Helix S1 Premiere - "Pilot"/"Vector" Recap

A team of scientists at the CDC are sent to a base in the Arctic where a viral outbreak has taken place. The team is led by Dr. Alan Farragut, whose brother Peter, is the third patient to be be infected. Also on his team are Dr. Sarah Jordan and Dr. Julia Walker, Alan's ex-wife. On a side note, Alan and Julia's relationship ended after he caught her in bed with Peter. Time for a family reunion!

Upon arriving at the base, they meet Dr. Hiroshi Hatake, who is the one in charge of the research station at the base. The head of security is a man named Daniel, who is Hatake's adoptive son. Daniel implants security chips into each person's hand that will allow them access throughout the base.

When Alan sees his brother, he has black veins visible across his skin, he is sweating profusely, and his eye movement is erratic. The prognosis doesn't look good, as Alan predicts that Peter won't make it through the night. He asks his brother if he knows what happened to him and he says yes and, "The White Room." Julia goes to take a blood sample and finds that the blood is black. Peter then breaks free from his restraints and grabs the syringe, screaming, "Everyone lies." Julia is able to sedate him while Alan holds him down.

Part of the team investigates the lab in which Peter was working while Alan, Julia, and Sarah take a look at the other bodies infected before Peter. When the body bag is opened, black sludge comes spilling out onto the floor, with only the stained skeleton remaining in the bag. Sarah throws up inside her hazmat suit. It's unlike anything they've ever seen before and are at a loss as to what could cause such annihilation.

The other team members find that the people on the base have lied about having monkeys as part of their research. This won't be the first time they'll have to deal with secrecy. Julia visits Hatake in his office to find out what Peter was researching in the last few days leading up to his infection. Hatake says Peter was working on mutagens. Hatake isn't all that helpful, but it would seem as though he's lying.

Alan looks through Peter's room and discovers a jump drive, containing video diaries. On them, Peter doesn't explicitly say anything out of the ordinary, but does give a secret hand signal that Alan recognises. It was one they used as children for when their father came home drunk, meaning "Run like hell." Julia summons Alan and Sarah to isolation, where they find that Peter has escaped, crashing a hole in the ceiling to get into the air ducts.

Daniel wants to flood the ducts with poisonous gas so they'll be able to retrieve him. Alan insists on coming with the security team to retrieve Peter. Alan finds a trail of black mucus. He ends up discovering a body of one of the security men dead, stripped, and his hand has been cut off. Meanwhile, Dr. Doreen Boyle and Major Sergio Balleseros break into a restricted area of the base where they find at least a hundred empty monkey cages. They appear to have been broken out of from the inside. One of the monkey appears and attacks Boyle but Balleseros comes to her rescue. She doesn't appear to be cut or have any breaks on the skin, but they're unsettled upon seeing the monkey's throat moving even after they had apparently killed it.

Julia and Sarah research the virus in a lab and find that the virus is smaller than anything else known. Outside, Balleseros discovers all the dead monkeys outside, appearing to have run out for some reason. Balleseros speaks cryptically with Hatake about how the people they work for will not be happy and how he will have to clean up Hatake's mess. Alan, Julia, and Sarah look at the virus further and discover a mutating cell, realising that the virus is changing Peter into something as of yet unknown.

We then see Peter using the security man's hand to get into room 52, since his own hand chip was deactivated. He attacks someone, we hear a scream, and a spatter of blood.

Following Peter's attack, various base scientists are interviewed about the incident. They speak about how Peter held them down and put his mouth over them. They were choking, feeling like they were unable to breathe. They said there were three more people in the room with them but they don't know where they are. This makes a total of 18 known cases.

Boyle performs an autopsy on the monkey that attacked her and finds black liquid staining the monkey's organs. As she continues working, she encounters Dr. Tracy, one of the infected scientists that the rest of the team is searching for. Tracy is rather frantic, wanting to get off the base, and accusing Boyle of lying. Tracy is concerned about getting sent to the "white room" like Peter.

The infected scientists are growing more concerned about their condition but Sarah is determined to keep things in order. She asks if they have morphine sulfate, and is told that is on Level G in the stock room. While there, she encounters Peter, who tells her she's there for a reason. She says that she is there with the CDC and that they are there to help him. He then clarifies that he means Walker (Julia) before leaping back into the air ducts.

Julia learns from Peter's logs that he was experimenting with Narvik-A and Narvik-B. The other people who were working with it were the 2 dead scientists. Julia wants to recreate Peter's research with rats to see what they can learn from it.

Tracy rambles to Boyle about how she and others should have known better and that they shouldn't have expected to be able to control a virus after they created it. Boyle tries to escape and Tracy jumps on her, spewing some black goo and then falling over. Tracy then feels guilty about leaving her in such a state.

Alan and Balleseros come to investigate after Sarah's encounter with Peter. Alan asks if she is okay and Balleseros discovers empty vials and syringes of morphine sulfate. From this, Alan thinks he must be in pain due to this apparent self-medication. Sarah tells Alan that Peter had a not-quite-human look in his eyes and about what Peter had said. Balleseros finds a trail of black goo to follow Peter and informs Alan he must stay behind this time, as they cannot afford to lose him. He brings a camera along with him from which Alan can follow along underneath the duct in which Balleseros crawls through. Peter sneaks up on Balleseros and seemingly attacks him. They're able to get him out and don't find anything apparently wrong with him. It would appear that all Peter did was knock him out with his own stun gun. They then get word that an elevator alarm went off - someone is trying to leave the base.

Julia finds that the Narvik-A rats are almost all dead and that the Narvik-B rats are all somehow alive, despite their morbidity. Hatake tells her he is enjoying the lab work, which it has been many years since he had done. They speak about Julia's mother for a bit before a Narvik-B rat jumps through the glass of its cage into other cages, with it mimicking Peter's actions of placing its mouth over another rat's.

Sarah is having difficulty with the infected scientists, who are growing more irrational and demanding to be let loose, even going so far as to hold Sarah hostage, threatening to infect her. They say they can help and want to go back to their labs. Alan goes in and is able to convince them to let Sarah go by removing his suit.

Sarah thanks him in private, but he tells her that the virus isn't airborne. Julia comes in and brings them to the lab to show her findings regarding Narvik-A and B.

Balleseros finds the scientist that is trying to leave the base. HE tells them that what they did to the monkeys was inhumane and he says that the world needs to know about what is happening in the base. When he continues to try to leave, Balleseros stabs him and then buries the body.

Julia and Sarah prepare to do more research when Boyle returns, having hauled a sedated Boyle up to their level. She also informs them about the monkeys she found. The other infected scientists orchestrate a rouse so they're able to escape their holding chamber.

Hatake has Alan brought to his office and tells him that things were more under control before the CDC came. Alan then confronts him about all the secrecy. Hatake wants to know how to contain the infected patients but Alan says that will only work with complete transparency. Hatake is not keen on that but Alan tells him that if they give each other what they want, then maybe they will find a way to get out of there alive.

Sarah is experiencing hand tremors but keeps them secret. Hatake is shown to have a photo album full of candid photos of Julia. He then removes some coloured contacts, after which we see that he has silver eyes. Julia takes a shower and is visited by Peter, who puts his mouth over hers and spews black goo into her mouth.

Helix airs on Fridays on Syfy at 10PM.