Body of Proof - "Going Viral Part 2"

Body of Proof 2.19: “Going Viral Part 2”

“Peter, I get it. I know how much she meant to you, I do. But you’re not going to fill that void tonight, sitting here and right now I can’t do this without you.”
- Megan

We pick up pretty much where we left off. Kate collapses during the press conference and start’s seizing. Megan and Dr. Stafford manage to stabilize her a little with Eppi pens but she’s till carted off via ambulance to an isolation ward. Meanwhile, back at the lab, the joint ME/FBI/CDC taskforce has more dead bodies. But they’ve found 6 points of commonality of where the victims came into contact with the terrorist. Unfortunately, ten are outliers (including Dani) and it seems they’re going to just be ignored. Meanwhile, the lab geeks are having a similar pow wow and while there have been some similar symptoms, nothing would lead to death. Until Megan and Stafford examine the brains of a bunch of the victims. They all had cerebral hemorrhage. As they go through the three stages of the disease (lasting no more than 72 hours) we see Kate beginning to freak out over all the chaos surrounding her.

Megan and Stafford are trying to explain their findings to Agent Johnson but he just snaps at them about why they can’t just find the microbe that’s causing all the issues. He does however, posit an interesting theory. One of the ten outliers could be the terrorist since the disease kills in 72 hours. Megan and company are down examining the outliers and we find that Peter is off doing his own recon work still. He’s at Dani’s apartment and starts to piece together her last days. Meanwhile, Kate sort of bonds with a little girl and her mom as Kate administers an IV to the girl (the nurse was having issues hitting the vein). Too bad Marcel manages to ruin the moment by bitching about how he wants a last drink. I really hope he kicks the bucket before the end of the episode. Peter’s coming out of Dani’s building and is cornered by a reporter. He tries to get her to go away but she turns off the camera and says that she just lost her boyfriend to the disease. Peter goes on camera and calls out the terrorist as being a coward.

Back at the lab the examination of the ten outliers hasn’t really yield anything useful. The results on the syringes found in the previous episode may be a little more profitable. The lab is retesting one of the syringes because it found a substance it hadn’t been testing for before. It might lead them to the killer. Megan heads over to see Kate and Kate gives Megan another place to look. Marcel has been infected for four days and hasn’t died yet so something is up with him. It might be a step towards a cure. It turns out Marcel has 17 drugs he’s taking for pre-existing conditions. That seems like a lot to me. One of them is for a Hepatitis C infection. Megan and Stafford get back to lab and Ethan reports that the syringe had the same drug on it. So it looks like Marcel might be Patient Zero. Peter makes a call to Dani’s mom’s international number but has to leave yet another message. It has to be really hard for him. Megan’s done giving him leeway, though. She needs all hands on deck. Over at the precinct, a tip comes in from the terrorist and the cops manage to trace the call to a bar near the hospital. WE cut to a shot of Marcel not in his bed. The Feds and a handful of cops (Bud, Sam and Peter included) bust in but whoever made the call is gone. In the hospital, Kate sits with Marcel as he sobs, scared of dying alone. It obviously starts Kate thinking that her prospects aren’t looking so good.

Megan and Stafford are examining the blood samples they go from Marcel and the terrorist from the CDC. It turns out they’re not the same person. But they do have more of the disease in their bloodstreams and that means the docs can study it. Unfortunately, as Stafford zooms in closer, he realizes what the disease is. It’s a relative of the Ebola virus called Marburg. But worse. Much worse. There’s no cure for it. Well, Megan isn’t buying the “no cure” bit at all. She has guessed that the CDC has an experimental vaccine. After some prodding, she does convince Stafford to use it. At the same time, Curtis pays Kate a visit and cheers her up a little bit (her brother couldn’t get in to the city because the airports were closed down). And Sam and Bud have hit pay dirt on why the terrorist is infecting people in the clusters. They all have a high turnover rate with one or two entrance/exit points and one object everyone touches.

Megan and Stafford head to the hospital to administer the vaccine. Megan thinks they’re giving it to Kate but Stafford gives it to Marcel instead. It looks like it’s working but he dies. Stafford is not happy about Marcel’s death. Megan’s a little perplexed after she does the autopsy because there’s something off with his liver. Peter swings by and says he’s accounted for all but one hour in Dani’s timeline. They cross reference it with Marcel and find out she was on the number 24 bus. They get surveillance video from the bus and discover eight of the ten outliers were on the bus. They also have a name and face to put with the terrorist, Jacob Mount. We see him injecting himself to keep alive in a crappy hotel room overlooking a school. It looks like he may have found his next target.

They bust into the hotel room to find it empty. But Jacob is really sick so he can’t have gone far. Agent Johnson and his team race off to the school but Bud, Sam and Peter head for the Subway. The school doesn’t fit his MO. They corner him in the stairwell and Peter shoots him in the head. Back at the lab, Stafford announces he’s been fired by the CDC. Megan’s not so sure he actually killed Marcel with the vaccine. It turns out Marcel had a drink the day he died and his damaged liver couldn’t handle it. So they test it out on Kate and she seems to be fine. After a few days’ rest, Kate’s back on her feet and offers Stafford the use of some basement space in exchange for some free lab work while he finds his next job. Peter finally meets Dani’s mom and Megan is finally home with Lacey. All is relatively good.