The Middleman recap: "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol"

I’m so glad I got attacked by that tentacled ass monster back in the lab and that you framed me so that I’d have to be your sidekick. Because I am so proud to be a MM. I’m proud to know you. And I want you to know, that since my dad disappeared, you’re the closest thing I’ve had to a father. – Wendy Watson

It was a blast this week. Let’s go through the checklist:

• Mark Sheppard, check.
• An ambiguously evil corporation that looks like Apple, check.
• Tyler Ford dressed like a shifty talent agent, check.
• Nanobots, check.
• Vejar references, check.
• Many Doctor Who references, check.
• Even more Die Hard reference, check.
• Dubby’s very touching Code 47, check.
• Oh yeah. And WENDY WATSON IN UNDERWEAR!!!

A whirlwind of an episode which opens with an “accident” that ends up getting Tyler a job interview with Manservant Neville. C’mon. If you were watching, and if you’ve ever watched TV before, you just KNOW that the accident was faked. The beater hits the Boxster and the guy in the beater grabs a bat? Really?

And if Badger offers you a job, you should probably think long and hard about taking it. If you decide it’s a good idea, think longer. You’re wrong.

Forget it Lacey, It’s Chinatown

At the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist, we now stand at 4 hours, 6 minutes before the inevitable detonation. Lacey and Noser drink coffee and Wendy and Tyler come down from the loft. Wendy gets a call on the Middlewatch and The Middleman shows up at the door in a hazmat suit.

Voyager 2 was detected streaking across the solar system on a collision course with Earth. Middleman figures there are three options

1. The probe carries an alien virus, hence the suit.
2. The probe carries actual aliens, hence the suit.
3. The probe has developed artificial intelligence and is returning to pass judgment on its creators. No suit required.

The black box survived and Middleman and Wendy go to retrieve it. A black van arrives and disgorges NASA retrieval experts, unhazmat-suited. But Middleman handles it. Commander Benton and Spc. Herriet are on the scene. Mr. Lethbridge-Stuart and his boys will have to leave.

Back in the hallway of the illegal sublet, Lacey and Noser are listening to Tyler’s newest track. They’re in love with it. But their impromptu listening party is broken up by the arrival of Manservant Neville and two of his…henchmen. He tracked Tyler down, and knows everyone’s name. He’s got an intuition about Tyler and wants him to come for an interview.

Meanwhile, at Middleman HQ, the blackbox is opened, revealing a device with Clotharian writing. It explodes, contaminating HQ. Lockdown protocols are initiated and Dubby and Middleman head to the decontamination chamber.

A Silkwood Shower

Okay. A moment if you please. This auspicious event deserves some sage words of commendation. Words to echo through the ages. Ahem…

NATALIE MORALES IN UNDERWEAR!!! WOO-HOO!!!

Okay. That’s all.

Yes, that’s right. Snicker if you must. Middleman and Dubby strip to their skivvies for scrub down. I’m reminded of the decon scene in the pilot of Enterprise. The moment it was clear that show was never on the rails to begin with. But here, it’s *intentionally* funny.

While Dubby and Middleman take a steam, Lacey and Tyler show up at Fatboy Tower. Everyone’s waiting for Tyler and everyone knows his name. It would be creepy, but c’mon. We know they’re an evil organization, right? We’ve all read comic books and seen Bond films before!

In case you weren’t sure yet, Tyler has to take some tests first. So we get a montage of B&W stills just like Wendy Watson’s tests in the pilot! If they’re not an evil organization bent on world domination, then what are they? A backup Middleorganization?

Redressed in the showers, Middleman tells Wendy about Code 47. In the event a Middleman dies, a microwave burst from his Middlewatch delivers a coded message. He personally records a Code 47 for Wendy during every mission. And now he plays them for her. Great stuff. He suggest Wendy do the same, but she says she’s an open book. The people she cares about already know how she feels.

A little later, Middleman is recording a new Code 47 for Wendy…while she’s right behind him.

They call Ida to ask when they can get out of quarantine but she’s not there. It’s just a recording of Ida on a loop. Time for the Nakatomi Incursion Protocol. And no, it’s not like the movie. It’s “like the real-life events that inspired the movie.” Middleman plays “Ode to Joy” on a keypad and all is set. They head into the air ducts which were conveniently expanded by the protocol.

What’s up with the vents? I mean, we’re coming from an isolation chamber inside a secret headquarters built by an organization so covert we don’t even know who they are, yet somehow we have vents large enough to crawl in through with accessible registers everywhere. Was this building designed by TV writers, or what?

They espy the Interrodroid 6000 fiddling with Ida…

Ida’s turned evil.

Maximum Aldwen

Tyler goes into a boardroom with a bunch of suits and gets berated by head suit for a cavalier attitude toward intellectual property. Then he notices the following:

• Man1 can’t pronounce Manservant correctly…
• Man2 has a watch ticking loudly, despite the Cartier Paget case…
• Man3 has a machine-sewn suit with an ostentatious Italian cut…
• Man4 has a *really* bad toupee…
• Man5 has cufflinks made of plastic…
• Man6 has a clip-on tie…
• Man7 has reading glasses without magnification lenses.

Tyler’s escorted out.

Back at Middleman HQ, Middleman beheads the Interrodroid 6000 and uses the severed head to contact the Clotharians. It’s then we learn that Voyager 2 got sucked through a wormhole and started taking pictures of a top-secret military installation on the other side. Not only do we blanket the cosmos with our reality shows and sitcoms, but now we’re peepers. So the Clotharians sent back nanobots that will destroy all of our technology. All of it. Ida will be first, and then will explode with enough force to vaporize The City and send the nanobots all over the planet.

Oops.

The Middleman’s clever plan is to use the HADAR’s shrink ray – yes, it has one – and then its particle accelerator – yes, it has one – to be Fantastic Voyaged into Ida in order to hit the reset button in her brain. That will trigger her antivirus systems, “like a space android Norton Utilities.”

But the plan is foiled and in order to save Wendy from Ida’s blaster he has to send her in his place. More Raquel Welch than Donald Pleasance. When Wendy comes to, she’s in Ida’s sinus cavity. Which is filled with steampipes. She’s got to get to the cortex, hit the reset button, and get out before re-embiggening. Ida’s titanium skull will kill her if she’s re-embiggened inside her.

Outside, Ida tracks down her boss. He says she can’t hurt him, or through inaction let harm come to him. She tells him to “kiss her Asimov.” (Okay, Javi’s working on so many levels, I’m not sure he even knows what he did here. Sure, Asimov robot reference. But who wrote “Fantastic Voyage”? That’s right. Good ol’ Isaac.)

Wendy distracts the nanobots and slips through the hatch into…

Ida’s Brain. 5 minutes, 15 seconds before the inevitable detonation

Ida’s cortex is a mod white room. Ida’s brain is Ida, tastefully dressed in black with a string of pearls. She tells Wendy the reset button was a good plan, but the nanobots already trashed it. The only hope is to be returned to O2STK. They can destroy the nanobots and send a new copy of Ida back. So Ida’s brain tells Wendy what to do.

Middleman has to bring Ida to ops, then turn on and off the banker’s lamps in a specific order. That will open a hidden passage to a pneumatic tube that heads back to O2STK. Just when it looks like everything’s going to be alright, the nanobots start breaking into the cortex. There’s no other way out and Wendy can’t be re-embiggened inside Ida. So she gives her boss a live Code 47.

But then…an idea. Ida opens the hatch and Middleman re-embiggens Wendy. She appears in ops surrounded by nanobots as body armor. They are indestructible, after all.

Final Thoughts

Oh, poor Tyler. Just when things were looking up for old Wendy Watson…her boyfriend joins an evil organization. Oh well. At least he got a nice suit out of it.

I caught most of the Bruce Willis/Die Hard references tonight, along with one or two of the Doctor Whos, but as usual I missed a ton. Here’s Javi’s list.

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.