Recap / Eureka Best In Faux

Some assembly required.

Carter: There was an earthquake, but nobody felt it but me. Is that possible?
Dr. Hood: Depends. How drunk were you?

It's time for Eureka's annual robotic dog show, and the android canines are out in force. However, when sudden mysterious earthquakes shake Eureka, Sheriff Jack Carter might end up with a pure-bred disaster on his hands.

Tropes

• Actor Allusion: In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Alan Ruck's character Cameron was described as so tense that "if you put a piece of coal up [his] ass, in two weeks, you'd have a diamond." In this episode, Alan Ruck's character is a geologist investigating logic diamonds made from coal.
• Bridezilla: Inverted. Allison just wants a small, casual wedding without great efforts or any extravagance. It's Stark who wants to go big.
• Chekhov's Gun: Several, in order: robot dogs, artificial mucus, logic diamonds, Rayl wave generators. Robot dogs are shorting out and exploding, a scientist thinks his artificial mucus was stolen by someone who wanted to build a better dog nose, GD's computer runs on logic diamonds, and Rayl waves are sonic pressure waves that, tuned correctly, can melt metal. A scientist working with the GD computer is growing her own logic diamonds using Rayl waves, which melted iron ore and created a magma pocket under Eureka. A robot dog and artificial mucus is key to sniffing out the location of the magma pocket to drill into it and relieve the pressure before it erupts.
• For Science!: Tracy's reason for farming logic diamonds. She also added them to some people's show dogs in order to test them, but the dogs' systems overloaded.
• Hidden Depths: Jo reveals she likes weddings. She positively squees when she asks Allison if she can try the dress on next.
• Insistent Terminology: It's not lava, it's magma, because it's still below the surface. Later, when it's erupting from the ground, Carter turns Stark's corrections around on him as it's now properly lava.
• Meaningful Name: Dr Hood shares a name with a mountain in Oregon.
• Oh, Crap!: Allison, who's stuck in a wedding dress she was trying on, when she realises a geological event called a fumarole is about to dump mud all over her.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Eva Thorne gets Henry to "thank" her for his pardon by running some tests for her at a site where she claims to want to put a hotel. When his tests reveal a strange mix of radiations at the site she's picked, she's uncharacteristically sanguine about having her plans disrupted, making Henry realise the hotel was only an excuse to find the site.
• Percussive Maintenance: When the instruments in the Tunneler aren't giving Stark the data he needs.
  Stark: I can't get a bearing, these instruments are all over the place!
  Carter: Smack it.
  Stark: Seriously?
  Carter: Smack it!
  (Stark smacks it)
  Stark: Alright, got a bearing!
• Revealing Cover Up: Eva Thorne's behaviour over the radioactive site, especially her telling him to keep it secret, makes Henry check his results and realise some of the radiation is of a purely theoretical type.
• Serious Business: Carter is annoyed at being told to investigate apparent sabotage at the dog show, but is repeatedly told that it's a big deal, even by Eva Thorne; plenty of profitable inventions are developed by people trying to improve their dogs, and the dogs themselves are marketable. More than that, though, people love the dog show.
  Thorne: The dogs themselves are a great marketing potential. Just imagine a dog that never eats, never urinates, and never dies.
• Techno Babble: Lampshaded.
  Allison: We're sinking zero-balance P-wave detectors all along the ridge.
  Stark: I re-tasked the geo satellites to look for ground deformations.
  Carter: Sounds good! What's all that gonna tell us?
  Stark: Nothing. We just like sounding smart.
• Urine Trouble: Averted, when one of the robot dogs lifts its leg over Carter's shoe, Jo reminds him that robot dogs don't. . . ruin your pants. Later, Fargo's dog does relieve himself on the Sheriff, revealing that Fargo cheated by entering a real dog in a robot dog show.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Only Carter feels the first earthquake, which was apparently localised to the lab where he was alone, and has trouble getting anyone to believe it really happened. Later, Allison apologises for doubting him.

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