Time to phone Granny Fargo, your pop-pop didn’t go out for milk that night. In the third of his four episodes, Michael Lange returns to the director’s chair from “Duck, Duck Goose” and the season 1 finale. The story (on the other hand) for “Family Reunion” comes from the writer and producer of Angel, Firefly, DS9, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, and Warehouse 13 co-creator, Jane Espenson. The teleplay comes from Anne Cofell Saunders, a writer who was part of 24, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Chuck, The Boys, and eventually Star Trek: Discovery. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Updating the cryo-tech ahead of Fallout 4, GD technicians start messing around with one pod that was thought to be empty. Turns out there is a Fargo in there. All the while, Jack’s personal life in his former romance and parental life are quite highly focused on this runout. Zoe is being snuck coffee by Jo, and Jack’s sending flowers to a mystery woman. With granddad shocked that it’s been fifty-plus years since he was around, no one tell him the keys to the White House are about to be handed to the Black guy.

I think he’s having enough of a mental breakdown as is, with a dead son, an assistant he wants to kill, a friend “selling” his diamond ring, and a to-be fiancée who’s waited quite some time for that $50 diamond ring. Don’t tell him the price of a pint, now that I think about it, he’ll have a heart attack. Probably the same thing Carter thinks Zoe will have from all that coffee while driving? Maybe not, but he has personal reasons for trying to make sure Zoe is in the right headspace to drive, which might just be resulting in him being an overprotective parent.

So what’s better than one Fargo? None, but that’s a discussion for another time. As mentioned, the cryogenics lab has a patient defrost, and it turns out that this patient is Fargo’s granddad, Pierre Fargo. There is something about “Family Reunion” that feels like we’ve finally established a Fargo episode as proper, something that the town has to deal with that maybe isn’t life-threatening, but provides an interesting idea. Both scientifically and storywise.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time faffing around here because if we’re honest, it’s a rather basic episode that gets all the pieces in the right place, does them well, and doesn’t have too much fat on the writing. Nonetheless, the biggest “issue” with the episode is some of the pacing on certain things: Henry and Nathan working together sometimes slowing us down to play on the season’s storyline, as well as Zoe’s investigations into the mystery woman. Its issues, however, don’t make it too difficult to watch either.

The weird sci-fi concept being played with this time is, of course, that Pierre is defrosted like the pizza I have ready to go into the pizza oven as I write this. A little dark around the edges, but it was good. GD and 2006/07, however, doesn’t have the technology to keep the old man in this young form. It’s hardly a spoiler; it’s the entire premise of the episode and how we get into the third act. Setting up for the resolution, we see this young man just a little older than our Fargo grow old in minutes.

How do you save his cells from decaying at this accelerated rate? That’s typical Eureka fodder that is interesting but not explored enough to the point where we touch on theoretical science. Just the theory of these magic bits of tech, not how we make those work in the modern day. I’ll be honest, I like “Family Reunion” more than I think I normally would. Of the Fargo-centric episodes thus far, I think it is right up there with “Dr Nobel,” which I adore enough as an episode of Eureka.

Ultimately, “Family Reunion” is the typical return after a long time episode, with a touch of a sci-fi twist. I will bemoan the third-act resolution, which is just a bit happy-clappy. Americans can’t have anything that’s ending on a sad or down note; it’s just a fine ending that goes nowhere. I’d have liked a longer scene with Granny Fargo getting a reunion with Pierre, but sure, that’s off the table, so we can talk with Zoe about the dangers of drinking and driving. Ok, drinking coffee and driving, but still drinking and driving.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!

Eureka “Family Reunion”

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Typical Eureka ticking clock.
• One of the better Fargo episodes.

Cons

• The resolution is so-so.
• Again, the season-wide mystery is meh.