Eddie finds old friends and aliens at his high school reunion.
(Originally aired on July 23, 2000)
Written by Chris Brancato and Albert J. Salke
Directed by Michael Rohl
GUEST STARS
Ellie Harvie – Marianne Adams
Greg Thirloway – Herman Garret
Suzie Joachim – Gua Agent
Christopher Shyer – Lon
Samuel Vincent – Stan Spencer
Tim Bissett – Bert Franken
Kate Luyben – Mimi Vanderberg
WHAT HAPPENED
Two aliens analyze the Paranoid Times website. They conclude that its writer is highly intelligent man in his 30s raised in the Northeast United State, with either a nervous disorder or a serious addiction to caffeine.
Eddie is picking out clothes to wear at his high school reunion. He’s nervous about it.
Finding the writer of the Paranoid Times is like picking out a needle in a haystack, but the aliens believe they have a lead. Certain that he’s the right age and mindset to want to revisit his past, they will send teams to high school reunions at twenty likely schools throughout the Northeast.
Cade is concerned about Eddie’s safety. Eddie’s not worried -- he has a small derringer for protection, and nobody’s looking for him anyway.
The female agent tells her associate Lon, "We’ve tried various methods to get Cade Foster to reveal the location of the Nostradamus book, all failures. It’s time to target his ally." (spoilers)
ANALYSIS
"All About Eddie" puts some cute reverses on the usual First Wave story, but it isn’t the definitive Eddie episode viewers might have been hoping for. We learn some of his backstory, but we don’t get much in the way of insight.
Most of the episode simply presents us with Eddie’s history. Eddie already knows it, so it doesn’t have much impact on him, making it hard for the information to have an impact on us.
The one twist in Eddie’s history -- Herman’s betrayal -- doesn’t add much. Eddie’s already gone through years of pain because he was busted by the Feds, and learning that Herman was responsible doesn’t really change that.
As a result, Eddie never has any reason to seriously examine his life. Eddie may have gone back to high school to gain insight, but all the experience does is confirm his current identity.
Despite this disappointing lack of development, "All About Eddie" is kind of fun. Most of this comes from the fact that all the usual First Wave structural elements are in place, but with Cade and Eddie reversed.
Eddie gets the opening narration and closing moral, and Cade plays the usual Eddie scenes of sitting in the trailer and waiting for contact. Eddie even gets to do the almost-weekly "tell the pretty guest star she can’t come along on the battle against the Gua" scene at the end.
This twist doesn’t make "All About Eddie" a great episode, but it’s good enough for an hour’s entertainment.
WHAT WE LEARN
Crazy Eddie’s real name -- which he has never told Cade before -- is "Larry Posinski." He is a 1984 graduate of Heisenberg High School, a magnet school for accelerated students.
Federal agents arrested "Larry" for hacking into government computers after a friend betrayed him. The experience forced him to drop his original identity and create a new one.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
If Herman wasn’t working for the Gua, why did the Gua accept him coming to rat Eddie out? Shouldn’t they have been a little alarmed that he knew about them?
The Gua had already profiled Crazy Eddie as male and socially maladjusted. Why did Mimi decide Eddie must be a woman who’s socially adept enough to work as a teacher?
REALITY CHECK
TSR-80s, VIC-20s, and Commodore 64s are all real home computers of the early 1980s. The Lisky 1000 is fictional.
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK
When Cade enters an alternate reality, he discovers the Gua are using it to turn teenage runaways into psychopathic killers in "Playland".
What do you think? Send your comments to the editor.
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