Recap / Eureka The Ex Files

Only two people are sitting at that table.

Carter: Anomalous? That's bad, right?
Stark: Four years in this town and THAT's the word you pick out?

As Grace finds a way to share her memories with Henry, the rest of Eureka's citizens face the return of people from the recent - or not so recent - past.

Tropes

• Actor Allusion:
  • Dr Grant lies that he hallucinated "a tall, leggy blonde in a slinky red dress," who Allison takes to be an old girlfriend.
  • When Carter first sees Nathan, he describes him as "undead," prompting Nathan to sarcastically check his reflection and say he's not a vampire.
• Back from the Dead: Subverted. Nathan appears to be back from the dead, but is actually a hallucination.
• Beneath the Mask: The hallucinations reveal characters' insecurities and fears and don't go away until they've faced those fears.
  • Carter hallucinates Nathan Stark, because he needed to admit he loved Allison from the start.
  • Allison hallucinated Tess, because she needed to confront her fear that her relationship with Carter will end just as badly as her other relationships, for example Nathan dying on their wedding (Tess was there for her for that and other crises).
  • Jo hallucinates her timeline's version of Zane. She realised she needed to stop romanticising their relationship, which wasn't all she'd made it out to be.
  • Fargo hallucinates his fifth-grade bully, Jessica Lanskey. This is about his fears that he doesn't deserve his job which prevent him from standing up for himself, especially with the general who apparently gave Other Fargo the job.
  Jessica: Hard to be the big dog with your tail between your legs. [...] Seriously Farto, is there anything you're not afraid of? How about bunny rabbits?
  • Dr Grant hallucinates Adam Barlowe, who tells him that GD have fallen from the vision of pure scientific advancement they envisioned. This plays on Grant's doubts about his legacy and pressures him into following Beverly's plan to sabotage the EMP weapon.
• Call-Back: Beverly Barlowe's father, Adam Barlowe, turns out to be the man Allison resuscitated with a Jeep battery in 1947. Grant's hallucination of him snarks on the much gentler treatment she gives Grant after he gets slightly blown up.
• Dead Person Conversation: Jack and Nathan.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Everyone is having hallucinations related to their various unresolved issues. Jo, finally having had enough of the past version of Zane haunting her, tells her hallucination that they never worked as a couple and gives back the engagement ring he gave her... only to realize too late that this is the real Zane she's confessed to. He's rather surprised she has his grandmother's ring.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Jack enters to find Allison sitting with Stark and Tess. They begin to talk but when a waiter asks "what can I get you two?" the pair repeat, "two?" Allison then realizes Jack can't see Tess and Jack knows Allison can't see Stark. It then hits Jack and Allison that Tess and Stark have never been there but hallucinations.
• Explosive Instrumentation: Dr. Grant uses the password Beverly gave him to sabotage the weapon, causing a chain reaction that makes the computer bank he's working on explode. He gets caught in the blast, but is only superficially hurt.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Henry and Grace, with help of the gizmo of the week.
• Frame-Up: Following Beverly's instructions, Dr Grant unwittingly sets up Zane as the inside man.
• Hallucinations: Jack, Allison, Jo, Fargo, and Grant hallucinate significant persons representing issues they need to resolve.
• Innocently Insensitive: Poor Zoe can't understand why her good friend Jo is so upset over Zoe going out with Zane since, as far as she knows, they hate each other. Thus, Zoe doesn't get why her gushing on Zane is breaking Jo's heart.
• Insistent Terminology: Both Imaginary!Nathan and Henry correct Carter that Nathan was dematerialised, not vaporised.
  Nathan: Any third grader would know the difference.
• Jealous Romantic Witness: Jo ends up being this when she realizes in the new timeline, Zoe and Zane are going out.
• The Missus and the Ex: Though the exes are hallucinations in this case.
• Mr. Fanservice: Nathan, even in death.
  Carter: Geez, put a shirt on!
  Stark: This is your imagination.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Jack enters the cafe, he sees Stark sitting next to Allision who says, "I thought we could all sit and talk." Jack naturally assumes she means the pair of them with Stark when Allision means the two with Tess before they realize neither of their exes are actually there.
• Running Gag: Carter's Jeep is shaken apart by a sonic oscillator.
• Shout-Out: The episode title is obviously a reference to The X-Files.
• Technobabble: Used by Nathan - actually Carter's subconscious - to justify how he's back.
• Wham Line:
  • Carter, Allison, Stark and Tess are all sat around a table together at Café Diem. Or so it seems, until Vincent comes over and asks what the two of them want. A shot from his POV shows Carter and Allison are the only people at the table.
  • Zane arrives in Jo's office, and she finally has it out with her hallucination, telling him the reason he says such clichéd things is that she's romanticised their relationship when in fact they don't fit. She pulls her engagement ring off the chain around her neck and throws it at him, only for him to catch it and ask, "What are you doing with my grandmother's wedding ring?"
• What the Hell, Hero?: Dr Grant to Allison about the EMP weapon being tested for DED. She replies that without the weapons research, Eureka won't have funding at all.