Episode Report Card Daniel: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Here Comes My Baby
By Daniel | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.25.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We leave our own universe, and the problem of Olivia's consciousness swimming to the surface of her own body at the end of last week's episode, for an adventure on Earth-2, with a pregnant Fauxlivia worried that the "viral propagated eclampsia" that killed her sister during childbirth over there is going to strike her too -- and then she's abducted. Walternate's concern for the fate of his future grandchild ensures that it's not too much of a surprise to find out that the person behind Fauxlivia's kidnapping is Walternate himself -- especially since Lincoln Lee and Charlie have determined that the kidnapping had to have been an inside job. Walter's sent a bunch of creepy medical types in to accelerate the pregnancy -- it works, even though Fauxlivia frees herself, and she gives birth in Chinatown, with the help of Lee and Henry the cab driver, whom Lee and Charlie came across as they tracked Fauxlivia down. His explanation of how he knows Fauxlivia revives the agents' earlier suspicions of the Olivia-switch, which are then confirmed by Walternate. He doesn't reveal his part in Fauxlivia's kidnapping, but Charlie and Lee are understandably a little bit suspicious of him now. And it's easy to spot the Observer this episode, because at the end, after Brandon has finagled a blood sample from the brand-spankin' new baby boy to give Walternate for some nefarious purpose, the Observer gets on his iPhone 7 and says, "It is happening."
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Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Fauxlivia's pregnancy was difficult, but at least it was over quickly. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The previouslies this week remind us all that Fauxlivia is pregnant -- an episode I missed recapping whilst on vacation but watched later -- and reacquaint us with Walternate's creepy proud-grandfather leer. So that means we're back on Earth-2 this week with Fauxlivia -- and, frustratingly, we're going to have to wait a few weeks to find out what happens with Bell's consciousness briefly losing control of Olivia's body, since the show's taking a couple of weeks off. In better news, Fringe has been renewed for a fourth season, so yay!
Anyway, Fauxlivia's getting a blood test down in an ob/gyn's office, while she watches some sort of shifting soothing-pictures-screensaver-as-artwork in the doctor's room. Fauxlivia's mom is there too, and the doctor says they'll have the test results by the end of the day. Fauxlivia's not expecting good news, as she points out that Rachel was a carrier for whatever, but Marilyn's having none of it, reminding Fauxlivia that she's not her sister and nothing is set in stone. She asks the doctor, Rosa, to talk to her, and Rosa tells her that "viral propagated eclampsia" is dormant until pregnancy and undetectable before eight to 10 weeks, which seems like something they obviously know, and that's why they're getting tested. "So until we get the results of today's screening, nothing is certain. You may not be a carrier at all," says Dr. Duh, like, again, THAT'S WHY THEY'RE DOING THE BLOOD TEST, and Fauxlivia points out that it's 80 percent likely that she does have it, and Dr. Rosa says that's the average. Yeah, so it could be even likelier that she has it? Which part of this is supposed to make Fauxlivia feel better? Marilyn looks like she didn't actually know the statistical likelihood that Fauxlivia has VPE. Dr. Rosa just tells the both of them to take it one step at a time, which must mean that she has other patients to attend to so the two of them need to take the mother-daughter arguing elsewhere.
Which they do, in the car driving back to Fauxlivia's place, with Marilyn saying there's still a chance Fauxlivia doesn't have it, but Fauxlivia reminds her of the odds against that and tells her there are only a handful of cases where either a mother or a baby survive delivery. I initially missed the "a mother" part of that statement when I watched the episode the first time, so I didn't catch Fauxlivia's "Mom, I'm getting an abortion" subtext (Marilyn's glare clearly conveys what she thinks of that option), and I thought that her pointing out her job being all-consuming and not conducive to parenting was mostly about Fauxlivia trying not to get her hopes up.