• Original airdate: October 5, 2004 in the UK on Fox Kids
• TNBC/DCKids original air date: December 4, 2004
• Australia original air date: October 9, 2004
• Writers: Kevin Lund
• Director: Mitchell T. Ness

Guest Stars:
Actor's name	Character played
Dru Viergever	Stew Kubiak

  In the cafeteria, Vaughn, Josie, Corrine, Marshall, and Lucas are playing Hearts. Lucas is losing horribly. 2 hearts, 0 hearts, 3 hearts, 1 heart, and 7 hearts + the Queen of Spades are the final result of the hand, respectively. They decide on what to bet next. Lucas already will be cleaning Josie’s room. Lucas suggests double-or-nothing. Corrine asks him if he is sure about that but Lucas is optimistic that he has to win at some point. Lucas’s following hand scores reflect the opposite: 21 points, 17 points, 22 points. Marshall advises they quit as the bell rings. Vaughn reports that Lucas has lost 15 hands in a row. Josie says that they should probably switch to a new game but Lucas does not want to switch games. He tells them that he will win one day and that they will owe him then.

      In the Science room, Lucas applies a solution onto a pair of glasses (not his normal ones). He also writes, with a special pen which has invisible ink, on the upper right corner of the backs of the cards the identity of the respective cards. While he is not looking, electricity runs through the glasses. Putting on the altered glasses, Lucas’s vision is, at first, blurry. He rubs his eyes and is then able to see clearly. He is able to see the ink. He then begins to see through the card backs to what the card’s identity really is.

  In Science, Professor Z teaches about the eye, holding a model of the eye. Vaughn is taking notes and Stew is asleep. Professor Z walks up to Stew and asks him what is important about the iris’s pigmentation. Stew wakes up and in a confused state, asks if the answer has to do with bacon. Following the class’s laugh, Professor Z responds disappointedly that the answer is not bacon. Josie answers correctly (that the iris’s pigmentation is the “eye color”) and Professor Z continues on teaching about the iris and the pupils. The bell rings and the class heads out. Vaughn places his football shoes onto Lucas’s desk. The soles are full of mud. Lucas makes a comment that Vaughn just may be shining the shoes himself, causing Vaughn to flip out as he tells Corrine, Marshall, and Josie that Lucas appears to have forgotten the bet (unlimited shoe shines for a week). Lucas tells Vaughn that he is feeling lucky and believes that he will no longer have to shine Vaughn’s shoes. A bit frustrated, Vaughn picks up the shoes, leaving a patch of mud on the desk, and walks off. Josie tells Lucas that he should be more gracious about losing.

      In the cafeteria, Lucas, after putting a tray onto the tray rack, sits back at the table. He switches his glasses for the altered pair. Marshall asks about the new pair and Lucas informs them that they are a new prescription and help him see up close. In a rather confident tone, Lucas asks to play double-or-nothing again. Josie asks Vaughn if he is sure about that but Lucas replies that his request was directed at Vaughn, offering Vaughn two weeks unlimited shoe shines if Lucas loses. Vaughn accepts and the hands are drawn. Looking at the other’s cards, he can see exactly what they all have. The plan is working perfectly. Marshall, Corrine, Josie, Vaughn, and Lucas report their scores at the end of the hand – 1 point, 9 points, 5 points, 13 points, and 0 points respectively. The next hand scores come in as Marshall with 12 points, Vaughn with 14 points, and Lucas with 0 points (Corrine and Josie would have had 0 points as well). The following hand, Vaughn reports 22 points and Lucas again has zero. Lucas repeatedly has zero points until the game ends. Lucas gloats about his winnings – Josie cleaning his room for two weeks, Corrine carrying his books to every class, Vaughn cleaning Lucas’s shoes. Corrine warns Lucas to remember that everyone’s luck turns eventually. The bell rings. As Lucas tries to get up, he becomes dizzy and falls back into the chair. Vaughn looks unsympathetic but Marshall asks if he is sick but Lucas replies that it is the “rush of winning.”

      Later that day, still wearing the altered glasses, Lucas comes down the stairs. He turns to Professor Z’s office, the door is closed, but he actually sees through the door (revealing Professor Z lecturing Stew). Looking to the closed doors in the hall to the right of Professor Z’s office, he sees through them as well (revealing students walking down a hallway). Marshall walks up behind Lucas, asking if Lucas is coming. Lucas turns around. Lucas sees Marshall’s skull’s bones, shocking Lucas. Marshall comments that Lucas looks like he saw a ghost. Lucas rubs his head as Marshall suggests that Lucas see a doctor about the new prescription and tells Lucas of “a friend of a friend of his brother’s” who went blind after his eyes hurt because he didn’t check on his prescription. Lucas does not listen because Lucas is watching down the hall where Victor is handing Vaughn a manila envelope. Lucas tells Marshall that he’ll talk to him later and brushes past Marshall approaching Vaughn and Victor. Marshall, a bit confused, congratulates Lucas on his Hearts victory and walks up the stairs. Vaughn puts the envelope in his backpack as Lucas hides in a door listening to Victor and looking through Vaughn’s backpack and seeing the envelope. Lucas wonders what he’ll be able to see in Victor’s office with this new power of his. Victor’s voice is difficult to hear but based on what Lucas has hears, it sounds like Victor is planning something:

      Lucas follows Vaughn into the lounge where Vaughn is trying to study. A girl leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Lucas tells Vaughn that he wanted to ask for a backpack like Vaughn’s for his birthday as he looks through Vaughn’s backpack and through the manila envelope. Inside it is a Calculus test with the grade of a “D+”. Lucas asks Vaughn that since Vaughn has moved back home, if he can help Vaughn study for the Calculus midterm adding that he heard that Vaughn didn’t do too well on the latest test. Vaughn is a bit surprised that Lucas wishes to help him as Lucas tells Vaughn that just because they’ve been against each other doesn’t mean that they can’t try to get along. Vaughn agrees. Lucas turns to leave but he runs into the foosball table’s handles. Vaughn tells Lucas to be more careful as Lucas extends his hands to the foosball table. He sees right through the table. All he sees are the foosball men floating above the floor. Lucas is able to make his way around the table but he walks right into the door. Lucas can not see any evidence of the door’s presence. Vaughn tells Lucas that it may be a better idea if Lucas were to not come over tonight but Lucas insists that he is fine.

  Lucas is sitting alone in the cafeteria, wearing sunglasses, when Josie walks in. Lucas asks who has entered and Josie replies. She asks Lucas how he is feeling, telling him that Vaughn mentioned that Lucas was acting strangely. Lucas tells her not to worry about him and that he is going over to Vaughn’s house to find the Chi Gong ball and prove that Vaughn is acting against them. Josie tells Lucas that Vaughn is not responsible for the Chi Gong ball’s disappearance but Lucas dismisses Josie’s excuse by saying that she believes that he is jealous of Vaughn which he denies. Josie gets up, telling Lucas that she has to clean his room. Lucas tells her that it doesn’t matter but Josie insists, telling Lucas that they had a deal and that Lucas won “fair and square.”
That night, Lucas is at Vaughn’s house in the library. He looks around at the walls while Vaughn is reading. He openly says “I knew it!” as he looks into the next room at a wooden wall, seeing a vault behind it. This catches Vaughn’s attention and Vaughn inquires what Lucas is taking about. Lucas says that he’s looking at a painting and that he knew it was an oil painting. He gets up to go to the painting (it’s brown, like a wall) next to the telescope, by the desk. Vaughn follows. Vaughn questions if Lucas is supposed to look too closely at a painting. Lucas says it is a new technique. Lucas sees through the vault. Something grey and of a circular (2-dimensional) shape is hanging inside a container.

Lucas backs up, knowing that it isn’t what he is looking for. Vaughn asks what he is doing and Lucas quickly turns around to face Vaughn but the light is too bright and Lucas suffers a flash of pain. His vision is becoming blurred. Holding his head, Lucas asks Vaughn for some water, telling Vaughn that he is having a migraine. Vaughn runs off. Lucas’ vision is deteriorating as Lucas continues to scan the room. In a tall, transparent cylinder piece of furniture, Lucas sees a sphere, sitting at the base, glowing. He can’t tell if it is the Chi Gong ball or not, the object is glowing a bright red and orange. Looking closer to it, the sphere seems to release a pulse of light, shocking Lucas and causing him to look away. Lucas looks back to the sphere but another pulse of light forces Lucas away from the tall cylinder. With his sight diminishing to the point he can barely see directly in front of his face, Lucas scans Victor’s table with his hands, feeling for a phone. Lucas runs across folders, a letter opener, and a jar of tacks, which he scatters about. Locating the phone, he calls Josie. Josie answers her cell phone, a bit irritated with Lucas. Lucas tells her that he is blind and needs help to get out of Vaughn’s home. Hearing Vaughn coming back, he tells Josie that he has to hang up. After putting down the phone, Vaughn walks in, seeing the items that were once on the desk on the floor. He asks Lucas for the truth about why Lucas wanted to come over. Vaughn assumes that he is there to search Victor’s office. Lucas, breaking his silence, can only say “no” before Josie walks in. Josie explains that she let herself in and that Lucas called her. She is about to tell Vaughn that Lucas said he was blind but Lucas interrupts, saying that he said that if Josie was finished cleaning his room then he needs to inspect it. Josie guides Lucas out. Vaughn is appears emotionally hurt.
      In the Science room, Professor Z analyses the glasses, waving a light wand in front of them as Marshall, Corrine, and Josie watch. Professor Z is amazed by optical enhancements. He asks Lucas where he obtained them. Lucas confesses that he put a solution on the lenses and marked the deck of cards. It now makes sense how Lucas won all the Hearts hands. He says that he should have learned to lose more gracefully and learned to quit instead of how he kept going on trying to win. He even confesses that trying to prove that Vaughn is a bad person placed another friend in a difficult position. Professor Z believes that, from the pain that Lucas described, a migraine was induced by the stress. Lucas can’t see because the pain is too unbearable. He uses a blackout bag as a blindfold, hoping it will give Lucas’ eyes a chance to “reset.”

  Later that night, Professor Z removes the blackout bag. Lucas’ sight is back to normal. Corrine tells him that he will still have to make good on Lucas’ lost bets. Lucas affirms that he will. After Professor Z, Marshall, and Corrine leave, Josie asks Lucas what he discovered. Lucas tells her that he is not sure what it is that he saw. He walks out, telling her that he believes that there is a lot in Vaughn’s life that they will not be able to understand.
      At Victor’s house, in the library, Vaughn sits as Victor walks in. Victor asks what is troubling Vaughn. Vaughn replies that people treat him different because he is Victor’s son. Victor explains that it is because Vaughn is a Pearson and continues to tell him that there are people who fear and are jealous of the name “Pearson.” Vaughn, sadly, asks if his life will always be haunted by wondering who he can trust. Victor tells him that that is not true, that their destinies are still being written and that he will need Vaughn to be ready when Destiny calls upon them. Vaughn confirms that he will be.

Episode notes:

• Janitor's secret message: "Trust is broken. The key is found. One prepares for his destiny."
• The pen's brand name is "Invisi Inc."

Personal thoughts:
Hearts is not the most popular of card games among high schoolers, especially when you don't have 4 people (Ideally, Hearts is played with 4 people, not 5 people but I am told it is possible). The game was no doubt chosen because of its name.
A lot of random notes.
I thought the ending would have been a bit better if Josie did a small narrative like she had done in the beginning.
I thought Victor was quite conceited with the fear and jealously of the "Pearson" name. Vaughn being in Calculus is also a bit of a shock. That's an advanced class for someone in high school, "D+" test-wise or not.
Vaughn was just a jerk in this episode. The moment he flipped out about Lucas not shinning his shoes, that was just too much. Guess winning went to Vaughn's head.
There was a discrepency in the amount of time it takes to go from Blake Holsey High to Vaughn's house. It was quite quick in this episode but in other episodes, like Hologram the one after this episode, show atleast a couple of minutes travel time on foot. Josie appearing at Vaughn's house so quickly was just not correct.
A good scene for the janitor would have been to take the altered glasses. A touch of the janitor's activities out of season one.
Lucas's change of heart about Vaughn came on suddenly. I think it is the result of him nearly going blind and making Josie look bad that made Lucas realize that it isn't worth that much to expose Vaughn. Lucas seemed to be following the theme "man is the author of his own self-undoing." Fortunately, Lucas was able to escape it. This episode marks the decline of the story arch of Lucas mistrusting Vaughn.
All these little things make the episode seem like a filler episode even though it is not. It's quite an important episode. Despite the vast realm of complaints about the episode, I liked it.
Rating: 6/10

From the chalkboard (what I could read):
Vision
The human eye functions somewhat like
a camera’s that is, it receives and focuses
light upon a photosensitive receiver, then
The light rays are bent and brought to...
as they pass through the cornea...
lens. The shape of the lens can be...
by the action of the ciliary muscles...
… objects at distance and moving...