Primeval: New World -- Ep. 12
These are just taking me longer to do these days, but here's the spoileriffic summary of episode 12 of Primeval: New World.
So, there's a delightful afternoon of half-naked outdoor volleyball, and this guy with the nice chest and his equally fit buddies are having a girls vs boys match. They are being watched by something with funky and squidgy creature cam, which suggests this is probably not something vertebrate, because vertebrates normally see in far more clarity than that.
Not that that's saying much for this show, but nonetheless, it's sort of a truism.
After the game, the guy flirts with this lovely young woman who writes something on the ball, tosses it into the bushes and sends him after it. Turns out she's a lesbian and he's to be disappointed.
Seriously? After the slow-mo volleyball game, the half naked people and the jiggling and whatnot we had to throw lesbians into the mix? Why don't you just dress everyone like on Xena: Warrior Princess and have done with it?
So, he goes moseying over, finds the ball, gets attacked by what is pretty clearly a fucking giant scorpion, then falls over dead. We cut to the credits and feel kind of sorry for him, because he really wasn't too much of a bastard and kind of didn't deserve that, unlike some people who die horribly on shows like this.
Then we get a transition shot of Vancouver in time lapse, because we need to be totally sure we remind everyone that things are happening in Vancouver, it's on the water, and it's a city with lots of tall buildings. Then we get an establishing shot of the lab we all remember from last week's flashback episode, and this is not in time lapse. I do wonder how they pick these things. I mean, what's the criterion . . . well, criteria more likely, I'll bet there's more than one factor . . . for deciding what gets the lapse treatment or not?
Ange and our dear friend Colonel Anderson "Emotional blackmail" Hall are in the parts of the lab that look like they were stolen from the Initiative . . . Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Season Four? I'm alone in this one aren't I? Okay, let's go cliched. Stolen from Star Trek II, I think it was. The one with the new Enterprise where everything was shiny, white and new.
Ange is going on about how Evan's ways have been effective, and Hall's going on about how he doesn't want loose cannons running around, making it clear that part of Ange's job is to make the loose cannons come under control, one way or another. She is wearing a black top and eye-catching red skirt, which draws your eyes right down from her face and all to her legs, so that you are fixated on her upper thighs, and if you want to try telling me that's not a clear gambit on someone's part to objectify her sexually, I will demand a better explanation. And let's be frank, Ange would be dressing that way as a weapon, and you know it.
And that's about the only reason I have the longer shot here of her and Hall facing down in the hallway. Because that's a helluva skirt.
Having gotten permission in the previous scene to do this, she goes to visit Ken in prison, bringing him out because she likes him, I guess, and so that he can be a government dupe again. I would assume this is why she shows up still wearing that skirt. Which she wears for the whole episode and distracted me in basically every scene she was in. I can only assume they didn't want her in a black skirt and red top because that would a) be like most people and b) draw attention to her breasts instead of her legs. I suppose.
Ken is taken aback, but delighted that Ange, who he clearly still has a crush on, poor thing, has rescued him. She smiles at him with that affectionate and understanding smile she has, and . . . God, Ange, just sleep with the man already!
Jesus look at her framed in that doorway. Some of the camera work in this episode is just too obvious.
So, she promises that his record has been expunged and his rank restored and Ken does not ask the obvious question.
Why?
Apparently, despite the whole, mess last episode wherein Ken found out he was just a dupe and a figurehead and no one cares about his opinion etc. etc., apparently, he's perfectly happy to come popping back out of prison to work with the people who were clearly using him to Very Bad Ends.
Just . . . yeah.
So, over at Cross Photonics we are miraculously still not doing the time lapse on the establishing shot and Evan and Toby are meeting to talk about the new portable detectors, which now have a countdown mechanism and Toby is eager to show them off for Evan.
Ta-daaaaaaa!
Evan freezes, because the first time he saw something that looked like that, it had gone spinning out of ARC-Mac's hand, only to be stepped on by the now very familiar foot of Victoria the albertasaur. For reference, see the exchange in the comments that I had with nietie, back in my Episode Eight picspam. I mean, if you care why I'm going to call the albertasaur Victoria.
Anyhow, Evan's all freaking out because for all he knows the Evan that saved him is from a little ways in the future, and the ARC is something that he, Evan, put together. Or something. I don't know. The point is, he's so wide-eyed and overset that Toby starts to think she might have done something wrong. Then Evan gets a phone call and runs away like Victoria's right behind him.
Well, Toby goes to look into what Dylan and Mac are up to, since it seems the machinations of the armed forces have brought everyone together and made them forget their differences in the face of this threat. Something some people could have learned from, Stephen. Ahem.
So, Mac is asking why the hell they're looking into algae and not something interesting like t-rexes, while Dylan looks into . . . algae? The files they stole from Leeds' computer? I'm actually not really sure. So, Toby pulls Mac away while Dylan's busy to talk to him about what she's found. She really hasn't found much because someone has really done a job on making sure there's nothing to be found online.
She did find a site run by some geek in London. A conspiracy theorist with a blog.
Do you know what this means?
Exactly.
Can we get Duncan to guest star on P:NW next?
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!!!!!!
Shush you. I'm a Duncan fangirl.
So, Evan come hurtling down the stairs to see the last person he'd ever want to see, Ange. He's pissed off at her for falling for Hall's blandishments, he's pissed off because she's the one who approached Ken Leeds and effectively informed Project Magnet about the anomalies, and he gets even more pissed off when she tells him that, no, she is not there to apologise.
She is still wearing that skirt, but I couldn't get any really good caps of it, despite a few nice long shots of her sashaying along in it.
Instead they have a whole big, "Thanks to you and Leeds, I'm this close to going to prison."
"Leeds did go to prison for you!"
Oh, way to play the guilt angle, Ange. Then Toby comes in, accidentally letting on to Ange that they've got a new detector, and then Ange leaves and everyone else suits up to go look at the new anomaly, and no one seems very concerned that Hall's minion in the form of Ange was just there and might well be carrying the news back to the man that Evan's holding out on him.
Although really, if Hall doesn't expect it, he's pretty dumb.
So, they head out to the old abandoned mine, Dylan gets her Stephen, super-tracker on, determining that it's a giant buggy thing. Mac comments, "Hope it's not a crab, didn't bring any butter." Which garners eyerolls.
Then they split up, Toby with Evan and Dylan with Mac. Which either goes to show the continued hard feelings between Mac and Evan, or maybe Evan's back to being super-protective of Mac, or Mac's decided to give up on the impossible dream of Evan noticing just how in wuv he is with the man and has decided to go after Dylan. I don't know. I'm just tossing out theories here.
Toby starts taking readings, then gets a weird reading from her detector. It would seem that the thing is noting dozens of different time countdowns for anomaly closure. Evan shrugs it off, because any new technology has a shakedown period and this is the first field test, but it aggravates and worries Toby.
Then Mac and Dylan are wandering around above and Mac freezes, because Dylan's got a big-ass stinger creeping up on her. You can see it in the cap, sort of. To the right, behind her. Anyhow, then there is shooting and yelling and poking it with a two by four, because that knocks it off the second level into the main floor area below, where Evan faces off with it and discovers that the shots bounce off the carapace. Which is kind of a bad thing.
So, then they try to pretend they're a part of the Roman legions and use the large pieces of fencing to push the thing back without getting stung . . .
Those are metal. I must assume they are a nonmagnetic metal, because I gotta tell you, I can't imagine hanging onto those with an anomaly pulling on them if they were susceptible to a magnetic field. Which is why they look rusty and like they have iron in them. Because iron won't get sucked into an anomaly at all . . .
I know. Stop bringing the science into it.
So, Toby winds up on the end with a barrel lid instead of, y'know, a large metal sheet, and consequently gets hit by the scorpion's tail. And is now subject to whatever effects the venom will have on her. Because Captain America she ain't.
So, Dylan's trying to get Toby rushed to hospital and Evan's all, "They can't treat this," and then he calls Ange, because there's no point in being on your high horse if it gets everyone killed. So, Ange is all smug, expecting an apology, and then hears that Toby's probably going to die without help and immediately sends help along.
Hall waltzes in about then, upset that Ange is devoting their resources to saving Toby, and Ange gets all coy and, "I need to bring Evan onside," and "I've got to save Toby," and Hall gives what is possibly the least convincing, "Of course we need to save Toby," reply ever.
Then Ange leaves, all, "First Toby, then we get to Evan." And strides off in her shockingly red skirt that I can't stop looking at.
But before that, I need to mention something else. I need to mention Hall's irritable, "You do realise this means that Cross still has a functioning detection network."
Really, Hall? I thought you were smarter than that. But apparently not.
So, the helicopter comes down, Toby's loaded into it and they're told by the toxicology expert that they need a venom sample to treat Toby and Evan swears that he'll get that sample or die trying (well, he doesn't say die trying, but it's kind of implicit, as these things are).
Then a deeply concerned Mac hops into the chopper, because he's going back with Toby, instead of coming along on the scorpion hunt, Toby is on the edge with terror that she'll die, terror that Evan will die, Terror that they'll all be lost a bazillion years in the past . . . you get the idea.
And then they find out that Ken's out of prison, that he's blackmailing them in that he's not letting them near the anomaly unless they let him come along, and when asked about why he's not still in prison, says, "It was a temporary situation that was resolved to my satisfaction."
Oh, Ken.
So, they head to the anomaly, Evan completely disarming Ken as they go, because that's the best idea ever, and he's just totally pissed off about the animal abduction stuff and then they walk through to see:
Ahem.
No. Although I'm sure we'd all like it if they did. Yes, I suppose I could have picked up one of the long shots of the junction from that episode, but then we wouldn't be able to leer at Stephen. I tailor to my audience, you know.
No. But they do see a complete ripoff of the 'spaghetti junction' of anomalies from back in series one of Primeval: We had Stephen Hart, Tom Ryan and Hilary Becker, beat that. So, they look around, discombobulated and I don't get to complain that they're having grass in the environment of a clearly Silurian or Carboniferous creature, because it's a junction point, so at least they didn't do that.
For those who have that kink, please note that Evan is currently wearing the thigh straps so many of you think are super-sexy on Becker and the other SFs, and actually, so is Dylan.
They send Ken back through to run interference. He agrees that no one will get through to take samples and that he won't tell Hall or anyone about the anomaly junction there.
So, Toby is scribbling numbers on a pad, trying to work, the doctor is trying to make her stop and rest, and Mac dryly points out that she'll be far less relaxed if she's being kept from working.
And now the anomalies on the far side of the main one are clearly the cause of Toby's screwed up readings from the anomaly. Not that Toby knows this, but nonetheless . . .
In other news, the doctor is also the same lovely lady who played the avatar of the Andromeda Ascendant on Andromeda. If anyone remembers that show. Mmmm . . . Tyr . . . Charlemagne Bolivar . . .
Ahem. Well, it's no loincloth, but all that leather and netting . . .
Oh. Right. The show. Toby has a spasm and freaks Mac the fuck out.
So, Dylan gets her tracker on again, saying that she can't tell which anomalies the scorpion's been through, but the ones it has been through are all really close to where they are. Evan decides they're just going to do the trial and error thing. With a few dozen anomalies to look through and no way of knowing how long any of them will be open. In point of fact, one of them shuts on his face, close enough that if he'd been a little further he would have been sliced in half by the closing anomaly.
So, Evan picks another one and goes in. Then he comes back. Then he asks Dylan to go through with him. If you think this shot looks familiar, that's because it's the basement of what became Cross Photonics. More to the point, it's where Victoria the albertasaur came through. Evan goes hurtling all over, finally finding a punch card thing which is apparently still set up to give the date.
The date Brooke died, it would seem. And so Evan now has the very real chance of saving his wife. Which sets Dylan off, because she's all, "We've got to save Toby!", little realising that the odds are good that if Evan prevents his wife from dying, Toby might not even be involved or have been hit by the scorpion, because Evan wouldn't have seen a dinosaur snarfle his wife, so he wouldn't be on his crusade and there would be no show.
Evan is determined to save Brooke, and Dylan stomps off in high dudgeon to get the tail on her own, because Evan's being a moron. Evan stands contemplatively as he considers what to do. Hopefully we will not be left with a bug eating a snake and causing all the stegosaurs to die out, thus leaving us all lizard people.
Meanwhile, the Lady of Soundtrack Sorrow (TM Cleolinda Industries) warbles softly in the background, the same incomprehensible and possibly French almost-words going on to emphasise just how hard this is for Evan. Who I'm starting to think should just go ahead and save Brooke, just so that he can stop feeling guilt about it all, and then maybe save Mac while he's at it, and then he can go home to find out he has no home and maybe there can be some bells ringing and angels getting their wings. Or something involving someone named Clarence.
I've never actually watched, It's a Wonderful Life, so I'm probably grasping at straws.
Maybe the scientist dude in white is named Clarence. Or he's with a scientist/nun called Mary Clarence. Or the black soldier dresses up as Mary Clarence on weekends . . . I'll stop before this gets any further away from me.
So, these two are here to collect samples. Eager beavers that they are, I feel a little sorry for them, because I'm willing to bet that they just want to do lab testing and research. They are blocked by the dour soldier who Ken used to block Evan and Dylan before. Then Ken comes flopping up to them, all, "There's a new directive, no one goes in or out with the okay of our new civlian oversight person." That is, Ange.
The soldier shoots him a look. "Those are the modus operandi now?" he asks. Ken glares him down, but it's pretty clear the soldier knows that Ken's going outside the boundaries of his orders again. Nonetheless he does what he's told.
Toby is still working and Mac is still staying with her. Ange has showed up and is now watching, bleeding empathy all over the place in an attempt to match Dylan's ability to bleed empathy from her pores. Toby is fixating, I can only assume because otherwise she'll freak out. Mac . . . is saying nothing, just staying by her bedside.
Ange pulls aside Dr. Rommie to demand how Toby's doing. She's informed that a desperate space ship avatar is going to give Toby a blood infusion to try to keep the toxin thinned. Ange gets demanding. The blood won't be delivered soon enough, she states. Everyone in the facility needs to be blood typed right now. Especially Mac. First.
So, the doctor goes in and pulls Mac away, and he leaves Toby all alone to her fixated terror.
Dylan has gone on ahead and come out in what looks like it's probably supposed to be the Silurian. She wanders along for a while and falls into a sinkhole. Well, sort of a sinkhole, more of a trap. Probably. I mean, assuming that the scorpions hunt by vibrations in the ground or something. So, we leave Dylan scrambling desperately to get out of the hole, probably cursing the name of Evan Cross.
And then Ange moves in for the kill. Now we know why she was such a success at managing Cross Photonics. It's because she masterfully upsets Toby, putting her through an incredible bit of emotional blackmail while pretending she's doing it to protect Evan. Ange may even believe that.
And Toby falls for it, nearly sobbing, distressed, terrified for Evan now as Ange informs her that Evan's absolutely going to prison if Toby doesn't hand over the anomaly research and detector location.
Man, Ange is ruthless. Ruthless with limpid sympathetic eyes. She's like the worst possible cross between Claudia Brown and Christine Johnson.
And that's when Mac arrives, a knight in shining poly-cotton blend t-shirt. He glares Ange down, demanding to know what the hell she's doing there and making her go away.
Which is about when Toby starts to desat and Dr. Rommie hurtles in there, doing chest compressions and putting Toby on a ventilator while Mac stands still, the chaos swirling around him, and he has such admirable devotion to Toby that one can't help but idly toss a smidge of 'shipping feeling their way. Toby is gasping out that she can't feel anything, and it looks like her body's starting to shut down, nerve paralysis and all that, which has been slowed by the work they're putting in, but they stil don't have an antivenin and it's all kinda going to hell.
And Ange emotes on the sidelines, mostly, I suspect, to make up for the fact that Dylan's not there to do it.
So, Dylan's in the hole, her gun is out of reach, as guns are when you're in danger, it's SOP doncha know, and here comes our critter of the week. It is scrabbling its way towards Dylan. Luckily for her Evan has decided to come along. He has not saved his wife, and AU Mac, but instead followed Dylan to the Silurian.
And Dylan starts shouting at him to give her the damn gun, while he blinks at her, no doubt wondering why. Because let's be frank, it does sound a little odd for him to disarm and toss the weapon to her.
We find out why when we hear Dylan yelling at the thing to open its damn mouth, and it finally does and she shoots it in the mouth, which sends it scurrying away. We can also see that they continue to use the tasers. Becker would continue to not approve.
Dylan asks why Evan chose not to save Brooke, and he doesn't answer in one of those, off-the-cuff "I don't really want to think about it so I'm not going to give you a real answer, just a flippant remark," sorts of ways. And then they march off into the desert, hoping to find something to take the stinger off of before they both suffocate in the Silurian atmosphere, which is probably enough to kill them if they stay too long. They are not prepared for that, and . . .
Science. Bad.
Toby is intubated now and Mac stares sadly at her, looking like a family member or devoted boyfriend at her bedside.
Yeah, I know. The whole lesbian thing put paid to that idea. At least there's always Evan. Who's wearing thigh straps like Becker's, remember?
Dr. Andromeda Ascendant and Col. Hall chat for a bit. He is bracing and optimistic, and she looks extremely doubtful. He urges her to do her best, and she points out that there's only so much she can do. She asks if they're supposed to follow Ange's orders or his, and he gives a very confused explanation about how Ange is supposed to be the civilian oversight admin or something, and any idiot can tell that he's put her in as a secondary figurehead to distance himself from any sort of liability when it comes to the program.
Good God but they need a Lester. At least Lester never tried to pretend it wasn't all on him.
So, Evan and Dylan have not suffocated yet and are running along, tossing rocks in front of them to find the trap holes so they don't fall in, along with their generally useless tasers, which means they are just this side of unarmed, which is, as we know, SOP. They stumble everywhere during tremor after tremor, because it's still the Earth's infancy and there's a lot more tectonic activity going on and so there's a lot of falling everywhere as they espy and head towards a cave.
Okay, so I needed a separate section for the next bit and the other side felt a little bare without a pic, so sue me. It's my favourite movie.
Also, all the straight up swearing that happens in this program is oddly . . . realistic. And by that I mean that they sound like normal people cursing, which is just so odd for a scripted show like this that it sounds odd to hear people curse. I don't know. It's too natural, I think. Which is a pity, because let's be frank, it's nice to hear people swearing like normal people, because people swear.
Although it's a pity they didn't use the chance during episode two to grumble about that motherfuckin' snake in that motherfuckin' factory. Then again, they were so busy tempting it with the sweet, sweet sound of an outboard engine, I guess they didn't think of it.
And Mac is grief-stricken and Ange is still watching and they have the inevitable argument. Mac is irrationally hopeful that they'll make it back in time, Ange is equally certain they won't, Mac is unhappy with Ange freaking Toby out and making her think she has to betray Evan's trust and Ange isn't 'doing things Evan's way anymore.'
They have found the lair.
I think it's a set borrowed from Stargate Atlantis, although I could be wrong. Doesn't Evan look like John Sheppard from the right angles from time to time, or is that just me? Or is it the hair? It might be the hair.
They have found the dead body of poor Skyler, who died for the sin of being attracted to a lesbian.
He's had his insides sucked out.
Skyler's dissolved innards have been brought to you by Tim Horton's new grilled cheese! Anyone want one?
Mac and Toby stare into each other's eyes, soulfully. Mac trying to look reassuring, Toby trying not to panic while she's strapped into a machine that's breathing for her. I think this is the blood transfusion and I think Mac is compatible. And I am deeply concerned if Ange knew this, because I really want to know why she would know they're compatible, it's not the kind of thing a CFO or CEO is supposed to know about their employees. I'd much rather believe she was manipulating him out of the room so she could hit Toby up with the emotional blackmail.
And now she does it to Leeds. Making it clear that she's dancing to Hall's tune, not Evan's, and making Ken break his word to Evan. And Ange dials up Hall to tell him all about the anomaly junction.
There is a fight with the scorpion, but since it's mostly shot in wildly waving flashlight beams I couldn't get a decent shot of any part of it. It's a little like Blair Witch Project that way. Nothing to see here but nauseating lights flashing and waving around. They chop off the stinger and then there's a cave-in. Which no one is surprised about, because caves, earthquakes and cave-ins go together like bread, peanut butter and jelly.
They are also separated, Dylan on the side which leads out of the cave, with the stinger, Evan on the other, probably trapped with the scorpion.
Our Lady of Soundtrack Sorrow and Earthquakes has started again. Evan tells Dylan to go. She says she's not leaving him. He points out that Toby could die in the time it takes Dylan to rescue him, and that they could both be trapped there if she stays.
So, Dylan leaves, incomprehensibly and songily mumbled lyrics accompanying her.
Toby's heart has stopped.
Mac can't believe what he's seeing.
Dylan is racing to get back in time with her scorpion tail.
Evan is shining his flashlight at something, we don't know what.
And now . . . well, I'd say next week, but since this has taken me so long, tomorrow.
So. tomorrow, drumroll please . . .
No, wait a sec . . .
Hmm. Not it. But very nice, I must admit.
No . . . not right either.
Yeah. Him.
Go on to Episode 13
Back to Primeval Archive
P.S. I hate this new posting format.
So, there's a delightful afternoon of half-naked outdoor volleyball, and this guy with the nice chest and his equally fit buddies are having a girls vs boys match. They are being watched by something with funky and squidgy creature cam, which suggests this is probably not something vertebrate, because vertebrates normally see in far more clarity than that.
Not that that's saying much for this show, but nonetheless, it's sort of a truism.
After the game, the guy flirts with this lovely young woman who writes something on the ball, tosses it into the bushes and sends him after it. Turns out she's a lesbian and he's to be disappointed.
Seriously? After the slow-mo volleyball game, the half naked people and the jiggling and whatnot we had to throw lesbians into the mix? Why don't you just dress everyone like on Xena: Warrior Princess and have done with it?
So, he goes moseying over, finds the ball, gets attacked by what is pretty clearly a fucking giant scorpion, then falls over dead. We cut to the credits and feel kind of sorry for him, because he really wasn't too much of a bastard and kind of didn't deserve that, unlike some people who die horribly on shows like this.
Then we get a transition shot of Vancouver in time lapse, because we need to be totally sure we remind everyone that things are happening in Vancouver, it's on the water, and it's a city with lots of tall buildings. Then we get an establishing shot of the lab we all remember from last week's flashback episode, and this is not in time lapse. I do wonder how they pick these things. I mean, what's the criterion . . . well, criteria more likely, I'll bet there's more than one factor . . . for deciding what gets the lapse treatment or not?
Ange and our dear friend Colonel Anderson "Emotional blackmail" Hall are in the parts of the lab that look like they were stolen from the Initiative . . . Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Season Four? I'm alone in this one aren't I? Okay, let's go cliched. Stolen from Star Trek II, I think it was. The one with the new Enterprise where everything was shiny, white and new.
Ange is going on about how Evan's ways have been effective, and Hall's going on about how he doesn't want loose cannons running around, making it clear that part of Ange's job is to make the loose cannons come under control, one way or another. She is wearing a black top and eye-catching red skirt, which draws your eyes right down from her face and all to her legs, so that you are fixated on her upper thighs, and if you want to try telling me that's not a clear gambit on someone's part to objectify her sexually, I will demand a better explanation. And let's be frank, Ange would be dressing that way as a weapon, and you know it.
And that's about the only reason I have the longer shot here of her and Hall facing down in the hallway. Because that's a helluva skirt.
Having gotten permission in the previous scene to do this, she goes to visit Ken in prison, bringing him out because she likes him, I guess, and so that he can be a government dupe again. I would assume this is why she shows up still wearing that skirt. Which she wears for the whole episode and distracted me in basically every scene she was in. I can only assume they didn't want her in a black skirt and red top because that would a) be like most people and b) draw attention to her breasts instead of her legs. I suppose.
Ken is taken aback, but delighted that Ange, who he clearly still has a crush on, poor thing, has rescued him. She smiles at him with that affectionate and understanding smile she has, and . . . God, Ange, just sleep with the man already!
Jesus look at her framed in that doorway. Some of the camera work in this episode is just too obvious.
So, she promises that his record has been expunged and his rank restored and Ken does not ask the obvious question.
Why?
Apparently, despite the whole, mess last episode wherein Ken found out he was just a dupe and a figurehead and no one cares about his opinion etc. etc., apparently, he's perfectly happy to come popping back out of prison to work with the people who were clearly using him to Very Bad Ends.
Just . . . yeah.
So, over at Cross Photonics we are miraculously still not doing the time lapse on the establishing shot and Evan and Toby are meeting to talk about the new portable detectors, which now have a countdown mechanism and Toby is eager to show them off for Evan.
Ta-daaaaaaa!
Evan freezes, because the first time he saw something that looked like that, it had gone spinning out of ARC-Mac's hand, only to be stepped on by the now very familiar foot of Victoria the albertasaur. For reference, see the exchange in the comments that I had with nietie, back in my Episode Eight picspam. I mean, if you care why I'm going to call the albertasaur Victoria.
Anyhow, Evan's all freaking out because for all he knows the Evan that saved him is from a little ways in the future, and the ARC is something that he, Evan, put together. Or something. I don't know. The point is, he's so wide-eyed and overset that Toby starts to think she might have done something wrong. Then Evan gets a phone call and runs away like Victoria's right behind him.
Well, Toby goes to look into what Dylan and Mac are up to, since it seems the machinations of the armed forces have brought everyone together and made them forget their differences in the face of this threat. Something some people could have learned from, Stephen. Ahem.
So, Mac is asking why the hell they're looking into algae and not something interesting like t-rexes, while Dylan looks into . . . algae? The files they stole from Leeds' computer? I'm actually not really sure. So, Toby pulls Mac away while Dylan's busy to talk to him about what she's found. She really hasn't found much because someone has really done a job on making sure there's nothing to be found online.
She did find a site run by some geek in London. A conspiracy theorist with a blog.
Do you know what this means?
Exactly.
Can we get Duncan to guest star on P:NW next?
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!!!!!!
Shush you. I'm a Duncan fangirl.
So, Evan come hurtling down the stairs to see the last person he'd ever want to see, Ange. He's pissed off at her for falling for Hall's blandishments, he's pissed off because she's the one who approached Ken Leeds and effectively informed Project Magnet about the anomalies, and he gets even more pissed off when she tells him that, no, she is not there to apologise.
She is still wearing that skirt, but I couldn't get any really good caps of it, despite a few nice long shots of her sashaying along in it.
Instead they have a whole big, "Thanks to you and Leeds, I'm this close to going to prison."
"Leeds did go to prison for you!"
Oh, way to play the guilt angle, Ange. Then Toby comes in, accidentally letting on to Ange that they've got a new detector, and then Ange leaves and everyone else suits up to go look at the new anomaly, and no one seems very concerned that Hall's minion in the form of Ange was just there and might well be carrying the news back to the man that Evan's holding out on him.
Although really, if Hall doesn't expect it, he's pretty dumb.
So, they head out to the old abandoned mine, Dylan gets her Stephen, super-tracker on, determining that it's a giant buggy thing. Mac comments, "Hope it's not a crab, didn't bring any butter." Which garners eyerolls.
Then they split up, Toby with Evan and Dylan with Mac. Which either goes to show the continued hard feelings between Mac and Evan, or maybe Evan's back to being super-protective of Mac, or Mac's decided to give up on the impossible dream of Evan noticing just how in wuv he is with the man and has decided to go after Dylan. I don't know. I'm just tossing out theories here.
Toby starts taking readings, then gets a weird reading from her detector. It would seem that the thing is noting dozens of different time countdowns for anomaly closure. Evan shrugs it off, because any new technology has a shakedown period and this is the first field test, but it aggravates and worries Toby.
Then Mac and Dylan are wandering around above and Mac freezes, because Dylan's got a big-ass stinger creeping up on her. You can see it in the cap, sort of. To the right, behind her. Anyhow, then there is shooting and yelling and poking it with a two by four, because that knocks it off the second level into the main floor area below, where Evan faces off with it and discovers that the shots bounce off the carapace. Which is kind of a bad thing.
So, then they try to pretend they're a part of the Roman legions and use the large pieces of fencing to push the thing back without getting stung . . .
Those are metal. I must assume they are a nonmagnetic metal, because I gotta tell you, I can't imagine hanging onto those with an anomaly pulling on them if they were susceptible to a magnetic field. Which is why they look rusty and like they have iron in them. Because iron won't get sucked into an anomaly at all . . .
I know. Stop bringing the science into it.
So, Toby winds up on the end with a barrel lid instead of, y'know, a large metal sheet, and consequently gets hit by the scorpion's tail. And is now subject to whatever effects the venom will have on her. Because Captain America she ain't.
So, Dylan's trying to get Toby rushed to hospital and Evan's all, "They can't treat this," and then he calls Ange, because there's no point in being on your high horse if it gets everyone killed. So, Ange is all smug, expecting an apology, and then hears that Toby's probably going to die without help and immediately sends help along.
Hall waltzes in about then, upset that Ange is devoting their resources to saving Toby, and Ange gets all coy and, "I need to bring Evan onside," and "I've got to save Toby," and Hall gives what is possibly the least convincing, "Of course we need to save Toby," reply ever.
Then Ange leaves, all, "First Toby, then we get to Evan." And strides off in her shockingly red skirt that I can't stop looking at.
But before that, I need to mention something else. I need to mention Hall's irritable, "You do realise this means that Cross still has a functioning detection network."
Really, Hall? I thought you were smarter than that. But apparently not.
So, the helicopter comes down, Toby's loaded into it and they're told by the toxicology expert that they need a venom sample to treat Toby and Evan swears that he'll get that sample or die trying (well, he doesn't say die trying, but it's kind of implicit, as these things are).
Then a deeply concerned Mac hops into the chopper, because he's going back with Toby, instead of coming along on the scorpion hunt, Toby is on the edge with terror that she'll die, terror that Evan will die, Terror that they'll all be lost a bazillion years in the past . . . you get the idea.
And then they find out that Ken's out of prison, that he's blackmailing them in that he's not letting them near the anomaly unless they let him come along, and when asked about why he's not still in prison, says, "It was a temporary situation that was resolved to my satisfaction."
Oh, Ken.
So, they head to the anomaly, Evan completely disarming Ken as they go, because that's the best idea ever, and he's just totally pissed off about the animal abduction stuff and then they walk through to see:
Ahem.
No. Although I'm sure we'd all like it if they did. Yes, I suppose I could have picked up one of the long shots of the junction from that episode, but then we wouldn't be able to leer at Stephen. I tailor to my audience, you know.
No. But they do see a complete ripoff of the 'spaghetti junction' of anomalies from back in series one of Primeval: We had Stephen Hart, Tom Ryan and Hilary Becker, beat that. So, they look around, discombobulated and I don't get to complain that they're having grass in the environment of a clearly Silurian or Carboniferous creature, because it's a junction point, so at least they didn't do that.
For those who have that kink, please note that Evan is currently wearing the thigh straps so many of you think are super-sexy on Becker and the other SFs, and actually, so is Dylan.
They send Ken back through to run interference. He agrees that no one will get through to take samples and that he won't tell Hall or anyone about the anomaly junction there.
So, Toby is scribbling numbers on a pad, trying to work, the doctor is trying to make her stop and rest, and Mac dryly points out that she'll be far less relaxed if she's being kept from working.
And now the anomalies on the far side of the main one are clearly the cause of Toby's screwed up readings from the anomaly. Not that Toby knows this, but nonetheless . . .
In other news, the doctor is also the same lovely lady who played the avatar of the Andromeda Ascendant on Andromeda. If anyone remembers that show. Mmmm . . . Tyr . . . Charlemagne Bolivar . . .
Ahem. Well, it's no loincloth, but all that leather and netting . . .
Oh. Right. The show. Toby has a spasm and freaks Mac the fuck out.
So, Dylan gets her tracker on again, saying that she can't tell which anomalies the scorpion's been through, but the ones it has been through are all really close to where they are. Evan decides they're just going to do the trial and error thing. With a few dozen anomalies to look through and no way of knowing how long any of them will be open. In point of fact, one of them shuts on his face, close enough that if he'd been a little further he would have been sliced in half by the closing anomaly.
So, Evan picks another one and goes in. Then he comes back. Then he asks Dylan to go through with him. If you think this shot looks familiar, that's because it's the basement of what became Cross Photonics. More to the point, it's where Victoria the albertasaur came through. Evan goes hurtling all over, finally finding a punch card thing which is apparently still set up to give the date.
The date Brooke died, it would seem. And so Evan now has the very real chance of saving his wife. Which sets Dylan off, because she's all, "We've got to save Toby!", little realising that the odds are good that if Evan prevents his wife from dying, Toby might not even be involved or have been hit by the scorpion, because Evan wouldn't have seen a dinosaur snarfle his wife, so he wouldn't be on his crusade and there would be no show.
Evan is determined to save Brooke, and Dylan stomps off in high dudgeon to get the tail on her own, because Evan's being a moron. Evan stands contemplatively as he considers what to do. Hopefully we will not be left with a bug eating a snake and causing all the stegosaurs to die out, thus leaving us all lizard people.
Meanwhile, the Lady of Soundtrack Sorrow (TM Cleolinda Industries) warbles softly in the background, the same incomprehensible and possibly French almost-words going on to emphasise just how hard this is for Evan. Who I'm starting to think should just go ahead and save Brooke, just so that he can stop feeling guilt about it all, and then maybe save Mac while he's at it, and then he can go home to find out he has no home and maybe there can be some bells ringing and angels getting their wings. Or something involving someone named Clarence.
I've never actually watched, It's a Wonderful Life, so I'm probably grasping at straws.
Maybe the scientist dude in white is named Clarence. Or he's with a scientist/nun called Mary Clarence. Or the black soldier dresses up as Mary Clarence on weekends . . . I'll stop before this gets any further away from me.
So, these two are here to collect samples. Eager beavers that they are, I feel a little sorry for them, because I'm willing to bet that they just want to do lab testing and research. They are blocked by the dour soldier who Ken used to block Evan and Dylan before. Then Ken comes flopping up to them, all, "There's a new directive, no one goes in or out with the okay of our new civlian oversight person." That is, Ange.
The soldier shoots him a look. "Those are the modus operandi now?" he asks. Ken glares him down, but it's pretty clear the soldier knows that Ken's going outside the boundaries of his orders again. Nonetheless he does what he's told.
Toby is still working and Mac is still staying with her. Ange has showed up and is now watching, bleeding empathy all over the place in an attempt to match Dylan's ability to bleed empathy from her pores. Toby is fixating, I can only assume because otherwise she'll freak out. Mac . . . is saying nothing, just staying by her bedside.
Ange pulls aside Dr. Rommie to demand how Toby's doing. She's informed that a desperate space ship avatar is going to give Toby a blood infusion to try to keep the toxin thinned. Ange gets demanding. The blood won't be delivered soon enough, she states. Everyone in the facility needs to be blood typed right now. Especially Mac. First.
So, the doctor goes in and pulls Mac away, and he leaves Toby all alone to her fixated terror.
Dylan has gone on ahead and come out in what looks like it's probably supposed to be the Silurian. She wanders along for a while and falls into a sinkhole. Well, sort of a sinkhole, more of a trap. Probably. I mean, assuming that the scorpions hunt by vibrations in the ground or something. So, we leave Dylan scrambling desperately to get out of the hole, probably cursing the name of Evan Cross.
And then Ange moves in for the kill. Now we know why she was such a success at managing Cross Photonics. It's because she masterfully upsets Toby, putting her through an incredible bit of emotional blackmail while pretending she's doing it to protect Evan. Ange may even believe that.
And Toby falls for it, nearly sobbing, distressed, terrified for Evan now as Ange informs her that Evan's absolutely going to prison if Toby doesn't hand over the anomaly research and detector location.
Man, Ange is ruthless. Ruthless with limpid sympathetic eyes. She's like the worst possible cross between Claudia Brown and Christine Johnson.
And that's when Mac arrives, a knight in shining poly-cotton blend t-shirt. He glares Ange down, demanding to know what the hell she's doing there and making her go away.
Which is about when Toby starts to desat and Dr. Rommie hurtles in there, doing chest compressions and putting Toby on a ventilator while Mac stands still, the chaos swirling around him, and he has such admirable devotion to Toby that one can't help but idly toss a smidge of 'shipping feeling their way. Toby is gasping out that she can't feel anything, and it looks like her body's starting to shut down, nerve paralysis and all that, which has been slowed by the work they're putting in, but they stil don't have an antivenin and it's all kinda going to hell.
And Ange emotes on the sidelines, mostly, I suspect, to make up for the fact that Dylan's not there to do it.
So, Dylan's in the hole, her gun is out of reach, as guns are when you're in danger, it's SOP doncha know, and here comes our critter of the week. It is scrabbling its way towards Dylan. Luckily for her Evan has decided to come along. He has not saved his wife, and AU Mac, but instead followed Dylan to the Silurian.
And Dylan starts shouting at him to give her the damn gun, while he blinks at her, no doubt wondering why. Because let's be frank, it does sound a little odd for him to disarm and toss the weapon to her.
We find out why when we hear Dylan yelling at the thing to open its damn mouth, and it finally does and she shoots it in the mouth, which sends it scurrying away. We can also see that they continue to use the tasers. Becker would continue to not approve.
Dylan asks why Evan chose not to save Brooke, and he doesn't answer in one of those, off-the-cuff "I don't really want to think about it so I'm not going to give you a real answer, just a flippant remark," sorts of ways. And then they march off into the desert, hoping to find something to take the stinger off of before they both suffocate in the Silurian atmosphere, which is probably enough to kill them if they stay too long. They are not prepared for that, and . . .
Science. Bad.
Toby is intubated now and Mac stares sadly at her, looking like a family member or devoted boyfriend at her bedside.
Yeah, I know. The whole lesbian thing put paid to that idea. At least there's always Evan. Who's wearing thigh straps like Becker's, remember?
Dr. Andromeda Ascendant and Col. Hall chat for a bit. He is bracing and optimistic, and she looks extremely doubtful. He urges her to do her best, and she points out that there's only so much she can do. She asks if they're supposed to follow Ange's orders or his, and he gives a very confused explanation about how Ange is supposed to be the civilian oversight admin or something, and any idiot can tell that he's put her in as a secondary figurehead to distance himself from any sort of liability when it comes to the program.
Good God but they need a Lester. At least Lester never tried to pretend it wasn't all on him.
So, Evan and Dylan have not suffocated yet and are running along, tossing rocks in front of them to find the trap holes so they don't fall in, along with their generally useless tasers, which means they are just this side of unarmed, which is, as we know, SOP. They stumble everywhere during tremor after tremor, because it's still the Earth's infancy and there's a lot more tectonic activity going on and so there's a lot of falling everywhere as they espy and head towards a cave.
Okay, so I needed a separate section for the next bit and the other side felt a little bare without a pic, so sue me. It's my favourite movie.
Also, all the straight up swearing that happens in this program is oddly . . . realistic. And by that I mean that they sound like normal people cursing, which is just so odd for a scripted show like this that it sounds odd to hear people curse. I don't know. It's too natural, I think. Which is a pity, because let's be frank, it's nice to hear people swearing like normal people, because people swear.
Although it's a pity they didn't use the chance during episode two to grumble about that motherfuckin' snake in that motherfuckin' factory. Then again, they were so busy tempting it with the sweet, sweet sound of an outboard engine, I guess they didn't think of it.
And Mac is grief-stricken and Ange is still watching and they have the inevitable argument. Mac is irrationally hopeful that they'll make it back in time, Ange is equally certain they won't, Mac is unhappy with Ange freaking Toby out and making her think she has to betray Evan's trust and Ange isn't 'doing things Evan's way anymore.'
They have found the lair.
I think it's a set borrowed from Stargate Atlantis, although I could be wrong. Doesn't Evan look like John Sheppard from the right angles from time to time, or is that just me? Or is it the hair? It might be the hair.
They have found the dead body of poor Skyler, who died for the sin of being attracted to a lesbian.
He's had his insides sucked out.
Skyler's dissolved innards have been brought to you by Tim Horton's new grilled cheese! Anyone want one?
Mac and Toby stare into each other's eyes, soulfully. Mac trying to look reassuring, Toby trying not to panic while she's strapped into a machine that's breathing for her. I think this is the blood transfusion and I think Mac is compatible. And I am deeply concerned if Ange knew this, because I really want to know why she would know they're compatible, it's not the kind of thing a CFO or CEO is supposed to know about their employees. I'd much rather believe she was manipulating him out of the room so she could hit Toby up with the emotional blackmail.
And now she does it to Leeds. Making it clear that she's dancing to Hall's tune, not Evan's, and making Ken break his word to Evan. And Ange dials up Hall to tell him all about the anomaly junction.
There is a fight with the scorpion, but since it's mostly shot in wildly waving flashlight beams I couldn't get a decent shot of any part of it. It's a little like Blair Witch Project that way. Nothing to see here but nauseating lights flashing and waving around. They chop off the stinger and then there's a cave-in. Which no one is surprised about, because caves, earthquakes and cave-ins go together like bread, peanut butter and jelly.
They are also separated, Dylan on the side which leads out of the cave, with the stinger, Evan on the other, probably trapped with the scorpion.
Our Lady of Soundtrack Sorrow and Earthquakes has started again. Evan tells Dylan to go. She says she's not leaving him. He points out that Toby could die in the time it takes Dylan to rescue him, and that they could both be trapped there if she stays.
So, Dylan leaves, incomprehensibly and songily mumbled lyrics accompanying her.
Toby's heart has stopped.
Mac can't believe what he's seeing.
Dylan is racing to get back in time with her scorpion tail.
Evan is shining his flashlight at something, we don't know what.
And now . . . well, I'd say next week, but since this has taken me so long, tomorrow.
So. tomorrow, drumroll please . . .
No, wait a sec . . .
Hmm. Not it. But very nice, I must admit.
No . . . not right either.
Yeah. Him.
Go on to Episode 13
Back to Primeval Archive
P.S. I hate this new posting format.