Recap / Eureka E=MC?

That sure looks dangerous. Thankfully, it's being monitored by some very smart and qualified... hey, where are you guys going?

Jo: Carter, you can't catch stupid.
Zane: This may be my favorite conversation of all time.

When Allison puts a newly hired, but criminal, genius in Jack's care he's less than pleased. But when an accident in a lab causes most of GD to lose their smarts, and he may be the only one with the solution.

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Tropes:

• Air-Vent Passageway: Attempted by Zane when he's shoved into an interview room by the FBI. He gets onto the table and pries out the cover, but then Allison enters the room.
  Allison: I wouldn't do that. It lets out at the shooting range.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Carter tracks down Zane and grills him about the Chaotic Inflation experiment, Zane rants about why he'd never mess with it, which leads Carter to an interesting point.
  Zane: It's beautiful and if it works it'll change the laws of physics as we know them!
  Carter: If that's true, then why are you running away from it?
• Artificial Meat: The farm Vincent buys his chicken from is run by Carol Taylor, a vegetarian scientist who's created the perfect chicken by genetic engineering, then grown the cloned meat using energy lamps. Unfortunately, the cloning method results in the meat being full of a neuroblocker, which the lamps increase, resulting in mass stupidity.
  Carter: [enters lab, sees hanging meat] Well, this is the grossest thing I've ever seen.
  Taylor: Where do you think chicken comes from?
  Carter: From chickens?
  Taylor: Chickens who've been murdered.
• Boxed Crook: Zane is recruited after being arrested by the FBI.
  Carter: Whoa! Twenty-five thousand for this guy?
  Zane: For thirty, I'll throw in dinner and a movie. But it won't go past second base. I'm not that kind of boy.
• Chekhov's Gun: The high-tech handcuffs used to restrain Zane end up being used to contain the explosion from the Big Bang experiment.
• Chekhov's Lecture: Zane asks Jo about the handcuffs, pretending to be impressed with the engineering, then uses what she tells him to break out of them and escape. Later, he remembers the details and uses them to create a barrier to contain the Chaotic Inflation experiment.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Zane uses the Sheriff's office TV remote to hack Carter's computer and order things on Carter's credit, including a large amount of lingerie for Jo. He claims to have gauged her sizes through observation. Later, he deduces that she's wearing some of it by checking out her ass.
  Delivery Guy: [delivering the lingerie] And, may I just say? [looks at Jo] God bless.
• Electric Torture:
  • Carter and Jo are not above misusing the high-tech handcuffs used to restrain Zane when he's annoying.
    Carter: How you feeling? You feel dumb?
    Jo: No. You?
    Zane: How could you tell? [they zap him] OW! Gah!
  • Played for Laughs when Carter first tries to put the cuff on Zane, and hands him the wrong one. Carter can't find the zapper button, but Zane can.
• Establishing Character Moment: Zane makes casual chitchat with the FBI agents arresting him.
  Zane: Excellent response time. You guys take Lake Street?
  Agent: Went up by Lincoln Park. Less traffic.
• Internal Reveal: While dumb, Henry confesses to Jack that he's been hiding things, namely that Beverly did something to Kim's computer and that her death wasn't an accident.
• Irony: Zane successfully grosses Carter out of eating his chicken sandwich by talking about the horrible conditions of chickens grown for meat. Turns out the farmer the chicken came from shares Zane's concerns about cruelty, and that's why it's a good thing neither of them ate the chicken; the cruelty-free lab-grown meat is what makes people stupid.
  Zane: Do you know how chickens are raised?
  Carter: Aw, don't, just let me enjoy my meal.
  Zane: Jammed together in a windowless warehouse, wading in feces until [Slices hand across throat] they get decapitated, or pecked to death. [Cheerfully] When you eat that chicken, you're eating all that hate.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zane might be an insensitive jerk who appears to care for no one but himself, but he also has a soft side and ends up saving the day. The theft he committed at the beginning of the episode was also aimed at helping the scholarship fund he once benefited from, which was since robbed.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Averted, for once. Jack's go-to-guys are all out of commission, forcing Jack to look for help elsewhere.
• Not Me This Time: Despite escaping at about the same time, Zane insists he's not responsible for sabotaging the Chaotic Inflation Device, because it's too important.
• Not So Above It All: At the end, Allison tells Zane about the data coming from the Chaotic Inflation experiment and he loftily dismisses the teams of scientists itching to get their hands on it as "Big Bang whores." Until Allison offers him first crack at it for his involvement.
• Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: Almost the whole town becomes dumb.
• Red Herring: The radiation from the Big Bang experiment isn't what makes people turn stupid. Turns out it was lab-grown chicken from a barbecue at Café Diem.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Zane is arrested, a box for Half-Life 2 can be seen. This is about a top secret research facility called Black Mesa, similar to GD.
  • When Stark calls him a kid, Zane calls Stark Spartacus.
  • The first sign of things not being right is when Henry watches pro wrestling and Dexter's Laboratory instead of the experiment.
• Spotting the Thread: Carter realises the Chaotic Inflation experiment isn't to blame for people being stupid when the talent scout who found Zane reappears, also stupid despite not having been in town when the experiment was turned on. But Carter does remember him eating some chicken...
• State The Simple Solution: How Carter catches Zane after he runs away.
  Carter: You vacationed here when you were ten. Figured it's off the main roads, place to hide out for a couple days first.
  Zane: Well, I guess my FBI file's more detailed than I thought.
  Carter: Not in your file.
  Zane: Well, then that computer of yours must have an amazing predictive algorithm.
  Carter: Didn't use the computer. I called your mother.
  Zane: [starts laughing, then abruptly stops when he realizes Carter is serious] You called my mother?
• Toilet Humor:
  • Carter is relieved to find that Stark seems unaffected by whatever's turned people dumb, until Stark blows that out of the water with three words.
  Stark: Pull my finger.
  • The GD lobby gets severely TP'd throughout the episode.
• World of Dumbass: The town is normally populated by people with genius-level IQs, but in this episode, everyone starts acting erratic and child-like; initially, it's blamed on energy released by an experiment meant to replicate the conditions of the Big Bang, but it turns out that a cloning process for creating lab-grown meat produced chemicals that blocked neurotransmitters when ingested, and the only unaffected characters either refused to eat it or are vegetarians.

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