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Recap / Eureka God Is In The Details

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Religion meets science, Eureka-style

Larry: God has come to Eureka!

Sudden muteness, human bioluminescence and faucets running blood cause many of Eureka's citizens to believe that they are the victims of a Biblical plague.

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  • Actor Allusion: Guest star Teryl Rothery plays Diane Lancaster, a Eureka resident who is mourning her husband Daniel. Daniel is a main character in Rothery's previous series Stargate SG-1, where he tended to die a lot.
  • Belief Makes You Stupid: Zigzagged.
    • As a town full of brilliant scientists, Eureka is shown to have very low church attendance. However, church members include Henry and Alison, two of Eureka's smartest people.
    • When incidents that resemble biblical plagues start happening all over town, Henry is the first to assume they are supernatural in origin and he is eventually proven wrong.
    • During the "plagues" the church becomes packed with Eurekans seeking refuge. While the plagues eventually get a scientific explanation, church attendance remains high at the end of the episode.
    • Jo calls Zane out for talking as if anyone with religious beliefs is dumb.
  • Bioluminescence Is Cool: Played With. Allison's glow is certainly pretty, but it's basically acting as a neurotoxin and slowly killing her.
    Stark: Apparently, your inner glow has become your outer glow.
  • Call-Back: When Carter investigates people researching bioluminescence, he's sent to Seth, the botanist from Purple Haze, who holds a grudge against Carter for burning his plants.
  • Church of Saint Genericus: The church has a moderately Protestant interior and a female pastor in a nice, albeit black, pant-suit with no clerical collar, but with a somewhat Anglican/Catholic tippet (preaching scarf), though without any other vestments. It's the First Church of Eureka, no denomination given.
  • Driven to Suicide: Diane tells Jack that after losing her husband, she "wanted to join him," but Reverend Harper and Henry helped her through it. Turns out she only reconsidered the method of joining him.
  • Flashback: In-Universe. Jack has a flashback to Henry, before he wiped Jack's memories. Specifically, he remembers Henry telling him he blames him for Kim's death and that that's what he thinks about when he sees him. This is more than a little strange for Jack, since in his understanding of what happened he had no involvement in Kim's death.
  • Good Shepherd: The pastor of the First Church of Eureka, who offers solace to frightened Eurekans during a series of seemingly supernatural events. She's even completely non-judgmental towards Carter's "fair-weather" Christian tendencies.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Carter admits he overreacted to Zoe apparently getting a tattoo (it's a press-on), Zoe's response is to ask if she's dying.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: The reverend is pretty reasonable when Jack considers her a suspect in the latest strange goings-on; she does have motive, after all (low church attendance) and means (a physics background). Her congregation, on the other hand...
  • Red Herring: That Reverend Harper created fake miracles to drum up church attendance. In fact, it was a side effect of Diane Lancaster's attempts to science a portal to Heaven so she can reunite with her husband.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Reverend Harper. It may come as a surprise that Eureka has a reverend, given that all functions that would usually be carried out by a reverend have been conducted by Henry instead, for example the Perkins' eulogy in Many Happy Returns.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Jo wears a white sundress and her hair down for her date with Zane, having come straight from church. He comments that he might give church another chance.
  • Shout-Out: To Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when someone floats the idea of Eureka being built on a Hellmouth.
  • The Speechless: Zoe and her friends, temporarily.
  • Tempting Fate: Henry is skeptical that Reverend Harper is responsible for what's happening.
    Carter: Okay, bottom line: If Reverend Harper is responsible, we're in for a lot more.
    Henry: Yeah, like a plague of locust, or a fiery hail ... or... or... or... total darkness.
    [Lights go out]
    Carter: You had to say it.
  • Turn to Religion: The reaction of many people in Eureka, so much so that Jack temporarily thinks the reverend might be manufacturing disasters to drum up attendance at church.
  • Unequal Pairing: Jo and Zane go on their first date, which ends abruptly when Zane accidentally emphasises the gap between his intellect and Jo's, making her feel dumb.
    Jo: Zane is brilliant, and I'm... not. Story of my life in this place.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: It's clear that Jack is becoming increasingly distrustful towards Henry, what with all the half-truths and memories that make no sense.
  • Working the Same Case: Carter realises there's a connection when he notices crystalline glass with an unexplained hole at Seth's lab, just like in his living room. This prompts him to check Allison's bathroom again and find a similar hole in her window, telling him all the "Biblical" anomalies have the same cause.

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