Farscape, where have you been all my life?

I recently got chastised by several scifi/fantasy loving friends for not having tackled Farscape yet.  In my (admittedly thin) defense, I have been busy watching BtVS, Angel, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The X-Files, Fringe, Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly and a whole bunch of other genre shows.  I am currently working on this deficit, having just finished S1E16, and I just like it more and more as it goes on.

For those who don't know, Farscape is a science fiction television show that ran for four seasons (1999-2003 (or 1998-2002, depending on what source you use)) before being abruptly cancelled.  Nutshell summary:  an American scientist/astronaut gets shot through a wormhole during an experimental flight and ends up on board a starship with a bunch of on-the-run aliens.  Yes, it is a show about a bunch of people on a spaceship flying around the universe and having adventures ... which pretty much describes every other science fiction television show ever made (Star Trek in all its iterations, Firefly, BSG, etc.)  What makes it different is that when we start, none of the characters like or even know each other, plus half of them are puppets a la The Jim Henson Company.  The CGI is pretty weak but there isn't much of it and the practical puppets and make-up effects are phenomenal.  Each of the characters is developed and they all change and grow - even though they are the "heroes," they all do unlikable but perfectly understandable and in-character things.  It's quite amazing, actually, for a show like this.

I'm getting through episodes as fast as I can, and hopefully won't get derailed too badly by returning network shows (or Galavant, which was just raved about by one of the aforementioned friends).  What I really need is a rainy sick day so I can just immerse myself in the Farscape 'verse.  And you should too, if you haven't already (it's streaming on Netflix so go for it).

Binging

The biggest reason why this blog has been so empty lately is because I've been binging on a couple of television and book series: Fringe (so, should that be "binge-ing," then?) and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.  Since I'm not recapping Fringe anymore and those WoT books are so frigging huge, I just can't bring myself to post anything about them.  (Except this here, I guess.)

When I mentioned to a coworker that I was re-reading WoT, he gave me a look and asked why on earth would I want to do that to myself?  It's a valid question.  I used to love that series but after discovering George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie, Jordan's charms have faded.  I mean, how many times has a woman "sniffed and crossed her arms under her breasts"?  How many times do I need to know what a completely minor character's hair color is, or the fashion he or she is wearing?  But I am a bit of a completist and since I own volumes 1-12, I feel like I should at least finish reading the damn series.  And thus I am re-reading all those books because if I were to jump right to numbers 13 and 14, I would have no idea what was happening.  I will confess that there's a fair amount of skimming going on; I'm just paying attention to the parts where something actually happens.

Now, Fringe, on the other hand, is just wonderful.  I had started recapping it back when it began but it was too much with Lost as well, so I just stopped watching.  I've picked it back up and have plowed through the end of S3 and it's just so good.  It's completely batshit crazy, of course, but they've built the mythology well and I care about the characters.  Both John Noble and Anna Torv do a great job with playing two distinct characters.  It's a lot of fun and if you like light sci-fi, it's worth delving into.  I can only hope that Sleepy Hollow, which I am attempting tonight, will follow Fringe's model.

Fringe recap: S1E20 "There Is More Than One of Everything"

The EMTs bring Nina Sharp into the ER.  She's unconscious from the whole being shot thing, and the EMTs are weirded out by her robo-arm, which has been stripped of its skin-coat.  Up in Boston, the Fringe team has heard what happened and is already on the case, reviewing the security footage from Nina's building.  They watch as a team of masked men - one is technically bandaged, not masked - shoot Nina, mutter to one another and then black out the camera for four minutes, whilst they do something untoward to the unconscious and bleeding woman.  The FBI runs the muffled voices through some voice recognition software and determine that the bandaged man is Jones.  He seems to be falling apart somewhat, post-teleportation.  The team wonders what Jones did to Nina in that four minutes they couldn't see.  Olivia jumps up on her soapbox and starts ranting about wanting to bring William Bell in for questioning.  Broyles, hilariously, tries to get a word in edgewise and tell her that yes, he's already starting to make those calls.

The next morning, Peter, Olivia and Astrid are all looking for Walter who has gone walkabout again.  Olivia has a slight crisis of conscience about upsetting the old guy at the pastry shop but Peter says that he, and Walter, understand. No one on campus has seen Walter so Peter heads out to search for him.  He's probably not going to find him since Walter is at some remote cemetery, staring down at a headstone whilst the Bald Man watches from a little ways away.

Nina wakes up in recovery.  Broyles is there and tells her it was Jones.  He asks what they did to her arm.  Nina wiggles her robo-fingers and tells Broyles to get Olivia here.  When the younger woman arrives, Nina tells them that Bell is not funding Jones's techno-terrorism: Jones used to be a valued Massive Dynamic employee but there was a falling out and Jones was fired.  Ever since he escaped from the German prison, he's been trying to contact Bell and Nina thinks Jones is trying to kill him.  She goes on to promise that if Olivia will stop Jones, Nina will personally set up a face-to-face meeting with Olivia and Bell, and Olivia will have all her questions answered.  If Jones gets to Bell first, however, all bets are off.  Olivia asks what Jones did to Nina's arm: he removed an incredibly potent power source.

Out on a rainy street, Jones and his team set up a bunch of tech that runs on the pilfered power source.  When they turn it on, the passersby cover their ears in pain.  A shimmer appears in the street, revealing a window into the alt-verse where a semi truck, under sunny skies, is heading towards them.  But the tech won't hold - "It's too thick at these coordinates," bitches Jones - and the shimmer closes, cutting the truck in half.

The Bald Man and Walter stand on a beach.  The Bald Man hands Walter a coin, telling him that it isn't hte one he thinks it is: "There is more than one of everything."  He asks if Walter knows this place and remembers what he's come here for, because there isn't much time.  Walter nods grimly and heads up the beach to a derelict house.

Broyles and Nina stop by the Harvard lab to ask Peter and Astrid about Walter's current whereabouts - they think he might know what Jones is up to.  When they learn that Walter is missing, both Nina and Broyles jump on their phones and order their respective organizations to search for the missing man.  Nina's team wins, soon passing along a photo of Walter at a North Shore commuter rail station, not far from the beach house the Bishop family used to own.  Peter muses that Walter liked it up there because it was quiet and heads out to collect his father.

Olivia and Charlie stare at the truncated truck.  "Where's the rest of it?" asks a bewildered Charlie.  They interrogate witnesses who confirm the shimmer and a man with bandages on his face.  Then Charlie is handed a report which completely befuddles him: the VIN, the parts serial numbers, the registration tag ... none of the truck's identifying numbers exist [in this 'verse].  "This truck doesn't exist! Where the hell did it come from?" He sounds pretty upset.

Back at FBI HQ, Olivia's like, WTF is going on - what's with this truck and where in the world is William Bell?  Nina rolls her eyes: "That's the trouble, Agent Dunham.  He's not in this world."  Charlie is having a really tough time getting his brain around the alt-verse concept but Olivia, who's been edging up to it for some time now, is totally on board.  Broyles is too, because he's complicit with Nina.  (Meanwhile, Jones and his crew get out of their SUVs at some soccer field in Providence.)  Nina tells the Fringe team that jOnes is using the tech out of her arm to try to cross over into the alt-verse and kill Bell.  Suddenly, every single cell phone in the room starts ringing.  That can't be good.

Up at the beach house, Peter finds Walter inside, frantically running from room to room, getting more and more agitated because he knows he has to find something important that he left here, but he can't remember what it was or where he put it.  Peter tries to calm his father, finally recalling a memory of when he was very young and Walter would make them whale-shaped pancakes on the weekends.  For some reason, Walter's brain clicks at this and he scampers up to the attic.

Out in the Providence soccer field, the witnesses are shaken up, describing the shimmer that opened and then slammed shut.  Trouble is, one of the soccer players was running through the shimmer when it closed and it decapitated him (and then some).  The decapitated bits are nowhere to be found - they're on the other side.  Eew.

Back at HQ (because Providence is like a block from Boston - the geography in this show is total crap), Olivia requests all the X-files from the file room.  [Sorry, but wouldn't she have gone through all these weirdo Fringe files AGES ago?  That's what I thought.] Some time later, she has put together a map of all the Fringe occurences and thinks she has made a connection between Jones's latest shenanigans.

Walter opens a trunk in the beach house attic and pulls out a lockbox.  There's a dusty coin sitting on top of the box - looks like the one the Bald Man handed him earlier.  Peter helps him open the box and he removes a gadget.  Walter opines that back in the day, he and William Bell used to do a lot of LSD (Peter is so not shocked by this "revelation") and were convinced that hallucinogenics offered them glimpses into the alt-verse, although they wanted to try to get there themselves.  Bell's cortexyphan experiments were to alter the children to have the ability to travel between the realities.  "Around this time, something was lost to me, Peter, something previous."  Walter decided to cross to the alt-verse and take from there what was lost to him here. 

But he had to find a soft spot between the realities to do so - otherwise the membrane between the 'verses is too tough.  But the world's advance technologies are messing with the natural order of things and creating more soft spots between the 'verses than there should be.  So Walter built a patch - this gadget he's uncovered - to close any holes between the realities.  He thinks that he knows where the next soft spot will be.  Fortuitiously, back at FBI HQ, the team has figured out the same soft spot location.

That dark and rainy night, Jones's crew sets up their tech at Reiden Lake.  "Come on, men, we're going to the other side!"  Peter and Walter arrive at the lake, Walter nervous about being late for whatever it is that's about to happen.  When they get out of the car, Olivia's FBI team pounces on them.  Then everyone figures out they're on the same side and move towards Jones.

This time Jones's tech works perfectly - the soft spot is soft enough.  Shots are exchanged between the FBI and the bad guys but Jones stays focused.  Walter shows Peter how to use the patch gadget and sends him in.  As the portal between the 'verses opens, Jones walks forward, ignoring Olivia's shouts for him to stop or she'll shoot.  So she shoots, but the bullets pass harmlessly through his body, a by-product of his post-teleportation bodily degradation.  Jones starts to step through the portal and Peter fires off the patch gadget.  The portal slams closed, slicing Jones in half.

Later, Broyles stops by Olivia's office and tells her that he's sorry, but they've been ordered to cease and desist in their investigation of William Bell.  And this time they have to pay attention to it.

At the lab, Walter is missing again but this time he's left a note - first time ever, which delights Peter - saying that he'll be back, and this time he knows where he's going.  He's gone back to that rural cemetery, actually, where he places one of those coins on that headstone.  The camera moves so we can read it: Peter Bishop, 1978-1985.  Walter stands there, weeping.

Olivia gets a phone call from Nina, asking her to come to NYC tomorrow so Nina can hold up her end of the bargain.  Olivia goes to the hotel and sits in the restaurant.  And sits and sits and sits and sits.  Nina never shows.  Pissed off, Olivia stalks to the elevator. 

In the elevator, there are some weird flashes of light and the doors open onto a bright white, futuristic corridor.  A tall, elegant young woman greets Olivia by name and takes her to a swanky office.  She walks around, puzzled.  A door opens behind her and Leonard Nimoy (!!!) walks in, introducing himself as William Bell.  She asks where they are and he smiles, saying it's complicated.  As the episode ends, Olivia walks to the windows and looks out as the camera pulls back: she's standing in one of the Twin Towers, which in this 'verse did not fall on 9/11.  That's a damn ballsy final shot.

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E19 "The Road Not Taken"

At FBI HQ, Broyles flashes photos from the recent Fringe cases and hands out information packets.  He tells the assembled agents about ZFT and their manifesto, Destruction Through Technological Progress.  The bizarre acts perpetrated by ZFT appear to be increasing in frequency but are completely unpredictable.  Plus, they think that Massive Dynamic's William Bell is funding the techno-terrorists.  To prove it, the FBI needs to find the connection.

In NYC, a young woman, Sara, runs for the bus.  She's panting and seems very nervous.  As she leans her head against the bus window, it steams up; when she grasps the metal handrail, it glows red.  She stumbles off the bus, crying that she can't breathe.  As passersby watch helplessly, Sara catches fire and explodes right there on the street.

At the Harvard lab, Walter drags out that old typewriter and shows Peter and Astrid the Y that skips, just like in the manifesto manuscript.  The typewriter was Bell's.  But, Walter insists, Bell wasn't a madman: if Bell wrote the manifesto, it's been tampered with since the author refers throughout to the "ethics chapter" and there's no chapter on ethics in the manuscript.  Walter says they need to find the original manuscript to deduce Bell's actual intent.

Meanwhile, the whole Fringe team travels to the NYC sidewalk where Sara (they don't know her name yet but it's easier for me to type "Sara" instead of "the red-headed girl who spontaneously combusted until they learn her identity in a couple of paragraphs) exploded.  Strangely, when Olivia looks at the charred body, she sees two crispy corpses while everyone else only sees one.  After a weird shimmer, the second body disappears from Olivia's sight.  She doesn't know what to think about that.

Nina Sharp pays Broyles a visit - they are so in cahoots but we still don't know exactly how - since Massive Dynamic's counterintelligence has picked up on the FBI's Bell investigation.  "William Bell is not the enemy," she says.  Broyles says he would like to hear that from the man himself but Nina says Bell isn't available as "[h]e's travelling."  Broyles gives Nina a knowing look at that but doesn't press.

During the autopsy, Walter is annoyed that Peter has dismantled the electron microscope for a special project.  He's taken apart the Geiger counter too.

Olivia stops by Broyles's office to give him an update and comments on how he's redecorated.  Broyles: WTF are you talking about?  She tells him that they're working on an ID for the dead girl.  He asks, "What about the other victim?" and hands her a crime scene photograph with those two charred bodies.  Olivia turns around, confused, and that weird shimmer happens again, and suddenly Broyles is behind her, entering his office, and his office furniture is back to normal.  This time Olivia's like, WTF?  Then Harris bursts in, ranting and raving and ordering them to cease and desist with the Bell investigation.  After he leaves, Broyles assures Olivia that the investigation will continue, but she needs to get more evidence.

Walter and Astrid identify Sara from dental records.  Olivia and Charlie go back to NYC [because it's just across the river from Boston, really, so easy to get to and from] and check out Sara's apartment: no roommates, hardly any personal effects, gray and black clothing in the closet.  Olivia finds a $30,000 check from an "Isaac Winters" while Charlie finds the bathroom, completely scorched.  "What the hell happened to her?" breathes Olivia.

When she reports back to Walter and Peter, that they found evidence of other fires, Walter says it obviously isn't a case of spontaneous human combustion then, since that sort of thing really only happens once to a person.  It may have been pyrokinesis instead.  Peter scoffs - A firestarter?  Really?  So why'd she blow up? - and his dad posits that the pyrokinesis may be a new development and Sara hadn't gained the skill to control it yet.

Charlie interrupts to say that they've tracked "Isaac Winters" to a law office in Charlestown.  Olivia meets him there and they find nothing but an empty office with several panicked messages from Sara on the answering machine.  One of the messages relays that after she took the "test" Winters left for her, "something strange" started to happen to her.  At the word "test," Olivia twitches.  She heads outside and is stunned to see the Boston skyline in ruins and flames, with the military shouting commands over unseen loudspeakers.  Charlie touches her shoulder and she shudders, and the skyline is back to normal, no flames.

Walter checks her out, asking wistfully if she's sure she hasn't had any LSD, or acid, or 'shrooms lately.  She confirms that it wasn't a drug trip but she feels like she's losing her mind.  He gently says that if that were the case, she wouldn't realize it was happening.  He thinks that what's happening to her might be prolonged deja vu, going on to explain that there are alternate universes made up of all the choices that might have been made.  Deja vu is just a momentary glimpse at the alt-verse but perhaps Olivia's visions are more extended looks into that world.  She asks if maybe the cortexyphan she was subjected to as a child might have had something to do with it.  Maybe, says Walter.  Astrid interruptst to say that she's found an online photo of a similar pyrokinetic death in Budapest - the guy who runs the web site lives over in Malden.

Olivia and Peter go to meet the guy, played by Clint Howard.  He's a total X Files-level paranoid.  At first he says things that sort of make sense to them (or at least Olivia), about Massive Dynamic being behind the weird occurances, and doing secret testing on children to make them into supersoldiers for the upcoming war ... against the Romulans.  And he thinks he's Spock.  Peter gives him a "live long and prosper" and they get the hell out of there.

Nina Sharp gets an alarming phone call - "don't do anything until I get there" - and tells her driver to get her to the helicopter ASAP.

Back at FBI HQ, Olivia works through the case with Pete, saying that maybe she's missing something: in her visions, she always sees two bodies, so maybe there's another victim somewhere.  If she could get back to the alt-verse, maybe she could gather some additional information.  Harris interrupts and gives her a new assignment: psych evaluation.  They get into a huge yelling match out in the hallway.

When Olivia stalks back to her office, she slips into the alt-verse.  There, the FBI agents are stressed and frantic, and Charlie has a big scar on his face.  She asks him if she can take another look at the firestarter file.  Charlie: "You have half of Boston on quarantine lock-down and you're worried about burned twins?" but he gives her the file.  She gets a quick look before slipping back into her reality.

They find Sara's twin, Nancy, via face-recognition software, but Isaac Winters gets to her first.  By the time Olivia and Peter get to Nancy's apartment, it's empty and there are signs of a struggle.  Olivia calls for forensics; Peter notices that a window pane is slightly melted - he's got an idea.  He cuts a circle of glass out of the window just as Walter and Astrid arrive with Peter's special project.  The project is an audio-reconstructor gizmo so Walter can digitize all his old records - the machine might be able to read the grooves in the melted glass and play back the sound captured there, whatever was going on when Nancy was attacked.  After a few false starts, they hear this: screams and pleading on Nancy's part, a phone being dialed, and Winters's voice saying, "I have her."  They replay the phone being dialed and Olivia uses an app on her cell to dial the number from the tones.  Who answers?  Harris.

When Harris leaves FBI HQ, Charlie, Olivia and a small team follow him to a warehouse.  Inside, Harris tells Winters to hurry up and activate Nancy as "he" (presumably their boss) is getting impatient.  Winters prepares a syringe.  As the FBI team makes their way further in, Olivia sees a cork board with photos of the activated subjects: Sara, Nancy, Nick Lane and Olivia among them.  Shots are fired and Winters, a security guard and one of the FBI fodder go down.

Olivia finds Nancy, strapped to a table, and runs into the room to free her.  Harris locks the door on her and taunts her as she fires her gun at the bullet-proof glass, saying that Nancy will take care of everything for him since once she explodes, she'll take Olivia with her.  Nancy is panicking, finding it hard to breathe.  Olivia tries to calm her, saying that this was done to her when she was young, but now she needs to focus the heat building inside to an external object.  Nancy doesn't think she can do it but then, awesomely, she sees Harris watching them through the window.  He stares at her, horrified, as he starts to cough and sweat, and then he bursts into flames and explodes.  Oliva knocks Nancy to the floor, out of the flames, then hugs her and tells her that everything is going to be okay now.  She doesn't sound the least bit upset that Harris just popped like a firecracker.

Sometime later, Olivia finds Walter sitting alone at an ice cream parlor when Peter goes off to the restroom.  "What the hell did you people do to us?" she snarls, "You and William Bell - what did you do to me?  You were there, you knew what was going on! Why did you do it?"  Walter fumbles, tearing up, saying that they were trying to prepare the children for something, something that's coming.  "What?" hisses Olivia, "What's coming?"  But poor Walter doesn't remember, or can't, and he breaks down, crying.  Olivia gives him a look of disgust and leaves.  When Peter returns, Walter is a wreck and he clutches at his son's hand.

Nina Sharp rings a doorbell; Broyles answers.  She has a stack of photographs of the Bald Man, all taken very recently.  She tells Broyles that he knows as well as she does what happened the last time this guy came around.  They need to talk.

Walter is back at his lab, playing some of his old records.  He finds the original of Bell's manuscript stuck down amongst the albums, complete with the ethics chapter which says things like "the children will save us."  He hears someone come in behind him and turns, excited to share his discovery.  It's the Bald Man who greets him, however, and tells him it's time to go.  Walter: "Is it time?"  He replaces the manuscript and gets his coat, and follows the Bald Man out.

Nina Sharp has returned to her NYC apartment but when the elevator doors open, masked men are there and they shoot her, point-blank.

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E18 "Midnight"

Leather jacket-wearing, English-accented Bob gets ready to go out as the television news plays, talking about a horrific murdr where someone's been killed and mutilated, apparently by a hunting knife.  Bob grabs his keys, phone and a pocket knife and heads out.  He calls his girl, who's out of town on a business trip, and says that he'll cook for her tomorrow night when she gets back.  He'll call her later, though, as he's just meeting some "suits from Hong Kong" for dinner.  When Bob hangs up the phone, he heads into a red-lit club, music blaring and pulsing.  Liar!  Inside, all kinds of hot chicks eye him.  He selects one, makes her laugh, then backs off when her date walks up.  Bob picks another one.  This one doesn't have a date.  Back at his place, things are getting steamy ... until she grabs his head and snaps his neck.  AWESOME - didn't see that coming.  Meanwhile, worried that he hasn't called her back, Bob's girlfriend tries his cell which rings and rings as the murderer goes into the bathroom to wipe blood off her face.  Her eyes are a freakishly bright blue.  The camera pulls back and ol' Bob's body looks as though it might be missing a few bits and pieces.

At Olivia's apartment, there's another boring domestic scene where some boring friends are over for dinner and Rachel gets served with divorce papers.  Luckily for her (and us), Olivia gets a call about Bob's case.

We get a better look at the body as Walter pokes at it: the back of his neck has been flayed open and his spine severed.  Walter declares that the wound was made with teeth, not a knife: either canine, ursine (bear) or human.  And it looks as though some blood has been drunk.  Peter starts to roll his eyes about vampires until his father interrupts, saying sadly, there are no vampires but he's sure this will turn out to be something else just as exciting!

Olivia tells Broyles that they have confirmed that the toothmarks are definitely human and Broyles is like, you know, it used to be that human was the only option ... I miss those days.  The police are searching for Bob's car and Walter is back at the lab, autopsying Bob's body and the mutilated victim from the t.v. news.

It turns out that both victims' spinal columns have been completely drained of spinal fluid.  And there are traces of an extinct strain of syphilis in the wounds, transmitted via the killer's saliva.  Olivia checks with the CDC and learns that a local research company ordered a sample of that syphilis four weeks ago.  What's weird is that the research company's address is in a residential area of Brighton.  So the CDC pulled their file and discovered that the company has requested quite a number of different contagion samples recently, including RUD390, which was an integral component to that fast-growing skin thing that ZFT released on the world several episodes ago.  The Fringe team decides to go check out that Brighton address.

First they find a bunch of dogs in cages - one with those bright blue eyes - and in the back they find Dr. Boone, wheelchair-bound, in the process of doing something nasty to another poor dog.  They arrest him and haul him off to FBI HQ.  There, Olivia shows Boone the photographs of the victims and asks, "What is out there? What is doing that to these people?"  They also tell him that they want to know everything he knows about ZFT.  He is surprised that they even know about that organization.  Boone tells them that "someone" was dosed, and then says that he knows a lot about what they want to know but first he wants them to help him: ZFT has his wife and he's being coerced into performing experiments.  He'll tell them everything he knows but first they have to get his wife back.

Broyles and Charlie think Boone is full of shit but Olivia believes him.  She notes that since she's been working in Fringe Division, 81 people have died, not including the 100+ folks on the plane in the first episode; in all her prior cases, only nine people died - this Fringe business is dangerous and people are dying.  She says that Boone is their first real lead to ZFT and she doesn't want to blow it.  A lackey interrupts to say that the address Boone gave them is a Chinatown restaurant ... which is using 5x the utilities a Chinatown restaurant should.  There could be a lab in the basement!  Olivia pulls her team together.

Meanwhile, Peter and Walter get to poke around in Boone's lab.  Walter has a hypothesis as to what Boone was doing.

The heavily armed FBI squad descends upon the Chinatown restaurant.  There's a lab in the basement!  But no wife.  Olivia gets on the phone with Boone who directs her to a refrigerator in the back: it contains a sample of XP43 which is the contagion with which the killer has been infected.  He needs that XP43 sample to make an antidote - because it's his wife who got dosed and is out there killing.  That was ZFT's punishment for Boone's trying to leave them.

That night, Mrs. Boone ("Valerie") picks up another guy at the same club.  Her eyes are not electric blue yet.  They start making out in his car and Valerie cries.  "What's wrong?" asks the guy.  She tells him that she's sorry, then her fangs pop out and she latches onto his neck.

The cops find the guy's body in his car in Roxbury.  Olivia goes back to talk to Boone.  She shows him a videotape that Peter found in Boone's lab: the video was taken three weeks ago and Boone was walking.  He tells her that what Valerie is feeding on is spinal fluid - he'd given her as much of his as he could without stroking out, but the contagion burns through her own spinal fluid and she just needs to consume more and more.  The extinct syphilis she's got is the carrier for the other "attributes" that changed her.  Boone again promises to tell them all about ZFT if they'll let him make a vaccine for Valerie.

They take Boone to Walter's lab - where Peter protests that one mad scientist is his limit.  Walter and Boone decide to make a super-penicillin to combat the super-syphilis.  Charlie has meanwhile found Bob's missing car but it's been stripped, including the GPS and there's no way to know where Valerie left it.  Peter, not surprisingly, knows a guy who tends to get involved in every stripped car in the Boston area.  He takes Olivia to see the guy and the guy tells them where he found Bob's car.

Walter and Boone bond as they work at the lab, Boone having heard all about Walter.  Boone also eyes the video camera sitting there on the table.

Olivia and Peter go out to Weymouth and find where Bob's car was found.  But why did Valerie come out here?  Peter figures it out when he finds yet another body with a flayed neck.  They bring that body, plus the Roxbury one, back to Walter's lab.  Astrid notes that one of the new bodies reeks of alcohol and then has the idea to check the bodies' hands for those fluorescent club stamps.  Bingo!  All of them have a stamp from the same underground club.  Boone begs Olivia to take Valerie alive: I just need more time - I know I can save her.

Olivia and Peter head off to the club.  Peter brings along a handheld heat-imaging gizmo, checking the female clubgoers' heat signatures since the syphilis makes Valerie run extra-hot.  One girl looks him up and down and tells him that she's sure she's hot enough for him.  He smiles and says he's looking for someone with syphilis.  Heh.  They're having trouble spotting Valerie in the crush of people but Olivia finally spots her as she heads for the exit with her freakishly blue eyes.  Charlie and some other FBI agents tranq her as she walks out of the club.

Walter and Boone are having trouble with their vaccine and Boone says they need to use more of his spinal fluid (for some weird science-y reason).  Astrid's like, no way, it could kill him!   But Walter says to prep the table.  Boone thanks him.  But some time later, after Walter has withdrawn the spinal fluid, Boone has a stroke.  It's going to be hard for him to tell them about ZFT now, isn't it?

Olivia and Peter drive back to the lab with Valerie in the backseat.  They assume that she'll be "out for hours" but as they banter, Valerie wakes up.  She goes after Olivia, trying to gnaw at her neck, and things get tense for a moment until Peter tranqs her again, several times for good measure.  They get her to the lab and shoot her up with the vaccine.  Boone whispers, "Thank you."  Valerie starts to shriek and convulse but the vaccine works.  Boone, however, is dead.  Olivia's expression is eloquent: devastated and frustrated and bereft of hope.

As the bodies are carted out, Walter hands Olivia a videotape that Boone made before he died.  On the tape, he tells her that he's got some names of ZFT people, including some he suspects she's already heard.   Cut to Olivia finding Broyles at a swanky restaurant.  She tells him that according to Boone, the man who is funding ZFT is William Bell.  Cue ominous music!

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E17 "Bad Dreams"

A young mother, singing a song about an elephant, pushes her daughter in a stroller down a ramp at Grand Central Station, on their way back from the circus.  The little girl gazes happily at the bunch of balloons tied to the stroller,.  They descend to the tracks, the station largely deserted, just missing the train.  As they wait for the next train, the little girl looses a red balloon which bumps up against the ceiling.  Just as the next train arrives, a blonde woman rushes up and pushes the mother in front of it.  The blonde woman is Olivia.  She was dreaming and wakes up, gasping and frightened.

The next morning Olivia does her sit-ups, peruses her wardrobe of grey and black clothing, does the crossword puzzle while half-listening to the television news.  When the news reports that a young mother committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a moving train in NYC, Olivia puts down her pen.  The photo of the young mother is the same woman Olivia pushed in her dream.

Olivia asks Broyles if she can go to NYC to investigate, saying that she thinks extraordinary circumstances may be involved, making it a murder and not a suicide, but declining to tell him about her dream complicity.  He grudgingly gives her 24 hours, saying he needs her here, working as part of the Fringe team.  At Walter's lab, Peter scoffs when she says she thinks she murdered that woman, telling her that it was just a nightmare.  Walter checks her out with a Geiger counter, thinking that she might have teleported to NYC in her sleep and actually pushed the woman, but there's no residual radioactivity from any teleportation.  Another possibility is astral projection, but then it would have been difficult for Olivia to gain enough corporality to interact physically with the woman.  Peter rolls his eyes - and it's off to NYC for him and Olivia.

They meet up with a cop at Grand Central Station and ask her about the incident.  The cops think it was a suicide because there was no one else caught on the security camera when the woman jumped.  As they go down to the tracks, Olivia whispers to Peter that there will be a red balloon floating on the ceiling.  He doesn't have a smart-aleck comment when yes, there is a red balloon up there.  At the police station, they meet with the grieving husband who insists that his wife never would have killed herself - they were happy.  They review the security footage and see that no one pushed the woman, but Olivia asks for a copy of the tape anyway.

Back at the lab, Olivia insists that somehow she killed that woman.  She's beginning to get agitated.  Peter thinks it's crazy but Walter's like, okay, let's assume that you did it.  Why and how?  Did she somehow compel that woman to jump, using only her mind?  Peter thinks that's preposterous.  Walter shrugs, saying, "Okay.  Unless it happens again."

Even though she hasn't been sleeping well lately, Olivia buys a bunch of caffeine pills.  She goes to a nice restaurant and sits alone with a cup of coffee, intently watching a couple at a nearby table.  They're having a lovely dinner together until the wife starts shrieking, accusing her husband of having an affair.  The husband is confused, saying he doesn't know what she's talking about.  They both rise out of their chairs and the wife picks up a steak knife.  Olivia rushes over to them and grabs the wife's hand.  Then, together, the two women stab the husband multiple times in the belly.  He collapses and they step back, dropping the knife, hands bloody.

Olivia wakes up, nearly sobbing.  She calls Charlie immediately and says, "There's been a murder."

She and Peter walk through the halls of St. Vincent's Hospital (NYC).  Olivia's like, I killed him.  Peter, ever rational, reminds her that she was 300 miles away, plus numerous witnesses watched the wife - alone - stab her husband.  Olivia is adamnt about her involvement.  They ask the doctor how the husband is doing: he was basically gutted, his intestines shredded, but is still alive, albeit unconscious.

They question the wife, who for some reason has been given permission to sit by her husband's bedside.  The wife doesn't understand what is going on: she knows that her husband is devoted to her, but suddenly she got afraid and angry and just knew he was going to leave her.  Olivia starts to freak out, asking the wife if she felt like someone else was in her head, compelling her to attack her husband.  Peter drags Olivia away.

They go to the restaurant where it happened and Olivia finds a piece of broken coffee cup on the floor near the table she was sitting at in her dream.  She asks the restaurant owner who was sitting there, roughing him up a little when he backtalks to her; he tells her that it was just some blond guy with a scar on his face who comes in every now and again.  Olivia: "I know who that is."

Well, sort of: she tells Peter that she's seen a guy who matches that description.  They go back to Cambridge [Note: I don't think the producers of this show realize how far apart Boston and NYC are - the characters flit back and forth like they're going from Back Bay to Watertown] and look again at the security footage from Grand Central Station.  They do indeed see a thin blond guy with a scar on his face walk past the woman who eventually jumps.  He's been at both crime scenes.  Walter thinks that perhaps this guy is the one who's been attacking people with his mind, but somehow Olivia is dreaming of him.

They go to FBI HQ and run the guy's face through the FBI database: he's a former St. Jude's mental patient, Nick Lane.  Broyles comes in and is all WTF: you're using resources on something that isn't one of our cases and I've got a lawsuit from some NYC restaurant owner saying you pushed him around and explain yourself, Dunham!  Olivia brings him up to speed about their suspect Nick, and admits to her dreams.  Broyles is all, why didn't you come to me with this?  Olivia says she didn't want to sound crazy and then asks for a short leave of absence to sort things out, these weird Fringe-y things that seem to be happening to her.  Instead, Broyles opens a new case - this case - and puts her in charge of it, telling her to take care of herself.  Aw, he likes her!

Olivia and Peter go to St. Jude's, Peter remarking that until this year, he'd never spent any time in a mental hospital.  Olivia: "Learn to like new things."  They meet with Nick's former doctor who tells them that Nick had been there for years, self-committed and paid for under a high level military insurance policy.  Then, four months ago, some lawyer showed up, said that Nick had inherited a huge sum of money, and Nick checked himself out, leaving with the lawyer.  The doctor says that Nick's emotions seemed infectious: if he was happy, everyone was in a good mood; but if he was upset, you got sucked into a black hole of despair if you were around him.  She calls him hyperemotional with heavy self-contempt and a tendency towards suicide.  He was delusional too, saying he'd been recruited at a very young age to fight in a future war against the denizens of a parallel universe.  Olivia gives Peter an intense look upon hearing that.

Here's another coincidence: Nick was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1979.  Just like Olivia.  She and Peter go to Walter's hotel room and she asks him about that cortexyphan, the drug that Walter and William Bell developed.  Walter says that Bell experimented on children with it - which statement causes Peter to freak out - children who seemed predisposed to particular mental acuity, and that cortexyphan seemed to emphasize whatever psychic gifts they had, particularly any ability to alter perception or reality.  Olivia connects the dots: if Nick was treated with cortexyphan, he could change reality using his feelings, but possibly inadvertently, if his emotions were literally contagious.  He might have been thinking about committing suicide when he walked along the train platform; he might have been feeling lost and abandoned at the restaurant.

But how is Olivia connected?  Walter tells her that when Bell experimented on the children (another wig-out from Peter), he'd pair them up so they wouldn't be scared.  Sometimes an intense bond, amplified by the cortexyphan, would form between the two kids.  Peter's like, whatever, Olivia was never treated with cortexyphan.  Then he looks at Olivia and she's like, well, I might have been.  "Great!" says Walter, "then I think I might be able to find Nick."

Olivia goes to a strip club.  Except on this third outing we're pretty sure it's Nick, which is confirmed when we cut to Olivia hooked up to one of Walter's machines as he's got her in a hypnogogic REM state.  At the strip club, Olivia stares at the stripper who comes down off her pole and starts kissing her, as Nick's state of arousal excites the stripper.  They leave the club (despite the bouncer's shouted warnings) and go to a motel.  Peter, Walter and Astrid all get a little embarrassed when Olivia starts making sex noises.  Then, post-coitally, Nick feels guilty and ashamed, full of self-loathing, and the stripper becomes infected by his feelings.  She smashes a glass and slices her own throat, dream-Olivia's hand guiding hers.  Nick goes back to his apartment and Olivia snaps out of her trance, knowing where his apartment is.

The next morning, Nick takes a bunch of pills with his morning coffee.  He does his pushups and peruses his closet full of grey and black clothing.  Then he pauses.  Outside, an FBI squad has pulled up.  They bust into the apartment only to find it empty, one wall full of clippings, all paranoid, about government testing and experiments on children, plus some photographs of two-headed goats.  Peter now thinks that the lawyer showing up at the hospital with an inheritance was too good to be true: Nick was activated.

Nick walks down the street and as he passes other people, they turn and follow him like the Pied Piper.  The Fringe team gets a call from the cops saying they've located Nick.  Walter muses that Nick is a reverse empath and a kind of walking epidemic - if they get too close, they'll be infected as well.  Except probably not Olivia.  They find Nick and his entourage, all arrayed up on a skyscraper ledge downtwon.  The cops say they sent one guy up there and now he's on the ledge with the rest of them.  Olivia heads up there, over Peter's protests.

On the roof, she calls Nick's name.  He turns around, smiling: "You heard me, Olive! You heard me and you came!  You were always the strong one."  She says she's sorry but she doesn't remember anything.  He's a little crazy, saying that he does remember (although maybe he's not supposed to) and he stayed fit and ready for the call.  He tells her that some guy came and woke him up, and now he can't be put back to sleep.  "I want to stop hurting people!"  He hands her a gun and tells her to shoot him, put him out of his misery.  She doesn't want to and so Nick flinches, crying out, and a woman on the ledge throws herself off.  The jumper lands on a car next to Peter and Walter.  Walter: "I sure hope Agent Dunham meant to do that."

Back on the roof, Nick says that if "Olive" doesn't shoot him, the rest of the folks up there will jump.  And if he jumps, they'll all go too.  Olivia apologizes again and shoots him, once in each knee.  Nick collapses on the roof, all the others crumpling with him but none falling off.  He looks up at her: "Olive, you'll wish you'd killed me."

Later, as they walk through white industrial-looking corridors, Broyles tells Olivia that Nick's parents died a while back and his identity appears to have been falsified at some point.  They stop walking and look into a room where Nick has been put into a medically-induced coma, "indefinitely," according to Broyles.  Olivia's face is grim - she still doesn't remember anything from Jacksonville.  Broyles asks if she's okay and she replies, flatly, yes.

That night, Charlie stops by her apartment, handing her Nick's file and reminding her that he's breaking about a thousand regulations by doing so.  The file is classified, plus full of all sorts of newspaper clippings.  Olivia makes a frowny face and starts to read.

Meanwhile, alone in the lab, Walter has unearthed an old videotape.  It shows a little blonde girl, cowering in the corner of what looks like a hospital room.  Several voices, all off camera, say things like: "How many casualties?" and "We still haven't found [Whatsisname]" and "Something must have set her off."  Then it's Walter's voice on the tape: "Obviously she was upset about something."  A pause, and then Walter again, this time directed to the little girl:  "It's all right, nobody's angry with you, Olive. Everything's okay."

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E16 "Unleashed"

Boring domestic scene: Olivia reads Ella a bedtime story.  Peter calls, oddly enough to chat with Rachel whose giggling and laughing makes her big sister look slightly put out.

Cut to distressed lab animals as animal rights activists break in and start opening cages.  Did these kids never watch 28 Days Later?  As they break into a back room, a silent alarm goes off, notifying some middle-aged guy who rushes over to the lab.  One of the activists enters that back room, undeterred by the ominous red lights.  When Middle-Aged Guy gets there, he heads to the back.  The activist is standing in the doorway of the back room.  MAG asks, "You didn't open that door in there?"  Activist: "You bet I did."  MAG goes to check things out and is grabbed by something large and unseen.  Blood spurts and then he's gone.  All the little activists run but the last one out the door is snatched up and dragged back inside, screaming.  The three remaining activists jump in their car and take off, but something attacks the car, causing it to flip.  Afterwards, the two still-conscious (or still-alive, tough to say) activists wonder what it was that attacked them as they try to free themselves from the wrecked car.  Then whatever it was moves in towards them and the girl activist screams and screams.

The next morning, Peter and Walter argue about Walter's carelessness in leaving dangerous stuff lying around the lab.  Astrid interrupts the shouting match to send them off to Olivia's case.  They rendezvous at the activists' wrecked car.  Broyles brings them up to speed, saying that the three bodies were apparently killed by a large animal not indigenous to New England; Charlie pipes up, saying that wherever this thing is indigenous, he doesn't ever want to go there.  Walter notes that the critter had massive claws.  As they poke around the crime scene, they find fast food debris: four drink cups but only three bodies.  Peter notes that the fast food is from a late night joint near MIT - maybe they should check out the undergrads.

Olivia goes to MIT to interview one of the dead activist's roommates who, when he can manage to speak articulately in the presence of the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, tells her about the animal rights activism bit.  She returns to Walter's lab where the gang is examining the bodies: the wounds indicate that hte critter has the claws of a lion, the fangs of a giant snake ... they have no idea WTF this thing is.  Astrid starts calling local labs who do animal testing to see if any break-ins have been reported.  Walter has meanwhile pulled some sort of spine or stinger out of one of the bodies and gets a troubled look on his face.

Out in the woods, two animal control officers investiage a "monster" sighting, bitching that "monster" is usually "housewife for 'racoon'."  Heh.  Then they hear the slobbering snarls in the underbrush and they too get troubled looks on their faces.

Walter paws through his old files, reading one and sighing, "Good heavens."  When Olivia heads out to look into that monster sighting, Walter tells her to be careful.  Charlie gets out to the animal control van first and finds one of the officers inside, shredded like cole slaw.  He calls it in and then hears something in the brush.  He draws his gun and bravely heads towards the noise, looking scared.  He finds the other officer - dead - and as he stares, a scaly prehensile tail unfurls from the tree behind him.  Olivia shows up in time to hear Charlie shooting.  She finds him, wounded but alive, and asks, "What was it?"  Charlie: "Big."

The EMTs pull a spine/stinger out of Charlie's should and Walter eagerly collects it.  He asks Charlie several pointed questions about the critter which arouses Peter's suspicions: "What do you know about this thing, Walter?"  Walter 'fesses up that this is probably a transgenic animal, created by man and comprised of several different species - using the best of the best of their characteristics.  Peter's like, dude, a giant transgenic fanged rhino is just wrong on so many levels.  Astrid calls to tell Olivia that Swift Research got broken into last night.

Swift Research does animal testing for pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies.  Olivia tells Dr. Swift about the animal activists who were killed nearby, possibly by a genetically-altered critter.  Dr. Swift is like, we just do testing AND we didn't have a break-in, no matter what you heard.  Then he tells her that she'll need a warrant if she wants to look around more.

At the Fringe lab, Peter tries to get his very distracted dad to focus.  Walter says that he thinks he may be to blame: he tried to create a similar creature twenty or so years ago.  He failed - all his creatures died - but someone must have finished his work.  Peter starts to get mad at his father again until Astrid is all, um, the bodies are moving!  They unzip the body bags to find the bodies swarming with critter larvae.  Olivia:  "You mean baby monsters?"  Yup.  Walter asks for a petrie dish and then, when the bodies burst open and larvae pour out, amends that request to "a bucket."  Astrid thinks she's going to be sick.  Walter: "Two buckets!"  Heh again.  Walter surmises that the spine/stinger is what plants the eggs in the bodies.  Olivia: "Oh, God, Charlie!"

Speaking of Charlie, he and his wife are about to get busy when their doorbell goes nuts.  It's Olivia and she makes him come back to the lab with her at once for an ultrasound.  "You trying to tell me that I'm pregnant?" asks Charlie.  "We're hoping not," replies Olivia.  Bad news: he's totally knocked up with critter larvae.  Walter, trying to look on the bright side, notes that at least the creature doesn't mate in the traditional way.  They don't know what to do next: there's no way to extract the larvae now that they've spread through Charlie's system.

Walter freaks out a little, then has an idea.  Astrid draws some blood from Charlie while Peter mixes up some kind of poison.  They try it on the larvae but no go: the poison kills the larvae but also poisons the blood.  And Charlie's system is shutting down as the larvae start to feed on him.  Walter has another idea: transfuse Charlie with the parent critter's blood, possibly convincing the larvae that Charlie is one of them so they'll stop eating him.  All they have to do is find the big critter.  Olivia thinks it may be traveling in the sewers.  They're making progress but not fast enough: Charlie starts to scream as the larvae squirm under his skin.

Then Olivia gets a call from that MIT roommate, saying that one of the animal rights activists is Jonathan Swift - the son of Dr. Swift.  Olivia goes back to Swift Research and browbeats Dr. Swift into coming clean.  The critter is made up of gila monster, parasite wasp and bat.  Astrid suggests that now they know what it's made out of, maybe they could entice it with bait.  Walter goes one better: bats are extremely maternal so they can wave its larvae around and lure it out ... and then kill it with a .50 caliber incendiary round.

They pack their gear, Walter reminding Peter to be gentle with the larvae.  Right, says Peter, 'cuz we don't want to hurt the monster babies.  Olivia and the Bishops head to the sewers but not before Walter slips a vial of the poison into his pocket.

Ah, the sewers - just like The X-Files and BtVS.  They set themselves up in a defensible spot, opening the box of larvae.  Walter excuses himself to go take a leak but sneakily locks Peter and Olivia into the room.  Peter pounds on the gate and shouts at his dad.  Olivia pleads that Walter isn't prepared so he pulls out the poison and chugs it.  He says that when the critter snacks on him, it'll get poisoned and then they can take its blood to save Charlie.  And there's an antidote to the poison at his lab, but they'll need to give it to him within the hour.  Walter toddles off and Peter flails away at the locked gate, swearing that if Walter survives this, he'll kill his father himself.

Walter wanders through the sewers, singing to himself.  The critter finds him.  It is big!  And does kind of look like a cross between a bat and a gila monster.  Peter and Olivia catch up just as the critter moves in on Walter.  Peter shouts so the critter lunges at him instead; Walter shoots the critter dead.  He also is hoping that someone noticed what time it was when he mentioned that bit about the antidote.

Back at the lab, Walter takes the antidote and is just fine, and they transfuse Charlie which for some reason kills off all the larvae.  "Now you'll just crap 'em out!" says Walter happily.  But when Olivia goes home that night, she decides to leave the light on while she sleeps.

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E14 "Ability"

Flashback to Wissenschaft Prison, Germany, as Jones's lawyer comes to visit, bringing Jones his sunscreen, etc., etc., and ending up dead on Jones's cot as the prisoner teleports out of the cell and into Boston.

Two weeks later, Olivia tells the Bishop boys about Jones's escape from prison.  She's heading off to interrogate Mitchell Loeb again and wants Walter to remind her what it was he (he who? Walter? or Loeb?) was working on.  Walter says her that it was a teleportation system.  Color Olivia intrigued.  Meanwhile, over at Jones's top secret hideout, he emerges from the decompression chamber he's been in for the past two weeks.  He asks a flunky if everything is ready.  It is.  Jones has a case of the shakes, however.

A man wearing latex gloves gives a newsstand vendor a $2 for a paper, not waiting for his change.  Shortly thereafter the vendor's eyes, nose and mouth start sealing up, the skin growing over them.  Other customers scream in horror as the man suffocates right in front of them.

Prisoner Loeb is brought to his meeting with Olivia.  She wants to know where Jones is.  "You're not someone I really want to work with," gripes Loeb, no doubt referring to the fact that Olivia shot his wife dead not too long ago.  Olivia threatens him with a transfer to a Very Scary Prison but Loeb remains resolute: what was written will come to pass and nothing Olivia does will stop it.  She is interrupted by a phone call from Broyles, telling her to collect the Bishops and go to MGH.

At the hospital, Walter examines the vendor's body.  Olivia makes the assumption that Jones is behind this attack but has no proof.  She speaks with Peter outside, saying that the initials "ZFT" that keep popping up in the investigation may refer to a manuscript about "destruction through the advancement of technology."  The one known copy was thought to have been destroyed but she's hoping that Peter might be able to use one of his "weird connections" to find it.  Peter's like, you're weird ... but let me try.

They take the vendor's body to Walter's lab, which makes Astrid concerned that it might be contagious.  Walter says no, not to worry, and pokes a hole in the flesh covering the vendor's mouth, siphoning out the gas trapped within.  Astrid chokes at the smell.

Peter and Olivia stop by an indie bookstore, asking about the manuscript.  The bookseller will look into it.

Charlie's teams has found a warehouse in Allston, leased to Jones's (now-deceased) lawyer, that recently had its power turned back on.  Before Broyles can send a team to investigate, however, Jones himself shows up in the FBI HQ lobby.  They put a gun on him and he raises his hands, saying calmly that he will only speak to Olivia.  They take a key off him and send it to Forensics.  Harris is not inclined to acquiesce to Jones's demand and instead sends Olivia to investigate the warehouse without speaking to Jones.  If she can come up with hard proof that he was connected to the dead news vendor, maybe he'll let her talk to him.  Meanwhile, Peter's bookseller has procured a copy of the manuscript.  Peter reads some of it to her over the phone and it's all dark and dismal and about technology bringing about the apocalypse.  Keep reading, says Olivia.

When the FBI team gets to the warehouse, they find the decompression chamber, a sketch Jones did of Olivia ... and a folded $2 bill.  Of course, the poor kid who found the money gets his face grown over and starts to smother.  Olivia does an emergency tracheotomy but that hole grows over too.  The agent dies.

While Olivia is thus occupied, Harris tries to interrogate Jones.  Jones doesn't want to talk to anyone other than Olivia - he's not that well and is hoping to avoid "any more unnecessary deaths."  He also gives Harris a list of things he'll need when Olivia meets with him: walkie-talkies, analog wristwatch, etc.  Olivia goes to the interrogation room upon her return, handing Jones the stuff he asked for.  He quickly tinkers with it and manages to put together a device that disrupts all the audio equipment in the room, allowing him to speak privately with her.  He admits that something far worse is coming than what is currently going on but first he wants Olivia to pass a test.  He tells her to take that key and go some place to fetch something he's left for her there.  She has sixteen hours before an explosive detonates that will kill hundreds of people just like the agent and the vendor.  She takes off.

Walter reads an excerpt from the manuscript in voice-over as Olivia retrieves the box left for her: there are other worlds besides our own, and there are those who have already found the passages between them, and only one world will survive - it's us or them.  Back at the lab, the box is full of puzzles/tests.  Olivia is to take the first one - turning off a series of lights using only her mind - and get back to Jones.  She's skeptical, of course, but gives it a go as the Bishops and Astrid watch.  Her phone rings: it's Charlie, saying they've got a hit on the van carrying the explosive.  She hangs up the phone and grabs her coat, refusing to play Jones's "mind game." 

Olivia tells Jones that he's got some insane delusion where he thinks he's recruiting her as a warrior in some imaginary war - she doesn't want to play.  Jones says that she's already part of it, having been treated with some chemical compound via spinal tap.  He's insistent that she take his tests but collapses in pain.  They take him to Walter's lab for patching up.  Olivia says that she has to go to Massive Dynamic to find out about that chemical compound (she can't use the phone?).  In the meantime, could Peter maybe rig that lightbox so she can fool Jones?

At the Massive Dynamic offices, Nina Sharp confirms that cortexyphan was created by Walter's old lab partner, William Bell, in 1981.  It was meant to be administered to children to limit the eventual limitation of the human brain, Bell having believed that each human is born with limitless potential but that the potential shrinks with age.  The drug was apparently only run in trials in Ohio.  Olivia points out that she never lived in Ohio - she grew up on a Jacksonville, Florida, military base with her family.

Back at the lab, Walter has revived Jones (who is in rough shape).  Olivia tells him that she can pass the test - because Peter has successfully reprogrammed the light box.  She demonstrates and Jones apparently buys it, telling them where the bio bomb is going to be: on Church Street in Boston.  [I used to work on Church Street in Boston, btw.]

Excellent: when they find the bomb, the bomb squad can't defuse it because they don't understand the wiring, which is identical to the light display on Olivia's test box.  She calls Jones at the lab, confessing that she faked it before.  He says he knows, but he believes that she is capable of actually doing it, turning those lights off with her mind.  He has faith in her: there is only one way out of this and it's her.

Olivia stands in front of the bomb, one minute left.  Peter tells her that she's nuts and he can't stay to do this with her.  He heads for the elevator with the rest of the team but turns back at the last moment, coming to stand quietly behind her.  Olivia stares at the lights, calming herself.  And slowing, one at a time, the lights out out, all of them, with two seconds to spare.  Peter is incredulous: how did you do that?  Olivia is trembling: I don't know.

Afterwards, she has convinced herself that it was still a mind game, programmed to turn itself off.  Peter's like, okay, I didn't die tonight so I'll believe anything you want to tell me.  He asks if she wants to go get a drink, or five, but she's going to MGH where they've just transferred Jones.  She has a few more questions for him.

Walter and Astrid are cleaning up the lab and she tells him that she thinks his having invented a teleportation machine is pretty damn cool, despite the fact that it kills you if you use it.  Walter says she's mistaken: it does something unthinkable, but it doesn't kill you. 

When Olivia gets to the hospital, everyone is in a tizzy because there's a huge hole busted through the wall in Jones's room ... but no Jones.  There is a message for Olivia, however, written on the wall: YOU PASSED.  A little later, she gets a phone call from Nina Sharp who has uncovered a second, smaller clinical trial for cortexyphan, down at a military base in Jacksonville, Florida.  Dun dun dun dun!

Walter continues to read the manuscript later: what we think of as reality is a larger multiverse.  He frowns, looking at the Y in "reality," which skips a little, riding higher than the other letters.  He digs an old typewriter out of a closet, inserts a piece of paper and types "ability."  The Y in that word is the same as the Y in the manuscript.  Walter wrote the manuscript.

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E13 "The Transformation"

We open on a plane.  Some guy who looks like an accountant is writing in a notebook.  When his nose starts bleeding, he goes to the lavatory.  Once inside, he peers closely at his face, then tugs on his teeth.  Then he takes a kit out and swaps the inside of his mouth.  It turns red when he tests it and he freaks out.  He finds a flight attendant and tells her that something very terrible is happening to him that he can't control.  He's going to lock himself in the lav and she needs to collect all the sedatives she can from the other passengers, then pass them in to him.  If he's not himself when she opens the door, they must keep him in the lav at all costs.  Another flight attendant, nervous, warns the guy that they have a taser and they will use it on him.  "It won't be enough," he moans.

Back locked in the lav, the guy's teeth are falling out.  He retches into the sink and starts to scream horribly.  Then spines split the back of his shirt ... is he turning into the Splinter monster?  From the main part of the plane we see the lavatory door burst open and it's even better: a man-sized, pissed-off porcupine thing charges into the plane.  Right friggin' on.  The plane goes down, as it would with an enormous porcupine monster rampaging inside, in Scarsdale, New York.

Bored now: at Olivia's apartment, Rachel interrogates her older sister about the engagement ring John gave her.  Luckily, Olivia gets a call about the downed plane and has to get back to work.

The Fringe team, plus Broyles, pokes through the wreckage until Broyles shows them the manupine/porcuman.  Walter is, of course, fascinated.  As Olivia flips through photographs of the dead passengers' passport photos, she gets a flash of John-memory when she sees the accountant-looking guy.  "This is our guy," she tells Charlie.  Charlie is bemused by this hunch.

At the lab, Walter, Peter and Astrid autopsy the porcuman.  They dig a glass chip out of its palm.  Didn't Massive Dynamic pull one out of John Scott's palm some episodes ago?

FBI HQ is hopping, working to identify the dead passengers and they've put a name to the porcuman: Marshall Bowman.  During her research, Olivia recognizes one of Bowman's clients as another person in John's memories and tells Charlie that they need to question this client, Hicks.  Charlie is beginning to get suspicious about all these hunches so she 'fesses up about the experiment that fused John's memories into her head.  To his credit, Charlie decides to go with it.

Peter calls Olivia to tell her that Bowman was dosed with some designer virus, which would have killed him anyway even if the plane crash hadn't.  He emails a photo of the glass disk to her and she recalls seeing one of those from the DEA agent a few episodes ago.  I don't remember that at all, but whatever.

Olivia and Charlie interview Hicks.  He's not particularly cooperative at first, so Oliva shows him a photo of Bowman's current spiny state.  She says she thinks Bowman and Hicks conspired to release the deadly virus.  Just then, Hicks's nose starts bleeding.  Walter, observing through the two-way mirror, calls for a strong sedative.  Hicks starts flailing and screaming but Olivia won't let Walter sedate him until he tells her who else is involved.  He screams out "Conrad!" and Walter doses him.

They bring the sedated Hicks, still transforming, to the Cambridge lab and Walter puts him in a medically-induced coma.  Olivia and Astrid aren't having any luck finding a connection to any "Conrad" so Olivia tells Walter to slice into Hicks's palm to see if there's a glass disk in there.  "I like cutting," says Walter.

Olivia brings the now two glass disks to Broyles.  He already knows that they are devices for transporting information.  She wants to exhume John's body to see if he's got one too and Broyles is forced to tell her that John's body wasn't actually buried.  He takes her to Massive Dynamic where Olivia is shocked to see John being kept in stasis.  Broyles confirms that yes, there was a glass disk in his hand and the small amount of intel they were able to retrieve implicates John as a member of a bio-terrorist group.  It also mentioned "Conrad."  Broyles also says that French intelligence says that a major bio-weapons deal is going down in Chicago soon - via a guy named Conrad.  Olivia heads back to the lab, calling ahead for Walter to get the tank ready: she needs to go back into John's memories.

Walter hooks her up and sends her into Memory Land.  She finds herself in the motel room where she and John used to hook up, and then she watches as Memory-Olivia and John come into the room and start hooking up.  Then, weirdly, John looks directly at our Olivia when Memory-Olivia goes into the bathroom.  He tells our Olivia that he misses her.  Freaked, she grabs his gun and asks him about Conrad.  He comes towards her and she shoots him.

In the lab, alarms are blaring: Olivia is getting lost in the memories.  She wanders down an alley, calling for Walter, her link to the real world.  Suddenly John is there, addressing her directly.  Olivia: "I want answers, John."  But he turns and walks away from her.  She follows and John shows her a memory of his, where he was supposed to take out Conrad but didn't.  "Who were you working for?" she asks.  John tells her that he was working for Bowman and Hicks, NSA agents.  She doesn't believe him and wants proof, but he repleis that they were black ops and he couldn't tell her.  Olivia wants to know about the upcoming weapons deal but John starts to flicker in and out.  "Trust Hicks," he tells her and then is gone.  The Bishops yank her out of the tank and back into consciousness as her vital signs start going wonky.

She asks how Hicks is diong and Peter says they don't know if what they're doing is working.  Olivia wants to wake Hicks up to ask him about Conrad.  Peter's like, he could still transform into a porcupine - plus, can she really trust a dead guy who only exists in her memories?  Astrid speaks up, saying that Olivia is the best judge of character she's ever met.  Olivia makes the call: wake up Hicks.  They hit him with a blast of adrenalin, which brings him out of the coma, then give him with what they hope is an antidote.  Astrid tells him that they need to know about Conrad.

The FBI sets up a sting to take down the weapons deal; Hicks will be relaying information to Olivia via super high-tech implanted ear piece.  She waits in a hotel lobby, synced to Hicks, with Peter there as her back-up.  As they wait, Hicks gives her some key names and phrases to gain the weapon seller's confidence.

It seems to work.  Olivia, Peter, the seller and his thugs go to a hotel room where Olivia gets swept for radios.  The seller checks the cash, shows her the bio-weapon and antidote, then gets a phone call from Conrad, who says he wants to meet her.  Then the seller starts asking tougher questions about who she is, but Hicks can't help Olivia because he's starting to transform.  The seller gets edgy and guns are drawn.  Peter bluffs, which seems to work until Conrad walks in and calls the bluff, ordering the thugs to shoot Olivia and Peter.  Olivia gives the signal and the FBI rushes in.  As Conrad is cuffed, Olivia tells him, "John Scott says hi."

Afterwards, Broyles congratulates Olivia on taking down such a major bio-weapons dealer.  She says she didn't do it alone, meaning John helped her.  Broyles says that as far as the FBI goes, John is still a traitor.  Olivia says that's okay since she now knows the truth.  She goes back to the lab, finding only Walter still there.  She wants a favor: she wants to go back into the tank.  Walter says that the problem is that her brain is finally readjusting back to normal and there's no guarantee that she would see John for more than minutes or even seconds.  "So we need to do this now," says Olivia.

She fins herself on a dock on some remote pond, John there with her.  She tells him that they caught Conrad and she apologizes for doubting him.  John says that he always meant to tell her the truth, but he ran out of time.  He gives her the engagement ring:  "I know we can't ever be together, not really, but maybe I won't know the difference."  They smooch.  He says, "I love you, Liv."  And then he's gone.

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E12 "The No-Brainer"

The Mystery of the Week starts off in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Greg, a high school aged geek, is on the phone with his buddy, Luke, and poking around online at the same time.  He hangs up the phone and is surprised to get a strange video file pop up on his computer.  He stares at the flickering images, leaning in towards the monitor.  The images are blurred and slightly disturbing without actually being of anything, and Greg seems to slip into a trance, not responding to his parents when they say they're heading out for dinner.  Tears rolls down his face and he starts to drool as a hand starts to come at him from the screen, Videodrome*-style.  The hand darts forward and grabs onto Greg's head.  That can't be good.

At the lab, Walter makes Darwin jokes while Peter goes through the mail, getting distracted by a handwritten letter.  Olivia calls to tell them to go outside to meet the coroner, who is bringing them Greg's body; Peter crumples the letter and drops it in the trash on his way out; nosy Astrid scurries over and fishes the letter out.  Walter removes Greg's skull and discovers that his brains have been liquefied (eeuuw).  Olivia pops in to deliver Greg's hard drive to Astrid (who apparently was a computer science major/linguistics minor or some such convenient thing), letting the Bishops know that Greg's parents say he was a good kid: no drug use, no pre-existing medical conditions. 

She finds Greg's friend Luke working at a body shop.  He is shocked to hear about his buddy: they'd talked on the phone for a couple of hours last night, and then when Greg stopped answering the phone, Luke figured he'd fallen asleep.  Not getting much of use there, Olivia heads out just as Peter calls to tell her that there's been another body found with runny brains: a car salesman.  She meets the Bishops at the dealership and interviews another salesman - confirming that yes, this guy had been on his computer just before he died - while Walter uses a swab to punch through the dead guy's sinus cavity to collect gooey brain samples.

Astrid determines that both Greg's and the car salesman's computers' hard drives fried after downloading enormous files, but it's beyond her technical capabilities to figure it out any further than that.  Peter says he knows a guy - but just then the lab's wall phone starts ringing, to everyone's consternation ("I didn't think it even worked," says Astrid.)  Peter answers the phone and immediately says it's a wrong number.  He takes the fried hard drives and goes out to meet his guy.  Astrid turns to Olivia and says that she thinks she knows who just called, and hands her the letter she took out of the trash.

When Olivia stops in at FBI HQ, that ass Harris accosts her, wanting to know why she hasn't handed the liquefied brains case off to the CDC instead of wasting valuable FBI resources.  She tells him that she has consulted with the CDC and they've ruled out contagion of any sort.  Harris gives her twelve hours to crack this case or he's going to dismantle this "rogue" division and put her on a desk.

Peter's guy, Hakim, has a serious computer set up in the back room of his pawn shop.  Peter tells him that he wants to know what the big file is and where it came from.  It's too well-protected for Hakim to determine this but he can, somehow, determine that the same file is being downloaded right now.  In Brighton.  At Olivia's apartment!

Peter and Olivia, on the phone with each other, race through various streets of greater Boston towards Olivia's apartment.  Her sister Rachel doesn't hear her cell ringing and in the other room, little Ella has downloaded the file and is watching the flickering images, entranced.  As the hand starts to reach out to her through the screen, Olivia and Peter burst into the apartment.  At first they're looking for an intruder, then Olivia notices Ella staring at the laptop.  She pulls the computer away and it takes a few moments for the little girl to snap out of it.  Unconcerned at first, Rachel flirts with Peter as Olivia consults with Charlie, who promises to have forensics look at the computer.  Then Ella tells them about the weird, glowy, scary hand that came out of the computer at her.  Rachel thinks she's lying but Olivia goes over and stares at the laptop.

On the other end of the web cam, a rough-looking fellow (Andy Bellefleur from True Blood!) stares back: "That's right, sweetheart, it's me you're looking for."  This guy is Luke's dad, Paul Dempsey, and he looks like he's in a bad place right now emotionally.  Luke stops by to bring his dad some food and wonders what he's been doing.  Paul tells him that he's been working on a new program - there's a massive bank of computers behind him - he thinks it's going to impress a lot of people.

Olivia, Peter and Broyles confer at FBI HQ.  Olivia, for some reason, thinks she was being spied on through the web cam; forensics is working on figuring out who it might have been.  Peter's question is: Why?  What's the connection between the victims, and why were they killed?  Meanwhile, there's another body with blended brains: a daytrader who lives outside Chicago.

As he and Olivia return to the lab, Peter notices an older woman standing near the entrance.  Her name is Jessica Warren, the mother of Walter's lab assistant who was killed in the lab fire twenty or so years ago.  It was she who sent the letter and called the lab.  Peter gets protective and says it's not a good time for her to see his father, plus doing so won't bring her daughter back.  Inside, Olivia has quickly figured out who Mrs. Warren is and tells Peter that she thinks this may be an unresolved issue for Walter - he shouldn't underestimate his father.  Maybe something good could come out of the two of them talking.

Walter has figured out the weird science that does the brain-blending.  Astrid has figured out a connection among the victims: the daytrader is Luke's stepfather, who married Luke's mother after she divorced Paul; Paul used to work for Greg's dad until he was fired a few years ago.  They're still looking into the car salesman but Paul's MO seems to be to get back at people who hurt him by going after their loved ones.

Unable to find Paul, the FBI picks up Luke instead.  He's defensive and after a few minutes of questioning, lawyers up.  Olivia tells Charlie to wait five minutes, then release him.  When Luke calls for a cab on an office phone, Olivia listens in and gets the address.  Peter scoffs that Luke cannot be that stupid to be going directly to see his dad; Olivia reminds him that Luke is only 19.  "Good point," admits Peter.  As they drive to the address, they argue about Walter and Mrs. Warren.  When they get to their destination, Olivia goes inside, gun drawn.  Luke is already inside, yelling at his dad about how many people have to die.  Meanwhile, back at HQ, Harris sends a bunch of agents after them, honing in on the GPS in Olivia's car.

Luke and Paul hear the perimeter alarm that Olivia has tripped.  Paul sends Luke away and then manages to get the drop on Olivia.  He tells her that she's ruined everything and that his son now hates him because of her.  He has one gun up under his own chin and another one pointed at her.  He gets distracted by the flicerking images on his own computer screens and when Olivia begs him to look away, he tells her that he finally wants to see his creation.  Out in the car, Peter hears the approaching sirens and decides to see if Olivia needs any back-up.  He runs into Luke but their conversation is cut short by a gunshot.  They run in to find Olivia standing there, Paul dead on the floor.  She tells them Paul went into a trance and shot himself.  Luke turns and runs but is scooped up by the arriving FBI agents.

Later, Harris complains to Broyles about Olivia's methods and insubordinate conduct.  Broyles reminds him that she cracked this case in spite of his demands and tells Harris to leave her alone or answer to him.  Harris gets huffy: "Are you sure you're up for this?  Because I've got a lot of red tape."  Ooh - scary.

Peter has had a change of heart and brings Mrs. Warren in to speak with Walter, telling his father that if he needs the conversation to end at any time to just let him know - he'll be right over there.  Mrs. Warren tells Walter who she is, and who her daughter was.  She says she wanted to see him because he was the last person to see her daughter alive - can he tell her anything about her?  She had a wonderful smile, says Walter, and Mrs. Warren starts to cry.  Walter gives her a hug and says he'll tell her everything he can remember.  Peter just watches, relieved.

Later, Peter stops by Olivia's apartment - after a couple of drinks - and thanks her for bringing him and Walter together, apologizing since she was right about letting Walter talk to Mrs. Warren.  They seem like they are about to have a moment until Rachel interrupts, saying that Ella wants Olivia to tuck her in.  Peter smiles ruefully and leaves; Olivia watches him go.

* Is Videodrome the right reference? am I remembering that correctly?

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Fringe recap: S1E11 "Bound"

Previously on Fringe ... click on the Fringe tag down there to the right and read all about it.  It's way too complicated to recap for this recap.

The Bishops fret in the lab, worried about the kidnapped Olivia.  Broyles, meanwhile, has initiated a massive search for his missing agent.

Olivia is strapped to a gurney and rolling through a dark hallway.  A man in a mask places electrodes on her head then flips the gurney top over in order to stick a huge needle into her spine.  Olivia cringes and grimaces.  After the procedure, the man pulls off his mask to go back to his day job: he's Mitchell Loeb, FBI agent and the man in charge of teleporting Mr. Jones out of his German prison.  Olivia pleads with the remaining lab techs to give her a drink of water.  They loosen her bonds, allowing her to sit up.  She sips the water gratefully, then smashes the beaker against a lab tech's head.  She beats the shit out of several bad guys, grabs some test tubes, a phone and a set of keys from a table and escapes.  She steals a car, calling Broyles for immediate back-up and to raid the building.  She parks a little ways away to wait for her back-up and for some reason buries the test tubes in a vacant lot.  A bunch of cars pull up, sirens blaring.  Men jump out and point guns at her.  Her expression is: WTF? I'm the good guy/escapee/victim here!  Olivia turns to run for it and gets tranqed for her trouble.

When she comes to, she is in the hospital, handcuffed to the bed.  Harris - the Internal Affairs guy - is at her bedside and he is not pleasant - apparently he's the guy she had court-martialed for sexual assault.  The conviction was set aside and he's got a new job now: investigating Broyles's group.  [During the course of their conversation, there's a recap of the series to date, complete with flashbacks, in case we've forgotten what happened in the last ten episodes.]  After they snipe at each other for a while, Harris leaves, tossing Olivia the key to her cuffs.

Back at the FBI, Charlie tells her that the building she was held in was empty when they raided it, and both the car and the phone she took were clean.  Rats.  Also, Olivia's sister Rachel and her young daughter will apparently be staying with Olivia for the next while.  Olivia calls Peter and tells him to grab Walter and meet her out front.  She tells the Bishops what happened to her as they dig up the buried test tubes.  Walter field-tests the stuff in the tubes and makes a thinky face.

Over at Boston College, an immunologist/professor collapses during a lecture.  He dies, due to the huge spiny white slug that hauls itself up out of his throat.  The Fringe team is sent to investigate, Peter tracking the slug with a thermal camera so they can capture it.  Back at the lab, Walter notes that the slug was developed out of the same stuff that was in Olivia's test tubes.  When Olivia questions the dead professor's TA, she learns that the prof had just been recruited by the CDC to co-head a classified task force on epidemic preparedness.  The other co-leader works in Cambridge and Olivia decides to take him into protective custody.  When Olivia checks in with Peter and Walter, they tell her that the slug that killed the immunologist was actually a super-sized common cold viral organism - nice ironic touch, that.  Edit (because I forgot): And then, at the FBI offices, Mitch Loeb doses the second professor with that same organism, causing him to die in agony right in front of poor Charlie who at least shoots the slug-virus before it can escape.

Olivia goes back to the office to do some computer work, and Mitch Loeb stops by her desk, reassuring her that he's been put in charge of investigating her abduction.  When she catches sight of his shoes, she sees a stain on one of them and immediately recognizes him as one of her abductors.  She heads back into the field, but not before enlisting Charlie's help.  He goes to the lab and asks Peter to set up a wire tap on Loeb's home phone, figuring Peter would be okay with breaking the lab.  Meanwhile, Olivia has gone to Loeb's home and is nearly caught trying to break in by Loeb's wife, Samantha.  Samantha invites her in for tea: when Olivia asks to use the bathroom (i.e., snoop around in the den and find a file full of photos of giant viruses), Samantha calls Mitch, who tells her to kill Olivia ASAP.  Luckily, the wire tap has already been put into place and Peter hears this.  He calls Olivia and warns her.  Olivia and Samantha have a chick fight - and Olivia really should be doing better against one little woman, seeing how she just kicked ass all over three or four lab assistants not so long ago.  Finally, they draw on each other and Olivia shoots Samantha right through the forehead.

While all this is going on, Loeb has fled the FBI building, so the agents use his dead wife's phone to text him into a meeting/ambush.  They get him (Olivia pistol-whips him a little, earning herself an admiring grin from Peter).  When Loeb won't cooperate during the interrogation, Olivia shows him photos of his dead wife and tells him that she shot her.  Loeb breaks, claiming that Olivia has ruined everything.  She has no idea of the conflict that's about to happen, doesn't know what the plan is - he had saved her and now she's ruined it.  Olivia's like: Hm, this isn't really what I thought I'd be getting here.

This one was pretty action-y and not too weird-science-y, which is certainly easier to recap.  I'm sure we'll get back to the really weird stuff soon enough.

Previously on Fringe / next time on Fringe

Re-Fringeing

I gave up on Fringe in S1: I recapped the first ten or so episodes here, then maybe watched the rest of the season, but didn't pick back up in S2.  And now, in S4 (I think it's S3), everyone [who likes this sort of televisin] says it's one of the best shows going on right now.  Sigh. So now I'm renting it on DVD and rewatching S1 and trying to get caught up.  The good news for this site is that I'll pick the recaps back up.  They may not be as detailed as they once were (my WORD I typed a lot back in those days - my vintage 1997 laptop must have been functioning better back then), but they'll get the gist across.  Fringe on!

Unfringe my heart

Folks, I just don't think I can do it anymore. It's too overwhelming. I've got too much on my plate what with life, the universe and everything.

I can't recap Fringe any longer.

I mean, if I thought anyone would care, I'd stick with it just for you. But while I know people read the Heroes recaps, the Lost recaps and the True Blood recaps (also Deadwood!), I just don't get the impression anyone reads the Fringes. Heck, I'm not sure anyone watches Fringe! I still will, stubbornly, for the rest of the season but if J.J. Abrams doesn't get his head out of his ass, that's all he'll get from me.

Fringe recap S1E10 (12/02/08)

Robbery in progress at a Philadelphia bank. Now, I don’t know much about bank robbing, but these guys are using some strange equipment. A-ha! The robbers are using the same technology that allowed an apple to be pulled through a safe wall, only on a larger scale: they put on facemasks and walk through the vault wall. That’s supercool. They quickly get what they came for –apparently the wall-phasing capability has a short time frame. In fact, the last robber doesn’t make it out in time and the wall solidifies around him. It doesn’t kill him, though – so the head robber (a/k/a Agent Loeb, the guy with the parasite around his heart, a/k/a the guy who pulled the apple out of the safe and then shot the evil scientist lady) shoots him in the head, as dead men tell no tales. The remaining thieves pack up their gear and hightail it out of there.

Olivia and the Bishop boys soon arrive to check it out. “This is fascinating,” breathes Walter. This is the third bank heist in which the only thing that was taken was a single oversized safe deposit box. Olivia knows the man in the wall from her Marine days (his name is Raoul). Walter thinks this is interesting but he’s more interested in bringing the body – or at least pieces of it – back to his Harvard lab.

At their hideout, the thieves debrief themselves. One of them thinks killing Raoul was uncalled for. They have one more box to collect, however, and Loeb tells them to stop whining and saddle up.

German prison: Mr. Jones gets a visit from his lawyer to talk about his sentencing next week. Jones asks if there is any news. Yes, the Philly job was successful. Jones is pleased and writes up a list of items he’d like Lawyer to collect for him: Dramamine, suntan lotion, etc. Guess he’s planning a trip.

Peter and Walter are shopping in a big box hardware store. Peter thinks his dad is disapproving of his heretofore-nomadic existence. Walter thinks that might be possible. Peter goes on to be kind of snooty to his dad until a perky employee asks if she can help them find something. Walter wants an electric saw with an easily replaceable blade. When she asks what they’ll be cutting, he tells her human flesh and bone. At her horrified expression, Peter tells her: “It’s really not that dire.” Walter: “Oh, actually, potentially it’s far worse.” She points them in the right direction and runs away. “No need to call the police,” Peter calls after her.

Olivia pays a condolence call to Raoul’s new widow, Susan. Actually, he moved out of the house two years ago and they hadn’t talked much recently. Susan says Raoul had been dark and depressed since returning from the war. Olivia reminisces about serving in the Marines with Raoul, and coming to dinner at their house. Susan starts to wig out: she’s never met Olivia and Olivia has never been to their house before. It seems that Olivia is accessing John Scott’s memories: it was he who served with Raoul in the Marines and came to dinner. Now Olivia starts to wig.

Walter and Peter start to carve parts of Raoul out of the wall, limb by limb. Olivia comes to check in. Walter thinks that if they examine Raoul on the cellular level, they can figure out the whole walking through walls things. Both Bishops notice that Olivia is a little wired and she confesses to the John’s memories trick. Walter says he’s got to look into that. But first, she says, we had to figure out what the thieves’ next step is.

At the hideaway, the thieves have managed to open their latest acquisition. Loeb won’t let anyone else look inside the safe deposit box but when he takes a peek, he seems quite pleased.

Massive Dynamic: John Scott’s body is still in a holding container. They’ve been making progress, says a lab tech, but they’ve run into a problem in reconstructing his memories such that they could irreversibly damage them if they push too hard. Don’t care, says Nina Sharp, push ahead.

Harvard lab: Walter sticks an action figure into a beaker full of rice grains. It seems solid, holding him up, says Walter, until you vibrate it. He sets the beaker to vibrating and the action figure sinks down into it. Okay, that was a cool demonstration. Of course, says Walter, it’s a lot more complicated to walk through walls, but you get the picture. He notes that whatever was done to Raoul, it rendered him fairly radioactive too. Olivia stops by, having had no luck tracing the renters of the safe deposit boxes. No matter, now she wants to figure out how Raoul, a good guy, got mixed up in all this. Fortuitously, one of his old buddies works in a bar in Cambridge. “Did you say bar? In Cambridge?” Peter volunteers to be her wingman.

Cambridge bar: Olivia tells Peter to play along. She orders a double shot of whiskey and her brother, “Rick,” will have the same. She pounds the drink and orders another, saying that she recognizes the bartender … from Raoul and Susan’s wedding! Bartender: No way! Olivia: Have you seen them lately? He hasn’t, but he knows that Raoul had spent some time at a VA hospital. Olivia calls Broyles to see if he can find out what VA hospital. She hangs up her phone and is ready to go, but Peter’s like, what’s your rush – is two your limit? Olivia stares at him, almost smiling: “Is that a dare?”

The robbers collect their gear and head out to their next job in Providence. One of the guys tries to light a cigarette but his hand is shaking too badly.

Olivia and Peter drink beers and do card tricks. Olivia can count cards. Also, she’s got an uncanny memory for numbers, like the numbers of the safety deposit boxes that she rattles off. Wait, says Peter, I know those numbers. They race to the Bishops’ hotel room and Peter wakes his dad up, asking him about the numbers he recites to fall asleep each night. It’s the Fibonacci Sequence, the first three numbers of which are the same numbers of the safe deposit boxes. What a kooky coincidence, says Walter … except not. Those safe deposit boxes are Walter’s.

He tries to remember if he has any other boxes anywhere, which is complicated by the fact that he has no idea what he may have put in those boxes. He was under a lot of stress at the time, feeling like he was being followed all the time. Okay, says Olivia, we’re going into the FBI. At the office, Broyles finds Olivia and tells her that Raoul was at the VA in Washington, D.C. She wonders if another patient might have recruited him.

Massive Dynamic: they have discovered that Olivia may have some of John Scott’s memories – the same ones they’re looking for.

VA hospital: Olivia tries to get some information about Raoul’s fellow patients but the doctor won’t tell her anything. But a helpful orderly tells her that Raoul played chess with four other patients all the time and even writes down their names for her. Back at the FBI, they start to track down the other members of the VA hospital chess club, one of whom just bought a plane ticket to Providence.

The robbers are on the move. Back at the lab, Peter tricks his father into remembering what Providence bank his safe deposit box is at. In no time at all, Olivia and her federal agents are at the bank. (Wait a minute. How does she get around so quickly? First she’s at the D.C. hospital, then she’s at FBI HQ with Charlie – which is in Boston – and now she’s in Rhode Island. That is improbable at best.)

More realistically, the feds are too late getting to the bank and the robbers have gotten at the box. But they’re still in the alley loading their van when Olivia and Charlie find them. The van takes off, leaving one of the robbers behind. He runs for it but Olivia shoots him in the leg and takes him down.

Back at the hideaway, the troops are restless, upset at losing another guy, refusing to take orders until they understand what’s going on. Loeb shows them some piece of equipment that they don’t recognize, then makes a phone call: “He’s coming tonight.” Cut to Mr. Jones in the German prison, looking over the stuff that his lawyer has brought him. He’s pleased, but needs one more thing: Olivia Dunham.

Olivia pulls into the FBI garage; a man in the shadows reports in, “target in sight.” She goes upstairs to interrogate the robber she caught. Peter is observing and notices that the guy’s hands are shaking uncontrollably. Peter has an idea. He goes in, carrying two cups of water. He says all he wants is to see the guy’s hands … the guy has radiation poisoning. Peter outlines the further symptoms that the guy can expect – all of them awful – and the guy cracks. He doesn’t know anything: his boss has everything they need but he doesn’t know what for. He only overheard a phone call mentioning Westford. Olivia checks a map: there’s an airfield out in Westford called “Little Hill.” They connect the dots and mobilize the troops.

At the lab: Walter and Peter work on their relationship. I’m bored. Blah blah blah – Walter invented a time/space transporter machine. Walter thinks the machine is what he hid in the safe deposit boxes because, in theory, this machine could retrieve anyone from anywhere. Like a prisoner from a German prison maybe?

The robbers set up the transporter machine as the FBI races ever closer. In Germany, the Jones snaps his lawyer’s neck and puts on his fancy suit. En route to the airfield, several black SUVs intercept Olivia. When she makes a run for it, they hit her with a taser: target acquired. The robbers fire up the transporter. In Germany, Jones stands ready. There’s a bright light and WHOOSH, Jones is transported to Massachusetts. Olivia lies unconscious in the back of a black SUV.

Broyles calls Nina Sharp: I know you’ve captured Olivia and I want her back. How does he already know about this? Nina’s like, I totally don’t know what you’re talking about. Meanwhile, Loeb congratulates Jones on his successful trip. Jones inquires after Olivia and says that he’d rather not keep her waiting.

And now we’re Fringeless until January!