Recap / Eureka Many Happy Returns

Eureka doesn't believe in ghosts.

Carter: Tell me Henry, you're a scientist, do you believe in ghosts?
Henry: Well, I believe in energy. When somebody dies, that energy has to go somewhere. So, theoretically I suppose it's possible.

Former Marshall Jack Carter faces an eventful first week at his new job when the town of scientists appears to be beset by ghosts. Reports of a phantom circulate while an angry Sue Perkins appears in Jack's office, demanding to know why she's been declared dead.

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Tropes:

• Crazy-Prepared: When the real Sue Perkins turns up alive and demanding to know why she's been declared legally dead.
  Carter: It's not like we have a form to "undead" you.
  Jo: [Clears throat]
  Carter: Tell me you're kidding.
  Jo: 924/B. In triplicate.
• Dangerous Workplace: Eureka boasts 5 times the average death toll for a town its size and twice the national average.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Stark insists that he never said he saw a ghost, despite describing that very thing.
  Stark: There was an electrical problem with the computers, and then I saw something. A figure.
  Carter: Are you saying someone was in your office?
  Stark: Not someone. Something. It wasn't entirely corporeal.
  Carter: Corporeal?
  Stark: Physical. There and not there at the same time.
  Carter: Are you saying you saw a ghost?
  Stark: Sheriff. Director of Research of the most advanced scientific facility in the world doesn't see ghosts.
• Foreshadowing: When Allison says of Susan's apparent suicide, "When you have kids you don't get to just check out," Carter quips that Zoe said the same thing to him. At the end, Zoe arrives on Carter's doorstep.
• Irony: The episode starts with a double funeral for Walter and Susan Perkins. By the end of the episode, they're both alive; Walter by being rescued from spacetime, Susan because it was her clone that died.
• Just One Second Out of Sync: Walter didn't die, but was pushed into a different timestream by his attempt to undo the damage caused by his experiment.
• Love Triangle: Set up between Carter, Allison, and Nathan.
  Carter: You two have a history.
  Allison: You could say that.
  Carter: Old boyfriend?
  Allison: Not exactly.
  Carter: Then, what exactly?
  Allison: He's my husband.
• Mandatory Motherhood: Your wife doesn't want to leave her career or have kids? Just clone a new wife who will be more compliant! The man responsible received an appropriate comeuppance.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: After seeing Walter's "ghost" while Brian Perkins is staying over, nonverbal Kevin draws what he saw, providing a vital clue.
• The Runaway: Zoe ran away from home again, though this time to Carter.
• Shout-Out:
  • S.A.R.A.H.'s voice is temporary, while Fargo waits to hear back from Sarah Michelle Gellar's people.
  • While ghost hunting, Henry says, "We're gonna need a bigger battery."
• Smart House: Carter gets to live in one, repurposed from an old bomb shelter.
  Carter: If this house is so great, why is it standing here vacant?
  Fargo: Okay, bye!
• That Thing Is Not My Child!: The real Susan Perkins, to her clone's child.