Recap: Season Two, Episode Three
I'm never going to be done before new episodes. Sigh.
Screencap version here on eljay or here on DW.
Some paintballers run around in an amusement park. Something may or may not be chasing them.
The girls can’t recognise a teenage boy howling. He jumps out and paintballs them before running away.
Then he gets eaten.
It’s a pretty cool paintball arena, though. I’ve never seen one like that over here.
Abby brings Connor to break his date with Caroline on her way into the ARC. She takes it surprisingly well.
“Oh, that’s a pity. Work again? You must be the busiest student I’ve ever met.”
She calls him back when he turns away - I’m pretty sure this is the first time he says ‘Yo,’ something he’ll do regularly for the rest of the series - and tries to get him to tell her about his work. Connor resists, though he clearly doesn’t want to, and kisses her. She turns her head so he gets her cheek instead of the lips he was aiming for. He burns his mouth on the coffee and runs off, rejoining Abby.
“I really just burnt my tongue.”
“Get in the car, Connor.”
Once he’s gone Caroline flicks through photos of him and Rex on her phone, sending them to a mysterious someone.
It’s bizarrely amusing coming to this show straight from Stargate: Universe, because Cutter and Rush really sound quite alike. Nick is attempting to casually bring up Jenny’s boyfriend - “Fiancé!” - but, being Nick, he kind of misses the subtle part.
Leek looks pointedly at his watch, and Nick assures him they’re just waiting for Connor and he’ll be here in a minute.
Connor hurtles in, tapping importantly at a few buttons on the new ADD setup. “I’d like you to meet the Anomaly Detection Device, or ADD for short. Actually, that’s probably not the best acronym...”
“Connor. Breathe.”
Jenny, Leek and Stephen are unimpressed. Nick is on Connor’s side, right up until he sets off the alarm just to prove it works. He also shows off the handheld version - “I was hoping for something a little more compact.”
That’s not very fair, by the way. The handheld’s only about the size of a Gameboy! It’s hardly enormous.
Leek very sarcastically asks why, if the ADD is online, they’ve just gotten reports of a new attack.
FOUL! Connor just turned the thing on, so unless ARC personnel happened to be directly beside an opening Anomaly, there’s no way they could have gotten the news this quickly. I can’t believe no one thinks of that - they just all abandon Connor. Leek is a bad, nasty little man.
Connor searches with his handheld while Nick and Abby examine the body. They decide it’s the work of a big cat. Connor points out that not only is there no radio interference, there’s also no magnetic field. The others still think he’s failed.
Stephen suggests maybe there’s a mundane explanation. Abby agrees; big cats are constantly being sighted. That - does not fill me with confidence. Nick is pessimistic but agrees it’s worth looking into.
Stephen’s phone beeps with a text from Helen, telling him she’s fine and promising to see him soon. Nick sees the look on his face and asks if he’s ok. Stephen brushes it off and goes to look for prints.
Connor asks anxiously, if it’s a big cat does that get the ADD off the hook?
“Maybe.”
Jenny talks to Valerie, the assistant park manager, to tell her to keep the story under wraps. She ignores Valerie’s questions about her authorisation and name, browbeating her into letting her speak to the visitor who found the body.
Nick tries to persuade the manager to close the park. He refuses, citing loss of income. Jenny intervenes to negotiate a compromise; they’ll close the area where the man was killed, and leave everything else open. As befits a good compromise, everyone hates this plan; Nick because people will probably die, the manager because it’s still too much closure.
Children are playing in a wooden playground in what looks like the same area as the paintballing. The mother is distracted and doesn’t see the youngest child, a toddler, wander into the woods. The Creature growls as the child ambles along.
The child suddenly starts crying and the mother dashes to scoop him up. Was that supposed to be primal fear, or something?
Nick, still grumbling that the patrons should be gone, gets a message from Stephen. He’s picked up a trail about a mile away from the paintballing area, near an old farm. Stephen is promptly almost run over by various bikes and rickshaw type things, presumably destroying his trail.
Nick leaves Connor on guard at the vehicles. Connor protests his lack of gun - “What am I supposed to do if I do see something, talk it to death?”
Nick reluctantly hands over the keys to the gun cases - “Only as a last resort, got it?”
Nick and Abby run through the woods to meet Stephen. I saw you almost fall over there, Abby, and again a second later when they recycled the shot.
Connor has appropriated a sort of lifeguard’s seat to keep watch from. His phone beeps with a message from Caroline. Surely they should have, like, work phones and personal phones?
He taps the screen to reply and then giggles at the empty screen, for some reason. It’s a little odd.
Stephen thinks the Creature has doubled back on them.
Connor is busy reading Caroline’s reply when he hears children screaming and running. At least he warns Cutter before grabbing the biggest gun in the Jeep and going kamikaze on the Creature, panicking about four hundred children on the way. He shoots, hitting -
- The park manager in a lion suit. Luckily, Connor has such bad aim that although he did hit the suit, he didn’t hit the manager.
Jenny, Nick, Connor and the manager walk past a water ride. The manager wants to sue. Jenny tells him that won’t help. Nick agrees - “Tell them it was just a silly stunt that went wrong.”
Nick and Jenny are angry at Connor.
Connor stands by the ride and gets wet. It’s a bit predictable, but luckily low-key - just his lower trousers and feet, really.
Jenny discovers that the farm Stephen saw belongs to a man called West, who used to import exotic animals - including lions. Nick agrees to go check it out and Jenny insists on accompanying him.
To Abby - "Why is she coming?"
"Obviously doesn't trust you with the public."
Nick hears growling from inside a barn. He goes to investigate but West sees him before he can get in. Nick tries to bluff - "I'm from the James Lester Animal Fund, you've probably heard of us."
"No."
He asks West to help him replace a lion, but West is adamant he doesn't do that any more. It's about to degenerate to fisticuffs, but Jenny appears and defuses the situation. She talks West into showing them what's in the barn; it's bloody enormous German Shepherds, who attempt to eat Nick and Jenny. They retreat as quickly as they can.
Nick accuses Jenny of flirting with West.
"I was just being friendly. Your way wasn't exactly working, was it?"
"Well, no, I don't have the eyelashes for it."
They agree that from now on, Jenny will handle people while he deals with Creatures.
Back in the forest, Nick equips Stephen, Connor and Abby with night vision goggles. Connor asks for a gun and is firmly shut down.
"If you're worried, stay close to Abby."
Poor old Connor. He has some trouble adjusting to the goggles, too...
They tramp around through the woods for a bit while the audience tries not to get eye strain from looking through the different scopes. Why are some of them shaded purple and some red? I mean the backgrounds, not the actual things they're looking at.
Stephen almost shoots Valerie when she turns up unexpectedly. Her van's dead. Stephen hurries her off to one of the ARC vehicles to drive her home.
On the way she asks about what they'll do when they catch the Creature. "Kill it, I suppose." Stephen corrects her; he doesn't want to kill it. She asks about the secrecy and he refuses to explain, though he'd like to.
A man is walking, alone, at night, through trees and bushes. Don't these people learn? Something chases him and he locks himself into a building, blocking the door with a jukebox. It starts playing a song by a band called T-Rex, according to my subtitles. Hee.
The Creature is behind him, barely visible through a frosted window. It dives in, over his head, and he scrambles out through the broken window. It's a saber tooth tiger, or at least that's what it looks like. He makes a run for it across a railway bridge, which of course brings him back level with the saber tooth. It ambles across the tracks.
Stephen and Valerie hear the screams. So does a train spotter on the bridge. Stephen tells Valerie to stay in the car. The train spotter takes many photos of the saber tooth eating the man.
Stephen has the saber tooth in his sights when Valerie calls him. Distracted, he lets it get away. He tells Valerie to drive herself home, but she doesn't want to be on her own. He gives in and hurries her away.
Jenny has taken the train spotter's camera, much to his disgust. Connor is attempting to clean up the pictures for a better look.
Jenny bribes the train spotter into giving up his pictures and keeping silent. It's mildly disturbing watching her flirt with him, but it works. Connor is highly amused.
The pictures are clear enough for Nick to make an ID. It's a Smiledon, a saber tooth cat.
Valerie and Stephen have finally made it to her house. That took a while. She asks him again to tell her what's going on, but he refuses and drives off. So she doesn't mind being on her own now? Hmm...
Next day the Smiledon wanders through the grass under the rollercoaster.
Stephen is advising Nick on where to lay traps when Valerie arrives, in her now working van. She's disgusted at the thought of traps and flounces off. Stephen attempts to go after her but she shakes him loose and goes off.
Abby uses a JCB to...dig something? I guess? Connor carefully baits a trap. Nick watches Abby work, calling her to a halt when he sees a hand sticking out of the ground.
Before they can do anything about it the Smiledon attacks. Nick jumps into the pit to hide from it; Abby attacks it with the JCB. Battered but unbroken, the Smiledon chases Nick. He climbs a ladder and ziplines out of its' way. The Smiledon follows him on the ground and when he lands it's right there.
Luckily, so is Abby, who shoots at it. The Smiledon gives up and dashes away.
Back at the pit, Nick excavates the body.
Stephen and the others arrive - it's more amusing than it should be, watching Leek attempt the hero walk - and Nick tells them the body has been there between a week and a month. Connor jumps on that; that was well before the ADD came on line. Vindicated! Nick agrees, but points out that the saber tooth didn't bury anyone, meaning someone is protecting it.
Leek suggests West. Jenny is at his farm now, trying to convince him to accept the blame for an escaped lion as a cover story. I'm not - quite sure how she thought that was going to work? Nick sends Stephen, Abby and Connor after her.
West decides he isn't going for that and threatens her with a gun. Jenny looks pretty damn terrified. Luckily, Stephen and the others - Connor armed with a spade, since they still won't give him a gun - arrive just in time. West backs off, giving his gun to Stephen. Stephen empties it one-handed. Really, Stephen? I understand you don't want to give it to Connor, but Abby's right beside you. Do you need to struggle that much?
West knows nothing about the saber tooth.
Connor does get to carry the shotgun around after Stephen's emptied it. He seems quite happy with that.
“Happy now?”
“(Clicks gun) Oh yeah.”
Nick continues digging at the body and finds a wallet. There's a picture inside of Valerie with a man, presumably the body.
At her house, Valerie enters a room, shushing the occupant. It is of course the saber tooth, which she feeds.
Nick arrives at Valerie's. She doesn't seem to be there; he looks around some, calling Stephen to tell him what's going on.
Stephen, driving to Valerie's house, crosses paths with her car and gives chase, eventually running it off the road. Valerie isn't in it.
Back at Valerie's, Nick finds her. With a big gun. He tries to talk her down but it doesn't help much. She's convinced herself that the saber tooth was created in a lab and that Nick and the others have come to reclaim him. She raised him and she's not planning on letting them take him away, even if he does keep eating her boyfriends.
Valerie backs out of the room, locking Nick in with the Smiledon. Nick fends it off for a bit before climbing out onto a balcony. The Smiledon chases him and he climbs carefully over the dge, dropping to land below and hobble away.
Valerie chases after them to yell at Nick not to hurt the Smiledon. Nick, armed with a stick, warns her off, but the Smiledon eats her anyway. That was - abrupt. Stephen arrives to take it down with a tranquiliser. Nick collapses.
Stephen is pissed. He thinks if they'd been honest with Valerie she'd have been safe.
“What did you say to her? You said something to make her think we were the bad guys.”
“I didn’t say anything. But I wish I had.”
He stalks off, thrusting the gun at Connor and leaving. On foot, apparently.
At the ARC, Leek tells Cutter that the Smiledon died in transit. Nick is highly suspicious and demands a post-mortem. Leek apologises, but it's already been destroyed.
Connor has definitely, 7000% fixed the ADD. An alarm goes off; an actual anomaly. Nick tells him to come along.
"Oh, no, I can't. I've got a date with Caroline."
"Yeah? Is she pretty?"
"Yeah."
"Bummer."
Connor looks to Jenny, who waves him off. Giving up, he follows Nick.
In a car park somewhere, Caroline meets - Leek! Dun dun dun!
Why does she wear white trousers? They must be hell to keep clean.
Leek pays her off for the work she's done so far. She asks why she's spying on Connor, but Leek won't tell her. Dun dun....
Screencap version here on eljay or here on DW.
Some paintballers run around in an amusement park. Something may or may not be chasing them.
The girls can’t recognise a teenage boy howling. He jumps out and paintballs them before running away.
Then he gets eaten.
It’s a pretty cool paintball arena, though. I’ve never seen one like that over here.
Abby brings Connor to break his date with Caroline on her way into the ARC. She takes it surprisingly well.
“Oh, that’s a pity. Work again? You must be the busiest student I’ve ever met.”
She calls him back when he turns away - I’m pretty sure this is the first time he says ‘Yo,’ something he’ll do regularly for the rest of the series - and tries to get him to tell her about his work. Connor resists, though he clearly doesn’t want to, and kisses her. She turns her head so he gets her cheek instead of the lips he was aiming for. He burns his mouth on the coffee and runs off, rejoining Abby.
“I really just burnt my tongue.”
“Get in the car, Connor.”
Once he’s gone Caroline flicks through photos of him and Rex on her phone, sending them to a mysterious someone.
It’s bizarrely amusing coming to this show straight from Stargate: Universe, because Cutter and Rush really sound quite alike. Nick is attempting to casually bring up Jenny’s boyfriend - “Fiancé!” - but, being Nick, he kind of misses the subtle part.
Leek looks pointedly at his watch, and Nick assures him they’re just waiting for Connor and he’ll be here in a minute.
Connor hurtles in, tapping importantly at a few buttons on the new ADD setup. “I’d like you to meet the Anomaly Detection Device, or ADD for short. Actually, that’s probably not the best acronym...”
“Connor. Breathe.”
Jenny, Leek and Stephen are unimpressed. Nick is on Connor’s side, right up until he sets off the alarm just to prove it works. He also shows off the handheld version - “I was hoping for something a little more compact.”
That’s not very fair, by the way. The handheld’s only about the size of a Gameboy! It’s hardly enormous.
Leek very sarcastically asks why, if the ADD is online, they’ve just gotten reports of a new attack.
FOUL! Connor just turned the thing on, so unless ARC personnel happened to be directly beside an opening Anomaly, there’s no way they could have gotten the news this quickly. I can’t believe no one thinks of that - they just all abandon Connor. Leek is a bad, nasty little man.
Connor searches with his handheld while Nick and Abby examine the body. They decide it’s the work of a big cat. Connor points out that not only is there no radio interference, there’s also no magnetic field. The others still think he’s failed.
Stephen suggests maybe there’s a mundane explanation. Abby agrees; big cats are constantly being sighted. That - does not fill me with confidence. Nick is pessimistic but agrees it’s worth looking into.
Stephen’s phone beeps with a text from Helen, telling him she’s fine and promising to see him soon. Nick sees the look on his face and asks if he’s ok. Stephen brushes it off and goes to look for prints.
Connor asks anxiously, if it’s a big cat does that get the ADD off the hook?
“Maybe.”
Jenny talks to Valerie, the assistant park manager, to tell her to keep the story under wraps. She ignores Valerie’s questions about her authorisation and name, browbeating her into letting her speak to the visitor who found the body.
Nick tries to persuade the manager to close the park. He refuses, citing loss of income. Jenny intervenes to negotiate a compromise; they’ll close the area where the man was killed, and leave everything else open. As befits a good compromise, everyone hates this plan; Nick because people will probably die, the manager because it’s still too much closure.
Children are playing in a wooden playground in what looks like the same area as the paintballing. The mother is distracted and doesn’t see the youngest child, a toddler, wander into the woods. The Creature growls as the child ambles along.
The child suddenly starts crying and the mother dashes to scoop him up. Was that supposed to be primal fear, or something?
Nick, still grumbling that the patrons should be gone, gets a message from Stephen. He’s picked up a trail about a mile away from the paintballing area, near an old farm. Stephen is promptly almost run over by various bikes and rickshaw type things, presumably destroying his trail.
Nick leaves Connor on guard at the vehicles. Connor protests his lack of gun - “What am I supposed to do if I do see something, talk it to death?”
Nick reluctantly hands over the keys to the gun cases - “Only as a last resort, got it?”
Nick and Abby run through the woods to meet Stephen. I saw you almost fall over there, Abby, and again a second later when they recycled the shot.
Connor has appropriated a sort of lifeguard’s seat to keep watch from. His phone beeps with a message from Caroline. Surely they should have, like, work phones and personal phones?
He taps the screen to reply and then giggles at the empty screen, for some reason. It’s a little odd.
Stephen thinks the Creature has doubled back on them.
Connor is busy reading Caroline’s reply when he hears children screaming and running. At least he warns Cutter before grabbing the biggest gun in the Jeep and going kamikaze on the Creature, panicking about four hundred children on the way. He shoots, hitting -
- The park manager in a lion suit. Luckily, Connor has such bad aim that although he did hit the suit, he didn’t hit the manager.
Jenny, Nick, Connor and the manager walk past a water ride. The manager wants to sue. Jenny tells him that won’t help. Nick agrees - “Tell them it was just a silly stunt that went wrong.”
Nick and Jenny are angry at Connor.
Connor stands by the ride and gets wet. It’s a bit predictable, but luckily low-key - just his lower trousers and feet, really.
Jenny discovers that the farm Stephen saw belongs to a man called West, who used to import exotic animals - including lions. Nick agrees to go check it out and Jenny insists on accompanying him.
To Abby - "Why is she coming?"
"Obviously doesn't trust you with the public."
Nick hears growling from inside a barn. He goes to investigate but West sees him before he can get in. Nick tries to bluff - "I'm from the James Lester Animal Fund, you've probably heard of us."
"No."
He asks West to help him replace a lion, but West is adamant he doesn't do that any more. It's about to degenerate to fisticuffs, but Jenny appears and defuses the situation. She talks West into showing them what's in the barn; it's bloody enormous German Shepherds, who attempt to eat Nick and Jenny. They retreat as quickly as they can.
Nick accuses Jenny of flirting with West.
"I was just being friendly. Your way wasn't exactly working, was it?"
"Well, no, I don't have the eyelashes for it."
They agree that from now on, Jenny will handle people while he deals with Creatures.
Back in the forest, Nick equips Stephen, Connor and Abby with night vision goggles. Connor asks for a gun and is firmly shut down.
"If you're worried, stay close to Abby."
Poor old Connor. He has some trouble adjusting to the goggles, too...
They tramp around through the woods for a bit while the audience tries not to get eye strain from looking through the different scopes. Why are some of them shaded purple and some red? I mean the backgrounds, not the actual things they're looking at.
Stephen almost shoots Valerie when she turns up unexpectedly. Her van's dead. Stephen hurries her off to one of the ARC vehicles to drive her home.
On the way she asks about what they'll do when they catch the Creature. "Kill it, I suppose." Stephen corrects her; he doesn't want to kill it. She asks about the secrecy and he refuses to explain, though he'd like to.
A man is walking, alone, at night, through trees and bushes. Don't these people learn? Something chases him and he locks himself into a building, blocking the door with a jukebox. It starts playing a song by a band called T-Rex, according to my subtitles. Hee.
The Creature is behind him, barely visible through a frosted window. It dives in, over his head, and he scrambles out through the broken window. It's a saber tooth tiger, or at least that's what it looks like. He makes a run for it across a railway bridge, which of course brings him back level with the saber tooth. It ambles across the tracks.
Stephen and Valerie hear the screams. So does a train spotter on the bridge. Stephen tells Valerie to stay in the car. The train spotter takes many photos of the saber tooth eating the man.
Stephen has the saber tooth in his sights when Valerie calls him. Distracted, he lets it get away. He tells Valerie to drive herself home, but she doesn't want to be on her own. He gives in and hurries her away.
Jenny has taken the train spotter's camera, much to his disgust. Connor is attempting to clean up the pictures for a better look.
Jenny bribes the train spotter into giving up his pictures and keeping silent. It's mildly disturbing watching her flirt with him, but it works. Connor is highly amused.
The pictures are clear enough for Nick to make an ID. It's a Smiledon, a saber tooth cat.
Valerie and Stephen have finally made it to her house. That took a while. She asks him again to tell her what's going on, but he refuses and drives off. So she doesn't mind being on her own now? Hmm...
Next day the Smiledon wanders through the grass under the rollercoaster.
Stephen is advising Nick on where to lay traps when Valerie arrives, in her now working van. She's disgusted at the thought of traps and flounces off. Stephen attempts to go after her but she shakes him loose and goes off.
Abby uses a JCB to...dig something? I guess? Connor carefully baits a trap. Nick watches Abby work, calling her to a halt when he sees a hand sticking out of the ground.
Before they can do anything about it the Smiledon attacks. Nick jumps into the pit to hide from it; Abby attacks it with the JCB. Battered but unbroken, the Smiledon chases Nick. He climbs a ladder and ziplines out of its' way. The Smiledon follows him on the ground and when he lands it's right there.
Luckily, so is Abby, who shoots at it. The Smiledon gives up and dashes away.
Back at the pit, Nick excavates the body.
Stephen and the others arrive - it's more amusing than it should be, watching Leek attempt the hero walk - and Nick tells them the body has been there between a week and a month. Connor jumps on that; that was well before the ADD came on line. Vindicated! Nick agrees, but points out that the saber tooth didn't bury anyone, meaning someone is protecting it.
Leek suggests West. Jenny is at his farm now, trying to convince him to accept the blame for an escaped lion as a cover story. I'm not - quite sure how she thought that was going to work? Nick sends Stephen, Abby and Connor after her.
West decides he isn't going for that and threatens her with a gun. Jenny looks pretty damn terrified. Luckily, Stephen and the others - Connor armed with a spade, since they still won't give him a gun - arrive just in time. West backs off, giving his gun to Stephen. Stephen empties it one-handed. Really, Stephen? I understand you don't want to give it to Connor, but Abby's right beside you. Do you need to struggle that much?
West knows nothing about the saber tooth.
Connor does get to carry the shotgun around after Stephen's emptied it. He seems quite happy with that.
“Happy now?”
“(Clicks gun) Oh yeah.”
Nick continues digging at the body and finds a wallet. There's a picture inside of Valerie with a man, presumably the body.
At her house, Valerie enters a room, shushing the occupant. It is of course the saber tooth, which she feeds.
Nick arrives at Valerie's. She doesn't seem to be there; he looks around some, calling Stephen to tell him what's going on.
Stephen, driving to Valerie's house, crosses paths with her car and gives chase, eventually running it off the road. Valerie isn't in it.
Back at Valerie's, Nick finds her. With a big gun. He tries to talk her down but it doesn't help much. She's convinced herself that the saber tooth was created in a lab and that Nick and the others have come to reclaim him. She raised him and she's not planning on letting them take him away, even if he does keep eating her boyfriends.
Valerie backs out of the room, locking Nick in with the Smiledon. Nick fends it off for a bit before climbing out onto a balcony. The Smiledon chases him and he climbs carefully over the dge, dropping to land below and hobble away.
Valerie chases after them to yell at Nick not to hurt the Smiledon. Nick, armed with a stick, warns her off, but the Smiledon eats her anyway. That was - abrupt. Stephen arrives to take it down with a tranquiliser. Nick collapses.
Stephen is pissed. He thinks if they'd been honest with Valerie she'd have been safe.
“What did you say to her? You said something to make her think we were the bad guys.”
“I didn’t say anything. But I wish I had.”
He stalks off, thrusting the gun at Connor and leaving. On foot, apparently.
At the ARC, Leek tells Cutter that the Smiledon died in transit. Nick is highly suspicious and demands a post-mortem. Leek apologises, but it's already been destroyed.
Connor has definitely, 7000% fixed the ADD. An alarm goes off; an actual anomaly. Nick tells him to come along.
"Oh, no, I can't. I've got a date with Caroline."
"Yeah? Is she pretty?"
"Yeah."
"Bummer."
Connor looks to Jenny, who waves him off. Giving up, he follows Nick.
In a car park somewhere, Caroline meets - Leek! Dun dun dun!
Why does she wear white trousers? They must be hell to keep clean.
Leek pays her off for the work she's done so far. She asks why she's spying on Connor, but Leek won't tell her. Dun dun....