Keiran McEwen
Keiran McEwenI know it’s meant to be a reference to Prince or something, but can we just rename it Pink and Lacy? The third of Johanna Stokes’ five writing credits, she’s listed as working on the teleplay for this one, while show creators Cosby (not that one) and Paglia came up with the story. So we know who to blame. Star Trek: Enterprise and Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (I’m not joking, that’s real) director David Straiton works on his only episode of Eureka. I swear the acknowledgments of Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights will get you wetter and more excited.
Last time out in “Primal,” Allison is handing Stark the divorce papers, and at the start of this time out they’re having dinner with her thinking it’s romantic… Don’t you just love it when studios and production companies mess with the running order of shows to make them more confusing and less cohesive? “Purple Haze” (purple haze) is one of those forever fun episodes where everyone’s a bit angry with each other, falls asleep while driving, and wakes up irrationally tired and angry at everyone and thing else. If the sarcasm there didn’t bleed through like headlines through purple haze (purple haze), then I don’t know what will.
Everyone’s angry, Bev tells Allison, “Isn’t it so hard being you, having hot Nathan and charming Carter fawning over you?” Yes, I think I’ve finally found something I agree with the annoying orange on. The only people not affected by 5G being installed and everyone’s vaccines turning them into a bickering bunch are (of course) Sheriff Carter and Zoe. Including those that turned a bit strange is Jo, who’s got her hair down and acting… feminine and smiley. Ugh, I know, she’d kill anyone who said that, but not half as much as anyone who said it was attractive.
While everyone passed out aside from the two in the decommissioned war bunker turned smart house, everyone who did pass out suddenly became a bit bipolar. Stark becomes more obsessed with the artifact, Henry is now an alcoholic, Allison is bored of work and horny (wouldn’t you be in that?), and maybe I’m affected too? Despite being very paint-by-numbers, hey let’s air these out of order to make every reviewer’s life a misery, and while we’re at it, we’ll add in extreme renditions of amateur dramatics being overplayed. I still somewhat like it for what it does from a writing and direction standpoint.
If “Right as Raynes” is an example of direction and writing not focusing on the bit that connects the story, “Purple Haze” is the opposite. I have my gripes: Why are Allison and Bev both ’80s action stars who weren’t in Cobra Kai? Why have I suddenly become a randy old man anytime I think of Salli Richardson-Whitfield in that one scene in her underwear? And thirdly, who at Sci-fi (now Syfy) decided to ruin the running order? Gripes aside though, it is a very simplistically written piece that doesn’t waste too much time with jangly keys to make it cluttered.
The hero of the day isn’t the town or someone we haven’t met, we don’t run into a 30-something playing a teenager that Zoe is meant to be attracted to despite having a 12-year-old’s haircut, and it is all fairly self-contained. Fargo is angry at the plants listening to what a lot of people will miss appropriate as “Classical” music, but Wagner’s Die Walküre from his Der Ring des Nibelungen, and particularly “Ride of the Valkyries,” is of the Romantic period. Yes, I will be pedantic about that.
“Purple Haze” is a fine episode for any other show, but the rest of the season of Eureka has been somewhat directionless and spending more and more time trying to introduce the characters we’ve known now for 10 episodes. This one episode did away with the whole “Is Eureka still finding its feet,” “How long can Beverly Barlowe be mysterious,” and “Did we mention enough about section five for you to understand it’s top secret yet?” It stripped everything back, does the fundamentals of a mystery/disaster of the week show, and doesn’t overload it with heroes of Canton.
Ultimately, “Purple Haze” is easily one of the best episodes of the season, especially as we’ve spent so much time worrying you don’t know who Jack, Allison, Fargo, Nathan, Henry, Zoe, Jo, Taggart, Bev, and Vince are. The only explanation I have for Allison and Nathan’s dinner date early on is a studio messing with the running order, which does make it a bit questionable in the season at this point. However, before this, we’ve been bereft of an episode that did fundamentals. It’s fun, it’s light, it’s a bit odd, and probably most important aside from Henry’s reveal at the end, it’s Eureka finally standing up and being what it’s going to be going forward, odd.
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9 Eureka "Purple Haze"
Pros
- Back to the fundamentals of writing.
- Carter getting to be the hero, mostly.
Cons
- Surely the studio messed with the running order.
- Why Allison? You gave him the papers last time.
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