Helix - S1E5 - The White Room
Previously, on Helix: “Single Strand”
We pick up this week with Shady MacGyver, fresh from murdering Additional Quirky Girl Scientist, by setting fire to the frozen monkey graveyard. Having discovered that the virus was merely a transmitter for a genetic payload meant to mutate its host in some fashion, and covering his tracks by burning the best evidence of that, Shady apparently thinks his mission is a success, and calls for evac. His mysterious superiors quickly put the kibosh on that idea, by adding a new parameter to his mission: “Locate and Retrieve Dr. Hvit”. (How he types actual messages into his communicator with no QWERTY keyboard is, apparently, a mystery for another day.) As he reluctantly packs up to head back inside, we are surprised by the dulcet tones of 100 screaming monkeys. THEY WERE STILL ALIVE!!!
Shady proceeds to search for Dr. Hvit. He asks Son of Frankenstein, and is told point blank that there is no one by that name on this base. Meanwhile, The Good Doctor has cooked up an improved version of Sodra, the antiviral, and Dr. Girlfriend’s new secret infected roommate is getting worse.
Dr. Frankenstein, in Level R, stabs himself with a very large knife, and finds Julia, with her new buddy, Gas Mask Girl, attempting to bribe their way back into the holding area with food they found. Upon seeing him, hobbling and bleeding, they immediately rush to him.
The Good Doctor goes to find Quirky to assist in testing the new Sodra, and finds her feeding the rats with her face. Everyone gathers to investigate. Son of Frank insists that it could not be foul play, and The Good Doctor immediately goes into attack dog mode, insisting that it was murder. Shady likely enjoys the fact that Son of Frank’s blind loyalty to the base, now has the suspicion pointed away from himself. When Son of Frank offers to review the surveillance footage, TGD insists he doesn’t do it alone. Suspiciously they find that both the main copy and the backup of the footage has been corrupted. Son of Frank admits that only he and Dr. Frank have the access to do such a thing, forcing him to at least seem like his trust in his adopted father may be waning. TGD insists on an autopsy.
Back in Level R, Dr. Ex-wife and Gas Mask Girl get Dr. Frank to the safety of a lab. Dr. Frank blames his wound on the oxygen scrubber doctors he killed at the end of last episode. They determine that the necessary provisions to treat him are on the opposite end of the level. Dr. Frank seems, possibly in a daze from the pain, not to recognize Gas Mask Girl when they are introduced, though she is a doctor at his facility. He then suggests an access tunnel as a safer passage to the supplies.
Shady attempts to further his investigation by asking Dr. Sodra about Dr. Hvit. Dr. Sodra admits to knowing him, but claims no one has seen him in a long time. It is rumored he developed a condition that required him to be separated from the rest of the doctors, and put in The White Room. When pressed on this, Dr. Sodra responds cryptically, “We are all in the White Room.” Son of Frank enters the room and request a little alone time with Shady. They exit to a separate room, where Son of Frank confronts Shady about Quirky’s death. Shady admits to it without admitting, and Son of Frank asks if Dr. Frank knew. Shady sows some more seeds of paranoia, suggesting that Dr. Frank knew, but didn’t tell Son of Frank. Son of Frank informs Shady that TDG is doing an autopsy.
Dr. Girlfriend returns with more painkillers for Secret Roommate, and finds her gone! Frantically, she searches the hall, and finds her doing a pants-off dance-off for the ghost of her ex-boyfriend. When Dr. Girlfriend tries to get her back to the room, Secret Roommate goes full-on Vector, and attempts to give her the vomit kiss of death. Dr. Girlfriend just manages to overpower her and get her to come to her senses.
Shady immediately heads to the autopsy room, to assess the danger from TGD. Though the cause of death reads as an embolism, TGD shortly discovers the puncture mark from the needle, causing Shady’s sphincter to clench. Back in Dr. Girlfriend’s room, Secret Roommate asks her to help her kill herself. Instead, she shoots them both up with morphine. As soon as she finishes pushing the plunger on her own needle, TGD knocks at her door. She meets him in the hallway, and makes a stab at playing it cool while TGD fills her in on Quirky’s murder, but when she drunkenly kisses him, she gives herself away, and The Good Doctor is not pleased. He angrily tells her to go sleep it off.
Doctors Frank and Ex-wife, along with GMG make their way down the access tunnel, when they notice that all the lights have been busted out, as if someone were setting a trap. They head on anyway, as they have no choice. Dr. Frank’s condition forces them to stop briefly to tie something around his wound, and Dr. Ex-wife notices tons of heavy scarring on his back, which he blames on a fire in which his daughter died. At that instant, they are pounced upon by one of the loose Vectors. Dr. Frank and Dr. Ex-wife barely make it into a room, but GMG does not. This gives them some alone time for him to creepily reminisce about how she reminds him of his daughter.
Shady and TGD “search” Quirky’s lab for clues to what she was working on. Shady uses the opportunity to fill TGD in on the fact that the initial monkey sample was eradicated by an unknown party, and the room completely wiped down (feigning surprise that TGD didn’t know, when it was his own idea for her not to tell), again, using his status as an outsider to the base to ensure all the suspicion remains toward the base personnel. He also uses the opening to insinuate that Quirky had an inside contact at the base, one who “seemed to have all the answers”. One named, conveniently, Dr. Hvit. This sends TGD on a crusade to locate his target for him. TGD confronts Son of Frank, who again denies knowing any Dr. Hvit, and successfully manages to deflect the suspicion back toward Shady.
Dr. Girlfriend, with the razor-sharp reasoning that one could only get from being completely jacked up on morphine, agrees to assist Secret Roommate in killing herself.
TGD and Son of Frank decide to ransack Shady’s room, finding plastic explosives and his communications hardware, with Quirky’s research, thereby making all his dirty deeds apparent. The last text on the device is, “Found Dr. Hvit in The White Room. EVAC 1500.” At the reading of this, Son of Frank vanishes like a ghost. We next find him heading outside into the snowstorm, attaching a carabiner to guidelines to navigate the White… (wait a minute! The White Room is the outdoors, guys.)
Then, lo and behold, who sneaks out the door right behind him, but that sneaky Shady MacGyver with a shiteating grin on his face. TGD is a little slow today, so he gets the lowdown on The White Room from Dr. Sodra, and makes to follow the other two outside.
Son of Frank reaches a blue light on a pole, presses it, and 6 glowing cylinders rise from the snow, one of which we see has HVIT.EIMAR glowing on the top. The cylinder rises higher, and we see it contains… a frozen head! Just as Son of Frank prepares to take it, Shady cracks him in the head with a shovel, and steals the head for himself.
Back on their way to the supply room, Dr. Frank is running out of juice and falls to the ground. The sound attracts Baldy Vector, who chases them into another side room. Just when it seems too late, GMG pops out of nowhere (luckily this happened to be the room she was hiding in), and brains Baldy Vector with a fire extinguisher. Luckily, this also turns out to be the supply room they were trying to get to, and Dr. Ex-wife patches Dr. Frank up. As he is rousing to consciousness, GMG casually posits, “Great. Maybe he can tell us more lies about his daughter,” which causes Dr. Ex-wife’s ears to perk up, given that GMG was not even in the room when that exchange happened. Gasp! And thusly it is revealed through a series of flashbacks that GMG was only a hallucination the whole time!
Out in The White Room, TGD is having a much more difficult time traversing the terrain than Son of Frank or Shady, when he inevitably encounters the latter on his way back in. Shady tries to play it cool, but TGD confronts him with the communicator. When Shady tries to defend himself with “You have no idea what’s going on here,” TGD pops him in the mouth. However, Shady lives up to his uniform, and summarily kicks The Good Doctor’s ass, ending by cutting his safety harness, and kicking him out into the blizzard.
The Good Doctor, beaten, manages to find the guideline again and make it into the base, where Dr. Sodra finds him and helps him back to a lab. Dr. Girlfriend nurses him back to health while he waxes melancholy about his regrets, and forgives her for her transgressions. She responds by coming clean about her migraines, but not about the tumor that is causing them.
Meanwhile, Shady and the head of Dr. Hvit are trying desperately to get a signal, when out of the blizzard bursts Son of Frank, stabbing Shady in the gut with an ice axe, then stripping him of his coat, and leaving him to die (assuming he can’t reach a foot away and just grab his coat again).
Apparently, TGD hadn’t gotten all the melancholy out of his system, as the final scene sees him holding his brother’s hand, rambling on about needing hope and all, when Badly Infected Brother’s vitals suddenly spike and seem to resume normal function. I’m going to go ahead and make the call that this is probably not a good thing.
