Loeb's putting the wall-penetrating device to nefarious use: robbing banks. Or, at least, raiding a safe-deposit box at each of the banks he hits. When one of his team members gets caught halfway through a wall (Loeb puts him out of his misery with a bullet to the head), the Fringe team comes in. Olivia thinks she recognizes the dead thief as an old Marine buddy, but its John Scott's memories intruding again. Since she's got too many memories, maybe she can give some to Walter, who has forgotten about the safe-deposit boxes that he rented several years ago.
Eventually he does remember, and the team heads to Portland to try to foil the final robbery, but they're too late. So what was in the boxes? Money? Stocks? Bonds? Old baseball cards? No: pieces of equipment for a machine that Walter built that could theoretically reach across the space-time continuum. Walter thought it would be useful in order to obtain a specialist to tend to a gravely ill Peter. Loeb and his men use the equipment, which was theoretical and untested, mind you, to free David Jones from Science Prison. Jones has already arranged for the abduction of Olivia, which Broyles at first blames on Nina Sharp. She takes offense at that, and wants to see Olivia unharmed as well, because she and her Frankenstein team have figured out that some of the John Scott memories they're looking for are actually in Olivia's head. The biggest question that this episode leaves unanswered is: Why do we have to wait until JANUARY for more?
A gang of black-clad desperadoes efficiently makes its way through the Philadelphia Mutual Savings Bank, disarming the security cameras and alarms. Unfortunately, there's no laser grid criss-crossing the floor, which would have the benefit of providing more security AND looking cool. The gang's led by Loeb, so anyone who was watching a couple of episodes ago probably knows what to expect. They stop outside the ginormous safe and start setting up tripods and cameras and wires and cables -- more equipment than your average weekend summer rock festival. And then suddenly they're "good to go" and somebody taps some keys on a computer and the curtain thing they've attached to the side of the safe starts humming and vibrating. Apparently, the oscillations are good, and then one of the computer guys says he's "ready to open the grid," and then the "resonance is set." "Give me the grid," says Loeb, and two of his cronies pull the curtain apart from either side and tie it, leaving a diamond-shaped space in the middle. Someone shoots a gun that sends a cable flying through the wall, and then draws taut. "Magnet firm," says someone. Loeb and a couple of other dudes pull hoods up over their heads and put on goggles. He asks how much time they have, and some other guy says, "Confirming density and thickness." That's what she said! Then he says, "A minute forty-one." That's what sh--...
Anyway, Loeb and his two co-thieves crawl through the wall along the cable, coming out of the wall like they're coming out of a milk bath. Inside are rows and rows of safe-deposit boxes. Loeb's looking for 610, and eventually finds it (it was between 609 and 611), and they blast it open, freeing a metal box. "Thirty-five seconds," says Capt. Timekeeper. They attach the metal box to the cable and one of the guys slides it through. On the other side, he says, and slides it through the wall. On the other side, he checks his watch. "They better move or they're not going to make it," he says, even though I'm sure the original 1:41 passed ages ago. Inside, Lugo can't get the magnetized cable to disengage from the wall. "You go, I'm right behind you," he tells Loeb, who goes through to the other side. It's been like ten minutes at this point, but buddy says, "Fifteen seconds, what the hell's he doing?" Loeb tells them he's stuck. "He can't leave that in there. We're screwed if he does," says the guy. Well, yeah, THAT'S WHY HE'S STILL IN THERE. He finally pulls the cable free. "We got slack," says the dudes on the other side, and now it's a countdown as if the most recent fifteen seconds didn't run out like a minute ago. The other guys pull Lugo through, but he only makes it halfway before there's a sound like rubber being stretched and he cries out, caught in the wall. He looks up at Loeb, who shakes his head. "Grab everything. Let's go," says Loeb to the others, and they start to pack up. And about as emotionally as the way you dump water on your campfire embers, Loeb pulls out a gun and shoots a protesting Lugo in the head. I bet he longs for the moment when they were only worried about leaving a cable in the wall. "Let's go," he says. And the other guys aren't too quick to react, so he has to shout it. What are you going to do, shoot them? Oh, yes, quite possibly. Never mind.
After the opening credits and commercial break, the Fringe gang is walking up the steps into the bank, with Peter saying to Olivia, "What do you mean, you don't have one? Everybody's got one. Even I've got one," and Walter guesses that he's talking about a spleen, so you can only imagine that Peter makes a snide comment about his father, and how Walter doesn't just erupt every thirty seconds or so is beyond me, but Walter now thinks Olivia has asplenia, which is a rare genetic condition in which one is born spleen-less, and this is by far more times that I've heard the word "spleen" used than in my entire life up until now, and anyway Peter's talking about a "best friend," which is what Olivia says she doesn't have. She asks if a sister counts. "Of course a sister doesn't count," says Peter, although I really think a sister could count, and maybe Peter would know that if had a sister. Or maybe he has one. Or maybe he had one, and Walter injected her with some substance during a crazy experiment and she's actually now pure electricity and bottled in a jar. Olivia says she's always just enjoyed being on her own: "Even when I was at boarding school, they used to call me 'Han.'" "As in 'Solo'? That's cute. At least you had a nickname," says Peter. Oh, Peter. "Rent boy" is a kind of nickname too, Peter.
As usual, Broyles is already there to get a head start on the glowering. He's on his cellphone, asking someone to call him as soon as possible. It's sort of funny that they were talking about Han Solo, because the guy coming out of the wall kind of looks like when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite. Walter is as usual fascinated by the grisly death scene before him. Broyles says a security guard was also killed, and the surveillance cameras were disabled.
"This incident may be related to a recent series of bank robberies. This would be the third," he says, and I hate to tell Broyles that "two" is hardly a "series." Anyway, the other robberies were in Cleveland and Baltimore. "I was in Baltimore. I remember a woman with particularly large breasts," he says. Man, I wish I were crazy and could just go around spouting stuff. I'd just, you know, randomly wander into restaurants and start yelling about how long it takes to get some freakin' nachos.
In each robbery, a single oversized safe deposit box has been taken, all without so much as a breach of the vault, Broyles tells them. He's got a call in to the bank manager (surely it should be managers?) to trace the boxes: "The who, what and why ... that's you." But you know who's already got the "who"? Olivia. As Walter examines the guy's face, Olivia says she knows him. "Let me guess. He's your best friend," says Peter, but Olivia's being serious. "You knew this man? My condolences," says Walter, right after noting that they're going to have to cut him -- or pieces of him -- out of the wall. Olivia says the guy's name is Raul Lugo, and he was in her first unit in the marines. And she remembers more: "He's from Jersey. He's married. His wife's named Susan. He plays baseball. He lives in Edison. He used to work on the docks. Union's been on strike. He's down on his luck. It's tough. Oooh, so tough." Olivia says she's been to his house. Well, she should have suspected something wasn't right when it turns out the house has no doors.
Back at Loeb's gang's hideout, one of the crew members is bitching about leaving Lugo behind: "Bullet in the head or no, leaving a guy halfway stuck in the wall wasn't the most professional move." Loeb says he thought it was a nice touch. "We had another grid. We should have tried to get him out," says the guy. Loeb ignores this to ask the guy examining the box how he's getting along. "Crappy. Self-sealing bolts, magnetic tumblers, some kind of old-school chromo-alloy. Someone really didn't want this opened," he says. He figures it'll take a couple of hours to get it open. Mitchell turns back to Mr. Leaving A Corpse Halfway Through a Wall Is a Bad Idea and says they've got one more box to go: "If your bitching about Raul is your way of saying you want out, then go. Otherwise, inject yourself and shut your mouth." Tsk! Someone needs work on his managerial motivation skills!
Over now to Science Prison in Germany, where David Jones awaits his lawyer, who looks like the child of Clive Owen and Mr. Bean. No, I don't know how that would work. "Mr. Kohl. Please come in," he says, practically hissing.
So we're at a fake big-box hardware store called Tool Rack because Peter and Walter need some tools for removing people from safe walls. Walter's giddy at the size of the place, and calls it unprecedented. Peter says, "Actually, it's completely precedented. There are stores like this everywhere, W
alter. All around the world, in every city," somehow forgetting that his dad has been locked up for a long time. "Well, if anyone knows that, it's you," says Walter, which Peter takes great offence too. Walter says he just meant that Peter has traveled extensively. "No, you were implying that I haven't stayed still much in the last fifteen years," he says, and rattles off another too-perfectly-composed monologue (not that Joshua Jackson isn't used to those, though, I suppose) about Walter being disappointed that Peter hasn't made more out of his life. "That's what you're implying," says Peter. "Yes, I suppose so," says Walter, quietly. Oh, but Peter's nowhere near done. He snarls that the reason the store seems like such a miracle to him is that he's spent the better part of the last two decades locked up, and blah blah blah, you don't know me, blah blah blah, your fatherly judgments are moot, wah wah wah.The touching father-son moment is interrupting by an employee who asks if she can help them find anything. "We're looking for an electric saw, preferably with variable speed and an easily replaceable blade system," says Walter. She asks if they're cutting wood. "Human tissue. Flesh and bone. It's more sinuous than you may expect," says Walter. Hee. Peter does his best to laugh it off and tells her that it's not that dire, with Walter muttering that it's potentially far worse. She brightly says that the serial killer saws are around the corner, to the routers. She turns and starts to walk up the stairs to the second level. "No need to call the police," says Peter. She doesn't say a word, just quickens her pace.
While David Jones sketches a portrait of a woman, attorney Clive Bean Kohl tells him the sentencing is scheduled for week: "As I told you before, I think the best we can hope for is life." Life sounds pretty good! Kohl starts to talk about filing an appeal, but Jones interrupts to ask if his "people" have any news for me. Kohl: "Yes, they said that the job in Philadelphia was successful." From the look on the lawyer's face, he's clearly figuring that something was stolen or someone got killed, or likely both, but he's not going to ask that question. Jones says to tell them that they are to wire Loeb another $100,000 and to inform him of the location of the item. "I'll pass that along," says Kohl, hoping all the money he's getting paid will help him sleep tonight.
Anyway, Kohl's got the appeal for him to sign, and passes it over, but instead of signing it, he flips it over and starts writing on it. Kohl asks him what he's doing. "Items that I will need upon your visit. My people will provide them for you." "Dramamine? Suntan lotion? What are these for?" asks Kohl, but Jones icily interrupts him to say, "As my employee, it really is none of your concern, now, is it?" Kohl swallows. His pride, his ethics. Then Jones asks what suit size Kohl is. "Forty long," says Kohl, doing his best not to appear absolutely terrified. Jones writes down the address of his personal tailor: "He'll fix up something nice for you. My way of saying thank you for all you've done for me." What, blood money isn't enough?
Over in Edison, Olivia rings the doorbell of Susan Lugo. "Olivia. Olivia Dunham," she says. "Hello," says Susan. Olivia tells her she has some bad news.
Sitting down in the living room, a saddened Susan says Raul moved out about two years ago, and they hadn't spoken in months. "You know, I am so sorry. And please forgive me, but did he mention these robberies?" asks Olivia. Susan says no, but she's not surprised: "Ever since he came back from the war, he was just dark. Depression, drinking ... and I tried to help the best way I could, I swear to god, but..." Olivia asks if she knew any of his recent friends, because she hadn't seen Raul in years. "You knew Raul?" says Susan, and Olivia's all, "Of course! We served together in the marines." Susan says she didn't know. "We have met before," says Olivia. She says she had dinner here. "It took me a while to remember because it was so long ago, but Raul and I met at Camp Pendleton. And we had dinner here, the night that he became first lieutenant." Susan says, uh, no you weren't. Olivia says she was: "And you were a wonderful host. You made pot roast..." "...and it burned. Yes, and we had to order in." Olivia talks about how the delivery guy dropped the bag. And she describes how the place was decorated differently then. Susan: "Yes, I remember, but you were not here. The day Raul made first lieutenant, it was just me, Raul and John." Oh, no. Raul's friend from Pendleton, John. "John who?" asks Olivia, thinking, Don't say John Scott, don't say John Scott, don't say John Scott. But that is of course what Susan says. Olivia, stunned, looks around the room. "Are you OK?" asks Susan. And if you're done being crazy, can you get out of my house?
Back at the bank, Walter is having at Raul with the power saw, Peter holding a tray underneath to catch blood spatter ... and the HAND. Nice clean cut by Walter! As Walter checks the thing out, he tells Peter that what he said before didn't come out as I intended. "What, the crack about the breasts?" Yeah, let's get back to the breasts. Walter says he was talking about his disappointment in Peter: "It has more to do with your potential than anything else. You have no idea what you're capable of, Peter." Walter's trying to apologize here, so Peter's kind of a dick to say, "That's sweet, Walter, but ultimately unfair, especially coming from you."
Before he has a chance to rip on his dad further, Olivia strolls up to ask what they've got so far. Hey, can Peter give you a hand? Hee! Walter's really got to hand it to you! What, nothing? Oh, this bit is wasted on you. Peter says, "Walter seems to think that if we can examine this guy's flesh at the cellular level, we might be able to figure out how it is that they pass through solid matter." I know! It's like how the Flash used to do it: vibrate his body so fast that his individual molecules could pass by the individual molecules in solid objects. Walter's got a slightly different, more existential take: "What we perceive as solid matter is mostly empty space. Just as we may perceive that a life is full that is actually a series of empty encounters." Peter tells Olivia, "He's been like that all day. It's been awesome." Walter, putting the hand in a blue plastic bag, says the bank robbers would need cutting-edge knowledge of quantum physics, "not to mention technology that would cost more than a dozen banks could hold." Speaking of that, Loeb's only getting $100,000 per job when he can WALK THROUGH WALLS? Peter asks Olivia how things went with Raul's wife, and Olivia tells him about the depression she said he'd been suffering. Olivia herself seems rather subdued, so Peter asks if she's all right. She says she's good, but Walter is suddenly up in her face too, saying her pupils are dilated, which is a symptom of high stress. "Unless you're using hallucinogens," he adds, and then asks, smirking, "Are you tripping, Agent Dunham?"
Olivia tells them she didn't recognize Lugo. John Scott did. Walter gets it right away, that she's confusing his memories with her own; she's never met the guy, but could have sworn she has. "That, I don't understand that. I need to look into that," says Walter. Oh, sure, but when Olivia came to you the other night it was too dangerous!
Over at the thieves' hideout, power tools are being used on the container that came from the safe deposit box, and finally the front falls off. "Nice job," says Loeb. Not so nice that he's going to let the crew ever see what's in the boxes, though: "And even if I did, you wouldn't understand it," he says. Thanks, boss! You know, it's a team of guys setting up technology to WALK THROUGH WALLS. I imagine they can handle whatever's inside. Anyway, Buddy leaves, and Loeb opens the box. We don't get to see what's inside either, but whatever it is, it appears to have brought Mitchell Loeb to orgasm.
Really quick scene of Nina visitin
g Bright White Minimalist Labs Inc., where a technician tells her they've hit a dead end (no pun intended, I presume) trying to reconstruct John Scott's memories: "If we push further, we risk destroying the fragments we're trying to retrieve." Nina's all, no pressure, "but we're in a race against highly motivated individuals. And right now, John Scott is our only advantage." The technician says she understands. Do you understand that Nina figures if you kill yourself over the pressure it's pretty much just the cost of doing business?Back at Walter's lab, the mad doctor is going through a box of toys. He's got one of those old Coleco electric football games that vibrates, upon which he sticks a beaker and fills it with rice. "So, why did you need me to go get all that rice?" asks Peter. Walter pulls a toy gun from the box: "No talking!" he snarls, in a pretty good old-timey gangster voice. No, seriously, says Peter. "And while I'm at it, what's with all the toys?" Walter says they were in his storage (one of the magical hidey holes he's got all over the city, I guess). "They're your toys, son, from when you were a little boy." Not my toys, says Peter. Walter figures that they must be his own then, but then starts babbling about the piece of netting that was found left in the bank. "I believe the swatch left behind was from a larger piece that was draped over the vault wall." He thinks that's the key, although he's not exactly sure just how, and at any rate he's distracted by finding a little G.I. Joe or something. He sticks it atop the rice in the beaker. "This gentleman is standing on what appears to be solid. However, add vibration..." He turns on the football game, and as it vibrates, the doll sinks into the rice. I'm quite envious of this. "Of what?" says Peter, who, being allegedly a genius himself should have already figured it out, but Walter explains it to him: "Somehow the robbers were able to weaken the vault wall. High-frequency vibrations disrupting its atomic structure, allowing another piece of solid matter through it." Like the Flash! Astrid looks skeptical, and Walter says in actuality the feat would be immensely complicated and apparently not without consequences: "It seems that use of this technology can render one slightly radioactive," says Walter, turning on a Geiger counter that crackles as he waves it over the hand. I'm no scientist, but isn't it something of a presumption to go from a) this person attempted to go through a wall and b) this person is radioactive to mean that this person is radioactive because he tried to go through a wall? Again, I'm no scientist. But it's not going to matter. Walter asks Astrid (known as "Miss" today) to put the hand on ice to help preserve the tissue.
Peter wants to be clear: "The robbers have managed to not only violate the natural laws of the universe, but they're also becoming radioactive?" This is when Olivia comes in, and Peter brings her up to speed as uselessly as he can by telling her that the robbers are radioactive and that he's been out buying rice for Walter's toys. Astrid, who goofs off a lot less than the rest of them, asks Olivia if she got any leads on the safe deposit boxes. Olivia says they were all purchased twenty-three years ago: "All paid for in cash, bogus names on each account." She says the safe-deposit boxes are untraceable, and then asks Astrid to call hospitals in the Philadelphia area to ask them to call if anyone comes in showing signs of radiation poisoning. "Yeah, I'm on it," says Astrid.
"So what's our move?" asks Peter. Olivia says Raul was a good guy before the military, with a clean record and responsible employee. "I want to know how he became a criminal. Why they recruited him and what they promised him." Susan gave her some names, and in an amazing coincidence, his best friend from high school works at a bar in Cambridge. Peter perks up at the words "bar in Cambridge," and then suddenly the two of them are running out the door, with an unimpressed Astrid left to babysit Walter, who says, "Now, Miss, I'm going to repeat the demonstration with the rice. Would you care to watch?" Astrid gives him a flat no, but it doesn't dampen his enthusiasm a bit, and he keeps playing with his electric football.
Olivia and Peter walk into the bar, which is filled with people, and Olivia tells him to "go along with this, OK?" "Sure thing, boss," says Peter. They belly up to the bar, and Olivia gives a big friendly hello to the bartender and orders a double-shot of whiskey. The bartender asks Peter, who says he'll have the "same as the lady." Olivia introduces herself: "I'm Stephanie. This is my brother Rick." Peter amusingly falters slightly when he finds out he's playing the role of "brother" instead of "sex partner." He's even more nonplussed when he goes in for a "cheers" with Olivia, who's already pounded hers back and is asking for another while giving the bartender the "you look familiar" routine. She asks him if he's sure they haven't met before, and he says he doesn't think so. He's Drew. "Drew, I got to tell you, I never forget a face." Peter says it's true, and kinda creepy. And finally "Stephanie" "remembers": "Raul and Susan's wedding!" Drew's impressed that she remembers he was the best man. Peter, who wants to BLOW THEIR COVER, apparently, says, "It's incredible, right? She's been able to do that since we were kids. Remember that?" He all but WINKS at her and gives her the okey-dokey sign.
Olivia tells Drew that she lost contact with Susan. She asks where they're living now. Drew says he doesn't know, but heard they split up, but he's not surprised: "Raul got weird." Weird how, asks Olivia. Drew figures it was post-traumatic stress from the Gulf War: "When he got back, he didn't come around much. He started hanging out at the VA a lot." He doesn't know which one, and then is called away down the bar. "Brother," says Peter, like GET OVER IT, Peter. Olivia says, "It kind of works better that way." Peter appears unconvinced. Olivia gives a quick call to Broyles, who is sitting glaring some paperwork into submission, and asks him to find out which VA hospital Raul Lugo might have gone to. "There was nothing in any of his records," says Broyles. Olivia knows; that's why she's calling him. Broyles says he'll do what he can, and will have an answer for her in an hour. Olivia hangs up and fills Peter in, and moves to go. Peter asks what the rush is: "Two is your limit?" "Is that a dare?" I wonder how Broyles will react when he calls back in an hour and Olivia's shitfaced like a freshman during orientation weekend.
Back at the hideout, the crew is playing ... chess? Classy. One of them's saying that he took a look at Loeb's papers while he was checking out whatever was in the box they grabbed: "It's a map of Germany. Frankfurt. Lines all over it." You mean, like on a MAP? "Looks like he's planning a damn invasion." "I got ," says the third guy, who starts to light a cigarette, but Loeb comes in to tell them they're headed out to Providence. Judging from the way the smoker's hands are shaking, it's going to take him at least that long just to light the cigarette.
Back at the bar, Olivia and Peter are trying to impress each other with card-counting and magic tricks, and I hope Drew the bartender doesn't happen to look over and see the brother and sister FLIRTING with each other for God's sake. Peter's pretty amazed by Olivia's card-counting ability, and she says it was all she would do when I was a kid. Well, no freaking WONDER you never had a best friend. "I'm sure that if I were a child today, I would be diagnosed with something. I just have this thing for numbers. I see them once and remember them the rest of my life." She starts rattling off the license plate of her best friend from high school, even though she never HAD a best friend, her locker combination, the numbers of the safe-deposit boxes: 233, 377 and 610. Peter recognizes them, asks to repeat them. She does. "I know those numbers," he says.
So Peter shakes awake Walter who apparently left the lab as soon as Olivia and Peter left and went back to the hotel room to go to bed? As he comes to, he sees Peter and Olivia standing there. "Oh. Do you two want to use the room?" No, it's a brother-sister thing, Walter, don't worry. Peter asks him about the numbers he recites every night to help him fall asleep, and prompts him with 233, 377, 610. Walter keeps it going with 987 and 1,597. "What is that pattern?" asks Peter. "It's the Fibonacci sequence. You should know that, Peter, if you had stayed at college." Olivia tells Walter that not everybody knows th
e Fibonacci sequence. "Oh, sure they do. It's a wildly famous mathematical sequence." And also a cellphone ring! Walter explains that each number in the sequence is the sum of the two preceding numbers. Peter tells him the safe-deposit boxes that were stolen just happen to have numbers that correspond to the sequence. Walter says it's fascinating, but a coincidence. "It can't possibly be significant, unless..." he says, sitting up, suddenly remembering something. "The safety deposit boxes are mine," he says.After a commercial break, Walter is muttering "Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia" to himself, with Olivia asking if there are any other boxes that haven't been broken into yet. Walter says he doesn't know, because he can't remember why he was putting things into the boxes. "So let me get this straight," says Peter, and I hope by now it's part of the Fringe drinking game that you drink whenever Peter says "let me get this straight" or "just so I'm clear" and the like. Anyway: "You can remember traveling around the country twenty-three years ago, renting all these safety deposit boxes under assumed names, but you can't remember why?" Peter always forgets his dad is mentally ill when it's time to give him hell for something, doesn't he? Walter says whatever it was, it must have been of "profound significance," since he didn't use his usual hiding places. "Well, excellent. That clears it right up," says Peter, who should feel free to shut up any time he likes. Walter, testily, says he was under a lot of stress at the time, which was before the lab assistant was killed in the accident. He sits down on the bed, and takes out a little vial of something that he dumps in the glass of (presumably) water on his bedside table. "I was ... distrustful of everybody. William Bell, your mother. I was convinced I was being followed. Someone was watching my every move." He drinks the water. Peter asks him what medication that was. "My supplements," he says. Olivia asks if he told anyone else, but the answer appears to be no: "I told you I was paranoid," he says already seeming a lot more relaxed. Olivia tells him to get dressed: they're going out.
Over to the federal building, where Charlie, who does an awful lot of work with the Fringe team for a guy who supposedly doesn't have all the clearance, gives Walter a bunch of photographs of banks in the Syracuse area, because in 1985 he gave a lecture there, according to his travel records. "Does any of this trigger anything in your mind?" Walter, kinda giddy, turns around and says, "Yes, but not about banks. Think back twenty years. Imagine yourself then, imagining yourself now, twenty years into the future. In your wildest imagination, could you ever think you'd be here?" Charlie quietly asks Olivia if Walter's stoned. Olivia just tells Charlie to show him the other batch of photos, and to be patient with him: "His mind works in a different way." Charlie watches Walter actually lick the photograph. All Charlie wants is for Walter to not take any sensitive FBI equipment and turn it into a bong, for god's sake.
Broyles strolls up to tell Olivia that after Raul split from his wife, he moved to D.C., where he was an in-patient at the VA there for six months. The records say he didn't have any visitors: "I don't know what that does to your theory he was recruited there." Unless it was by another patient, suggests Olivia.
Back at Blindingly White Labs Inc., Nina check in with the technician again, who says when they tried to access Schott's hippocampus, his "brain-wave echo" suddenly became erratic, inconsistent in ways they'd never seen. Nina asked what caused it. "We managed to resolve the last image in Agent Scott's optic nerve before he died. This image is linked to a second set of brainwave echoes," she says. She hands a file to Nina, who opens it to find a blurry picture of Olivia. "They must have somehow shared consciousness," she says, adding that if that's the case, some of John Scott's memories, perhaps the ones they need ... "...are in Agent Dunham's mind," concludes Nina.
Over to the VA hospital, where Olivia asks an orderly where Dr. Bruce Miller is. The orderly points. "Thank you for establishing yourself in the scene," says Olivia, before heading over to talk to the doctor. She says she wants to talk to him about Raul, and he tells her he can't violate patient confidentiality. Olivia tells him Raul is dead, his right to confidentiality no longer applies. "I'm investigating his death, and I need to know about his friends, anyone he was doing therapy with, or people that he got close to." Dr. Miller points out that other current and former patients are still alive, so confidentiality does apply to them. "Unless they're involved in ongoing criminal activity, in which case it's his duty to release those records. "What crimes?" he says, and Olivia gives him a BS "I'm not authorized to tell you that," and tries to bullshit him, and he says he has two-dozen patients to see before he can go home to dinner. "And I'm not about to violate my ethical duty based on your say-so." He says he'll help her out if she comes back with a federal subpoena. Goddamn doctor and his respect for patients' rights!
While the doctor leaves to examine his precious patients, Olivia takes out her cellphone and starts to make a call, when she's stopped by the orderly. "He liked to play chess, Raul," he says, adding that there are four people in Raul's little Chess Club. Olivia asks if he remembers their names, and the orderly tells her to get a pencil.
Back at the hideout, the remaining seventy-five per cent of the chess club plus Loeb head out, getting in the van. The smoking guy sits down, and is too busy being freaked out by his shaking hand that Loeb has to yell at him to close the door.
At the federal building, Charlie's got the agents following up on leads related to the other members of the chess club, including Robert Norton, a captain in the Air Force, honorably discharged in April '04, and Evan McNeil, whose wife says her husband's away on business and she hasn't heard from him in two days. Charlie gets something solid: "One of our vets bought three one-way tickets to T.F. Green Airport in Providence." Olivia asks when they land. "Forty-seven minutes ago," says Charlie.
Olivia calls the lab, where Walter isn't even bothering to pretend that playing Coleco football is work anymore, and he's showing Astrid how to brush that damn COW. Olivia tells Peter that they think the robbery is going to happen in Providence, and she asks him to see if that jogs Walter's memory. Peter asks his dad if he rented any boxes in Providence. "I don't believe so, no. I'm sorry, Peter. I have tried everything to remember. I understand how important it is, and I am quite disappointed with myself."
Peter doesn't seem convinced, asks Olivia to hold on, and tries a more roundabout method, once Astrid finishes bitching about how she has too much real work to do to brush the cow's teeth as Walter suggests. Peter asks his dad which bank he'd use if he were going to rent a safe-deposit box in Providence. "That would have to be the Fairmont Savings Bank, off Westminster Street. It's the only one with safe-deposit boxes big enough for my purposes," he says absentmindedly, and then realizes what Peter just did. "Well done, son." Peter, grinning, relays the info to Olivia.
At the bank, Charlie introduces him and Olivia to Sam Martin of Providence SAC, and I don't know what SAC stands for. Secret Agent Clank? Special Agent in Charge? He tells them all surrounding streets are locked down, and his men are, per their request, checking all shared walls and alleys. Then he introduces the agents to the bank manager, a nervous fellow named Mr. Grimes, who says they've had no alarms or signs of forced entry. Any black-clad bank robbers sticking out of walls? As they enter the vault, the bank manager lists off their security measures: cameras, motion detectors, sensors that detect fractional variances in ambient temperature. Charlie says, "They might be disabling t
hat wirelessly. Shooting you a feedback loop of old data while they stop and shop." Then the bank manager sees it: black scorch marks on box number 987, the number in the Fibonacci sequence. Secret Agent Clank angrily heads out of the vault, saying the safe walls are internal to the bank, so the thieves must still be in the perimeter. Charlie points out how difficult the layout of the bank is, and that there are multiple walls on either side. "They wouldn't have time to breach them all," he says. Because he knows how long it takes to vibrate through a safe?Olivia asks the bank manager what's underneath. Nothing -- it's the basement, just two feet of steel and then the foundation, says Grimes. "Everything under that belongs to the city: gas mains, sewer, electric. "Sewer," says Olivia, and Charlie gets on the horn to the providence police department to tell them he needs the closest sewer line exit to Fairmont Savings Bank.
That would be where the crew is exiting, and loading all their stuff back into the van, when Charlie yells, "FBI! Freeze!" and just starts SHOOTING, taking out a taillight on the van, which peels out, leaving one of the guys chasing it. "Come on, man! Come on, you can do it!" yells his buddy, like SLOW THE VAN DOWN or just GET OUT OF HERE ALREADY! He's not going to make it, though, because Olivia shoots him in the leg, and the rest of the team doesn't exactly have a "no man left behind" policy. The van screeches out of there while Olivia and Charlie catch up with wounded man, Charlie screaming into his walkie-talkie, and I guess we'll see if Secret Agent Clank did a good job of locking down the streets.
Nope, sure didn't; the gang's back at the hideout, and they're having a spaz about losing another member. Loeb tells them to shut up and take their shots, because he wants the box open now. "Not until you show me what this is all about!" yells the safecracker. Loeb saunters over and flips open the other box, which has some kind of complex thing that looks kind of like surveyor's equipment, or a special camera. "One guy dead, another put away, for that? A camera or something? What the hell is it?" he says. Loeb gives him some advice: "Don't pry into things you couldn't possibly understand." Into his cellphone, he says, "We're on. He's coming tonight."
Over at Science Prison, Kohl has brought Jones a briefcase with the stuff he asked for, and it's all specially fitted into the briefcase with straps. Fancy! Jones notes that he didn't take Jones up on his offer to go see his tailor. "No, I like this suit. It's always been lucky for me," says Kohl. Jones smiles and says he can appreciate that. He tells Kohl to come back tomorrow morning at six-thirty with the appeal, and he'll sign it then. "Oh, and wear one of your lucky suits," he says. Kohl asks if there will be anything else, and Jones says he'll need his people to procure one last item. "And what would that be?" asks Kohl. "Not a 'what,' Mr. Kohl. In this case, a 'whom.'" Um, you're the one who used the word "item," you creepy douchebag. He slides over a sketch of what I suppose is Olivia, if Olivia had wild hair and bushy eyebrows.
That's more or less confirmed when we watch, from some shady character's perspective, Olivia pull up in a parking garage. "Target in sight," he says.
Inside, Olivia's interrogating the thief, Ryan Eastwick, telling him they've got his service record and know everything about him: "Except what it was that you wanted so badly you'd walk through a solid wall." Eastwick responds by giving his name, rank and serial number. "You're not a POW, Eastwick. You're a criminal," says Olivia. Charlie and Peter watch from the observation room, with Peter pointing out that Eastwick's hands are shaking. Charlie attributes that to Olivia wearing him down. Yeah, she's not exactly Jack Bauer in there, Charlie. Peter thinks it's physiological, and asks Charlie to call Olivia out for a couple of minutes so he can try something. "I wasn't aware you had a background in interrogation," says Charlie. No, but he does have higher clearance, Charlie. Jealous? Peter says he's been in rooms like that on both sides of the table, and this'll either work or it won't, and either way it'll just take a couple of minutes.
So instead of just KNOCKING ON THE DOOR, Charlie text-messages her, for crying out loud, saying Peter wants to give it a try. Looking skeptical, she walks out the door, and passes Peter. "We lose him, we lose time. We lose everything," she says. Thanks for the pep talk, Olivia, but I didn't see YOU getting anywhere with him.
Peter walks in, carrying a couple of Styrofoam cups. "Look, you're a tough guy, I'm a tough guy..." he starts, because I think maybe his plan is to disable Eastwick with uncontrollable LAUGHTER. Anyway, he just wants Eastwick to show him his hands. Eastwick doesn't respond, so Peter says, "Let me see if any of this rings a bell for you. You've been shaking uncontrollably, you vomited at least twice in the last ten hours, and this morning you found hair on your pillow because it's starting to fall out." This strikes a chord with Eastwick, who asks, "What's wrong with me?" Senior year at university? Oh, no, that was ME.
Peter tells him he's got radiation poisoning, but right now he's in the "walking ghost" phase. "Which I suggest you enjoy 'cause it's a hell of a lot better than the intestinal bleeding, delirium and coma phase you're gonna hit in a couple of days. You violated the laws of physics, Mr. Eastwick, and Mother Nature's a bitch." Eastwick puts his shaking hands on the table. "Are you a doctor?" Peter says first he needs to know what he was hired to steal. Psst! Eastwick! That means, "No, I'm not a doctor but I don't want you to know that." Eastwick says the guy, who didn't tell them his name, didn't tell them what they were stealing. "We were freelance, hired out. He equipped us, trained us. I can tell you the names of the others, but it doesn't matter anyway. He's got everything he needs now." To do what, asks Peter, and Eastwick asks if Peter's going to help him. "What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go on the other side of that glass and I'm gonna watch you bleed out, unless you tell me everything I need to know!" Eastwick says all he knows is that he overheard a phone conversation, and the guy's going to a field in Westford. He doesn't know what field, and then he pleads for some medicine or a specialist, but Peter ignores him and walks out, looking at Olivia through the glass, all, "How you like me now?"
Back in the office, Charlie is whining about how Westford is thirty square miles, so how are they supposed to find one field? Olivia, looking at the map, has it already: "There's an abandoned air strip out there. It's called Little Hill Field." "Little Hill" is the codeword Joseph Smith (not the father of Mormonism) gave to David Jones a few weeks ago. "It can't be a coincidence, Charlie," she says. She tells him to come in from the west, and she'll take the south. Charlie starts to yell again, which I think he really likes to do: "I need every available unit for field assist! Let's move, move, move!"
Back at the lab, Walter's looking through his files to try to find out what he hid in the boxes. "I kept very thorough records," he tells Peter, who throws a book down in frustration. "Unfortunately not very organized records," he says. He sits down and starts flipping a coin across his knuckles, which his father calls impressive. What's even more impressive is how Peter's arms and torso have been replaced by someone altogether, wearing the same clothes. Peter calls it a nervous tic, and then he makes the coin disappear and asks Walter to pick the hand, because ten episodes in all of a sudden Peter is David Copperfield. Then Peter notices his dad staring gravely at him, so we know we're going to be walking down memory lane with Walter. "You nearly died when you were a boy. You started bruising, and your kidneys failed," he says. Just once, can't it be a funny story about something Peter said at a family reunion? Walter says the doctors didn't know what it
was, and their closest guess was hepea, which is a rare form of bird flu that hadn't been around for decades. Peter's mother was beside herself, and Walter was even worse, because he's a scientist, and he can't do anything about his son dying. "Walter, I don't remember any of this," says Peter, but Walter's on a roll now, talking like he's only just remembering it. He says he became obsessed with conquering the disease, and discovered a doctor, Alfred Gross, who was the only physician to ever successfully treat hepea. But he died in 1936.The music's swelling to kinda ridiculous levels as Walter says he designed a device to "reach back in time, to cross the time-space continuum and retrieve Alfred Gross. To bring him back with me, to fix you, my dying son." Walter thinks the device is what's hidden in the safe deposit boxes. Peter, realizing that he is in fact alive, asks his dad if the device worked: "You were able to go back to 1936 and get this guy," he says. Walter says before he could test it, Peter started to recover on his own. "But the science behind it, in theory, it would work. In theory, it could retrieve anyone from anywhere," says Walter. To borrow a phrase from Peter, I just want to see if I understand this: Walter built some sort of time-teleportation machine, but because Peter got better, he NEVER TESTED IT? Of course, this was right before he went to the mental hospital, I guess, so... but still. I mean, Jesus. Should have used the time-teleportation machine to get yourself Clarence Darrow for the defense, Walter.
Things are starting to roll now: Olivia's on her way, using the GPS in her car for directions. Meanwhile, Loeb's crew is setting up by what is presumably the hangar for the air strip. Psst, Olivia! Just look for the building that has "Little Hill Field" in giant letters floating above it! Loeb's men set up the camera/surveying-looking things while Loeb calls out coordinates. "Horizontal angle 33.33 grad," says one of the guys, looking through the lens, which gives some kind of thermal-looking readout. They're good to go, apparently. It's great that these guys are all such experts in using the time-teleportation device that until today none of them had ever seen before. Loeb asks the time, which is 12:30.
When it's 12:30 in Boston, it's 6:30 in Frankfurt, and Kohl shows up as ordered with the appeal for Jones to sign. Except I think there was some sort of miscommunication between Kohl and Jones, because Jones, instead of signing the appeal, snaps Kohl's neck. Interesting appeal strategy. Hey Jonesy: what happens if this escape doesn't work?
While Jones dresses in Kohl's suit -- straightening his tie and taking a couple of pills -- Olivia is still on her way, although she's suddenly being tailgated by a black SUV, which is joined by a couple more at an intersection. They run her off the road, and she tries to flee across a field, but she's shot with what sounds like a Taser or a tranquilizer. Not a bullet, at any rate, and she collapses on the ground. "Target captured," says one of her captors. My theory is that it's just Olivia's friends who are tired of her blowing them off for work, and they're staging an (admittedly violent) intervention.
Loeb watches over his team, which is now using these prong things to suspend a hollow tube over the ground. They're not even checking any kind of manual! Lights start to glow. Jones puts in some eye drops and slathers on some suntan lotion. In Little Hill Field, a giant cylinder of light beams up from the ground as Loeb watches, almost smiling. Also watching are the black-clad dudes who have Olivia, unconscious in the back seat of one of the SUVs. Also watching? THE ENTIRE EASTERN SEABOARD. The light is BRIGHT.
At Science Prison, Jones goes over to stand in the corner of the room, and a light starts to glow above his head. He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. The room starts to rattle, and there's a flash of light. Over in the field, the base of the beam of light flashes as well, and suddenly Jones is standing there. Loeb smiles. I would too. I had a hard time getting my wireless internet set up. Probably would have taken me a few tries to teleport someone across six time zones on untested equipment that's a couple of decades old.
We're in some place that's got some giant clock set in a tower. Big ... Ben, I think it is? No floating letters to tell us where we are! I guess Big Ben is supposed to be enough to let viewers know we're in Zurich. You're lucky I'm so well-versed on international landmarks. Anyway, Nina's there, and she answers her cellphone to hear Broyles tell her that Olivia Dunham is missing. "What do you mean missing?" says Nina. Missing as in missing, Nina! Broyles, sounding even more pissed than normal, says, "It appears she has been abducted. Need I even ask?" She doesn't respond at first, and then tells her she resents the accusation. "I don't make accusations, so let me be clear. If I find out--" and Nina cuts him off, saying he knows how she feels about Agent Dunham. He does? "Why would I want any harm to come to her? Now, what do we know about who may have taken her? And why?" Unsaid: "Why didn't I kidnap her first?"
Loeb greets Jones (see how nice he looks! No one gets dressed up to travel anymore), who says he needs to get into the decompression chamber. He asks if Loeb's got Agent Dunham. "She didn't even put up a fight," says Loeb. "Well, then, let's not keep her waiting," says Jones.