together. Jaye's all, "You're only doing this because you're too weirded out by your initials to go back to our safe hiding place," and Julia lets fly with her biggest worry: That she may have been hallucinating the initials, and that's one of the biggest symptoms of the infection. Jaye shrugs that she saw them too, then asks Julia if she was here as a girl. Julia shoots that down (childhood out of A River Runs Through It, minus the Brad Pitt) and then she gets really weirded out because Jaye calls her Jules, which is a name only her mother and her ex-husband used.
Before Julia and Jaye can continue this discussion, Hatake comes reeling down the hall, begging for their help.
Meanwhile, several levels up, Alan's just discovered Doreen's body. She's incredibly pale, her eyes are filled with blood and she's drenched in blood, yet when Alan calls her name, her mouth moves …
… And then a bald, blood-covered rat comes out of her mouth. Oh, Doreen. You deserved better.
Cut to Doreen being zipped up into a body bag. Sarah's arrived to Gizmo all over the scene (eyes wide with horror, squeaking emotionally) and Daniel comes out and shrugs that it was the rats that killed Doreen. He figures the cages had to have fallen on her after she had a heart attack and somehow pulled the entire rack down on herself during her cardiac arrest. Alan points out that Doreen was in excellent cardiovascular health (per her last check-up, which was required of her as a CDC field agent), so if Doreen was killed by a rack of rat, someone pushed it down on her. Daniel hotly points out that altitude changes and the lack of CO2 scrubbers could have affected Doreen's heart, and Balleseros chimes in, "Seems like she was in pretty good health to me." Yes. She was, right up to the moment you jammed a syringe into her neck, you sicko. Anyway, the upshot is that Alan is treating Doreen's death like a murder no matter what Daniel thinks, and he'll be doing an autopsy shortly on his friend.
Alan also gets in a nice monologue: "This wasn't a goddamn accident! We're in the ass end of nowhere, cut off from the world. My best doctor is trapped and dying somewhere below us" – Cut to the woman who is apparently his second-best doctor, who is also in the middle of dying – "and my closest friend from the CDC has very likely just been murdered. This place is a time bomb waiting to go off! Right now, I'm thinking the virus is not our biggest problem."
The upside to Alan throwing a wobbler is that he and Daniel will be reviewing the surveillance footage together as soon as possible. Dr. Duchamp will be doing the SODRA animal trials off-screen (I wonder if there are fresh, non-people-eating rats to use for testing) and Sarah will … hope that nobody flashes bright lights at her? Avoid cloning by staying away from water? Who cares?
Hatake spins a story about how the people he shot to death attacked him, Julia buys it. She introduces him to Jaye, and Hatake looks confused for a moment, while Jaye blusters, "Don't pretend you don't know who I am." There's a brief debate over the morality of locking up a bunch of people in a basement with the virals – Hatake is on the "pro" side, however reluctantly – and then Julia decides they've got to get to the triage lab so she can sew up the wound for real. Hatake gasps that there's an access tunnel they can take.
Alan and Daniel discover that the security footage has been corrupted and all the backup copies deleted. Gosh, the only ones with access are Daniel and Hatake! Daniel's all, "Oh, it's ON now, because my beloved father surely didn't do this." And then, it takes him all of a few minutes to notice Balleseros on the footage, heading in or out of a lab.
We transition to Balleseros heading over to talk to Dr. Duchamp. He's got his killin' gloves on, so it's time to get nervous about the fate of another competent, personable scientist. Stand down, nerves – Balleseros is only asking about Dr. Hvit. Duchamp explains, "No-one ever sees him anymore. I hear he developed a rare immune deficiency. He can no longer interact with people. He's become somewhat of an urban legend – I heard rumors he's in the White Room." Balleseros asks where he can find it, and Duchamp gives him a look before saying gnomically, "We are all in the White Room."
And now, a brief scene in which Daniel lets Balleseros know he's nailed him for Doreen's murder, but he's not going to do anything about it. Yet.
Sarah comes back from a morphine run to discover that Dr. Van Eigem has escaped the room. She finds her down the hall, sans culottes, doing a campy go-go dance for Tony (her boyfriend, about whom she's hallucinated before). Then Van Eigem moves from the hallucination stage of her infection to the "Trying to spit black goo in your mouth stage," but of course Sarah manages to fight her off. Van Eigem comes back to herself, and is horrified by the very likely possibility that she'll turn into "one of those things."
Speaking of, guess what's lurking in the access tunnel with Hatake, Julia and Jaye? Something or someone smart enough to bust out all the lights, is what.
Balleseros comes strolling into Doreen's autopsy just in time to see Alan discover the puncture wound behind Doreen's left ear. That wound goes a long way toward explaining the embolism that killed her. Balleseros says, "I didn't know Doreen too well, but she seemed like a good person to have on your team." Either he's a stone-cold psycho who is all, IF I CAN'T TAKE A TROPHY OFF MY KILL I CAN AT LEAST GIGGLE INWARDLY AS I LIE TO THEIR LOVED ONES, or Balleseros genuinely is sorry about Doreen and this is the only way he can express it. Either way, he sucks.
Back in Sarah's room, Van Eigem asks Sarah to shoot her up with enough morphine to kill her. Sarah's all priggish about euthanasia, and to shut Van Eigem up, she shoots up enough to make the other woman sleep, then injects some for herself. And THAT is when Alan shows up.
Sarah meets him in the corridor – "No! No highly contagious vectors stoned out of their gourd in my bedroom, why would you ask?" – and Alan tells her that Doreen was killed with an air bubble to the vein, thereby mimicking an embolism. Sarah tries to act like she's handling it, but it's hard to be cool when you're coasting on smack, and so Alan moves in to give her a nice, stabilizing hug. Which Sarah promptly turns into a kiss, and then once she pulls away. Alan realizes she's high. He is understandably less than thrilled that in the middle of a mystery epidemic in a place that's already sidelined half the team, one half of what's left is off chasing the dragon. He thunders, "You're of no use to me like this. You go sleep this off. We'll deal with it later."
Down in the access tunnel, the vector that was tracking Hatake, Julia and Jaye has finally made itself known. Hatake and Julia barely make it out of the access tunnel, but they close the door after them. Julia insists that they go back for Jaye, but Hatake says, "I didn't see her."
Balleseros interrupts Alan going through Doreen's computer to ask a series of seemingly innocent questions that do what they're supposed to: Inform Alan of how the transgenics lab was nuked top to bottom and set Alan to finding out where Dr. Hvit is. Balleseros lies, "[Doreen] said she talked to him. Said he seemed to have all the answers." Off goes Alan!
Cut to Daniel saying he doesn't know a Dr. Hvit. Alan rebuts, "Doreen talked to him." Daniel asks, "Doreen talked to him? Did she tell you this?"" Alan says that no, Balleseros did, and by the way, his new best friend Balleseros also told him how the transgenics lab was cleaned out. Daniel says that was standard sterilization, and when Alan calls it a cover-up, he rebuts, "Why would we be covering up a virus we need you to cure?" Point to Adopted Son Number One! Daniel scores again with, "You're so focused on seeing us as the bad guys, you don't see what's right in front of you. How well do you know Major Balleseros? [You met him five days ago?] Same day you met me? And you trust him? Why? Because he's wearing a uniform?"
Post-Vector chase, Hatake and Julia are sitting in a spare room. Julia's asking about the scars wreathing Hatake's torso, and he tells her they're from a fire – apparently his house in Japan burned down with his daughter in it. When Julia asks about his daughter, he tells her, "She was smart. Curious about the world. You … you remind me of her." Julia seems touched.
Her infection seems to be proceeding at a much slower pace than Dr. Van Eigem's. Speaking of whom … she's about to be sent into the life on a sweet wave of morphine, courtesy of Sarah. The Gizmo doctor explains that she changed her mind because she knows what it's like to live with severe pain, to wish it would end, and to want to control how and when her own life ends. And then the scene ends rather sweetly, with Sarah's shaky hands holding Dr. Eigem's as they plunge the syringe together. Dr. Van Eigem dies within seconds.
And now, on to practical matters like: Haven't people noticed that Dr.Van Eigem is missing? How will Sarah dispose of the body? Why wasn't all that morphine chipped with RFID tags? And why is there no log on who's checking into med lockers and walking off with powerful narcotics?
And it only NOW occurred to me: Doreen had a physical to establish that she could bring her unique brand of sass to CDC investigations. Did nobody ever think to give Dr. Gizmo a medical check-up? Would not a medical organization have Sarah's health records and/or the ability to read an x-ray and see that she's got some giant, brain-sapping tumor?
Daniel's argument must have worked on Alan, because the two men are now tossing Balleseros's quarters together. Daniel finds a leftover brick of Semtex explosive, and Alan finds the nifty satellite dish kit that Balleseros was using to keep in touch with whatever secretive bullshit conspiracy group is paying him and Hatake to mess with everyone else and/or highly contagious viruses. Alan notices that Doreen's research is on the device and concludes that Balleseros killed her.
The last message Balleseros sent was, "Found Dr. Hvit in the White Room. Evac 1500." We see that Daniel is heading outside and he clips himself to a tether before heading into the whiteout. Within seconds, we see that Balleseros is right behind him, having (correctly) concluded that Alan's mention of Hvit to anyone would send Daniel running for wherever the good doctor might be hiding.
Meanwhile, inside, Alan has corned Duchamp and asked where the White Room is. "We are all in the White Room," Duchamp replies, which sounds super-zen and mysterious until he elaborates. The White Room is the term the base residents use to refer to the Arctic wastes surrounding them. Alan realizes that both Daniel and Balleseros are outside.
And let's check in on Daniel …
He's stomped to some indeterminate point in the snow, pressed on a blue light bulb that's poking aboveground, and it sinks down, only to have six cylinders pop up. Whomever thought of us is either a huge Futurama fan or is about to get sued by Futurama for aping the floating-heads-in-jars conceit, because it turns out that the base has been keeping at least one head, if not more, in buried/cold storage out here. Dr. Eimar Hvit is but one of them.
As Daniel goes to do something to the head, Balleseros appears behind him and says, "I see you got my message. [THWACK]." Daniel is out cold, in the cold. Balleseros takes off with the head in a jar.
Julia and Hatake are almost to the triage lab when they're set upon by another Vector. Julia manages to get the enfeebled Hatake into the lab, but it takes Jaye and a fire extinguisher to beat the hell out of the Vector. Jaye is none the worse for wear after her little adventure with the lady Vector in the scene, and she shrugs off Julia's apology.
Above decks, Duchamp's trying to talk Alan out of going outside in the -60 weather and whiteout, but we all know that's not going to work, so he settles for giving him safety advice instead. The advice, in a nutshell: Try not to get un-clipped from your safety line.
And now, the scene where Julia realizes that Jaye is, in fact a hallucination. Her first clue is when she finishes sewing up Hatake and Jaye comments, "Good, he's waking up. Maybe he can tell us more lies about his daughter." Julia is all," But you weren't there for that conversation!" and as Jaye looks at her with some degree of sympathy, Julia realizes she's been hallucinating her companion the whole time. Jaye says, "It was you, Jules. It was all you. You saved yourself."
Since hallucinations are a major part of this sickness, you can imagine how not-thrilled Julia is to be having them. I personally hope Jaye sticks around for a while. She's certainly more entertaining that Sarah.
Alan's being a good little researcher by staying tethered to the guidelines, and for his pains, he gets to run into Balleseros. Alan can't contain himself, so he snaps about how he's found Balleseros's secret satellite kit and he shouts, "You killed her, you bastard!" Balleseros replies, "You have no idea what's going on here! Doreen was collateral damage!" Alan punches Balleseros's face in an effort to do more collateral damage. But Balleseros with his hand-to-hand combat training is more than up to the challenge of one pissed-off scientist, and he quickly pummels Alan to the ground, then cuts his lead line. As the wind sweeps Alan away, Balleseros calls, "Nice knowing you, Doc!"
Is it just me, or are the powers that be making Balleseros really gloat-y and more assholic than usual this episode? Is this supposed to be some sort of "At last! He shows his true colors!" thing, or was Mark Ghanime turning in too sympathetic and subtle a performance and now he has to overcompensate?
Anyway, it looks like Alan has a GPS or something and he's somehow able to get back to the base. Duchamp is his new bestie on the inside.
So Balleseros and his head-in-a-jar are busy texting "GET ME OUT OF HERE" to whomever when Daniel sneaks up with a ice axe and says, "I've got a reply to that message." And that reply is "I hope you enjoy painful puncture wounds to the abdomen. The good news is, you soon won't be able to feel that, because I am stripping off all your protective outerwear. Also, I'm putting Dr. Hvit back where you found him."
I'd be more ready to pronounce Balleseros dead except that Mark Ghanime still appears in the cast credits through episode 1.13 on IMDB, and because we wouldn't be seeing a field of frozen monkeys capable of being thawed out in Act I if it did not mean a frozen assassin/stooge of a shadow organization being thawed out in a future episode.
So Alan is being tended to by Sarah and he's trying to exert leadership by apologizing for his earlier, harsh treatment of her, then asking what's up with her and her need to take opiates. Sarah lies that it's all about migraines. (BECAUSE SHE HAS LEARNED NOTHING.) But her apology seems sincere enough, and Alan accepts it.
Then Alan goes to visit his brother and chats with the vegetable in the bed, sharing his management woes and his general sense of helplessness. He says that Peter was superior in keeping his head about him and maintaining some hope in the face of hopelessness, and I guess "Your genius brother admits you're better at something than he is" is some sort of miracle cure because no sooner does Alan say this than Peter begins showing brain activity again. Sheesh, the things some people do to feed their self esteem. Brain death. I'm calling it: Peter's a drama queen, and he's just going to make everyone's lives more difficult when he wakes.
Lisa Schmeiser is an Oakland-adjacent reporter, editor and blogger. She regularly tweets here, blathers about comics here, and posts the oddball personal piece of writing here.