Keiran McEwen
Keiran McEwenTired of the nonsense of the town, Jack wakes up late to see Zoe is still home on what he’s decided is his sick day. He’s not actually sick, as SARAH the “smart” AI-powered house picks up on – and I’ve just realized I haven’t really spoken about SARAH this season aside from in “Pilot.” Mysteriously, everyone gets a message to come to the house after Zoe has left for school, and Jack is left looking at property listings in September of 2006. If he’s willing to buy, I’ve got a lovely big red bridge to sell him or a green-tinted woman if he’s interested.
As you can guess, with Michael Coleman’s “Pizza Dude” already there, Fargo, Stark, Henry, Allison, and Bev all get the call and come in asking what’s up. Meanwhile, Jo and Taggart are celebrating Holi a bit late, or a bit early if you know what’s coming in season 4-5? Basically, SARAH picked up on Jack’s dour mood because Henry said at the end of “Purple Haze” (purple haze) that he’s leaving town. The vision of Eureka was discovery, and now it is DOD and DOJ testing grounds for the atrocities the country causes around the world. Do what half the country does a year or so from now until the end of time, and blame the Black guy. Oh, right.
I don’t know if it is a coincidence or if it is recency bias, but when I think back on season 1 of Eureka so far, I think Harry Victor’s three episodes have been at least solid, if not the best of the season. “H.O.U.S.E. Rules” isn’t much different, though I do still have gripes with it and the season as a whole for rather obvious reasons. One of them I’ve complained about in nearly every episode, even when she’s not in the show. “H.O.U.S.E. Rules” highlights that very problem in the first place.
So, SARAH traps the former six, plus “Pizza Dude,” in the bunker, and when Jo and Taggart show up, Carter gets a message out to Josefina that there is trouble. I hate saying this because sometimes it is a term overused for a small-scale story, but it is a typical bottle episode. The majority of the show is in the house, there is some stuff out in the forest, and there is about a quarter of the episode eventually in the sewer/access tunnels to the bunker and services of Eureka, and that’s really it.
“H.O.U.S.E. Rules” is a character piece about the characters we have and their interpersonal relationships throughout the season so far. At the very least, my editor knows what I’m about to say. So why is Beverly Barlowe here? Her only connections (so far) are Jack who she tried to ride like the village bike in “Pilot,” and Allison, who she thinks is the village bike that is being fought over by Nathan and Jack. Without spoilers, what’s her connection to Henry or Fargo? Better still is the fact that her connection to Stark is tentative at best.
This is where the mystery box of Beverly Barlowe falls apart, she’s got nothing to do with anyone unless it has to do with sex. Other than a topless Stark or a lacey-pink-wearing Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Eureka is kind of sexless. The show is the fantasy of nerds: A town filled with the best and brightest who are the power players, not the idiots with muscle, and Jack is fairly bland. That isn’t meant to take away from Colin Ferguson’s work, but he’s neither played as smart or strong; he’s the everyman. There’s plenty of innuendo so loud you can hear Freddie recording lines about the sun and desert sand.
The point I’m making is, why is she here, and what’s her purpose in the plot overall? There aren’t new threads of her character shown, she isn’t really interacting with Henry other than to get out a bit of exposition, and generally, she’s there to fill out the cast for what is effectively a resolution to the problem. That being an AI-powered (2006 remember) “Smart” house with code that was built on the very thing Henry wants to escape from, military tech. SARAH, Self-Actuated Residential Automated Habitat, is built on top of BRAD, Battle Reactive Automatic Defense.
I’ve noted it before, Henry has become disillusioned by it, but the town of Eureka has become Los Alamos. The trouble is, and this might upset someone (because apparently everything does) the US wasn’t and still isn’t in an arms race to make the ultimate weapon[s]. At least not conventional weapons, bombs, guns, and armor rounds; not to become doom and gloom, but that’s a thing of the past. Nonetheless, the town has changed from discovery and an optimistic vision of humanity to one that’s pessimistic without a needed dose of reality.
Stark calls himself a pragmatist without the needed roots in reality. It’s also here we find out that Stark is the reason Henry is here and Henry is the mentor that got Stark here too, the added layer that’s missing for the likes of Beverly. I’ll stop now, but she does infuriate me. The resolution might not be that Jack saves the day himself or mostly by himself, but it certainly focuses on our main few, which has been the problem with earlier episodes.
Out of the episodes thus far, Victor’s work on “Alienated,” “Dr. Nobel,” and here, alongside “Purple Haze” (purple haze) and “Pilot” are decent. They are the closest to what the rest of the show is going to be, maybe not perfect, but certainly there. Much like Doctor Who of the time, the budget might not be there for a full-on MCU-looking show. Creatively, it is stuck in that noticeable green screen and VFX era because Creative Suite 2 (and later After Effects version 7.0) was only released in 2005. Which I honestly think can be more creative and fun than what we have now.
Ultimately, “H.O.U.S.E. Rules” is the character piece we’ve desperately needed in Eureka for the last few episodes, but it seems a bit too late in the season for that. Oddly enough, it follows directly on from “Purple Haze” (I won’t do it this time), which didn’t seem to follow on from Primal’s divorce, so maybe it was originally intended for earlier in the season. “H.O.U.S.E. Rules” is certainly a favorite of the season thus far, but I don’t think it’s near the top spot held by the granny snogging episode, “Dr. Nobel.”
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Eureka "H.O.U.S.E. Rules"
Pros
- Finally, a decent character piece that's focused.
- We don't need several one-off characters to tell a story, thank god.
Cons
- Why is Beverly here?
- Do we see the consequences of SARAH/BRAD killing "Pizza Dude?"
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