Helix Episode 1.05 The White Room

Day 5

By snowy night, Balleseros lights the entire monkey field on fire, then texts his superiors: "MISSION PARAMETERS COMPLETE. READY FOR EVAC." He's told his rescue is on hold until the retrieval of Dr. Hvit, and when he asks for more info, HQ rephrases: "RETRIEVE DR. HVIT." Balleseros, and us: "Who the hell is Dr. Hvit?" He's about to grump back inside when he hears a screaming sound coming from the fiery monkey field.

Alan's come up with a compound that slows the virus down. It doesn't kill it, but it's a start, so he'd like to start animal testing with Doreen's help. That isn't going to work out for him, but before he finds out what we already know, he has to have another spat with Aerov about maintaining contact as agreed.

Sarah wakes up from her morphine nap to find her visitor, Dr. Van Eigem, in pain. Van Eigem asks how Sarah does it, "waiting to die." Sarah shrugs that everyone's waiting to die, she just has less time.

Aerov finds Balleseros in Hatake's desk chair. That isn't kosher, but Balleseros demands the mysterious Dr. Hvit, and when Aerov denies any knowledge of a Hvit, Balleseros gets in Aerov's head by comparing his relationship with Hatake to a Brazilian favela gang, and wondering if Aerov is as inside-track as he thinks.

We're wondering why, on Level R, Hatake is stabbing himself with some kind of hydraulic knife...

Jules begs the others in quarantine to let her in, to no avail. She claims it's because they stand a better chance of survival by sticking together; Jaye knows it's because seeing her childhood handwriting on the wall freaked Jules out. Jules is further freaked out when Jaye calls her "Jules," saying it's a nickname only Alan and her mother use. (And us.) Hatake appears, gutted, and gasps, "Please."

Alan finds Doreen's body -- and its inhabitants, as a rat emerges from Doreen's mouth. Balleseros smirks -- do they really not notice that? -- while Aerov theorizes about what happened to Doreen, but Alan's sure she got murdered.

Hatake pretends to Jules and Jaye that the quarantiners attacked him. He also pretends he doesn't know who Jaye is, and she's disgusted, by that and by the concept of dragging Hatake across Level R to a triage room. Jules tells him it's no problem, and he smiles creepily.

Aerov and Alan snipe at each other as Aerov checks security footage to see what happened to Doreen. Naturally, a key file is "corrupted," and Alan makes a sarcastic "obviously" face and goes off to autopsy Doreen. Aerov frowns at Balleseros visiting Dr. Duchamp to ask about Dr. Hvit. Duchamp says he's stepped back from public life, possibly because of an immune disorder; nobody ever sees him. Rumor has it he's in "the white room." Balleseros asks where that is. "We're all in the white room," Duchamp tells him, like he's a child, and then Aerov interrupts for "a word" with Balleseros, which means slamming him into a wall and demanding to know what happened with Doreen, and whether Hatake knew. Balleseros taunts him some more about being out of the loop.

Sarah returns with more shoplifted morphine to find that Van Eigem has escaped into the hall to dance and hallucinate sans pants. She attacks Sarah, but Sarah's able to restrain her and take her back to the room.

Hatake and the J Girls head into the tunnels that will shortcut them to the triage area. It looks like someone's knocked out the lights to hide...or set a trap.

Balleseros visits Alan to find out what he already knows, since he caused it -- Doreen died of an embolism. It's natural causes, technically, but Alan wonders why someone erased the security footage in that case. Balleseros acts like he hasn't been with Doreen 24/7 for the last few days. Alan finds a suspicious puncture wound in Doreen's neck.

As Sarah's medicating Van Eigem, she begs Sarah to put her out of her misery if she gets any worse. Sarah looks dismayed, even more so when Alan knocks on her door. She's overcome with morphine as Alan tells her Doreen was murdered, and worries that they won't leave the base alive, so Alan hugs her...and she plants one on him, and he takes his time pulling away, but she's horrified and apologizes. Then he gasps, "Are you high?" Classic line delivery by Billy Campbell. Sarah's lying that she had a migraine so she took "something." He snaps at her to sleep it off.

During a pitstop to re-tie Hatake's temporary bandages, Jules notices some gnarly scars on his back. Rats run past them, followed by a hungry vector who tackle Jaye, and Hatake and Jules manage to escape into a filing room of some sort. Jaye doesn't make it. Jules wants to go back, but it's too late.

Alan checks Doreen's computer while Balleseros continues his disinformation campaign, mentioning the unauthorized cleanup and suggesting Doreen was working with other scientists -- like perhaps a Dr. Hvit? Alan marches off to find the mysterious Dr. H, and Aerov again denies knowing him, but does point out that perhaps it's Balleseros Alan should distrust and interrogate.

Jules asks about the scars. Hatake got them trying to save his daughter from a fire. "You...you remind me of her," he says. We thought maybe he'd say that Jules was her. And he still might.

Sarah's changed her mind about helping Van Eigem end it. After asking several times if Van Eigem's sure, she helps Van Eigem give herself a fatal shot. As Van Eigem passes away, Sarah and a guitar on the soundtrack are sad.

Searching Balleseros's quarters, Aerov and Alan find explosives; Balleseros's portable satellite dish; Doreen's research; and messages, including one about Dr. Hvit in the white room. Alan turns around from reading aloud to find Aerov has disappeared...

...and cut to Aerov heading out into a snowstorm, followed a few seconds later by Balleseros. Dun!

As Duchamp explains to Alan that the white room means "outside" on the base, Aerov hits a blue lighted post. Cylinders rise from the ice, one marked "HVIT.EIMAR" and containing a deep-frozen head. (Insert joke about Ted Williams here.) He's about to lift the Hvit Hvead off the pedestal when Balleseros hits him from behind, sarcastically thanks him for the help, and leaves him face down in the snow.

In the hall, a vector attacks Jules and Hatake. Fortunately, Jaye reappears and whangs the vector with a fire extinguisher, cracking, "Took you guys long enough."

Duchamp tries to talk Alan out of going into the whiteout while Jules stitches up Hatake and Jaye explains how she survived. Then Jaye makes a comment about Hatake telling more lies about his daughter, a story she couldn't have heard...unless she's a hallucination of Jules's. "You saved yourself," Jaye tells her, and Jules flashes back to all the scenes she had with Jaye when Jaye wasn't really there, and panics.

Alan struggles against the wind and snow, then runs into Balleseros -- and punches him when Balleseros calls Doreen "collateral damage." Balleseros kicks Alan's butt, retrieves his comm tools, unclips Alan's guidewire, then rolls him into the nothingness: "Nice knowin' ya, doc!"

But Alan is in the main cast, so he's back inside shortly, getting a lecture from Duchamp and protesting that they need to go after Balleseros. Outside, Balleseros is texting for his evac when Aerov slashes him with the same ski pole Balleseros hit him with, strips him of his clothes, and leaves him to die, taking the Hvit Hvead with him.

Sarah ministers to Alan as he explains that he selected her because she's driven to a fault, like he is. She admits to taking the morphine, but still claims it's for migraines, and he murmurs that "we've all lost ourselves a little bit, here." Later, he tells Peter his team has "fallen apart again," and he needs some of Peter's hope. Seconds later, Peter's monitors show brain activity.