2.08 "Area 51" - Air Date 09-Nov-2015
 

Thanks for the sneak peeks. Things are not looking good for Megan! :( And Walter is not taking it well, while poor Sylvester is stuck in the middle. Not good!

Barbara

TFTNT! After seeing the first sneak peek, I can't really say I'm looking forward to this episode. More like I'm dreading it. I'm trying to hold onto a shred of hope, but it is not looking good at all.

TFTNT!

Ugh, that sneak peek with Megan has me really worried. Not only are things looking bad for her, but it looks like this whole situation is really going to put a strain on Sylvester and Walter's friendship. Sly's going to do his best to honor Megan's wishes, which I think are going to be very different from what Walter thinks is the best course of action.

I did love the sneak peek with Toby and Cabe though. Looks like Toby's over the boxing and they're still hanging out. Those two are pretty much BFFs lately!

Yeah, I was worried that her death might strain Walter and Paige, but it's looking like Walter and Sly are going to be the relationship that suffers.

New Episode Night! :clap: :clap:

Looking forward to the new episode :)

2x08 was a solid episode, but the case, itself, wasn't very intriguing to me. It had it's moments, and I thought it was interesting how they paired off Walter & Cabe and Paige, Happy & Toby while Sly stayed at the hospital with Megan, but I don't know... I just didn't focus as well during this episode. Maybe it was because I was live tweeting and missed some dialogue and whatnot, but other than the case, the plot revolving around Megan absolutely destroyed me.

I understand everyone's view on Megan's condition, but it absolutely tears me to shreds to see Walter struggle with the reality that Megan will most likely die. I know he said in S1 that he has prepared himself, but now that it is almost actually happening, he's in denial and doesn't want to face the fact that his sister is dying. :( :( :(

He's doing his best to process it, and in his own mind, Megan MUST survive somehow. He promised he would cure her so that's what he, in his mind, HAS to do. I just hate the fact that it's tearing him apart, and you can just see that he's hiding behind a wall of facts so he wouldn't have to face the facts.

While I understand what Paige was trying to say to Walter at the end - that he internally fears the unknown - I felt like what she asked Toby about WHY Megan's body was attacking her was a bit of a low blow towards Walter. Almost like a slap to the face. I think, while she's trying to connect with him on a topic he's not ready to allow himself to admit, she doesn't realize that Megan is Walter's rock. Though she was trying to prove a point to him, she found an insecurity of his (a question he's probably been asking himself since Megan's diagnosis) and verbally punched him in the face with it. :( :( :(

I can't handle Walter's denial, and I hate the fact that he probably feels like he's the only one willing to try to save her life.

I feel like her death is going to hit him super hard (much harder than he'll ever anticipate), and it's going to be hard for him to move forward. :( :( :( :( :( :(

My poor baby. :(

I didn't focus well on the episode either, and so it didn't really grab me the way other recent episodes have. But I know exactly why I didn't focus - it's because I knew there was going to be a lot of difficult scenes about Megan and, like Walter, I'm trying to pretend they don't exist.

Walter is definitely having difficulty dealing with this, and it's only going to get worse. I can also see where from Walter's perspective, all his friends are basically giving up - and he can't stand that. He can't stand that they are doing it, and he certainly can't do it himself. On one level, I applaud him for this. He has no intention of stopping his efforts until it really is irreversibly too late. Walter doesn't understand, however, that his friends aren't giving up - this is well evidenced by the fact that they all donated their proceeds from the case to Walter's research plan. His friends are simply trying to prepare themselves for what may - very likely - be the outcome.

In terms of Paige's actions at the end, I agree that they bordered on cruel - but I think it's a "cruel to be kind" move. Paige has come to understand Walter's emotional make-up better than pretty much anyone - even better than Cabe, I think. She realizes that he's gone to a place where extreme measures - that metaphoric slap in the face - are the only thing that will have any effect on him. When Walter attempts to support his position with a statement that Paige knows is blatantly untrue - "We know everything about Megan's condition" - she has to slap him in the face to try to make him realize that he is ignoring key facts about the situation. I think Paige supports Walter's desire to continue to work on a solution up until the very end, but she knows that if he does so while ignoring these key facts, he will absolutely fail. Furthermore, he'll be completely destroyed afterwards. This episode comes on the heels of last week, when Paige emphasized to Walter how important he is to everyone around him. Paige understands that Walter is the linchpin of their group - not just her, but her son, Toby, Happy, Cabe and Sylvester. Paige believes that Sylvester, in particular, will need his friend to get through what is likely to come.

It is so painful to watch what Megan's illness is doing to everyone. I actually think that Sylvester is handling it very well. He's devastated, of course, but he has accepted that Megan is going to die :( and is doing everything he can to follow her wishes. Cabe will be able to deal with it - he sadly has already had to do so with his daughter. And Paige will have to be strong enough to deal with her friend's death while helping everyone else.

I think the writers are doing a fantastic job with Toby, Happy, and Walter. Each of them is acting exactly in character in trying to accept what is happening with Megan. Toby is convinced that he understands all the psychological aspects of grief and is confident that he can handle it. Happy thinks that being in denial and just not thinking about it will get her through. I think they will both be in for a huge shock when they find out that their emotional armor won't help them. It will be up to Paige to be there for them.

And poor Walter. :bawl::bawl: He is already falling apart, in denial, and at a total loss as to how to handle this. He has emotions now, and while he is trying to suppress them, he has learned that you can't unring a bell. I'm really hoping that he gets to talk to Megan - he needs to hear from her how much she loves him and how it's not his fault that he couldn't save her.

In spite of all the sadness in this episode, it had some really funny moments, especially the line about Hoffa being buried in the Meadowlands. Walter's bluff about the drone that actually ended up working was great.

Barbara

Yes.
I can see how the writers wanted to tie in "the unknown" with Megan's declining condition, but I feel like the case, itself, was a little bit overdone. I think, personally, the writers wanted to include a "funny" case to ease our hearts because of Megan's illness, but I wish they would have focused MORE on Megan's illness than having an actual case for this episode. I understand Walter needs an influx of cash to help him with his research, but what he really needs is to be with his sister. I mean, that's what I want to happen, but knowing Walter, he has to deal with his pain and emotions about his sister's illness in his own way, and working a case does exactly that. I guess I just wish the writers chose a more subtle case or... something that wasn't so strange and bizarre to parallel with Megan's condition. Maybe having Walter work a case where he has to deal with the unknown in a different way. I don't know, the case just seemed... oddly and forcefully placed? (Like I said, the characterization was excellent, just the case itself was a little dry for me).

As regards to your comment about Paige's actions at the end of the episode, I agree. I know it's sometimes cruel to be kind, and Paige, in her own way, is trying to help Walter prepare himself for Megan's death. I guess I just feel like, from Walter's POV, that he wasn't ready to hear what Paige was trying to get him to understand in regards to Megan's declining condition. Paige just wants to help Walter prepare himself in anyway she can, and yes, like you said, she had to be cruel to be kind. I just feel so sorry for Walter. :( I hope, by the time Megan's death comes to pass, Paige can help Walter ease into the pain of loss. And I really hope Walter will lean on her for support instead of pushing her away.

I have a BIG feeling Megan's death will affect Walter and Sylvester's relationship; perhaps, Walter might blame Sylvester along with himself for not trying hard enough. For not saving her. And I hate to think Walter and Megan's parents would blame Walter for Megan's death, but I have another BIG feeling that their father would. Maybe not their mother, but their father... most likely would blame Walter. :( :( :(

I don't know if I'm ready for all of these feels. ;~;

It was definitely harsh, but I really think Walter needed some kind of reality check at that moment. He need to prepare himself that there is a big chance that his sister won't make it.

Another strong episode in general. :nod:

Improbable as it was, I loved the episode. Sylvester was awesome sticking up for Megan against being intubated. Yes, Walter was over-reaction personified, but it was because of his love for Megan. He's going to be devastated when his plans to save her, fail as they must. It was very caring of Paige to try to give him a dose of reality even though it didn't do much good. I don't think it was cruel in the least and I do believe Walter will remember that talk in the future.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. I think my favorite thing was probably that the dynamic between Toby and Happy seemed to be back on track. It reminded me of their interactions early in season 1, so I think we'll see them start to grow closer once again as the season progresses.

I'm not sure I like how they're handling the Megan storyline. I completely agree with Sly in respecting Megan's wishes, but why is he even being put in this position? Megan is still completely lucid. She needs to tell Walter firmly and directly what her end-of-life decisions are and have an advance directive. I understand that Walter's upset, but he's acting like her treatment is his decision and, at least at this point, it's not.

I don't like how the writers are treating Paige as if she's an expert in grieving simply because she's of normal intelligence. Having Cabe discussing Megan with everyone would have seemed more natural, given he's experienced this kind of loss before with his daughter.

Maybe it's because we've barely seen them on screen together, but I don't feel like Toby and Happy would take Megan's death as hard as this episode implied. Of course they would be sad, but I feel like it would have more to do with seeing Walter and Sylvester suffering than their own personal sense of loss. And while Toby may not always be the best at handling his own issues, he is a psychiatrist and a good friend, so I think he'd be just as capable of helping Walter and Sylvester cope as Paige would.

I think that so far, Megan has basically let Walter make the decisions, since they've never been in this "we're out of time so what do we do now?" situation before (she was well enough to escape the hospital and get herself arrested just one year ago) and as he's been doing research and has the genius level of intelligence, I think Megan, while informed herself, has always trusted Walter's judgement, which we saw challenged briefly in Dominoes, but then she went along with what he thought then, too. So Megan still had the right to make her own decision, but I think up until now, that always agreed with Walter's opinion. And now the conflict is them differing.

I don't think they're treating her as an expert. Just the geniuses have all been opening themselves up to feeling a wider range of emotion the past year (especially Walter and Happy) and when you do that, you give yourself more capacity for love and trust, but also for things like grief. And so they're more vulnerable than they used to be, they aren't able to block things out like they probably had an easier time of before. So since they're starting to at least partially react to grief the way "normal" people do, Cabe and Paige are sort of trying to help them adjust.

Toby overanalyzes everything, and he's quite blunt (i.e. some of the imagery he was giving us regarding Ralph's conception last year), and he's also used to having an answer, both himself (as he's always speaking matter of factly) and as part of the Scorpion team. This time, they don't have an answer, there isn't some crazy stunt they can pull to save her, so that helplessness they aren't used to feeling plus picking up on the genuine personal grief and tension from Walter and Sly (and Paige to a degree) makes their reactions seem fairly plausible to me. It's like how he was giving Paige the answers to her questions so matter of factly, but when she asked something he didn't know, he didn't know how to react to that, it's the same to me as him feeling off about the Megan thing because he doesn't have an answer to that either when answer = solution to the problem.