Gaslight

Gaslight
Season 2, Episode 5
Air Date	August 20, 2012
Episode Guide
"When Push Comes to Shove"	"Alphaville"

"Gaslight" is the fifth episode of the second season Alphas. It airs on Syfy on August 20, 2012.

Synopsis

The team works to find the source of mysterious hallucinations at a hospital while Dr. Rosen delves deeper into Parish's conspiracies and Gary copes with Anna's death.

Summary

In a New York hospital, alpha Adam Gordon is haunted by visions of his sister Maggie being put into a morgue chamber, and is restrained by orderlies. Back at the office, Hicks video chats with his son, describing how to prep a curveball. Unfortunately, he finds out that his ex-wife has changed plans and Tyler won't be coming to visit him. Bill overhears and sympathizes, confessing that he's been frequenting the Alpha fight club.

Nina has returned to office, but both Rachel and Gary (preparing for Anna's funeral) are uncomfortable with her presence. Dr. Rosen asks Nina to investigate a visiting US Senator, Charlotte Burton, by pushing her. The Senator has received large donations from Stanton Parish's family foundation, the Llamrei Foundation. Nina encounters the senator in a washroom and pushes her with question about any quid pro quo for the Foundation, but the Senator is unable to answer the question, even during a push.

Rosen visits Adam in the hospital, who explains how he tried to save his sister from addiction. Rosen leaves Adam with Bill and Hicks. While being transported via elevator, Adam becomes angry and demands to see his sister, beating the orderly into submission. Hicks catches Adam climbing up the elevator shaft like a spider.

Meanwhile, Rosen has asked Kat to stop by for sleep testing, but uses it as an opportunity to also test Nina's ability. While she usually "pushes" her subjects, demanding an action or response, he believes she can also "pull" repressed information, using sensory memory to connect to specific information. They test this out on Kat, tying the smells of a birthday cake to her 16th birthday. Kat sees a middle-aged woman in her memory.

Nina and Rosen follow the senator to the airport to try the technique before she leaves. While Burton's answers are still scattered, she reveals she helped Stanton Parish conduct medical trials, and finishes with the word "August."

Leaving Anna's funeral (after Gary has an outburst during the ceremony), Rachel and Gary go to the hospital to join in the search for Adam. While searching the signals in the hospital, Gary encounters what seems like Anna's spirit, talking in clear English and walking with him as he searches the hospital.

The other members of the team get separated; both Hicks and Bill remember telling the other that they would stay with Rachel. Rachel is having trouble tracking down Adam, until he traps her, believing her to be his sister. He attempts to inject her with something that he believes will cure her addiction. Rachel breaks free and tracks a voice repeating the phrase, "I'm drowning." Adam hears the same voice, following it to a hospital sink, where he sees Maggie in the water. He drowns himself trying to save her.

Hicks sees his son being taken away on a gurney, and being forced into a morgue chamber. He's then subject to some sort of surgery without anesthesics. Gary witnesses a tray of vibrating medical tools and realizes that the phenomena in the hospital could be caused by infrasound, sound inperceptible to the human ear. Using the phone Skylar gave him, he confirms it.

Rosen meets Bill and Gary at the hospital. Bill goes to look for Rachel, and encounters a mirror version of himself, and the two fight ferociously. Rachel tracks the ghost-like pleas of "I'm drowning" to the hospital's hydrotherapy pool and sees Nina at the bottom of the water. She jumps in to save her, but the Nina in the water tries to pull her down to drown her.

From the imperative nature of the hallucinations, Rosen theorizes that the source may be coming from an alpha. Combing through medical records, Gary finds a recent drowning patient, one of which is comatose on the 16th floor, a Jason Miller. Sixteen years old, the doctors have labelled him as "persistent vegetative," and are preparing to harvest his organs. Rosen believes the infrasound may be a cry for help. He goes to gather hospital staff to try to wake up Jason.

Gary worries that Jason waking up will mean he won't be able to communicate with Anna anymore, and races to Jason's bed before Dr. Rosen. Locking the door, he explains to Rosen that he doesn't want to lose Anna again, but the Anna apparition tells Gary to help his alpha friends, as "the neuro-diverse need to stick together." Gary lets the doctor in and Rosen adminsters a drug that wakes up Jason's brain activity.

This breaks the infrasound projection and the hallucinations. Anna kisses Gary on the cheek before she disappears. Hicks stops himself from cutting into his own chest with a scalpel. Bill's mirror opponent disappears, and he pulls Rachel out of the water, rescitating her.

Rosen questions Jason, who doesn't seem to remember anything. In a nearby bed, Rosen notices that a nurse is using a strobe light device (photic stimulator) on another comatose patient. She explains that they use it to test brain activity. Rosen notices that the device is manufactured by "August Medical." Gary's research finds that the devices are in use in over 2700 hospitals nationwide, and are manufactured in China. Unsure of Parish's intentions, Rosen tells Gary that they'll need to contact Skylar to figure out the device's purpose and function.

Hicks visits his son in Nevada (without telling his ex-wife in advance) for a heartfelt reunion. Meanwhile, Kat uses a sketching tutorial to learn how to draw the woman from her repressed memory, who may be her mother. Gary settles down for the night, sending out a tweet with the username "Anna_Lives":

The revolution is coming. #Anna_Lives #Alphas

Trivia

• "Llamrei" is the name of a mare King Arthur owned, taken from the Welsh folk tale "Culwhch and Olwen."
• Gary's tweet is from an active twitter account: @Anna_Lives