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Maddy geeks out over a famous scientist returning to Terra Nova after having been out in the field for several months, and manages to finagle an internship with the guy who turns out to be not what he seems. And not in the usual "idol turns out to be some douchebag" but he's literally not who he claims to be, and Maddy figures it out, almost getting herself and Maddy killed in the process. Fortunately, the guy impersonating the scientist is really stupid and is foiled easily (although he's stupid to the point that I find it ridiculous he was able to impersonate a great scientist in the first place).
Meanwhile, Taylor and Jim are buddies who go on fishing trips now (just wait until Elisabeth opens Jim's tackle box and finds the note she left for him undisturbed) and out in the wild they run into Curran, the soldier-killing soldier who has been banished. Jim heads back to Terra Nova while Taylor stays around to help save the guy from a vicious dinosaur, and then orders Curran to infiltrate the Sixers' camp, with a promise to let him return to Terra Nova later.
And then there's Josh. Poor, stupid Josh. When he made the deal with Mira, he never thought he'd have to do something disagreeable for the return favor. But here he is, being asked to steal some medicine from the infirmary to help the Sixers battle a disease. He tries to get out of it -- and Skye urges him not to do it -- but in the end he breaks in and delivers the medicine. A lament from his mother about how the stolen medicine is needed to help people not die gets to him -- did it only just occur to him that that's what medicine does? -- and he returns a vial of the stuff to help tide the infirmary over until more can come through in the pilgrimage. His parents are upset, and Boylan's in trouble too. I'm starting to get the sense that the Shannons risked having Zoe because Josh is such a waste of space that they figured no one would begrudge them having another child.
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!Jim and Taylor are spending a very manly day together fishing along a coastline that is absolutely teeming with dinosaurs and pterosaurs and, um, fishosaurs? They use bows to shoot fishing line out into the water and then just sit back and wait for the fish to bite. Taylor reminisces about bringing his son out here, and Jim says this is the first time he's heard him talk about Lucas and asks how long he's been missing. Taylor says it's not his favorite topic. Good job bringing him up, then, Taylor.
Then Jim gets a bite from a horribly animated fishosaur that pops out like I was supposed to be wearing 3D glasses to see it. It's too bad, because most of the other dinosaur work has been passable to pretty great, so this really sticks out. Promisingly, Jim gets dragged in his chair to the edge of the cliff, only to be held back by Taylor. And can I just ask at what point was Jim prepared to let go of the line? Is it strapped to him? And if it is, isn't that a ridiculous idea?
Over in the Shannon household, Josh and Maddy are playing some sort of game with pebbles and studiously ignoring their mother, who winds up having exciting news for Maddy: some geologist she idolizes is back to the colony after having been in the field for six months. Ken Horton, author of Atlas of the Known World, which Zoe just happens to have a copy of in some sort of chunky electronic-book format that takes up way more space than any e-reader available today, let alone 140 years in the future. Anyway, they're off to meet him and present Maddy as a child bride or something -- I wasn't really paying attention.
So this Horton guy rolls into the camp to a hero's welcome, and he waves to his adoring masses and climbs down and greets Malcolm as "Marcus" and then wants him to help unpacking. Malcolm introduces Elisabeth as the doctor who'll be doing all his physicals, because there's no telling what he was exposed to out there.
Over at Boylan's place, Josh is hard at work not doing anything illegal at the moment, but Boylan strolls in, so you know that's going to change. He tells Josh that Mira's calling in her favor: she wants him to steal some kind of medicine that's tightly controlled and only available in the infirmary, so he's going to have to break in to do it. Josh balks, but Boylan asks him if he wants to bring his girlfriend back or not. Josh should consider just how cute Skye is. But hey, a promise is a promise.
In the infirmary, Elisabeth's preliminary examination of Horton turns up nothing of concern, but because he had a stroke a few years ago, she wants to do a cerebro-scan. He begs off for now, claiming to be tired, but clearly it's something shady. No matter to Elisabeth; she lets him off the hook for saying hello to Maddy, who comes over and says she's a big fan. He asks if she'd like to accompany him to the lab.
By the time they get there, I'm sure he's regretting the invitation, since she won't shut up about Atlas of a Long Forgotten World and how much it meant to her. She babbles about how Terra Nova seemed so far away and alien, but after she read the book she couldn't wait to come. The whole time, Horton seems distracted, and then he whines about all the work that's going to have to be done. Poor sucker Maddy volunteers to help out, and fortunately she's free because her medical internship just finished. She neglects to mention that it more or less ended because she couldn't handle her shit.
Elsewhere, Josh is brooding (big surprise) about stealing the meds. Skye warns him against doing it, mainly based on what Taylor would do to him. Demand they strip to the waist and have a knife fight, most likely. Josh, meanwhile, is rationalizing: it's not like he's providing them with weapons; they're sick. Also, he promised Kara, and things are really bad in 2149 (yep, and there's lots of people who could come to Terra Nova, not just ones with a connection to teenage arseholes who steal medicine to get them over here). His mom will just have to go without a little less chem for a few days. Uh, it's not your mom who needs the medicine, jackass. "Glad to see you've got your justifications all worked out," snaps Skye, who stomps off, but first asks how he even knows the Sixers can deliver what they're promising.
Over at the lab, Horton is bragging about how they found thirty new species of plant, but first they're going to have to catalogue all the rock samples according to where they were found. "And remember, don't take schist for granite!" jokes Maddy, holding up a rock. Horton laughs and calls that "very clever" and Maddy gets confused because he wrote that in his book, and you kind of want to tell her that geologists have been making jokes about taking things "for granite" for as long as geologists have existed, and maybe he was just being polite when she told that antique of a joke.
But Horton chalks it up to his memory not being what it used to be. Anyway, she asks him to sign her copy of his book, and then casually asks if he had a chance to "radioisotope the coastal outcroppings" and he says continental drift never interested him much, which contradicts something he wrote her years ago in reply to a fan letter she sent to him. He (naturally) doesn't remember that either, but suddenly becomes very interested in this letter she has, and asks her to bring it in so he can have a copy for his archives.
Over at Boylan's, some poor sucker who owes Boylan 500 terras is trying to pay his debt with a broken, worthless watch, and Boylan kicks him out and gives him three days to pay. Does Boylan not make any effort to keep his evil and illegal activities in secret? Josh comes in, suddenly Mr. Tough Negotiator, and says he wants proof that Kara's really coming. Boylan says they're cut off from 2149, and Mira's the only one with the line to the future. "If she wants those meds, I want more than those assurances," says Josh, and I bet Boylan is wishing Josh had signed some sort of no-whining clause.
Speaking of whining, Zoe and Elisabeth arrive home with Zoe whining about wanting Daddy to read her bedtime story, since Mommy does the voices all wrong. Elisabeth explains that her dad is off being a manly man in the wilderness and almost getting eaten by dinosaurs, and sends her to wash up.
Maddy meanwhile is sulking at the dining room table and confides to her Mom that Horton forgot a joke from his first book and contradicted the letter he wrote her, which is when she notices that the signature on the letter and the autograph she just got don't match. Elisabeth chalks it up to his having had a stroke, and then feeds Maddy a bunch of guff about heroes rarely living up to expectations. She advises her to think of all the things that made her look up to him in the first place. Like that silly affected European explorer scarf he wears!
Josh and Boylan are hooded and being brought to meet with Mira. Like, what kind of crap security does Terra Nova have that people just randomly come and go whenever they please? And unfortunately this isn't an execution. Josh gets hoisted up to Mira's treetop lair, where she angrily says. "We agreed you'd do as I said, no questions asked, and now you demand proof?" He says she's asking a lot: "You're asking me to steal from my mother," he says. No, again, she's asking you to steal medicine from an infirmary. That's worse, you dickbag.
So she shows him a hologram of Kara who is sickly and breathing through a re-breather. She's excited to "see" Josh so there's probably some brain damage there too. Is it true, she wants to know, about her being on the pilgrimage? "I promised you I'd get you here," he says, and then the dingbats hold up their hands to touch each other -- like, what aspect of holograms don't you understand -- and then Kara winks out. "You'll have plenty of time to talk once Boylan gets her here," says Mira. "You'll get your meds," says Josh.
The day, Jim and Taylor are planning to lie about the size of the fish they caught when they stumble upon a recently abandoned campsite, with some standard-issue Terra Nova gear. Taylor figures it's Curran: "Who else would be living out here on their own?" Taylor decides to send Jim back to Terra Nova; he's going to stick around for another day. Jim wonders if Taylor's had a change of heart, but that ain't happening, what with Curran having killed another soldier, Taylor points out. That just makes Jim worry that maybe Taylor's going to kill Curran. Taylor's not saying, one way or the other.
Elsewhere, Horton and Maddy are strolling through an orchard where every apple has been rendered inedible by blight. Maddy's bummed because Zoe has always dreamt of having apple pie. Horton's all, "Yeah, speaking of apple pie, did you remember to bring that letter?" He's practically Gollum-like as she gets it out, and he takes it while she fake-casually asks him a detail about an expedition, pretending to forget the name of Horton's colleague. He can't remember either, and starts to snap at her, before catching himself and saying, "Details become so jumbled. When you're my age, you'll understand." Anyway, he brings her to some sort of insect house, and he tells her he found a species of beetle that feed on the apple blight mould. He tells her to open it, and a swarm of phony looking beetles swarm out, looking again like this was supposed to be a very special 3D episode only everyone forgot to tell us. "In a few weeks, Zoe can have her pie," says Horton. Maddy looks unsure about what his deal is, but eventually smiles.
In the jungle, Taylor's tracking Curran -- as well as some big-ass dinosaur footprints.
Back at home, Maddy is now spilling her guts to Zoe about her concerns about Horton, but she sounds about ready to accept that maybe she's just expecting too much. Zoe offers up the possibility that he's a vampire, because her friend Nina said one came over in the last pilgrimage. Look, I went to a movie tonight and was subjected to a Breaking Dawn trailer, so I am in NO MOOD to hear about vampires.
Meanwhile, Josh is skulking around the house, and sneaks into his mom's lab coat and grabs her ID, just as she gets home, talking about having "xiph kebabs" for supper. He's late for work, though, and promises he'll have something to eat at the bar.
And the bar's not even OPEN, looks like, so nice alibi. Anyway, Boylan makes a copy of the ID -- assuring Josh that the ID info was stripped, so no one will know it was his mom's ID, which is kind of hilarious because wouldn't it be the identity information on the, you know, ID that provides the access? Boylan also hands over some sort of sonic pistol in case Josh runs into trouble, which of course he will. If someone shows up, one shot on the lowest setting, and the person won't even know his own name.
So Josh smashes into the infirmary. Her ID card wouldn't have opened it? The ID doesn't even WORK on the medicine fridge. "Dammit, Boylan!" says Josh. So he just shoots the fridge with the sonic weapon -- so nice work risking being caught over the damn ID when this was all you had to do -- and it sends him flying back against the wall, winding him. But at least it got the cabinet open, and he starts stuffing medicine into his backpack.
And out in the jungle, Taylor finds Curran, asleep and with a nasty leg wound. Taylor wakes him up and then makes fun of him for having a nasty leg wound that stinks, too. "Couldn't happen to a nicer guy," says Taylor.
Jim's back at Terra Nova, and Washington gives Jim grief for leaving Taylor out there, even though Taylor is A) Jim's boss and B) kinda crazy. Anyway, she's glad he's back, and tells him about the infirmary being broken into and the stolen Azimeth. Again, we have to thank god that Jim stowed away on the pilgrimage, because apparently no one else is investigating the break-in.
But now Sheriff Jim is on the case! He examines the scene (hilariously theorizing, based on the smashed in door window, that the thief broke in through the window) and sees the bent cabinet door. "Gotta be high, drunk or desperate to use a sonic pistol indoors in such close quarters," he tells Elisabeth, adding that whoever did this would be hurting today. Sure enough, we see Josh examining the bruises all over his torso, which was kind of nice.
Maddy's at the lab when Malcolm shows up, pissed off that Horton hasn't filed his report yet. Horton comes in, playing dumb, and Malcolm snaps that Horton better have his report on his desk by Monday or his funding will be cut off. Funding? Terra Nova government? No taxation without representation! Maddy leaves to go pick Zoe up after school, and asks for her letter back. Horton makes a big show of pretending to look for it, but assures her it will turn up. Maddy doesn't believe him, which unfortunately leads to a conversation in which Zoe reiterates her controversial "He's a vampire!" argument.
Out in the jungle, Curran wants to know if Taylor's going to kill him. Instead, Taylor's making some sort of medicine drink to help with the infection. "You've been hit by an ancestral Komodo," he says. Curran says he was trying to set a snare for it, and Taylor says the thing is tracking him, because they hang back until their prey is incapacitated. "When you're too weak to fight back, the komodo movies in, finishes the job," he says. Curran wants to know why Taylor's helping him, and Taylor just tells him to lie back and let him worry about the Komodo.
Back at Terra Nova, Maddy waits for Horton to leave the lab, then sneaks in, looking for her letter. She finds it -- reduced to scraps of burnt paper in the garbage. And then in comes Horton, who sets aside his cane and stops limping as soon as he's in. He grabs the garbage bag and takes it out -- narrowly missing Maddy, who squeezed under a table -- and heads back outside, limp returning. Maddy puts on her best Nancy Drew face as she stares at the scraps of burnt paper she managed to save.
Jim, Elisabeth and Josh are all out gardening in their back yard, with Jim and Elisabeth discussing the lowness of someone stealing medicine (Elisabeth has a patient with a rare neurological disorder who will die without it) until Josh throws a spaz and stomps inside, whining that what Terra Nova really needs is a way to communicate with 2149. Hey, remember when Elisabeth and Malcolm synthesized boatloads of that pheromone to save Terra Nova? Well, they don't, apparently, because why couldn't they do that with this or any other medicine?
Inside the house, Maddy has come to the conclusion that Horton is not the real Ken Horton but someone who stole Horton's identity to come to Terra Nova, and used a "facer" to provide a new face, because, oh why not a "facer." Then she gets a genius idea: she's got Horton's DNA on the envelope he sent her, so she just needs to get a new sample.
It doesn't take long; the day -- after he fake-casually remembers that the colleague she was asking about was Dr. Grazier -- Horton leaves behind his coffee cup. Maddy grabs it and then uses the lab's DNA software to check it out. Malcolm comes in, concerned with what she's doing, but is super-eager to help out when he finds out it's because she thinks Horton's a fraud.
Over at Boylan's, Josh sneaks a vial of Azimeth from the package he's got for Boylan. Then he tells Boylan that his dad's asking a lot of questions. "The truth would be very bad for business," says Boylan, who then notices the skeet who tried to pawn the watch. Boylan tells Josh to go home and play the dutiful son, and no one will suspect him. Josh leaves. "Hey, Willy? How'd you like to work off that money you owe me?" Boylan calls, pulls out sonic pistol from under the bar.
Bad news for Maddy: the DNA is a match. "I was so sure. I'm sorry I wasted your time," she says, and Malcolm resigns himself to the "casual insolence" and being treated like research assistant. That last bit twigs with Maddy, who'd better act fast because Horton's skulking around in the shadows and has heard the whole thing, like this is some sort of medieval fairy tale of sorcerers and knights.
At the infirmary, Willie's high as a kite on Azimeth and Elisabeth is examining him. She called in Jim to tell him about Willie's broken ribs and tissue damage consistent with a blast from a sonic pistol. Jim says he's going to have a look around Willie's place.
In the jungle, the Komodo makes its move, but Taylor scares it off by waving around a machete and a torch and calling it a coward. "Jesus, this guy's insane," hisses the Komodo before scuttling away. And when Curran wakes up the day, Taylor gives him a map and orders him to infiltrate the Sixers. "You do it, Curran. Or the time I track you down the last thing you're going to see alive will be my face."
And then shit really starts to get stupid. Maddy uses the Eye to find out that Horton had a research assistant who was the same age, height and build, and all mention of him stops just before Horton's pilgrimage. She also researches crimes around that time and discovers news of an unidentified dead male found in a park. "He didn't just steal his identity, he killed him," she says. And Horton's there, creepily telling her that this kind of reading material will give her nightmares. He's prevented from doing anything more than intimidating her when someone else comes in to use the Eye. Maddy doesn't ask this guy for help or anything -- she just runs out. And then she's chased through the market by Horton (who has to keep pretending to limp) and doesn't call for help, but just keeps running through a crowd of dozens of people.
We take a break from this ludicrous plot to visit Willie's house, where they've found just one empty bottle of Azimeth. Willie claims first to have used the rest (except he'd be in a coma) and then to have sold it. Under extraordinarily minor prodding (literally, with the butt end of a paintbrush by Jim) Willie folds and confesses him that Boylan wanted him to take the rap for it. Jesus, who else would it be? Jim and Wash should always just make Boylan's their first stop from now on.
Anyway, I guess because of the chase, Maddy's late to pick Zoe up? And despite the fact that she was ahead of Horton -- who has to pretend to limp -- he got there first and picked Zoe up? When this all settles out, I hope the teacher is replaced, especially with the slight attitude she gives Maddy, all, "I'm sorry... he said you knew." And then she doesn't appear to wonder why Maddy is all frantic about this and goes racing off to the orchards (not that Maddy tells her to get help or anything).
So: Maddy finds Zoe with Horton in the orchard, and he lets Zoe go in exchange for Maddy, who instructs her little sister to tell Jim she'll be home in time to make the asparagus. And despite this obviously being some sort of code, Horton lets her go and is about ready to kill Maddy (despite -- or maybe because of -- her babbling about how she understands his motives) with a poisonous spider, all the while talking about how she would have hated the real Horton, who was a jerk. Then Jim shows up and knocks Horton down with one punch.
Back at home, we get an over-explanation of the "safe words" the kids have for Jim (which is fortunate, because fucking "HELP!" doesn't appear to be an option) and Elisabeth asks Maddy why she tried to do this by herself. Maddy says she didn't have any proof and maybe Jim and Elisabeth should tell their idiot-genius daughter that if she thought her idiot-idiot little sister (who is practically a baby and willingly went off with a stranger SHE WAS CONVINCED WAS A VAMPIRE) was in physical danger, then GET HELP FIRST and worry about proof later or PROBABLY NEVER. "And I did try and talk to you, Mom," she points out. Well, there's a guilt trip for you! Elisabeth says if she's not listening, then MAKE her listening, and/or get help from your father. Jim just couldn't be prouder that his daughter went with her gut even though the evidence was against her. And what kind of a scary police state is Terra Nova going to be when the sheriff favors "gut" instead of "evidence"? Some blah-blah about whether the real Horton was the jerk Fickett says he was, and who cares because this episode is almost over.
Idiot Josh then comes in with a vial of medicine, shocking his parents. He says he didn't think anyone would get hurt. Jim can't believe he broke into the clinic. "You stole from your mother," he says, again, like the medicine belonged to her. "I'm sorry," he says. He confesses giving it to the Sixers because they promised they could get Kara here. "Who said the Sixers could do that?" asks Jim. Jesus, Jim, who do you think?
Over to Boylan's, where Jim roughs up the shady bar owner for getting Josh caught up with the Sixers. Part of Jim's problem is that he assumes Boylan's making false promises, since the Sixers can't even feed themselves, let alone bring people from the future. Boylan gets strangely shirty over being called dishonest: "I may be a lot of things, but I'm no liar," he says, which A) is weird for him to get indignant about, especially since B) that's not even CLOSE to being REMOTELY true. Anyway, he doesn't know how she does it, but Mira can talk to the future, says Boylan.
Taylor's back now, so Jim has filled him in about the Sixers apparently being able to communicate with the future. Taylor figures it's Lucas. "The kid's a genius. The whole reason they recruited him was so they could figure out how to communicate with Hope Plaza between pilgrimages," he says. So wait... you immediately rejected Boylan's claim, despite the fact your genius son was recruited for just this purpose? Could the writers put down the crack pipe long enough to consider what these characters might actually say?
"If you're right, then at least there's a chance he's still alive," says Jim, adding that at least there's a slight chance of bringing him back home. Taylor says there is no chance, but doesn't answer when Jim asks why not. Instead he asks how things are between him and Josh -- they've been better. "Fathers and sons. Let me put it this way: maybe you should be grateful that the worst you have to worry about is your boy getting in over his head because of a girl," says Taylor. Yeah, uh, he used a gun and stole medicine and gave to outlaws via the colony's criminal con artist, which is a little more than "in over his head because of a girl," but Jim doesn't say that.
And then Maddy picks a huge ripe apple that apparently healed itself of all the rotting flesh after the magic beetles ate the surface blight. And she smiles because despite all odds, the Shannon children are somehow still alive.
Daniel is a writer with a wife and daughter in Newfoundland. At some point, Jim and Elisabeth need to cut their losses and just get some new kids. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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