Recap / Forever 2014 S 01 E 03 Fountain Of Youth

Fountain of Youth

Written by Janet Lin
Directed by David Warren
Air date: 30 Sept 2014

• Car Hood Sliding: After his briefcase is stolen and he gives chase, the victim of the week gets soot on his hand and pants leg doing this over a taxi that almost hit them. Henry figures out exactly where the soot was from.
• Eating Lunch Alone: Jo eats most of her meals at her desk, a reflection of how she's buried herself in her work since her husband died. Henry discusses this at the end of the episode, suggesting Jo shouldn't shut herself away.
  Henry: I worry about you, Detective. You have breakfast at your desk before anyone arrives, dinner after everyone leaves. You only go home to sleep. There's more to life. […] This is the most exciting city in the world. There is someone out there for all those breakfasts and dinners.
  Jo: Yeah, well, I already found him. He's gone.
• The Edwardian Era: The flashbacks are set in this era, 1906 to be exact. They show Henry dealing with the fact that his friend James is dying of tuberculosis. James is desperately hoping that the new “cures” might heal him while Henry remains skeptical.
• Fair Cop: Lampshaded when Henry spells out how beautiful Martinez is by using scientific statistics (i.e., the ideality of the proportions of her facial features). She replies that in her line of work, her looks are more of a liability than an asset.
• Fountain of Youth: The drug "Aeterna" is introduced in this episode, advertised as making people younger... except people taking it are dying of horrific brain damage, like they have Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and Huntington's all at once. The pure form of the drug actually works as advertised without any apparent side effects; it's just that using stem cells was too expensive. They started harvesting pituitary glands from human corpses, which was far cheaper but gave the patients a prion disease that basically ate holes in their brains.
• Has a Type: When Henry comments on the mathematical, objective attractiveness of Jo's face, he adds that personally, he prefers a more flawed look.
• High Heel Hurt: Henry points out a woman dressed to the nines wearing spike heels, commenting that a woman in heels that high doesn't do a lot of walking, she gets driven places.
• Human Resources: This episode sees a dozen bodies stolen so their pituitary glands could be used in an anti-aging treatment.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Several people unknowingly, and one knowingly. The chemist who was making the de-aging drug wanted to use stem cells, but her partner forced her to cut corners, so she started using human pituitary glands harvested from pilfered corpses.
• Look Both Ways: This trope is narrowly averted as Henry casually but purposefully crosses a street with absolutely no regard for the surrounding traffic. Jo quickly pulls out her badge and flashes it at approaching cars to keep them from hitting him, a gesture Henry doesn't seem to notice, or at least pay attention to, any more than the traffic.
• Medicine Show: The flashback story opens with Henry and his good friend James watching one of these, promoting a new Sanitarium. Henry lists several crackpot "cures" they advertise and bemoans the fact that people who need the help of real medicine will end up going to the charlatans instead. James is at least willing to entertain the thought that some part of their offerings could someday turn out to actually help, given how rapidly medical care is advancing.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: When a young mugger tries to steal the briefcase of a man in his sixties, to his surprise, the man chases him down and starts delivering one of these.
• Put Off Their Food: When Henry describes what tuberculosis can do to healthy lung tissue, Jo complains that she had just ordered Chinese, with the implication that she doesn't think she'll want to eat now.
• Reaction Shot: Abe enlists Henry's help in trying out skateboarding down a half-pipe. As Abe goes down, the camera closes in on Henry's face as he's terrified of his son getting seriously injured, then relieved as Abe apparently is okay, then proud of his son's success.
• Scenery Porn: There's an especially notable view of the 1906 New York skyline, which James and Henry specifically take the time to admire.