Recap / Eureka It's Not Easy Being Green

Bowling is a brutal sport.

Bismark: Fargo, I have one word for you.
Fargo: Is it "surrender?"

The big bowling game between Eureka and Area 51 triggers a prank war that has some serious side effects.

Tropes

• Absent Aliens: Carter is excited when he sees Fargo hanging a banner that says "Welcome Aliens." It turns out that "aliens" is just Eureka's derisive nickname for their rivals at Area 51.
• Area 51: Their bowling team comes to Eureka.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Carter is sent to retrieve all the supplies of a particular man-made isotope from around town to be used in a souped-up telescope needed to examine the signal (more can be made, but not in time). Some supplies have been stolen, as it turns out to feed a radiation-cleaning blob that has escaped containment.
• Escalating War: Between the Eureka and Area 51 bowling teams. When Carter calls the Area 51 leader out for turning the Eureka team green (in retaliation for being called "little green men"), he mentions a string of Eureka team pranks including an invisible mascot.
• False Reassurance: As the bowling game finally comes to an end, Carter thanks both teams for resisting the urge to keep pranking each other. Fargo says that they didn't need to take petty revenge when they'd won the tournament anyway... just as the Area 51 team turn red.
  Fargo: ...We just really wanted to! [Eureka team runs away with Area 51 team in hot pursuit]
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Area 51 has nothing to do with aliens, and their being linked with aliens in the public mind is a sore point that Eureka never fail to mock them for.
• Meaningful Name: The Area 51 team leader is named Bismarck, to underline his similarities to Fargo: both are named after cities in North Dakota.
• Naked People Are Funny: The blob attacks Fargo in the shower while he's applying Duncan's degreening solution. Fargo panics and runs out into what turns out to be a packed corridor.
  Fargo: [naked, covered in slime and still kinda green] I'd rather go naked than wear fur!
  Lexi: [passing] Okey dokey.
• The Smurfette Principle: Both teams have only one unnamed female member, further emphasizing their similarities.
• Not So Stoic: Lexi insists that she's fine with Duncan running off after she told him about the pregnancy. Once Carter and Zoe have left, she goes back to cutting him out of photos.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title obviously references The Muppets. Carter jokes that Fargo's green skin colour is attractive, "if you're a Muppet."
  • A device turns the Eureka bowling team green. For bonus points, the device uses gamma radiation.
    Lucas: So we're not going to turn into the Hulk?
    Henry: Only if you get really angry.
  • 300 is referenced when the two teams face off.
    Bismark: This is blasphemy, okay? Madness.
    Fargo: THIS IS EUREKA!
  • Carter compares the radiation-cleaning organism to the Blob.
  • Seeing how big the blob is, Carter tells Tessa, "We're gonna need a bigger container."
  • The scene where Carter goes into the power plant to freeze the blob while the others watch on the monitor echoes a scene from Alien.
  • At one point, Fargo yells, "What the frak!?"

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