Let's catch up with Mr. Jones, shall we? He's escaped from prison via teleportation, remember, and after some R&R in a hyperbaric tank, is ready to wreak some havoc on Boston via a powder that causes the victim's skin to grow over any orifices, suffocating them. Eww! He shows up at the federal building to give himself up, but says he'll only talk to Olivia. Sanford Harass doesn't like terrorists telling him what to do, so he sends Olivia on a raid and opts to talk to Jones himself. This winds up costing him a thousand-dollar watch and the life of an agent, and I can only imagine he's more upset about losing the former. Anyway, Jones leads Olivia to some information about the "multiverse" and there's a lot of mumbo-jumbo about another universe and ours fighting it out to see which one sticks around. The Fringe team learn a little bit about Jones' group with the help of an old manifesto, dug up by another one of Peter's shady connections, about science and technology and mankind being on the brink of catastrophe.
Jones is recruiting those who are worthy enough, which he determines through tests. The first one, for Olivia, is being able to turn off a bunch of little light bulbs -- with her mind. The catch is that she needs to pass the test in order for him to help her prevent a bomb going off that will scatter the orifice-covering toxin all over the damn place. Olivia can't do it, and gets Peter to program the lights to turn off to fool Jones. People, the man teleported out of prison. He's not an idiot.
He seems to fall for it, though, and gives Olivia the location of the bomb. Only when she gets there, she sees the timer is connected to another array of lights that she must turn off with her mind to defuse the bomb. So she thinks really hard at them, Peter cautiously behind her, and turns them off with seconds to spare, although she's not at all sure how she did it.
The teleportation is taking an unexpected toll on Jones' health, or so it would seem. Only he gets transferred to the hospital and promptly rips a hole in the wall and escapes. They do good work at that hospital.
Oh, and Walter wrote the manifesto. Or, at least, Walter's typewriter was used to write it.
So we're back at Science Prison in Germany, and not only are we back there, we are back in time, because there's Mr. Kohl strolling into a meeting room with Mr. Jones, saying he's got Jones' appeal papers all ready to go. Jones is sketching an angular Olivia Dunham, and she appears to have lizard eyes, while Kohl says the best Jones can hope for is life. Jones eventually gets up from his sketching to snap Kohl's neck. He then dresses himself in Kohl's clothes and goes to stand in the corner -- not to give himself a timeout for murdering someone, but so the bright light can fill the room and transport him all the way to Boston.Meanwhile, back at Science Prison, the guards are going crazy, running through the halls and whatnot, even though no one is yelling schnell!. An officer tells the prison warden (in German, thankfully, and not plain ol' English) that the facility is locked down and all the protocol was followed, so they don't know what happened, other than the prisoner being gone, leaving a scorched corner of the room and a dead body behind.
Two weeks later at Harvard, Olivia wanders into the Fringe lab, where Walter and Peter are already hanging out, like maybe they LIVE there now, and Peter's bringing breakfast to his dad, who is busy washing the underside of that cow Gene that is sometimes there and sometimes not.
In kind of a clunky expository scene, Olivia explains that the German authorities came to see her last night, because Jones escaped, and they don't know how; it doesn't make any sense. "How come when nobody knows and it doesn't make sense, they come to us?" asks Peter. Because if they knew what happened and it made sense there would be no need for an explanation. That's why.
Anyhoo, Jones had been working with Loeb. "I remember Loeb. That's the guy that stole my invention," gripes Walter. That's how he remembers Loeb, and not because he was recently arrested after walking through bank walls and kidnapping Olivia and ordering his wife to kill Olivia. She says she's going to talk to Loeb right now. "But can you describe again to me what you made?" says Olivia, who A) I don't believe would forget about a TELEPORTATION DEVICE, and B) we've been informed has a brilliant memory anyway. Peter tells Walter not to "sugarcoat" it this time, and Olivia asks if it's something that could have helped Jones escape. What, a transportation device? How would that be any help? Walter called it "Disrei," combining "disintegration" and "reintegration." Peter explains it was a teleportation device meant to travel through time.
Whoever used the device would have considerable problems, notes Walter: "Coming through, arriving, would require weeks of decompression in a barometric tank. And based on what would happen , you'd likely wish you hadn't." Instead of asking him what he MEANS by that, Olivia dumbs it all the way down to "moron" and asks if it's theoretically possible for Jones to have "zapped" himself right out of prison. Walter hems and haws for a moment or two before finally saying yes.
Wonder what a barometric tank looks like? Well, I'm presuming this is one, here in one of those popular "deserted warehouse" hideouts, with a couple of shifty looking guys hanging around. Someone says that equilibrium has been reached and the decompression is complete. The side door of the tank is opened up, and Jones hauls himself out, clad in a T-shirt. Someone says, "Welcome back, sir," and drapes a blanket over his shoulders. Jones, shaking slightly, asks for a cup of tea.
Jones sits, holding his tea, and thanks the people there for their work in bringing him here. There is a slight amount of steam visible from his mouth as he talks. "I understand there have been ... sacrifices. I am grateful to them, as I am to you." He asks if everything is in place, and some dude (also with visible breath-steam -- must be cold in there) says it is. "The list is complete. We've got a lab set to your specifications." "And the ceiling?" asks Jones. "All parts," says the assistant. That's good. What's not so good, for Jones, is the fact that his hand is visibly shaking as it grips the teacup. Nice that the warehouse has a fully stocked tea set with cups and saucers, because you never know just who's going to get out of a hyperbaric chamber.
Out on the street, a magazine dealer hawks his wares while chasing away people who are under the impression that the magazine stand is a library. A guy who we only see from the back strolls up and puts some paper money down on a stack. He's wearing a latex glove. The magazine stand owner does his best to deter the purchase -- by touting the virtues of online newspapers versus tree-chopped-down versions -- but buddy leaves his two-dollar bill and moves on before he can collect his change. So the owner pockets the change and then starts chatting it up with a woman thanking him (Tommie) for his movie recommendation of something starring Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart, and he brags that he's creating cinephiles "one reader at a time," and recommends Charade to her. Then he starts wiping his eyes, which have gotten a little gummy for some reason. He looks in the mirror, and sees more gobby clumps forming around his eyes, sealing them off. By the time he turns to look at his customer, his eyes look like patches of depressed skin. She screams, and he starts to stumble around (brushing past the Observer), and now it looks like skin is growing over his nostrils and mouth as well. He knocks over a magazine carousel and falls to the sidewalk, unable to breathe.
After the commercial break, the FBI is hard at work trying to solve the disappearance of an English prisoner from a German prison? Am I missing something? Charlie tells Broyles that they found out that Salman Kohl kept a slush fund under an assumed name. Broyles suggests it's for a mistress, and Charlie wonders if it might be something less salacious and more interesting. "Let me know if you find something useful," says Broyles.
Olivia stands in some kind of military warehouse parking garage that appears to have lines for a basketball court? Huh? Anyway, a truck pulls up and the military police take the hood off the prisoner they've got in back. Probably worried about Mitchell Loeb's x-ray vision, which is only thwarted by the blanket they've got over his head. The MPs help him down from the back of the truck.
They stand face to face, and Olivia says she thinks he knows where Jones is, since Mitchell helped him escape the night she was kidnapped. "You're not someone I really wanna work with," says Mitchell. If that hurts Olivia's feelings, she doesn't show it. But she does have a transfer order for him to Wallinsridge State Prison. "You know what that place is like, Mitchell?" she asks him. See, this isn't one of the deals where if you co-operate you get to go to a cushy Club Fed. This is one of those deals where if you don't co-operate, you get sent to Rapeshank. But Loeb's still not biting. He says it doesn't matter if she finds Jones or not: "He's just a part of the army. What is written will come to pass. And nothing you do can stop it. Nothing."
Olivia seems a little surprised that he withstood her implied threats of sending him to Oz, but she does her best to glare at him while she answers her cellphone. It's Broyles, telling her to get the Bishops and meet him at Boston General Hospital.
That's where Broyles introduces them to the late Thomas Avery, who owned a news stand, and is now lying on a slab, with thick goopy skin covering up his mouth, nose and eyes. "Ceramides. They act as a signalling molecule in skin. They control how the cells grow and differentiate." He's got two theories: one is a mutation that caused these lipids to seal off all orifices. He asks if they checked his anus and penis, which is cue for Peter to act like a twelve-year-old again. As usual, Walter's got to be prompted to remember the other thing he was going to say, which is: coffee cake. He loves him some coffee cake!
Olivia tells Broyles that this is of course Jones' work, which Broyles doubts, because wh
at would he want with a newsstand operator? I'd like to point out that it's a little odd that just because this is the Jones episode, Olivia's deduced this is something Jones did, which was not a theory of hers in any of the episodes since her kidnapping two weeks ago. Just saying.Anyway, Olivia pulls Peter out of the room so she can talk to him about what Loeb said, about how Jones was only doing what was written, and she points out that they never did find out what ZFT, Jones's group, stood for. But maybe it wasn't the group after all, but the group's bible, posits Olivia. She says she had a German contact look into it, and he came up with something. Olivia tells Peter, "I could just tell it to you but instead I'm going to hand you my product-placed phone so we can get a nice close-up of the crystal clear display screen, which reads "Zerstorung durch Fortschritte der Technologie." Well, I can translate part of that. Olivia says, "Scroll down on my remarkably user-friendly phone, bargain-priced to fit any budget," but Peter's German is good enough to translate it as "destruction by advancement of technology." Olivia says it's a self-published manuscript that the police came across during a raid in an unrelated case. Well, that's a lucky break. Not so lucky: it was destroyed ten years ago. Peter by now is wondering what any of this has to do with him specifically, and Olivia says she was hoping he'd have one of his "weird connections." "'Weird connections,'" repeats Peter. "Well, they're always a little weird," says Olivia. "You're always a little weird," says Peter. Hee. Olivia gets all shruggy and cute to try to get Peter to help her, so of course he gives in.
Back at the Fringe lab, Thomas Avery's body is waiting for Walter to get to work. Astrid wonders if the guy's contagious, which might have been a good question to ask before standing so close to him, but Walter says he's not. He asks for a scalpel and an empty IV bag. He slices into the mess over the guy's mouth and plugs the IV bag into the hole, hissing like a punctured tire. "The gas trapped within his body may yield useful information," he explains to Astrid, who is gagging at the smell as the IV bag quickly inflates. Even Walter's a little taken aback by how "putrid" it is, but not so much that he can't ask Astrid if she likes coffee cake, which I'm surprised didn't make her toss her cookies right there.
Over at the Boston Federal Building, an overly earnest agent races up to Charlie with a file containing a list of all the businesses that Jones' lawyer incorporated, figuring one or more of them might be used to funnel cash to ZFT. Charlie asks how the agent got his contact at the SEC to break "lawyer-client privilege" and the agent says they dated in college, and she dumped him bad, so he told her she owed him one. Charlie looks at the agent for a moment. I think the look means, "I hope they're going somewhere with this character and this isn't just padding." Anyway, the agent's narrowed down the list of businesses to U.S. ones only. "Good work," says Charlie, walking off. The agent looks like he'd have appreciated just a teensy bit more enthusiasm on Charlie's part.
Olivia and Peter go to see Peter's "weird connection," a book dealer who's offering somebody forty dollars for a John Le Carré novel, because it's "pretty badly shelf-cocked" and there's some "tanning." Peter strolls in and tells the customer that a first-edition Land of Laughs is worth twice that, no matter what condition it's in. So the book dealer grudgingly coughs up, glaring at Peter, who maybe should have remembered they need this guy's help before he cost him money.
"Was that really necessary?" grumbles the guy after the customer leaves, and Peter tells "Markam" that he's a friend of the people. "Aren't I people?" asks Markam, and I thought Peter was going to respond with "little people," because that's what Markam is, only Peter says "people who shower," so I guess I'm the asshole. Markam asks, "Who's this friend?" and Olivia introduces herself, and Markam wants to bet five dollars that he can name something on her nightstand: "Toni Morrison novel, something by Obama, and/or the current issue of Bon Appetit," he guesses.
Olivia says she's reading, Advanced Forensic Science by Anneman. "I keep it to my gun," she says, making Markam laugh. "I like this one," he tells Peter, who tells him Olivia's just a friend and they need a favour, and asks him to track down the ZFT book, which Markam calls "sexy and very challenging" and agrees to try to get them one today. "Impress me," says Peter. "Nothing interests me less than impressing you," says Markam.
Over at the federal building, Charlie comes in to Broyles' office to tell him one of the businesses in the file is a warehouse that had the power cut off months ago, and then suddenly turned back on two weeks ago, the day Jones escaped; it could be a safehouse. Broyles gets on the phone to order up a search warrant, but that's going to have to wait, because an agent rushes in to tell him there's a man downstairs who says his name is David Robert Jones.
So Charlie goes rushing down the stairs yelling for everyone to get down, and all the people waiting to get in the building hit the deck, except for Jones, who knows better. "Jones!" yells Broyles from upstairs, while Charlie has his gun on the guy's head. Jones extends his arms. He's holding a cane in his right hand. "I will speak only with Agent Olivia Dunham," he says.
After the commercial break, Jones sits in an interview room while Olivia, Broyles, and Sanford Harass watch from behind the glass. Broyles tells Harass that Jones hasn't spoken a word since saying he'll only speak to Olivia. They did find a key on him, with no markings. "Forensics is doing their thing. He wanted us to find it."
Olivia wants to go in, which seems to make sense, given that Jones said he'd speak only to her, but Harass has a problem with that: "Jones doesn't get to dictate the terms of his captivity," says Harass, adding that hoary old chestnut about how the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. Olivia says that's just the kind of arrogance Jones would be expecting, which pisses Harass off, as you can imagine. Olivia reminds Harass that Jones Star Treked himself out of prison and avoided Interpol to make it to Boston, and allowed himself to get caught. She figures Jones will expect them to reject his request. Harass asks if she wants to give the guy what he wants just so they can appear to be "anti-dogmatic," and they argue back and forth with a tired Broyles barely mustering enough energy to step in, and Harass orders Olivia to join the raid in Austin. "Show me some hard evidence that connects him to that incident downtown," says Harass, before stomping off. Olivia looks at Broyles, who nods.
On her way to the raid in Austin, Olivia talks to Peter, who tells her Markam found the book, and gives an overly detailed explanation that I don't think anyone actually CARES about. Anyway, just like the title suggests it's about the ways in which technological advancement will destroy the world as we know it. Peter reads an excerpt or two: "Our technological ambitions have not only driven us to the brink of catastrophe; the catastrophe has already begun. What will the apocalypse look like? The answer, to use a term generally understood but the specifics of which you cannot imagine, and which this document will attempt to describe, is warfare." Well, it beats the latest issue of Bon Appetit.
Olivia and the other nine thousand agents swarm the warehouse, which is indeed the place where we last saw Jones having a cuppa. Olivia finds a sketch of herself, confirming for her that Jones was here. "I want everything bagged and tagged!" yells Charlie. Olivia strolls over to check out the hyperbaric tank.
Back at the federal building, we're in for the requisite Bureaucratic Asshole Shows He Knows Best scene. Jones looks somewhat amused to see Harass strolling in and literally rolling up his sleeves. "I believe I m
ade myself clear," says Jones, adding that he wishes to talk to someone else. Harass says Dunham is preoccupied so Jones is stuck with him. Jones starts to cough. "You don't look so good," says Harass, and Jones is all, "no SHIT, that's why I haven't got time to WASTE on you." His eyes get all flinty as he says he was hoping to avoid any more unnecessary deaths.Jones lays out a list of items he needs: standard walkie-talkie with removable crystals, a metal ballpoint pen, an eyeglass repair kit, an analog wristwatch. He eyes Harass's watch. "Your watch would do," he says. Harass, presumably sarcastically, asks if he doesn't need anything else. "Quite sure," says Jones.
Over at the warehouse, the eager beaver agent who helped Charlie out is making his way through some of the building's offices. And incidentally, there's garbage all over the place. Killing innocent people, and slobs? What kind of monsters are we dealing with here? He pulls open a drawer. Inside sits a loosely folded two-dollar bill. Sweet....
Downstairs, Olivia and the other agents are coming up empty in the search. Frustrated, Olivia says they should lock the place up and leave. And that's when the screaming starts, coming from upstairs. Olivia races up the stairs with Charlie, and they burst into the office with Agent Eager Beaver, doubled over. He looks up, and his eyes are covering with skin, just like the newsstand guy. Olivia yells for a medikit, and tells Charlie to help her hold the guy, whose mouth is now covered over. "I need to trach him," says Olivia. Considering what happened to the newsstand guy, wouldn't this SWAT team have a medic on the scene? So Olivia wouldn't have to be the one to trach the guy?
She does a nice job of it, though. Nice clean cut, nice insertion of the tracheotomy tube. Buddy's able to start breathing through the tube, which is an immense relief to Charlie and Olivia -- at least until, while they watch, the skin starts growing over the tracheotomy tube too. "No, no, no, no, no!" says Olivia, but within seconds, the tube is just a skin-covered protuberance in the suffocating agent's neck.
Back at the federal building, the mood is grim. Olivia glares at Harass as she walks down the steps into the bullpen, and he looks too weaselly to even sneer properly. He takes off his watch and drops it in a brown paper bag.
Then Harass is in a darkened surveillance room, where he's got a couple of agents monitoring Jones in the interview room. "I want to record every twitch," he says. He's acting all tough again.
Olivia walks into the interview room, carrying a paper bag, and Jones takes a break from his coughing to call her a "welcome face." "A colleague of mine just died," she says, and Jones says he "tried to prevent that," but Agent Harass "needed some convincing." Given that Jones has been sitting here the whole time, how exactly did the most recent death occur as a result of Harass coming in to question Jones? Anyway, Olivia passes over the paper bag with the stuff Jones needed. "This will only take a moment," he says. In the surveillance room, Harass orders the agent to zoom in on the Jones' hands.
Jones goes to work, taking apart the walkie-talkie, and the watch. "That's a thousand-dollar watch!" complains Harass in the surveillance room. You gave the evil genius your watch? How could you not think he was going to get all MacGyver up in this motherfucker when one of the other things he wanted was an EYEGLASS REPAIR KIT with its little screwdrivers, come on! Anyway, Jones sticks a screw in here, and attaches a pen spring there, and then turns a little dial and suddenly shrill feedback fills both the surveillance room and the observation room. "I've managed to get us some privacy," he says, adding they don't have much time. "You killed Thomas Avery," says Olivia, which Jones calls a "stage setter" that doesn't have to be followed. "So you're planning something else?" asks Olivia, and Jones is all, "Oh, YEAH. Something far worse." He needs Olivia's services, though. Olivia asks him what the hell he wants. "I need you to pass a test," he says.
Harass bursts into the observation room wanting the interview room shut down because Jones is blocking the surveillance. Broyles tells him to relax, that Jones isn't going to hurt anyone: "He's just trying to show you who's in charge," he says.
Meanwhile, Jones tells Olivia to get the key that he had on him and go to the Salem amusement park on Policy Street. "I've left something there for you," he says, and starts to cough again. "You need medical attention," says Olivia. "All the assistance in this world could not cure me, Miss Dunham. It seems that when one is dematerialized on a molecular level and then reassembled, there are certain unadvertised side effects." He says the task he's got for her may help him out. She wants to know about the attack he's got planned, and he prefers "insurance policy" to attack. He tells her that right now there's a white cargo van transporting an explosive device that can kill several hundred people just like the newspaperman and the agent. It's set to go off sixteen hours from now. Olivia tells him he's going to disable it, and Jones interrupts: "No, you are. But first there's the matter of the key," he says, which is when Harass comes in the room to shut down the interview. "Don't worry, Miss Dunham. If I wanted to harm you, I would have. Long ago." Olivia stomps out. Jones looks at Harass. "Apologies, about the watch," he says, but between you and me, I don't think he means it.
Outside, Olivia strides down the hall and tells Broyles and Harass about Jones' bomb. She says they need to find every white cargo van rented in the past twenty-four hours. As for her, she needs two hours. An incredulous Harass asks her where she's going. "To get a massage. I'll tell you when I get back." says Olivia, getting in the elevator and leaving two dumbfounded agents -- senior agents it might be worth noting -- standing there open-mouthed.
Driving to the amusement park, Olivia checks in with Peter, who tells her they determined that the skin growth is triggered by a powdered toxin that makes the scar-tissue protein hyperactive. And then there is some boring stuff about Walter working on an antidote, and Peter says the ZTF book is like a cross between an "anti-science manifesto" and a "call to arms" except they don't know against whom the call to arms is supposed to be, and Peter says he'll call her back when he gets to the good part, and maybe they could have just left off this SCENE until they got to the good part. After he hangs up, Walter asks if that was Olivia, like who ELSE could it possibly have been, and the reason he's asking is HE WANTS SOME COFFEE CAKE, and then Peter's looking for the manuscript, and Walter has it: "I was reading it whilst sitting on the crapper," and I have to say that I really should use the word "whilst" more and Peter gets all squeamish thinking about his dad dropping the kids off at the pool. He wants the manuscript back, but Walter wants to read an excerpt.
"We think we understand reality, but our universe is only one of many. The unknown truth is that the way to travel between them has already been discovered, by beings much like us, but whose history is slightly ahead of our own. The negative aspects of such visitations will be irreversible both to our world and to theirs. It will begin with a series of unnatural occurrences, difficult to notice at first, but growing, not unlike a cancer, until a simple fact becomes undeniable: only one world will survive. And it will either be us or them."
As he speaks, we watch Olivia arrive at the amusement park, and if there's anything more depressing than an amusement park shuttered and abandoned for the winter, I can't think of it. There, sitting on the ground just outside a pina colada stand, is a black metal box. Olivia stands long enough for some dramatic shots, and then opens the box to find a smaller, fabric-covered box inside.
Back at the Fringe lab, while Astrid and Peter unpack the contents -- cards with odd symbols on them, some kind of pop-up book -- Oliv
ia reads the letter inside from Jones, only for some reason I can't figure out why she's not doing it while imitating his creepy accent. He says the items inside aren't children's games but "an evaluation system," designed to test for a set of innate skills found in certain individuals. Wait -- were these designed by Rambaldi?Jones wants her to pass the first test only to prevent hundreds more from dying. She wants to know what passing a test has to do with stopping people from dying, and Peter tells her, "He's just not that into sanity," and I for one would like to point out to Peter that just because the guy's insane does not make him stupid, and Walter quietly points out that there's only eight hours left until the attack.
So let's bring on the tests! The first one (of ten, Peter tells us, looking at the instructions) uses a box with an array of little light bulbs. The recruit is to sit no more than twenty-four inches from the device but may not touch it, and must turn off all the lights. Olivia wants to know how she's supposed to do that, and Peter, useless as ever, suggests using her magic powers, like either HELP or GET OUT, Peter. Walter notes that both the instructions for the test and the ZFT book refer to "recruits." In the manuscript's case, "recruits" is how it refers to unwilling people who eventually become warriors fighting this muli-universal battle or whatever. Olivia's all, yeah, OK, meanwhile, I need to turn off the lights with my MIND? Peter cracks another joke that somehow doesn't end with Olivia pistol-whipping him.
So Olivia decides to give it a whirl, and flicks a switch on the side of the box. All the lights come on. She folds her hand under her chin and starts to stare at the lights. Everyone looks at her, and the box. This is like watching someone play the world's most boring video game. After about thirty seconds, Olivia's cellphone rings, like how RUDE, and everyone has a good smile. Olivia answers it, and it's Charlie, telling her that they found something: a white van rented in New Haven to one Olivia Dunham. Whoa! Another Olivia Dunham! What are the odds! ... Oh. "He's messing with you, Liv," says Charlie.
Olivia hangs up. "This is just a stupid mind game," she says, and stomps off to end it.
Over at the federal building, Harass isn't keen on her seeing Jones without proper surveillance. Harass: "I am attempting to thwart you at every turn!" Olivia: "Let me do my job!" Harass: "I am a cartoonish hard-ass who cares more about saving face than saving lives!" Olivia: "I only care about saving lives and am just trying to do my job!" Harass: "I'm letting you get your way again because I grudgingly respect the passion with which you stand up for yourself!"
Anyway, she goes into the interview room, where a more agitated Jones is shaking. She tells him she didn't bring his test. "Your reluctance is to be expected," he croaks out. She tells him they know about the manuscript, about ZFT, about recruiting warriors and all that. "You read it?" he says, surprised. He thinks that she doesn't believe she's worthy. "I believe that everyone, maybe even you, is entitled to their belief system. But somehow you got me in your head," she says. He tells her it's because she was treated with cortexiphan, and they wanted to be sure, which was why he kidnapped her and did the spinal tap. "The step, had you not escaped, was to convince you of this." She thinks he's full of it, and tells him so, and he gets more and more agitated, especially when she calls the light-bulb thing an impossible test. "The test is HARDLY impossible!" he spits at her, and she tells him he needs to co-operate, and like an eight-year-old, he's all, "YOU need to co-operate!" And his chair tips over, spilling him on the floor.
Does he get taken to a hospital? No, he gets sent to the Fringe lab, where Walter is leading a cow around the room, and the EMTs are all, "The fuck?" until Peter sends them on their way.
So Walter's examining the unconscious Jones, saying, "This is happening faster than I would have thought," he says, and explains to Peter that this man teleported through space, with his molecules disintegrating and reintegrating and all that, and Peter's less worried about that and more worried about stabilizing the guy who may be their only chance to save all those people from the bomb.
Peter goes into Olivia's office, where she's getting off the phone with Charlie. She tells Peter that cortexiphan was a drug patented but never approved. "Patented to whom?" asks Charlie. The only game in town: Massive Dynamic. Oh, OK, I guess it HAS been a few episodes. She's heading over to Massive Dynamic now, but she's concerned that Jones is still expecting her to pass the test. "You think we can trick him?" she says. Peter asks her if she wants him to open the light box. "You could see what you could do," she says, scrunching up her face in a way that I think was supposed to be cute.
So over in New York City, Olivia thanks Nina for seeing her, and says she's looking for information on cortexiphan, and Nina's sitting at a desk that's completely bare except for this little grey translucent tablet in the shape of Alberta, and she picks it up and starts tapping it, and it glows a little blue and makes sounds, like how obnoxious is it when people just take out their translucent Alberta-shaped tablets and just start texting? Nina grimaces because her "hand's been acting up." Olivia smiles instead of saying, "Yeah, we're all super impressed by your robot arm." Anyway, Nina's found the information on the drug: developed in 1981 by a Dr. Bell who theorized that we're all born with limitless potential, but every force we encounter -- physical, intellectual, social -- begins the "limitation" process. The drug was tested on children -- after extensive animal testing to make sure it would be harmless -- but it was unsuccessful, and Dr. Bell gave up his research a couple of years later.
Olivia asks where the trials were done. Ohio State University, Worcester campus, Nina tells her, and asks why, and Olivia just smirks and says no reason. However, driving later in her car, she gleefully tells Peter that in 1981 she was three years old and living in Jacksonville, Florida, where her father was stationed at the naval base, so there was no way she was given that drug. Except of course if it turns out that her family visited, or it turns out there WAS another test somewhere. Because we all know she was given the drug. Peter tells her everything's going swimmingly at the lab: it looks like Walter's going to be able to revive Jones, and Peter's managed to reprogram the light box, so they should be able to fool him. Again: he's crazy. Not stupid.
So Walter gives him a shot in the neck of his own special remedy, and a shaking Jones convulsing into consciousness. Olivia tells him there's two hours left before his attack, and she thinks she's solved the test. Shut up about the attack! Maybe he forgot about it when he went all comatose! Jones notices Walter standing there and thanks him for his knowledge, without which he wouldn't have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. Walter admonishes him, saying he locked the transporter away for a reason, one of which he's experiencing right now, and Jones says "It's an honour."
Showtime for Olivia's test! Peter wheels over a table with the lightbox on it. Olivia sits down and flicks the switch, and stares at the lights. Jones sits up a little bit so he can watch over her shoulder. Olivia stares, and stares. Great plan, guys, except you don't exactly know how Jones expects Olivia to behave as the lights are blinking off. And Peter? Maybe you could be watching Olivia instead of nervously watching Jones. Just a suggestion. Anyway, the lights start to blink off, one by one, Olivia lightly gasping with the "effort." Jones looks on with interest. When the last one goes out, she looks back over her shoulder at him. "Well done, Ms. Dunham," he says. "Your turn," she says. He gives her an address: 923 Church St., forty-seventh floor.
"You'd better hurry," he says.Olivia's on her feet and on her phone, requesting an evacuation at that address. Peter's holding her coat for her. "Nice job," she tells him. "Good performance," he says, like maybe you could at least wait until you're out of EARSHOT of Jones, for God's sake.
At the scene, Charlie is doing what Charlie does best: hoarsely yelling at people to do things. He needs these streets cleared now, people! This area's not going to evacuate itself! Olivia and Peter show up, and Charlie tells them the building's about seventy percent clear, and they're lucky the building's undergoing renovations, because it's mostly empty. But the bomb itself is a real mess: bomb squad can't move it or defuse it. Olivia asks why. "Because they've never seen wiring like this before," says Charlie.
As Olivia approaches the bomb, which is attached to a window on what is a completely empty forty-seventh floor, she sees why. The wiring's coming out of packages of the toxin in a rectangle around the timer, which is set into a box containing an array of lights, just like the ones in the test. Bet you wish you hadn't cheated now, Olivia! Oh, and while I sympathize, it's worth noting that there's less than four minutes left, so maybe you should get moving instead of just standing there? I mean, I know the lighting from the helicopter's spotlight looks all dramatic and everything, but, you know, the bomb.
After the commercial break, Peter notes that the bomb's rigged up here for a reason: to blow out the windows, and a four-block evacuation isn't going to cut it. Charlie starts ordering people around again, while Olivia gets on her phone back to the Fringe lab. Astrid answers, "That son of a bitch knew what we were doing," says Olivia, and asks Astrid to put him on. Astrid takes the phone over to the barely conscious Jones and cradles the receiver under his face. She tells him it's Olivia, like maybe it's his birthday and he was expecting someone else to call him. "Hello, you," he croaks out, nice and creepily. She admits that she didn't really switch off the lights before, but of course he already knows that. "Before they can be considered soldiers, they must be regarded as recruits and the expectation must be that they shall be unwilling," says Jones, quoting from the manifesto. Meanwhile, Peter's all, "We gotta go!" but Olivia's not getting off the phone. Jones tells her there's only one way to disarm the bomb, and she knows what it is.
Olivia tries suggesting that Jones obviously feels she's valuable, but she's not going to be too valuable when the bomb goes off and then she suffocates because her nostrils have closed up and her lips have grown over her mouth. He admits that she is a "rare commodity," yes. "But I have one thing, Ms. Dunham, that you do not. I have faith in you." Cut the wires, boom. Move the device, boom. Lights still on when the timer hits zero, boom. Jones tells her she's the only way out.
Olivia hangs up and yells that they have to get everyone out of there, and Peter thinks she's talking about herself too, which is why he's surprised when she takes off her jacket and goes back to the device. She tells him she has to do this. "You stay here, you are going to die," he tells her. There's a minute left. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Peter! He says he's not doing this with her, and when she doesn't say anything to that, he says she's out of her mind and stomps off over to the elevator and pushes the button, like the bomb is going to go off in forty-five seconds, but I'm just going to stand here and wait for the elevator to come up FORTY-SEVEN FLOORS.
Olivia stares at the lights. Nothing happens, not even when she gets a little crinkle on her forehead. Behind her, Peter strolls back. Oh, good, a change of heart. Olivia's too busy staring at the lights. And staring. And staring. Finally, one winks out. Then another. Two at a time, three. Olivia doesn't even react, just continues to stare. It takes a few moments, but they all shut off. There's two seconds left on the timer. She covers her face with her hands. "You did it!" says Peter. Oh sure, now you're all proud of her! A minute ago you told her she was going to die! He asks her what she did. "I don't know," she says.
Back at the Fringe lab, Astrid, who has nothing better to do than babysit a dying psycho, answers the phone. "Yes sir. We will," she says. Jones is being wheeled out the door by paramedics, but he stops them to ask Astrid, "She did it, didn't she?" Astrid says she did. "My girl," gasps Jones.
Back at the building, Peter and Olivia are lounging on stacks of drywall. "I didn't do anything," says Olivia. She thinks it's a mind game on Jones' part, that he rigged the lights just like Peter did. Peter's completely convinced, though: "He couldn't have known when you were going to arrive. He couldn't have known the timing on that," says Peter. You're right, Peter. It makes much more sense that she turned off light bulbs with her MIND POWERS. Then he says she was "in the zone" out there tonight, like she didn't hit a couple of three-pointers, Peter, she TURNED OFF LIGHT BULBS WITH HER MIND POWERS. "The way you stared down that light box, was like nothing I'd ever seen," he says, and I have NO IDEA what that even MEANS. I mean, she stared at a box. But I'm impressed he can quantify how awesomely other people he's seen stare at things before.
Olivia suggests the whole thing was faked so he could meet Walter. "He wanted to meet the man who designed the device that got him out of prison," says Olivia. Peter seems skeptical of that. He's just thrilled that he didn't die tonight, so he invites Olivia out for a drink "or five," like any excuse for a party for Peter. Olivia considers the prospect of a liquored up horndog Peter sloppily hitting on her all night, and says she's going over to Boston General to talk to Jones. "It's my last chance," she says. She knows it won't be her last chance to let Peter get her drunk.
Back at the Fringe lab, Astrid and Walter are ... cleaning up, or puttering around, or NOT GOING HOME TO GET SOME DAMN SLEEP, when Astrid says in all the excitement of today, she hasn't overlooked the fact that Walter created a teleportation machine. "Which, despite the fact that it kills you, is pretty damn cool." As Walter turns toward her, it looks for a few terrifying seconds that they're going to start making out. "Kills you? It does something unthinkable, but it doesn't kill you," says Walter. He walks away, and he doesn't explain, and Astrid doesn't ASK him to explain.
Olivia, meanwhile, is strolling through chaos at Boston General, with doctors and nurses and dudes on cellphones milling about in slow motion. She makes her way to Jones' room, where Jones' bed lies empty, but there's a huge gaping hole in the wall, giving her a lovely view of the Boston night. You know, Walter, if this is what you mean by "unthinkable," shouldn't you have maybe, I don't know, TOLD SOMEONE about it? "Oh, fellows, before you take this person to a public hospital, you should know that he's going to transform or something or turn into a giant ball of flame or develop super strength, or something along those lines, enough to be able to rip a wrecking ball-sized chunk out of the wall. So, you know, heads up." Olivia turns to see, scrawled on the back of the door, "YOU PASS" in big letters.
Back at the Fringe lab, Walter's leafing through the manuscript again, though thankfully not on the crapper. Through glimpses at the page, we notice that the letter "y" is off kilter, printed entirely above the line of text instead of hanging partially underneath, as normal. Walter looks like something just occurred to him.
Olivia's apartment. Her cellphone rings. It's Nina Sharp, who says, basically, "Hey, remember when I said there were only tests done at Ohio State University? I was, conveniently plotwise, wrong. Turns out there were tests done in Jacksonville too, at a military base! Well, ta!"
Back at the Fringe lab, Walter pulls a typewriter down from the shelf, and rolls a fresh sheet of paper into it. He starts typing a word: Abilit.
Closeup of the Y key. He hits it. And on the page is a y that sticks up over the line, instead of hanging below it. Walter looks stunned. Does he not remember writing the manifesto? Or is he upset because he never did get that damn coffee cake?