"'Dirty Seeds, Done Dirt Cheap" is the seventeenth episode of the third season of Scorpion and the sixty third of the series overall. It aired on February 20, 2017.
Synopsis[]
When a simple mission to protect a vital seed bank goes awry, Team Scorpion must save Happy, Sylvester and Cabe, who begin suffering from life-threatening, fear-based hallucinations.
Plot[]
At the warehouse, Sly is fast asleep on his desk. He was up all night prepping for his debate. Cabe drops a book, and it wakes him the middle of a nightmare. Cabe tells him he needs to pull it together. Toby gets him tea.
Paige and Walter arrive. They have desserts from Froyo the place Walter was recently banned from. Paige took to the store, and he apologized after Paige explaining how he was wrong. Walter starts to rant about the punch card, but Paige clears her throat, and he stops.
Cabe has an idea – Sly needs to make an appearance at a petting zoo. He doesn’t want to go – he is afraid of chickens. Walter shares that he needs to get rid of his fear and be rational.
A new case comes in – the world’s seed trust is malfunctioning. Scorpion needs to leave immediately to Greenland to deal with what could turn into a catastrophe. They arrive at the facility to find it has no power while a blizzard rages outside. They pry open the doors to darkness. Happy fixes the problem and gets the lights back on.
Back at the warehouse, Toby is discussing history with Ralph in celebration of Presidents Day. Toby and Ralph talk about fears and Walter. Ralph wants his mom and Walter to get together. Toby warns him that might not happen. They may be better off as friends. Ralph is sad, until Toby offers him the Froyo in the freezer.
The team all work in separate rooms to figure out the problem. Sly has figured out what caused the surge – the time is off. The operating systems clock is behind by 51 seconds.
Sly is spooked out by the darkness. He feels like eyes are on him. The team reassures him it is nothing. The door shuts, sending Sly into a panic. The others think it has something to do with the clock. Suddenly, Sly is screaming. He yells for help as a mysterious thing comes at him. The team tries to get in as Sly screams, but the doors won’t open. Sly calms down as he radios the others – he is with chickens. They are everywhere around him.
Toby tunes in via video feed. Sly is not with chickens. He is having a psychotic break. Toby asks how everyone else feels. After seeing Happy near some yellow dust, Toby freaks. They are breathing in dangerous ergot fungus that will make them hallucinate. They will live their worst fears.
Luckily, Paige and Walter didn’t come in contact, but Cabe, Sly and Happy did.
Happy begins relieving the days of her youth when she was in the orphanage, and it was adoption day. Cabe thinks he has arthritis and when he looks down at his hands, they are gnarled and old. He is with Ally who is his wife on a sitcom. She just made dinner. She makes several jokes about Cabe being so old he remembers the dinosaurs which get a laugh track. Suddenly he is on a TV show called 'Older than Dirt' whose host is Ray Spiewack.
Toby needs to help them get through their fears and make them realize it isn’t real. Toby warns Paige and Walter that they all could fall into a coma and died unless they get all three of them out of there in the next 30 minutes.
Paige radios to Sly. She tries to talk him through his task. Walter works to get Cabe focused, but that proves difficult. Cabe is hallucinating that he is on a game show. Toby tries to talk to Happy, but she is still hallucinating about her days as an orphan. All of the other kids were adopted, and she was left behind. Happy's current fear shines through – she is afraid that Toby is going to leave her like everyone else. Toby figures out that they all have to get back to the root of the problem. The three of them work to rework the original trauma of Happy, Cabe and Sly.
Toby gets through to Happy by making her realize that there is nothing wrong with her. He talks her through by pretending to be another kid at the orphanage, which leads her to imagine the two of them as kids. He tells her that he'll never leave her. After he works through her issues, he gets her to restore the generator. Paige tries her hardest to reason and help Sly see reality – to fight through the hallucination. After some screaming like a girl, while Paige pushes him to walk through the chickens, he pulls a lever, accomplishing his job, but then he begins to get sleepy. A dangerous side effect.
Walter works to get Cabe back. Cabe is scared of getting old. Why? Walter figures it out. Cabe fears being weak, a part of getting old. He is a military man who sees being strong as a very important factor. Walter tries to reason with him, to make him realize that as he gets old, he gets wiser, more experienced. Cabe does his part, he flips the breaking switch. But quickly nods off too. They are all in comas from breathing in the dangerous spores.
They need immediate care, and a hospital is two hours away. They decide that they need to find seeds that will help them. How do they get the seeds with spores in the air?
Walter hacks the system and instructs Paige to grab some PVC pipes for snorkels. The two of them find their way safely to the seed bank. Ralph tells them which seeds they need and where they are. Toby instructs them on what they need to do to wake the others. They need to grind seeds into powder and make them into an oil that will help get the three out of their comatose state. A fire starts where Walter and Paige are. Walter builds a fire extinguisher while Paige heads off to give them all the oil, to wake all of them.
Toby loses Walter via video feed. Paige goes to see if he is okay. She sees him kissing a girl in a moment of hallucination. The real Walter runs from around the corner. Paige wants to get out of there quick. She must have breathed in some of the spores. They all get out safe.
Sly makes it to his debate. He kicks ass after he is called a chicken by his opponent. Cabe tells his lady friend the truth – he hates vegan, he needs reading glasses, and he really likes her. She reassures him that he fits right in her wheelhouse. Paige asks Walter if those spores really do make you see your worst fears. It does. That gives her plenty to think about. Meanwhile, Toby managed to change Happy’s fears of being alone.
Cast[]
Main[]
- Elyes Gabel as Walter O'Brien
- Katharine McPhee as Paige Dineen
- Robert Patrick as Cabe Gallo
- Eddie Kaye Thomas as Toby Curtis
- Jadyn Wong as Happy Quinn
- Ari Stidham as Sylvester Dodd
Recurring[]
Guest[]
Trivia[]
The title is a reference to the song "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" by the australian rock group AC/DC