What would you do if you only had a short time left to live? Hit the jump for our recap. And, this one comes complete with a science lesson!We begin with a seemingly happy couple dancing at a wedding reception that isn’t theirs. The woman spots a member of the SRU, and her partner pulls out a gun, shoots it and yells “DON’T MOVE!” as the SRU closes in... Rewind! 3 hours earlier... We see shots of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal and the ROM. Eating inside a fine restaurant inside, is the couple. The woman is really enjoying how her food is melting in her mouth, and wants to finish it to the end! The two are so in love with each other through their simple words, when the woman suddenly feels a little ill, and she breaks a glass of wine. She heads to the ladies room, not before kissing her husband. She seems overwhelmed at how nice this restaurant is. As the waiter cleans up the broken glass, he says he will bring them their bill. The man questions why they won’t even get a dessert menu? Back at the SRU, the team has to stay overtime since another team is stuck at a hotel standoff. The SRU calls their families, saying that they will be home late, Jules overhears Sam calling his girlfriend to cancel their date. And Spike calls Lou to join in the fun. Spike tells Lou he’s going to be held up at work, and Lou says it’s okay, at least you called. They smile coyly, but of course I burst out into laughter watching that exchange! The woman, (Laura) is talking to herself in the restroom, appearing a little delusional. The waiter says to the man (Evan) that his friend needs help in the restroom, and then after that they have to pay their bill and leave. He goes to check on her, and they decide to leave without paying their bill because they weren’t very nice to them. She says she likes his bad boy side, and he says the night is young. They leave. What else does he have in store? He takes her to a pawn shop, and she spots a ring she likes. They plan to steal the ring. She distracts the cashier while he breaks into the case and steals the ring. He is spotted taking it, and the cashier pulls out a gun. However it seems that this has happened for the fourth time this month. He shoots a display, and the man takes his wife hostage with a letter opener. Laura grabs the gun, and they leave. Evan warns as he makes his way out the door something about being short on time, and asks what they would do with what they have left. Roll Opening! The SRU is called in, and they head to the shop, while the couple is on the run, driving to their next destination. Ed learns about the car they are driving and tells the SRU to be out on the look out. Winnie finds out about the dine and dash, and shares the news with them, and the waiter suspects they are high on drugs. They think the woman is a drug addict. The SRU heads out, wondering why they just took one ring. Larua and Evan keep going, since there are no cops after them. Laura is dipping in and out of consciousness again... something is seriously wrong. He hits another car, unaware that the light is red, and they take off on foot. The couple gets in a cab , as the SRU learns about the crash and that the couple got in a cab. Greg orders no sirens, and SRU only to go look for them. They try to use a GPS system to locate them. Larua says her head is spinning, and he asks the driver to go faster, even though he can’t. The SRU learns that both of these guys have a clean record. Sam and Jules are riding together, and they want to split up and get another vehicle. Jules doesn’t want to get him in trouble with his new girlfriend, and Sam reminds her that she’s the one who dumped him, so why should she care? The couple arrives at a pharmacy. Evan goes inside, and Laura sees the alert on the cabbie’s monitor. But Laura wants to tell the cabbie her story before he calls it in. The cab operator calls the car, and he is petrified... Commercial! Does anyone know if Bill Clinton played his sax on Elvis Costello’s Spectacle? Spike is looking for the car. Evan gets back into the car, and the cab drives off. The SRU wonders why the cab driver hasn’t sent in the alarm code. Evan slips the ring on Laura’s finger. The dark lighting makes it a little hard to see in this scene. The cab operator is trying to reach the cabbie, but he won’t respond. He just keeps driving. Jules talks to their landlord at their apartment building, and she looks around. Greg gets a call from the Inspector he met at the shop, and finds out they just robbed a drug store. Jules enters their bedroom as the landlord tells them that they are being secretive. She finds vials of morphine. But they still think that they are drug addicts on the run. Spike spots the cab on his GPS and they head towards it. Evan and Laura remember their first dance. They end up at a rustic looking building. The SRU figures out their ways into the building, but they encounter the cab and yell at everyone to get out of the car. They apprehend the cabbie, but the couple are not in there. They are greeted by a receptionist and she turns away to book a consultation, and they are gone. They have made their way inside, but for what? The SRU enters the building, asks for the building to be put under lockdown, as they search for them. Now we are where the episode started, the couple are dancing among a sea of guests at a reception. The SRU continues to search. Laura thinks she saw a cop, and Evan spots them too, but they keep dancing. They are committed to the plan. The SRU closes in on them, and Evan pulls the gun and fires it. He tells everyone to move to one side of the room, and tells Laura that they will stay together and won’t look back. Commercial! Back to the reception. Spike works on the event log. Greg gets the music off, and sends the DJ away. Greg asks Evan what has happened, but he yells back to keep his distance. Jules is now in Laura’s office seeing post it notes everywhere, reminders about every little thing, like she is trying not to forget. The cabbie is brought in to talk with Greg over the network. Laura cries that she wants to go home. Greg is still trying to talk to Evan. Jules finds a doctor’s appointment card, and Spike gets on the phone with him. The cabbie doesn’t think they are high. The cabbie knows more but he can’t say anything more about that, except that they are short on time and they wanted to dance. Spike learns that Laura has spontaneous CJD - Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. And now we pause for a science lesson from resident everythingologist, Dr. Sailordees!
*clears throat* ahem. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease simply put is when you have abnormal proteins (known as prions) making other proteins in your brain turn into the abnormal ones, causing the cells they are in to die, making holes in the brain. This is the human analogue of Mad Cow Disease. The only way a person can acquire this (from outside sources) is by getting these abnormal proteins in their system, either by eating meat from a cow infected with Mad Cow disease, or by an iatrogenic (hospital) accident where instruments used in brain surgery of an infected person pass the prions onto the next unsuspecting person. However, in this episode we are dealing with Sporadic CJD, in which one of the cells of the brain decides it doesn’t want to function properly, forms one of these bad proteins, and before you know it the brain cells fall one by one. In layman’s terms, your brain turns into a big sponge because a tiny part of a cell through a domino effect kills your brain cells. Don’t worry kids, this probably won’t happen to you since there’s only a one-in-a-million chance that the brain cell can malfunction like this. Now in today’s episode of Flashpoint features a main character suffering from CJD. Now if she is only given weeks to live, we usually see these people enter hospital care, as these people are experiencing severe bouts of dementia along with a loss of control over movements and things they used to have control over. They lose motor control and their sense of balance. We’re not sure why this isn’t the case here. But, the writers got the dementia part right . Of all the diseases caused by prions, why’d they have to pick this one? Fatal Familial Insomnia would have been much more exciting to write about! What if Laura couldn’t sleep and all Evan wanted to do was to make her happy during every moment she was awake?*disappears*
Back to the episode: Spike gives Greg a brief lesson in sCJD, and Greg uses this to negotiate. Ed wants to use rubber bullets to go after her so she doesn’t take a lethal dose of Morphine. Greg asks Jules to get a lawyer on the phone, to see if these two can stay together based on compassionate grounds since she only has two weeks to live. Laura fills the syringe, and with tears in her eyes is ready for Evan to shoot it into her. Sam shoots, and the syringe falls. In a surprise twist, Laura points the gun at herself and asks Evan to shoot her. Commercials! Sam is asked to switch to a lethal bullet. Spike talks to Evan’s mom outside, and reveals that Laura is going to die to her. Evan drops the gun down away from her head. Laura says that this is her choice. This was planned, and they made a video so Evan wouldn’t be blamed. Evan says she gets everything she wants today. Greg talks to Laura about how hard it is to shoot someone, it is not the easiest thing to do. It will be the last memory he will have of her. Greg says the team is by law going to shoot Evan before he shoots her. Ed confronts Evan about how he planned to kill himself after he killed Laura. Laura can’t believe this and asks why. The team stands down. Evan doesn’t want to live without her, and Laura says that he has to, because he has so much time left, because his family needs him. She says he is going to love someone else someday, and doesn’t know how she will live on without him living. Jules calls back and says that the judge can swing them staying together for the rest of the time she has left. Evan and Laura hug, and the incident ends. The montage begins. The SRU watches on. Laura’s videotape plays, saying how sorry she is that she couldn’t warn everyone. The pawnshop owner locks up for the day and hugs his wife. The sun rises, the SRU sits and thinks to themselves in the briefing room, and Jules and Sam look at each other. The episode ends. The song played this week was “Rialto” by Kathleen Gorman.
No one died today , but it was still a tragic ending that sometime after this episode, Laura was going to be dead and this episode wasn’t really ever going to have a happy ending. And what was up with Sam and Jules at the end? Is Jules thinking that maybe she should have given Sam a chance? The season finale is up next!
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