Helix - S1E2 - Vector
Previously, on Helix: “Pilot”
Day 2 starts with three new faces describing the horrific ordeal they experienced when Badly Infected Brother attacked them. It can be assumed that the scream at the end of the first episode was one of these folks. All three describe being held down by BIB, as he placed his mouth over each of theirs, and having a sensation of not being able to breathe. Infected Bald Guy informs them that there were three other scientists in the room, who ran away afterwards, so now the infection is loose again. The Good Doctor, Son of Frankenstein, and Shady MacGyver mobilize to find the loose Infected, while Dr. Girlfriend is assigned to monitor the three new Infected.
Meanwhile, Additional Quirky Girl Scientist begins to dissect the attack monkey from Ep 1, despite the sneaky sounds she continues to hear, and Dr. Ex-Wife begins to experiment on some more rats, until she notices a security camera in the rat room. Back in the Infected Ward, Dr. Girlfriend puts on her bossy pants with the new Infected, as their paranoia increases and their cooperation level decreases. Infected Beardy Guy and Infected Lady get more and more combative, while Infected Bald Guy gets sicker and sicker.
Quirky’s sneaky sounds eventually culminate in the sudden appearance of Loose Infected Lady, who is looking quite sickly and sounding terribly paranoid. In her rantings and threats, we get insinuations about the “things they do here” and a second reference to “The White Room”. Quirky ultimately makes a dash for the door, and Loose Infected Lady tackles her. She attempts to vomit some black goo into Quirky’s mouth, but Quirky manages to throw her off, after which Loose Infected Lady passes out. Quirky starts to run away, but has a change of heart, and carries her back to containment.
Frankenstein and Dr. Ex-Wife watch the security tape, and witness unattended rats knock a large shelf over by jumping around in their cages. Frankenstein continues to insist that BIB was working with mutagens, but she’s not buying it. She begins to dig around in BIB’s notes and finds references to two substances called Narvik-A and Narvik-B. She insists that they replicate the tests to see what he was working on.
The Good Doctor’s team manages to capture one of the Loose Infected, a guy this time. However, the capture is witnessed by a group of scientists who take issue with the rough treatment of their colleague, and they demand answers as even the uninfected start to feel the effects of paranoia. The Good Doctor ‘splains to them like little children why no one is being evacuated (Here I’m starting to take a little issue. Scientists who work in genetics and pharmaceuticals and with or around viruses and diseases, should understand the risk, and shouldn’t need an elementary school speech on how diseases spread and the necessity of quarantine to prevent such.), but adding on the “We’re not abandoning you” bit.
Dr. Girlfriend makes a run to find morphine for Infected Bald Guy, and is accosted by Badly Infected Brother. Luckily, the morphine is in a cage, and this protects her long enough for him to realize that she is not Dr. Ex-Wife, who is the one he’s apparently after. He leaps from the ground back into the air ducts, skittering away like something from John Carpenter’s The Thing. The Good Doctor’s team shows up, and they determine that BIB is self-medicating, meaning that he is in pain. The Good Doctor takes this as a sign that his brother may be lucid enough to reason with. BIB has left a trail of black goo, so Shady decides to follow him into the vents.
After much crawling around, BIB gets the drop on Shady. Shady hits him with a stun baton, and only succeeds in knocking himself out. Strangely, BIB does not even attempt to infect him. The Good Doctor and Son of Frank pull him from the vents, and then suddenly get an alarm that someone is trying to leave the base.
Doctors Ex-Wife and Frankenstein, in monitoring the results of their rat tests, note that Narvik-A kills everything it infects, however Narvik-B only infects, making all the hair fall out and making their veins prominent and black. While they watch, however, one of the Narvik-B rats busts through the glass into another rat’s cage, tackles it and proceeds to infect it via the Vomit of Death.
Back in the Infected Ward, the Infected take Dr. Girfriend hostage. The Good Doctor and Frankenstein attempt to play negotiator, finally getting them to see reason by taking off his helmet, thereby convincing them that he is subjecting himself to the virus (Even though we already know it’s not airborne.
Dr. Ex-Wife shows The Good Doctor and Dr. Girlfriend the results of the tests. They have determined that the virus rewires the brain to become a vector for the virus, a “contagion machine”.
Shady finds one of the uninfected doctors outside trying to start a snowmobile. He attempts to convince the doctor to come back, at which point we are warned again about “what they’re doing here”, and “what they did to those monkeys was an abomination”, teasing more unsolved mysteries. In the end, the doctor refuses to go back inside, at which point Shady does the only logical thing, oh wait, no I meant murderous, not logical, and stabs the doctor to death, burying him in the snow.
Doctor Girlfriend swallows her fears and goes, along with Dr. Ex-Wife, back into the Infected Ward, this time taking the Loose Infected Lady brought back by Quirky Scientist. Shortly after entering, Infected Bald Guy starts having an apparent seizure. As the Doctors jump into panic mode to deal with the patient, Infected Beardy Guy, and Infected Weirdly-Red-Chested Lady jump into action to disable all of them. Infected Bald Guy, who was just faking, also joins into the fray, and the three escape.
Incensed by the evidence thus far, The Good Doctor confronts Dr. Frankenstein in his office. Dr. Frank insists that BIB was working on his own, and he had no knowledge of the virus he was working with. They argue for a bit, threatening each other, but eventually agree again that full transparency will be given to the CDC team. (Which of course it won’t.)
We are treated to a weird little aside, in which we see Dr. Frankenstein creepily looking through a photo album that contains only pictures of Dr. Ex-Wife. He then puts the book away and walks to his desk, removing a set of contacts to look into a microscope, but as he looks into the device we catch a glimpse of his eyes. Normally brown, they are now shining silver!
Cut to Dr. Ex-Wife taking a shower. She turns and freezes, stunned by whatever she sees. We finally see Badly Infected Brother emerge from the steam. He says her name, and makes to kiss her, all romantical-like, but she shoves him away at the last second. His eyes flash, and he roughly grabs her and gives her the Vomit Kiss of Death as we fade out.
Two episodes in, and I can safely say that this is the best show on Syfy in recent memory. Shades of The X Files, The Thing, Event Horizon, and even some Fringe! Can’t wait to see what happens next!
