Luis Broadcasts the Crane Family's Crimes to the Entire Town; Alistair's Hired Men Steal Back Every CD and Hard Drive Mid-Presentation; Luis Trades the Whole Archive Back for One Dose of Medicine

The Gazette walks through the single most expensive four minutes of television Harmony has ever produced, and the ransom that undid it.

Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald finally staged the exposure he had been promising since April, commandeering the Founders' Day Dance's audiovisual equipment with Chad en tow to broadcast Alistair Crane's stolen files to the assembled town. For roughly four minutes, the Seascape's monitors displayed hostile takeovers, stolen deeds, a video of the boat explosion that nearly killed Sheridan, and the general financial skeleton of a hundred-year crime spree, at which point the power mysteriously failed, the breakers having been tripped, in Chad's words, "in a way that there is no way they could have tripped at the same time by accident that way." When the lights returned, every CD and hard drive had vanished, carried out the back doors by men acting on Alistair's orders, with Beth having unlocked the door for them earlier in the evening under direct threat from Alistair regarding her stolen cheeseburger loving son.

Luis and Hank ran down the thieves and recovered the files, dragging Alistair himself back into the ballroom as a hostage, at which point the Gazette's night took its sharpest turn: word arrived that Pilar had collapsed outside, and Alistair, informed of her rare blood disorder, offered Luis a place in an experimental program in direct exchange for the return of every file. Luis surrendered the entire archive, the boat explosion, the brainwashing evidence, decades of Crane crimes, all of it, to get his mother into the program, telling Alistair only after some visible effort to produce the word "please." Alistair's verdict on the decision, delivered to Julian afterward, was that the whole Lopez-Fitzgerald clan is made of weak stuff and that he himself would never give up a secret no matter whose life was on the line, a sentence the Gazette notes was delivered by a man who had, within the same conversation, also shot his own son.

Surrogacy Desk · Disguise Division

Theresa Dresses and Pwerfumed as Gwen, Drugs Ethan's Champagne With an Experimental Amnesia Sedative Lifted From Eve's Medical Bag, and Sleeps With Him in the Dark While Gwen Is Persumed Stranded by Fog

Pilar objected. Theresa proceeded anyway. The Gazette documents the mechanics, because somebody has to.

Operation Log · Crane Mansion, Master Bedroom

Objective: Conceive a child with Ethan's biological paternity, pass it off as Gwen's embryo via the surrogacy arrangement, and use the resulting leverage to trade for the return of Little Ethan.

Disguise: A Gwen impersonation convincing enough to fool Pilar in dim light at close range. Pilar's own assessment: "In the dim lights and with the shadows, I could have sworn you were Gwen... You even sound like her."

Complication: Gwen's return flight was delayed by fog, then un-delayed. Gwen arrived home mid-aftermath and spent a full scene interrogating a pillowcase for perfume residue before Theresa escaped undetected.

Pilar, informed of the plan in advance, objected on every available ground, pointing out that any resulting child would be exactly as much Theresa's flesh and blood as Little Ethan, and that Theresa had given no real thought to what it would mean to carry, deliver, and then surrender a second child. Theresa's response throughout was a version of "I'll cross that bridge if I have to," which the Gazette notes she has now said about several different bridges, all of them on fire. Ethan, for his part, spent the entire encounter under the impression he was with his own wife and has since persuaded himself the whole thing was a dream brought on by champagne, a theory Gwen is actively encouraging him to believe even as she personally sniffs the bedding for evidence to the contrary.

Cardiac Desk · Hospital Bureau

Pilar Flatlines, Is Revived With Three Rounds of Paddles and a Direct Cardiac Adrenaline Shot, and Then Recovers on the Same Experimental Drug That Had Just Failed Her.

Pilar Lopez-Fitzgerald's condition deteriorated through the night despite admission to the Valtin Project, with Dr. Russell twice recommending last rites and Father Lonigan administering them at the family's bedside while Luis sat separately in the chapel. Pilar's heart stopped entirely, Dr. Russell shocked her at 200, then 300, then 350, followed by a direct amp of epinephrine to the heart, and Theresa was permitted exactly one line, "She's dead, isn't she, Dr. Russell," before Eve reversed field and announced a strong pulse and a sudden, unexplained improvement in the same blood test that had been worsening for two straight days. The Gazette offers no medical opinion on the Valtin Project's dosing schedule beyond noting that it appears to require a complete cardiac arrest to begin working.

Luis, watching all of this while having just surrendered his entire case against the Crane family and, by extension, his best chance of reclaiming Sheridan, was left with the frank assessment that he was about to lose both of the women he loved most in the same twenty-four hours. He did not. Sheridan, informed by Eve of exactly what Luis gave up and why, told him the sacrifice made her see him in an entirely new light, which the Gazette notes is a remarkably good return on one ruined revenge plot.

Blood Bank Desk · Paternity Division

Alistair Shoots Julian; a Hospital Mix-Up Reveals Julian Received a Transfusion From Someone With His Own Extremely Rare Blood Type; Julian and Eve Conclude Their Missing Son Must Be the Donor

Julian Crane arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound sustained, by his own account, while "cleaning his gun," a story offered to protect Eve from scrutiny rather than to protect Alistair, who did the actual shooting over a disagreement about Eve Russell and showed no particular urgency about the wound beyond asking whether his son needed a bandage. A subsequent nursing error revealed that Julian had not received his own stockpiled blood, reserved for emergencies due to his rare type, but a stranger's. The twist: the substitute blood matched Julian's rare type exactly, which by medical logic narrows the donor pool to his own children. Julian and Eve have now resolved to search hospital donor records for a man in his twenties with the matching type, confident this will produce their long-lost son. Fox, questioned separately, confirmed he has not donated blood since returning to Harmony. Chad Harris, elsewhere in the same episode, donated blood at the very same hospital and mentioned his own rare type to Whitney in passing. The Gazette draws no conclusions. The Gazette simply notes the juxtaposition and moves on.

Design Desk · Midnight Deadline

Kay's Spectacular Spell-Cast Gown Expires at the Stroke of Midnight, Undressing Her Live in Front of Designer Charlie Lapson; Cover Story Involves a Flaming Dessert

Kay Bennett's showstopping gown, the product of an Endora spell, dissolved piece by piece in front of fashion scout Charlie Lapson just as he was offering her a job, culminating in total public nudity. Kay later told her father the dress "caught fire" from a waiter's flaming dessert and had to be torn off, a cover story Sam appears to have accepted without follow-up questions. Charity's actual, non-magical portfolio, submitted to the same Mr. Lapson, was dismissed as merely "nice." The Gazette notes that in Harmony, enchanted couture outperforms honest craftsmanship roughly one hundred percent of the time.

Secrets Ledger · As Read Aloud by Tabitha

What Was Actually on Those CDs: A Partial Inventory

Before the files vanished, Tabitha helpfully catalogued their contents to her basement audience: Ivy's blackmail of Eve over the Grace-John DNA results, Ivy's hiring of David Hastings to pose as Grace's first husband, the true paternity of Chad Harris, Eve's ongoing entanglement with Julian, the actual cause of T.C.'s career-ending car crash, the Crane theft of the Russell family's land, Beth's kidnapping of Sheridan, the current whereabouts of Martin Fitzgerald, and the real circumstances of Katherine Crane's death. Of this list, the Gazette notes, the assembled crowd at the Seascape got to see approximately none of it before the lights went out.