Reality Check
Season Two
US Airdate : 28 April 2003
UK Airdate : 17 August 2003
Shalimar (Victoria Pratt) comes to the rescue of a woman who is being assaulted by two thugs. As the woman bolts to her apartment, Brennan (Victor Webster) arrives on the scene and asks Shalimar why she was out alone. She explains that her animal DNA is causing her to want to hunt at night. Meanwhile, two other thugs chase a man, whose warped sense of reality causes him to see the world as a maze, into an alley. Two cops approach and scare the thugs off, but as one of the cops reaches out to touch the man, he sees himself as though he's caught in a maze with a giant hand reaching out to grab him and screams in fear. At Sanctuary, Adam (John Shea) tells Jesse (Forbes March) and Emma (Lauren Lee Smith) that the man the police saved is Dominic Rydell (Romano Orzari), a prominent physicist, who's been taken to a government hospital. At the hospital, Dr. McWilliams (Jane Moffat) explains to Adam and Emma that Rydell no longer has a sense of the real world, and if he’s not brought back to reality soon, he’ll die. Emma telempathically makes the doctor release Rydell into Adam's care.
Learning that Rydell disappeared after giving a lecture, Adam sends Brennan and Shalimar to a party at the Balkistan Embassy to investigate former Soviet KGB agent Jerzy Novotny (John Robinson), who attended the lecture. Soon after arriving at the embassy, Shalimar, unaware that a strange man is watching her, persuades Novotny to take a walk. When the two enter the hallway, Shalimar grabs him by the throat, but is suddenly shot with a tranquilizer dart by mutant Levak Ivanov (Ron Kennell). She wakes up to find herself naked in a strange bed, and is stunned when Brennan, who is also naked, enters the room, gets into bed with her and tells her they’re married.
The real Shalimar is strapped to a gurney in Ivanov’s lair. Connecting tendrils of energy from his head to hers, he makes her believe that he’s Brennan and tries to find out who she’s working for and why they’re interested in Rydell. Back at Sanctuary, Emma sends a beam of telempathic energy to Rydell and suddenly finds herself trapped in the maze he sees. Rydell tells her that this maze is identical to one he saw in college, in which the mice used were killed at the end to study their brain activity. Rydell is certain that just like the mice, he will be killed if he reaches the end of the maze. Emma insists that none of it is real and asks Rydell who did this to him. Following Rydell's gaze, she sees a giant Ivanov, who drops a divider between her and Rydell. As Ivanov reaches down to grab Emma, she breaks her connection to Rydell. Meanwhile, Brennan becomes worried that Shalimar has not returned from her walk with Novotny. Rushing out to find her, all he sees is her comlink ring.
Back in the lair, Shalimar, who’s still under Ivanov’s control, sees Jesse and Emma blocking the door. Shalimar tries to break through, but Jesse masses out, grabs her and asks if she knows who they are. Scared, Shalimar says she knew who they were yesterday -- her partners at Mutant X. Learning that Shalimar is part of Mutant X, Ivanov realizes she is his key to finding Adam. At Sanctuary, Emma identifies Ivanov from footage of the embassy party. Reading Ivanov's dossier, Adam learns he’s a mutant from the Soviet version of Genomex, and a master of interrogation. Meanwhile, Ivanov tries to trick Shalimar into revealing Adam's location. Sensing something is wrong, Shalimar runs to the lab and finds Mason Eckhart (Tom McCamus). Eckhart tells her that the team is against her and that if she doesn’t reveal their location, they'll both die.
Realizing Shalimar's life depends on Rydell, Emma connects with him again, and finds herself back in the maze, surrounded by white light. Certain that they’ll be killed if they try to leave the maze, Emma convinces him that she can bring him back to reality. As they walk towards the light, Ivanov appears, but Rydell continues with Emma across the threshold. His eyes open and he finds himself in the lab with Emma and Adam, who ask if he remembers where he was when Ivanov invaded his mind. Rydell tells them that the building he escaped from had a lightening bolt on it. Meanwhile, Shalimar is about to disclose Adam’s location to Eckhart, but suddenly runs out of the room into Sanctuary. Sensing someone, she leaps into the air just as Brennan fires a tesla coil at her. A fight ensues, and Shalimar knocks him over the landing, breaking his neck. Back in the lair, Shalimar rips her restraints off and knocks Ivanov out, releasing his control over her. Meanwhile, the team arrives at the building and, hearing someone kicking a door, begin calling Shalimar’s name. Panicked, she jumps inside a ceiling panel and when Brennan and Jesse enter the corridor, leaps down and attacks Brennan before running off.
As Adam and Emma rush to help the others, Ivanov appears with two guards. He releases tendrils of energy toward Adam, but Emma throws a telempathic starburst at him, locking the two in a mental battle. Finding herself in a dark hangar with Ivanov, Emma suddenly creates two duplicates of herself and tells Ivanov she has powers not even her partners know about. All the Emmas bombard Ivanov with telempathic hits, and he falls to the floor, breaking his connection to her. The team regroups and follows Shalimar into the lair. Shalimar attacks the team, taking out Emma and Jesse. When she grabs Adam by the throat, Brennan hesitantly forms a tesla coil and throws it at Shalimar. When Shalimar awakens, Emma gently calms her. Back at Sanctuary, Adam tells a grateful Rydell that Ivanov is in a mental facility and won't be out any time soon.