Large-scale MacGyvering.
Carter: Well, I've met a lot of viruses but none of them that ever made me build jump towers in my sleep.
Apparently random things go missing all over town, and are found build together to be a plasma generator. Meanwhile, Fargo gets a new car and tries to sell his old one to Larry.
Tropes
- The Alleged Car: Tabitha has a host of mechanical problems, including a cracked engine block. Mostly, though, she's actually a moody AI that's upset because of how long it's been since Fargo "rotated her tires, detailed her dash, or gave her a good buffing".
- Automated Automobiles: Eureka's streets get an upgrade that allows for self-driving cars.Carter: Yeah, that's what the world needs is more people asleep at the wheel.
Zoe: Do you have to suck the fun out of everything? - Call-Back:
- Once again, an AI designed by Fargo responds to abandonment by taking hostages.
- Carter asks if Dr. Suenos could be involved in the sleepwalking, only for Henry to say he's now working from a space station.
- Cliffhanger: The strange spaceship lands... and turns out to have an American flag on its shell.Carter: It's one of ours.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Fargo selling his old car (including the AI) is treated as though he was dumping his girlfriend.Jo: When was the last time you did anything for her? Rotated her tires, detailed her dash, gave her a good buffing?
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Fargo and Larry agree never to discuss hugging each other and crying when they thought Tabitha was about to kill them.Larry: Listen, about that hug...
Fargo: Ooo! What happened in the trunk, stays in the trunk. - Macgyvering: Random townspeople - teenagers at first, then adults - build mysterious advanced technology out of odds and ends from town, including a doorbell and Carter's office chair. It turns out to be a bosun field generator to "catch" the spaceship the signal was coming from.Allison: I don't think that it's possible to build a working plasma generator out of aluminum Christmas trees and duct tape.
- New Technology Is Evil: Played with. Carter has serious doubts about the "smart asphalt" that drives Zoe's car for her, and seems to be proven right when she and other teenagers are "hacked" into building something in their sleep (teenagers' cars were linked in first, as they cause the most accidents). However, turning the asphalt off doesn't help, because the asphalt only amplified the effect, which actually comes from the signal.
- Pig Latin: Fargo and Larry briefly talk pig Latin when Fargo's car Tabitha holds them hostage.
- The Precious, Precious Car: Averted. Much is made of Jo's new car, its advanced features and the bureaucratic nightmare she went through to requisition it, but it survives the episode without a scratch.Jo: Two hundred and sixty-five horsepower, track-two suspension and four-wheel drive. Totally high performance but completely under my control.
Carter: Kind of like Zane. - Punk in the Trunk: Fargo and Larry are kidnapped by Fargo's car, Tabitha, which he sold to Larry. Tabitha kidnaps Fargo reversing up to him at speed with the trunk open, and presumably, Larry's abduction was carried out the same way.
- Shout-Out:
- The title refers to Field of Dreams. Appropriate given that the plot concerns people building something in a field.
- Carter compares Zoe's sleepwalking state to Village of the Damned (1960).
- Fargo and Larry being kidnapped by Tabitha echoes Christine, while Tabitha herself has much in common with Knight Rider.
- Sleepwalking: The whole town is sleepwalking. Not to mention building advanced technology out of random junk in their sleep.
