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Oh, the poor Shannons. All they want is a nice, relaxing day for a) Daddy-daughter day, b) a clandestine rendezvous with a soldier boyfriend, c) bartending, and d) surgery.
But then everything goes to hell when a meteor strikes, the ferrous metals emitting an electro-magnetic pulse, uselessifying the colony's weapons and defenses, as well as trapping Jim and Zoe in a heretofore-unseen virtual library and Mark and Maddy outside the grounds. Also, the Sixers decide to strike while the colony is vulnerable, and they've got just the huge dinosaur to help them do that!
Elisabeth does her best to cope with the um, early 21st-century conditions in the infirmary and yanks a parasite from a young lad's intestine, one of Skye's buddies, who gives her the gears about being in love with Josh, which Skye denies because OF COURSE you would deny it. Elsewhere, Jim helps Zoe get over her fear of spiders so she can crawl through a short passage so she can pull the manual release lever and free them.
So while Boylan repairs the chip in the chip-maker (Boylan being some kind of munitions expert or so some damn thing), Taylor readies other defenses, like a moat of fire to repel the dinosaur the Sixers have sent. But that's just a diversion, because the Sixers are actually there to retrieve that strange box for Mira. Jim and Taylor punch about fifty Sixers (or maybe that's just what it felt like) but the Sixers are still able to escape with the mysterious box. It's handed over to a dude who opens up a little computery type thing that displays all kinds of charts and data. And who is this dude? It's Taylor's son! He mutters darkly about his father soon needing to choose between his son and his precious Terra Nova.
Oh, and Maddy spent the whole night in a tree with Mark, hiding from a nicoraptor (which can climb trees, as was established previously). And her family will never know. Goddamn, her family didn't even MISS her.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. If he had one bullet in a gun while watching Terra Nova, he knows exactly what he would do. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The Shannon family home is just a whirlwind of activity, with Josh late for work and unable to find his shoes, and I was starting to think that, "Oh, damn, the pet ankylosaurus ate them," but there is no sign of this life-changing little critter. Elisabeth is off to surgery while Jim is taking Zoe on some secret adventure that hopefully requires Jim to do very little punching. Maddy finds Josh's shoes, and he wants to know what she's being nice and smells nice and looks nice, and she shoos her family out the door while saying she's going to be working on homework, which confuses Jim. "It's Saturday," he says, perplexed, like maybe he's a dog with no sense of time and since school is not happening for Maddy right now then maybe it's happening anymore forever?
And once the family is out one door, Maddy is opening the other one for her soldier-boy boyfriend, and I hate to admit this but this guy is so boring that every damn episode I have to look up his character's name on IMDb, and Maddy tells him that they never suspected a thing. Wait, wasn't this guy supposedly doing everything very old-fashioned and formal, because that's what Taylor wants?
Speaking of Taylor, he's looking at that gasoline-in-water-colored object of Mira's, which Malcolm says has a "DNA-response" system so that it can only be opened by one person: Mira (they assume).
Outside, Josh runs into Skye and Hunter, who is still hungover after drinking one fermented root too many, and since he's been hungover for a week, the genius teenagers who seem to do nothing but sneak out and drink finally decide a trip to the infirmary might be in order. Josh ribs his stupid friend for being stupid, and Hunter moans to Skye, "Please tell me why we became friends with the devil?"
In the infirmary, Elisabeth gives Hunter shit for being an idiot (i.e. for the drinking) and then, upon examination finds that he's got a 30-foot parasite in his intestines and is going to need emergency surgery.
As for Jim and Zoe's adventure, they're off to the colony's virtual library -- basically a chair in front of a "liquid memory" called "The Eye" that stores all they need to know about anything while they sit in a big chair while the images float in front of them. It seems ridiculously unable to be used by more than a couple of people at a time, but that doesn't seem to be a problem because no one seems to want to use this amazing machine that can simulate being on a rollercoaster, and it's practically hidden in what looks like an abandoned cave. Zoe wants to look up where she was born, and Google Maps and Streetview are apparently even MORE advanced in the future, because they're able to zoom right in to the house where Zoe was born, which looks like an empty building in the desert right before the A-bomb test. Jim explains that they had to go there because they weren't SUPPOSED to have Zoe but they wanted her anyway, so hang the rules. Gotta say, with surveillance of every nook and cranny like that in 2149, it was only ever a matter of time before the Shannons were caught.
Meanwhile, Maddy and her soldier boy are having sex -- no, wait, they went out for a picnic. A very sweet picnic in a field where they chat and talk about what they were like as children. Yeah, I can see why they'd want to sneak around for this courtship straight out of Little House on the Prairie. Mark wanted to be a "lunar accountant" when he was a kid. I really hope in this new world that the pilgrims are building that they make it a criminal offense to be this boring.
And just when you're starting to get antsy about nobody getting eaten by dinosaurs yet, suddenly there's a meteor hurtling across the sky. Everyone watches, transfixed. There's an explosion in the sky that gives off some kind of electromagnetic pulse, which shuts everything down; Elisabeth's surgical equipment, the Eye. And then the meteor hits, sending out a shockwave that has everyone ducking and covering. Mark and Maddy crouch in the field and seem to be fine, despite the fact that it blows out windows and sends people flying in Terra Nova.
Everything's fried, anything with circuits. Perimeter mines are out, there's nothing to stop wildlife from overrunning the colony. They're down to chemical lamps and candles, and Taylor orders extra people stationed around the perimeter.
The infirmary is utter chaos, so the patients are made as comfortable as possible. With Hunter, though, they're going to have to perform surgery the old-fashioned way, so Elisabeth scurries off to find a scalpel. Hunter tells Skye that she can go spend time with Josh, but she elects to stay, despite seeming awfully queasy about people she knows getting sick. I guess that what happens when you lose your parents. This guy Hunter is like family to her now, which makes me feel somehow even more sorry for Skye.
Down in the Eye, Jim finds that they're trapped behind the electronic door -- side note: I realize a meteor strike is a hell of a thing to prepare for, but you'd think there'd be SOME kind of protocol for garden variety power outages. No manual release here?
Mark and Maddy find there's no power on their transport, and Maddy's already sussed out the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse (although she calls it an "EMP pulse." Hope you got plenty of cash at the ATM! But don't give out your PIN number!) Mark: "First off, how would you even know something like that?" and Maddy just laughs at what is a ridiculously obnoxious thing to say just because Maddy's not a moron. They start walking back to Terra Nova, since nobody knows where they are. As we'll find out, no one will even care.
All is not lost, though! Malcolm has some sort of chip-making machine. Unfortunately, it's powered by a chip, which is fused like all the others.
Luckily, there's someone in the colony who can fix it, but it's Boylan (who used to be some sort of "munitions expert" or some such thing), so he has to be a dick for a few moments when Taylor comes to the bar to ask him. Taylor eventually strong-arms him into agreeing to do it, like I'm not sure how it is that Boylan even thought that he would have a choice not to do it.
Meanwhile, Jim is taking apart the stupid chair in the stupid Eye because he thinks there's some sort of access hatch underneath that leads to the outside.
And in the jungle, the Sixers have learned that the EMP has knocked out Terra Nova's defenses, so they're getting ready to ride on in. One of Mira's underlings points out that they're still horribly outnumbered, but she says she's got something that will even up the score.
Taylor and Washington go over the priorities for who gets the new chips first, with the infirmary obviously top of the list. Beyond that, Taylor's worried about their defenses. Without their electronic weapons, all they have is the fence. He and his silver beard are going to think on that awhile.
In the jungle, Maddy and Mark have given up on thinking they'll make it back before nightfall, so they start smearing each other with stinky mud that will make them to unappetizing for the carnosaurs and slashers and what have you. Plus it doubles as comic relief, or it would if it were funny.
Anyway, Elisabeth is pulling the disgusting parasite out of Hunter's body by wrapping it around a stick. She gets called away to attend to a patient who was in a rover that flipped when the pulse hit, so she puts Skye in charge of the parasite-rod turning. She feels like throwing up and I'm right there with her.
Night has fallen and Maddy and Mark have unfortunately not been eaten by dinosaurs (well, I suppose that could be fortunate, depending on your point of view) but all that could change when the bushes start rattling and the two of them start climbing a tree to avoid the nicoraptors sniffing around on the ground. Wait, didn't a nicoraptor climb a tree, like, the VERY LAST EPISODE? Maddy can't climb a tree for shit and Mark has to literally shove her ass up the tree. They decide to stay in the tree until the sun comes up.
Back in the Eye (which is apparently shielded with its own power supply. Too bad they didn't think of shielding any other power supply), Jim has gotten the chair off to access the emergency hatch. He talks to Zoe about the manual override handle on the other side of the door (at least there's one) and he needs her to go through the short tunnel to the other side. She's much too scared, though. Mainly because of the spiders. "I hate spiders," he says, and Jim admits he does too. But then he says he got over it when he learned the "Go Away Spider Song" and he's totally making it up as he goes along, but that's sometimes what fathers do. And then he lays on the guilt about how they need to get back to their family.
Over to the Sixers now, and Mira's ace in the hole appears to be a giant friggin' dinosaur that the Sixers are guiding -- via torches, it seems -- towards the colony. So -- wait, this is Mira's secret equalizer? How exactly did she keep it quiet? Or did she just figure that when they got the chance they'd wrangle a Massivesaurus rex towards the colony? Whatever, at least it's a dinosaur destroying the terrain. Also amusing: Mira's bloodlust as she yells things like "ALL THE WAY TO TERRA NOVA!" The dinosaur's far from the only star tearing up the scenery.
Back in the Eye, Jim's coaching Zoe through crawling through the tunnel and pulling down the handle. He lowers her in head-first. She looks around, nervous, and then looks back at her dad. He asks what's wrong, and she says, "The song, Daddy," and he starts improvising the Spiders Fuck Off song, and she starts crawling.
Back in the infirmary, Skye is still pulling out the parasite when Hunter decides -- maybe he thinks he might die -- that now is a good time to say he doesn't want to be a brother to her, and it kills him that she's in love with Josh and everybody knows it except Josh and her. "I always thought that maybe one day you and me might..." he says, but then trails off, moaning, saying the parasite is doing something -- and then it snaps itself from the rolled-up portion and slithers back into his open wound, and Hunter starts shaking. Skye screams for help, and Elisabeth comes running. She gave you one job, Skye! Elisabeth takes over and tells Skye to head for Boylan's, where he's making the circuitry, and she needs a chip for a Class 3 biobed.
Zoe: crawling. Jim: singing. Running out of lyrics. Daniel: kind of now wishing Jim had the kind of problem he could punch his way out of.
Back in the tree, Maddy and Mark are disgustingly still alive, with Mark blaming himself because this wasn't how their first date was supposed to go, and Maddy points out that it was kind of her idea to sneak out, and he jokes that she's a bad influence on her.
They hear some dinosaurs chowing down on some poor creature, and Maddy asks if he thinks they're going to die out there, and Mark blah-blahs about how he's never going to let anything bad happen to her ever and then the thing you know they're making out, and at this point I don't necessarily need for them to be eaten by dinosaurs; dying from falling out of a tree would work just as well for me.
Back in the Eye, Jim is still singing when he stops hearing Maddy. He gets quite concerned, but fortunately they don't drag out that particular tension -- the father not knowing what happened to his daughter after she vanished into a place where he can't follow -- because I don't know if I could have handled that for too long. Instead, Zoe opens the door with the manual override and stands there beaming. Jim asks if there were any spiders. "Nope! The song worked!" she says. I'm a sucker for father-daughter stuff, and Zoe is kinda too adorably proud of herself to make fun of so let's all just move on.
They get out of the Eye, and Jim spots a soldier named Reilly, who fills him in on the meteor and the EMP. "Don't worry, your family is safe," she says. Hah! No one else cares about Maddy either! Also, since that's the first anyone's seen of Jim and Zoe for the entire day, I'd like to know who decided the family was safe. Reilly takes Zoe to school where the other kids are until the power comes back. Again: since they're rounding up the kids there, did no one realize that Zoe was gone?
Anyway, Jim meets up with Taylor, explains he was stuck in the Eye, and Taylor gruffly says that maybe he should have stayed there, because it's about to get ugly. And they hear the roaring and the grunting of the dinosaur as it breaks through the trees around the colony. What's that I feel? Genuine tension at what might happen? It's an odd feeling, I'm not sure how to handle it.
Oh, not to worry. Genuine enjoyment vanishes at the preposterous scene where Taylor takes his sweet time -- while the Empirosaurus is charging right towards them -- signaling for a soldier to hand him and Jim a couple of bows. Taylor says he assumes Jim knows how to use one, and I GUESS IT'S A GOOD THING JIM, WHO'D BEEN MISSING ALL DAY, SHOWED UP FOR YOUR PLAN TO WORK, and he tells Jim to shoot his flaming arrow "70 yards, no more" and then they do that, with Jim an ace shot despite, I'm assuming, not having had much chance to practice his archery during his years in prison.
The arrows land in a trench in front of the Empirosaurus, igniting something that sends up a wall of flame in front of it. The dinosaur screeches and thrashes but can't get through. Taylor notices something on the dinosaur's back, and figures out that someone has been hurting this massive beast, and deduces it must be the Sixers, and that this is a diversion and the Sixers are already inside. This would be despite the extra sentries Taylor had positioned on the fence? I guess. "Mira. She's after the box," says Taylor.
Over at Boylan's, the first chip -- for a biobed -- comes out of the machine just in time for Skye to arrive. She's out of breath, though, and Josh heads out to run the chip over to the infirmary.
So Taylor and Jim by themselves head over to the laboratory where, sure enough, they find someone stealing the box -- as well as a couple of muscle guys to beat the crap out of Taylor and Jim, at least until one of the thugs gets knocked out. The thief runs out of the lab with the box, and Jim heads after him, leaving Taylor to get into a knife fight with the remaining Sixer. In maybe the clunkiest line of the series this far -- and there have been some doozies -- Taylor's "Let's dance" has to rank right up there. Amusingly, Stephen Lang doesn't even bother to sell the line. His delivery has a distinct air of "screw it" to it.
Outside, Boylan's lighting up some sort of celebratory cigar -- he's earned it after his second episode in a row where he did something for the benefit of the colony instead of himself -- when he sees Jim chasing a Sixer across the path.
He hightails it over to the lab, where Taylor's still fighting the other thug -- until Boylan pulls a gun, an actual non-electric gun, on the Sixer, warning him that it may be an older model but it still works. The Sixer barely pauses before smiling and lunging for Taylor -- he clearly seems to be assuming that the Sixer-friendly Boylan won't shoot him -- and then Boylan fires, dropping the Sixer dead. Taylor grumbles that he had the guy right were he wanted him, but thanks Boylan anyway.
Boylan says he was lucky, and spins the cylinder. "Only had one bullet," he said. And luckily you got it out before the Sixer outed you as an ally!
Meanwhile, Jim is still chasing the other damn Sixer around, and they're up on the roofs for a little while, and then down again, and we don't see a single other soul in the entire compound, and then the Sixer slips out through the rails in the fence and Jim is set to follow when arrows thud into the fence around him. Taylor runs up in time to see the Sixers standing there, looking all cool and defiant instead of making themselves scarce. "Mira!" yells Taylor.
Back at the infirmary, Skye has made it back in time to see Elisabeth to get the chip into the biobed and examine the parasite, which is ... dead? So the whole thing where it slithered back in while Hunter writhed was a red herring? Oh, well. I suppose Josh needs a nemesis, even if it's just to provide the third side in a love triangle in which Skye has to choose between two boring whiners.
It's daylight. Over at the lab, Malcolm is looking at the busted cabinet where the box was locked, with Taylor saying it was a surgical strike: Mira knew exactly where the box was. Malcolm is shocked that Taylor thinks there's a spy in the camp. "I don't think. I know," says Taylor. He tells Jim that they have to find the spy because it's unacceptable. I like to think that even Jim would figure out that a spy in your midst isn't ideal. Jim starts imagining who he'll get to punch to flush out the spy.
Maddy and Mark wake up, cuddled in each other's arms. Good job, you know, KEEPING WATCH, at least, and then Maddy realizes her father's going to be looking for her, which, when it turns out not to have been true, is a pretty sad statement, and then she thanks Mark for a perfect day, and they hold hands for the walk back to the colony.
Back in the Shannon home, Josh lounges in the living room while his mom suggests asking Skye over for dinner one night, and he's all "yeah yeah" and then sits up, alarmed, when he realizes she's serious.
And then Jim strolls in, talking about how awesome the big dinosaur at the gate was -- the dinosaur that was moments away from devouring them all -- and then the power comes back on and Elisabeth is all, "Great, I can make coffee," and then EVENTUALLY Jim is all, "Where's Maddy?" and I guess it hadn't occurred to Elisabeth to check, and then out pops Maddy, freshly washed and pretending that she got a lot of work done by chem lamp. Apparently she still stinks, so I guess that's something. Maddy starts in with the how-obvious-is-it-that-I'm-lying excuses about the garbage incinerator getting stinky with the power out, and she walks away, all pleased with herself, while the jaunty everything's-OK-again acoustic guitar crescendos. I hope she never finds out that Elisabeth remembered getting COFFEE before she remembered to check on her daughter after an EMP, a shockwave, dinosaur attack and Sixer invasion.
Night again. Mira and another Sixer arrive at a meeting point. "I don't think he's going to show," says her escort, right before whomever it is they're meeting arrives. "I was starting to worry," says Mira, who got there like FIVE SECONDS AGO. "Give it to me," says Buddy, and Mira says, "Not even a thank-you?" like just how damn long do the Sixers want to spend in the jungle at night, and Buddy seems at first to apologize, saying he's been out here so long he's forgetting his manners. Then: "Thank you, thank you for finally getting your act together and doing what you were sent here to do," he snaps, and demands the box again.
Mira -- who tells us all (I assume Buddy would know this) that she was supposed to bring it through the portal to him, but thanks to Taylor it took longer than expected -- wants to know what the box is for. "My work. Just my work," he says, and he holds up the device, which powers up and springs open on his touch, displaying holograms of mysterious charts and formulae. "Beautiful, aren't they?" he says, just spookily enough for us to know that he's kinda crazy.
The box shuts. "So much to do," he says, putting it in his pack and starting to walk off. Mira calls him "Lucas" and tells him to be careful, because Taylor knows he's getting close to an answer. "If he wants to stop me, he's going to have to kill me. Good ol' Dad will have to choose between his own flesh and blood and his precious Terra Nova," says Lucas.
Daniel is a writer with a wife and daughter in Newfoundland. He came here to watch some Terra Nova and kick some ass. And it looks like Terra Nova just ended. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.