By Daniel
We're in a train station where a well-dressed man with salt and pepper hair -- he very much looks like he should be married to Mary Poppins, but maybe it's just the umbrella -- appears to be waiting for someone getting off the train. When the dude gets off the train, Mr. Mary Poppins follows briskly behind him and then jabs buddy in the leg with the tip of his umbrella. "Excuse me!" says the jabbee, indignantly, and Mr. Mary Poppins quickly apologizes and continues on his way.
And then we see buddy strolling up to his home in Rye, New York -- well, strolling is the wrong word, because he's now limping -- and going in through the front door. Across the street, Mr. Mary Poppins waits.
Inside, the man is now blinking and staggering around his beautiful home, all dark wood fixtures and flooring, lots of windows and natural light. If you're going to collapse after being drugged by a stranger, this is as good a place as any to do it.
When he comes to, he's lying down and covered in spattered blood, restrained on a table, plastic sheeting encircling the table. Behind the sheeting, we can see Mr. Mary Poppins calling medical assistance: "Yeah, he's injured very badly. Please hurry. Cheers." He hangs up and comes in and picks up a syringe lying to his victim, and gets it ready -- and then very sincerely says, "I'm so sorry, sir. But there's no other way," and then injects his victim in the neck. The man gasps and chokes and starts to convulse, and then stills as he closes his eyes.
Then the paramedics are getting their gear out of the back of the ambulance and apprehensively discussing the fact that they don't have any details about this call, which is "never a good sign" although they're moving a LITTLE slowly for paramedics who are at this point assuming worst-case scenario. Then they see the blood-spattered plastic sheeting and one calls it in as a homicide while the other ventures inside the makeshift operating room. He pulls back the blanket and finds a gaping hole where the man's heart should be. Like most guys, he gets all, "Dude! You have GOT to see this!" with his partner -- and then buddy on the table gasps, opens his eyes, and croaks out "Don't let me die!" much to the EMT's horror.
And then there's Mr. Mary Poppins, back at the train station, carrying the well-known organ-sized cooler, waiting for his train to come in. Credits.
And there's Broyles carrying his coffee into his office in the morning, finding a very chipper Olivia sitting there. "Guess you weren't expecting me back so soon," she chirps, and I think it's more like that Broyles probably hates having people in his office when he's not there.
By Daniel
So apparently Olivia's all fine and raring to go, and she explains to Broyles that Walternate's main priority (and I know Walter is the one that came up with the nickname, but I still enjoy the fact that that's what they actually call him) is learning how to cross universes safely, and he was using Olivia to discover how. Broyles wants to know if he's close, and Olivia is all, "Shyeah! He synthesized Cortexiphan, duh!" and then she talks about how driven Walternate is: "The way he sees things, it's his world or ours." Broyles looks like he kind of wishes Walternate was on their side instead of Walter, who is mainly driven to find new ways to get high.
Anyway, Olivia wants to see the analysis of the remaining pieces of the doomsday machine, and Broyles is all, "Sure, once you're back to work" which kind of surprises her, and he tells her that she's on leave until further notice: "To say you've experienced a trauma is an understatement. You need to process what you've endured over the past two months." You're never going to believe this, but Olivia thinks she's fine but she acknowledges that the last few months have taken their toll: "But I made a promise to a friend over there, and I swore that I would do everything that I can to heal both worlds. I need to go back to work." She doesn't say that she's talking about Col. Broyles, and this Broyles kind of dances around that too. He thinks for a moment and then asks, "This friend that you're talking about, what was he like?" Was he breathing? Did he have all of his limbs? Olivia smiles and says he wasn't that unlike Broyles: "He was honorable, committed. He feared for his family, for their future." Wait, so he had children? And he was still married and very close to his wife? Not to mention he was a colonel. You'd better step it up, Broyles. Of course, you are still alive, at least. Then they stare at each other for five hours.
Over at the Bishop house, Peter is bellowing at Walter, who's looking for his toolkit, and finds it in the bathroom. "I'd forgotten that a couple of nights ago, I used my cauterizer to remove an uncomfortable growth between my--" "-- less information the better," finishes Peter, helping his dad on with his coat. These two have the timing of an old vaudeville routine.
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By Daniel
During the car ride, Walter presses Peter to tell Olivia that he had sex with Fauxlivia, and Peter does not want to have the conversation at all, and after they arrive at their destination, Walter simply says that Peter knows better than most the pain that a lie can inflict. "Yes, I do, which is why, even though I expect it's going to fundamentally change how she feels how about me, I am going to tell Olivia everything. OK?" Walter says Peter is a good man, and Olivia knows that. Yeah, well, Walter's high if he thinks that will make a difference to Olivia.
So they get out of the car and are surprised to see Olivia arrive with Broyles. Walter's delighted to see her, whilst Peter is much more awkward: "Shouldn't you be resting?" he says, like nice welcome, and she makes shy eyes at him while Broyles says she's been cleared for duty, so Peter says welcome back.
And then Broyles briefs them on the situation, about how the guy inside really puts the cavity in "chest cavity," and it turns out the guy died three minutes after the EMTs found him. But Walter's absolutely giddy at the case featuring someone who was conscious and speaking without a functional cardiovascular system.
Inside, Walter looks at the innards of this poor bastard -- truly, truly disgusting work, not for the faint of heart -- and gets a hankering for some pickled herring, because the victim reminds him of the "blood eagle," a Norse method of torture that involves breaking the ribs and spreading them out to resemble blood-stained wings, which is an image I've been trying to erase ever since I watched the episode. Look, guys, Television Without Pity wrapped up the medieval-torture Rae Dawn Chong Challenge ages ago. We're on a new one, now. "So we're looking for a Viking?" says Peter, kidding, only Walter seems to take the question seriously and says, "These incisions have been made with precision. This is beautiful work. Definitely not a Viking."
Looking a little closer, Peter and Walter notice scar tissue on the various aortas and ventricles and what-have-you left behind, meaning this person had had heart surgery before, so Peter runs off to snoop through the medicine cabinet, which he's hopefully doing for legitimate investigative purposes.
Walter tells Olivia and Broyles that it's difficult to determine the cause of death, because the normal signs don't apply. To demonstrate, Walter taps the guy's wrist and his hand jerks, indicating he still has reflexes. "And yet his heart was removed at least four hours ago. By now, rigor mortis should be starting to set in," says Walter. Broyles asks if they're even sure if the guy is actually dead, and the best Walter can say is that the guy appears "more dead than not," which has described many people I've met and worked with in my life.
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By Daniel
Olivia raises the possibility of organ harvest, but Peter pops in with a basket of pharmaceuticals that punctures that theory. "OK, so you wouldn't steal a heart from someone this sick if you were selling it," says Olivia. No, because that would be unethical? Huh? Anyway, Broyles dispatches Olivia and Peter to talk to the prescribing physician, a Dr. Alexandra Ross, while he arranges to have the body transferred to Walter's lab. For Walter, getting a dead body delivered is like Christmas.
So Peter and Olivia are over at the hospital, where Dr. Ross is still in surgery, which is great, because now they have plenty of time to talk. And what better place than a hospital cafeteria to tell the woman you're in love with that you'd been sleeping with the alternate-universe version of her? First, though, he points out the coffee she's drinking is "swill," and instead of pointing out that he appears to be drinking the exact same swill, she just says it's nice to take a cup of coffee for granted.
And then she says it's like how when you come back from a vacation that some things are "a revelation, like coffee or my favourite shoes," like what in god's name are you blathering about, and then she says other things are not as good: "My mail was opened. It's kind of disconcerting knowing that somebody else has been living your life."
Then she notices Peter looking all uncomfortable, and she asks him what's up, and I think it's that he thought she said, "My male was opened," but then it turns out that he figures that while she's lamenting Fauxlivia living Olivia's life is a good time for him to bring up the sex. But first he's going to endlessly go on about the slight changes that he says he noticed. Such as? "She's much quicker with a smile, and less, I don't know, less intense maybe," he says. Yeah, keep it up, Peter. No way this could make Olivia feel worse about the situation. Anyway, Olivia tries to comfort him by saying there's no way he could have known. Olivia, you may want to let him finish. "When you asked me to come back to this world with you, you said..." he starts, and she finishes, "...that you belonged with me," and she smiles, and then it's really something to watch her smile fade as Peter explains that when Fauxlivia came back, they started seeing each other. "And I explained away the differences because our relationship was different. I thought she was you, Olivia." Still OK with it, Olivia? She quietly asks if everyone knows, and he says he reported everything when he found out who she was. And he thought it best to write up a short piece for the FBI employee monthly newsletter. Rob Thomas, I hope you're watching sir. Because THIS, sir, this is how a heart breaks. Anna Torv kills it. And I'm enjoying the various camps regarding Anna Torv's acting, there's the "I always knew she was good" crowd, of which I am a member (although I think she's graduated to great this season), there's the "I didn't like her but I was wrong" crowd, and there's the "I didn't like her and I stand by that but now she is good" crowd. That last bunch? You belong in the second bunch.
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By Daniel
So Olivia looks stricken, and Peter apologizes, and then Olivia goes full-on into "no, really, it's OK" mode and says that Fauxlivia had a really full life with a really sweet boyfriend, and implies that Olivia might have got some lovin' of her own if people weren't dying of smallpox over there. Her point is that none of Fauxlivia's friends knew that it wasn't her for the past couple of months either.
Anyway, she's interrupted by a nurse who lets them know that Dr. Ross is out of surgery, and Peter asks her to give them a second, which is fair, because I'm sure a heart surgeon has nothing better to do than wait around for you guys to hash out your fucked-up personal lives instead of helping you find a dangerous organ thief. It's Olivia who over-brightly tells Peter that it's fine, and they're good, and they go to talk to the doctor.
Dr. Ross is all, "His heart was removed?" and Peter asks about the medications that this Mr. Russo was on, and Dr. Ross explains that it was the standard regimen for transplant recipients. "Mr. Russo suffered from congestive heart failure. He was on the list for over a year waiting for a donor," she says, and Olivia says, "He had a heart transplant?" and thank got such a sharp deductive mind is finally back over here and working for the good guys.
Elsewhere, classical music plays while Mr. Mary Poppins does some closing surgery on a lifeless female body lying on the operating table. She's got a lengthy incision running all the way up her abdomen to her neck. He caresses her forehead and says, "It won't be long now. It will be OK," and the creepiness factor of this episode is ratcheting up by the minute.
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By Daniel
Back at the Harvard lab, Astrid tells Walter that Nina checked Massive Dynamic's archives personally and couldn't find anything on this "Yatsko project," and Walter says that can't be right: "Belly and I created a serum similar to this in the mid-70s. I'm certain of it. We were trying to devise a method ... of questioning someone after death." He says this last bit thoughtfully, as if something just occurred to him. Was that thought "Hey, whatever happened to us questioning people after they died which was so big at the beginning of Season 1"? Anyway, Walter tells Astrid to tell Nina to look under "pet projects," because maybe the Yatsko research was folded into that, and I would imagine that Nina's search capabilities are sophisticated enough that she could have come up with that already. Walter talks like he thinks the Massive Dynamic archives are like a big card catalog.
And then Astrid briskly walks out the door like someone who actually has a personal life to go home to, as Peter comes in: "Don't let him keep you here too late, OK?" she tells Peter, before saying goodnight to Walter (getting a "goodnight, Esther" in return), who wants to smell something and tell his dad what he deduces, and Peter seems to be in such a good mood (maybe he's excited about the Celtics' ten-game winning streak?) that he isn't his usual sarcastic self when Walter asks him to do something so potentially gross and (in this lab) possibly fatal.
Anyway, Walter wants Peter to smell the corpse, and he does so. "I'm not vomiting," says Peter, and it must be a little unnerving to work in a place where not vomiting after smelling something is a pleasant surprise. "By now, it should be emitting the unmistakable odour of putrefaction. This corpse's decomposition has slowed to almost zero," says Walter, adding that he and Astrid (he gets Astrid's name right now that she's gone home) isolated some sort of serum in the corpse's blood, a preservative that's radically slowed cell degradation.
Peter wonders why the organ thief would slow down the guy's death since they'd stolen the heart, and Walter thinks it was a conscience thing; after all, the guy did call 911. "If the EMTs had got him on a heart-lung machine in time, he might have survived. It's highly unlikely, of course, but I'm betting it helps our organ thief sleep well at night," says Walter, which provides Peter with a nice little segue -- "Well, at least somebody is" -- into talking about his own problems. Walter takes that to mean that he hasn't told Olivia, and Peter proudly tells his dad that he in fact did tell Olivia, who took it "surprisingly well," according to Peter, and I guess the real reason that Peter didn't know Fauxlivia wasn't really Olivia is because he doesn't know anything about women IN GENERAL, let alone Olivia in particular. Walter's surprised to hear that, and asks if maybe they replaced Olivia with a robot. I think telling Olivia apart from a robot would be harder than telling her apart from Fauxlivia.
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By Daniel
Speaking of Olivia, she's at home, going through her closet, and we learn that she shops at a place called Everything Black and Grey, and then she looks at herself in the mirror and touches her Fauxlivia tattoo on the back of her neck. Then she starts yanking clothes off the hangers. No plastic or wire coat hangers for Olivia! All wood, baby! She gets angrier and angrier. And she yanks sheets off her bed and takes them to the little closet that houses her washer and dryer, and discovers a load of clothes that Fauxlivia had left there, apparently without even washing because Peter's MIT T-shirt is there and it is magically dry and unwrinkled. She dumps it on the floor, and then breaks down crying, crouching in front of the washer. I suppose it could be worse: what if Fauxlivia hadn't done laundry at all?
So the day Olivia strolls into the break room where Astrid has just made a fresh pot of coffee. "Bad night?" says Astrid, because Olivia seems like death warmed over, and Olivia just says she had a lot of laundry to go through. Astrid asks her how it is to be back, and Olivia says it's good, except for the whole Peter-sleeping-with-Fauxlivia part.
She asks Astrid what Peter was like with Fauxlivia, and Astrid seems really awkward. "He didn't seem different? I mean, like, happier, or..." and Astrid seems awkward enough that Olivia gets the hint and backs off, saying they should probably go because Broyles wouldn't have called them in if he didn't have something. She starts to leave, and Astrid stops her to point out that Peter thought he was with her. Olivia says it's fine. "It's not fine. Whatever feelings Peter had, they were not about her. They were about you. And they were real. They still are," says Astrid. It's a valiant effort, but Peter's already kinda tried it.
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By Daniel
Anyway, the three agents are in Broyles' office, where he tells them that a cross-state search turned up multiple organ thefts in the past two months, with the same M.O. All of the stolen organs were transplants, and all came from the same donor. "We have a donor number. Names are kept confidential. Seventeen-year-old female. We've issued a priority request. We should know more shortly," says Broyles. Peter has a look at the file while the others brainstorm motives: someone with an objection to organ donation? Seems unlikely. "Maybe someone close to her didn't think the recipients were worthy," says Olivia. Like a reverse of that shitty Will Smith movie? You know the one... Hancock? No, not Hancock. I think I liked Hancock. It turned out to be a different movie from what I was expecting. I know the tonal shift kind of turned some people off, but I enjoyed myself. Anyway, that wasn't it. It was that other one, which I confess I didn't actually see, but it had something to do with organ donation. I assume it was kind of a downer but ultimately uplifting? Although most of my friends hated it. Speaking of Will Smith movies, is Men in Black III ever going to happen? Because I would really enjoy that. Hang on, let me check IMDB... Yes! 2012! They're filming it now, apparently! You know, while I was on IMDB, I probably should have looked up that organ donation movie. You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to go watch Men in Black.
Where was I? Oh, shit, Fringe is still on. So Peter says that the file notes that the body was remanded to the Rosindale eye bank after the organs were harvested, and Olivia notes that there are no photos of corneas being stolen.
So Broyles picks up the phone and orders his secretary or whoever to put him through to the Rosindale Eye Bank. HILARIOUSLY, it takes half-a-second for whomever to find the number, dial it, and have it ring and someone pick up. Or maybe the secretary just happens to have a Rosindale Eye Bank speed button on the phone. Anyway, Broyles identifies himself and says he needs to speak with the executive director immediately. And then there's this: "Yes, it's urgent. 'Immediately' means urgent," he says, and all the agents look at him, and he sighs and shakes his head. Hee hee! And hold on -- Broyles identified himself as "Colonel" Broyles. Has he always been a colonel and I just forgot that? I always referred to the other guy as Col. Broyles to differentiate the two, which will probably be a lot easier now that the other guy is dead. Maybe I'm still thinking of him as Lt. Daniels?
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By Daniel
And then we're in some makeshift operating room again, where there's a writhing victim strapped down to a table with his eyes pinned open, looking terrified as Mr. Mary Poppins uses scary-looking tools and makes measurements and takes notes. "So sorry, sir. These don't belong to you, do they?"
And then the agents are pulling up to a restaurant that's under construction in Chelmsford, Mass., which the recipient apparently owns or works at. Good thing he was close by! And for someone who dressed down the poor receptionist at the Rosindale Eye Bank, Broyles isn't exactly moving really quickly to try to find another in a series of transplant patients who have had their organs repossessed. Broyles gets off his phone and tells the others that they got a name for the donor: Amanda Walsh, in Providence.
They go inside the restaurant, where no one is actually working or constructing or renovating or anything, and use their flashlights to walk around instead of turning on the lights. Creepier that way! Peter's the one who founds another plastic-sheeted surgical area, and he calls the others over, only there's no one strapped to the table anymore, just a couple of trays with surgical tools left behind. "We're too late," says Olivia. No, but in a moment I'll wish you were: they hear a noise from nearby and go to check it out, and in a walk-in freezer or something Olivia finds a man wandering around. He turns around, and we can right into his head through his currently empty eye sockets. "Please... help me," he says. Gah! Good thing this show's breaking for a month -- I can't take a lot of scenes like that!
Later we're in a hospital, and the victim seems to be recovering, with bandages and gauze wrapped around his head. He tells Peter and Olivia about how he was walking to the restaurant to see how construction was going. Yeah, did Mr. Mary Poppins kill all the workers? How did that work? He says he started feeling dizzy, and the thing he knew, he was strapped to a slap. "He actually apologized. Can you believe that? He wished there was another way, that they didn't belong to me." Well, as long as you can laugh about it now.
Leaving the hospital, Peter and Olivia discuss the remorseful organ thief, which Olivia says makes sense: "He didn't want to hurt those people. It's about her. He didn't want her organs going to someone else." Well, if anyone's sensitive to how it feels when someone's organ goes into someone else, I suppose it's Olivia.
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By Daniel
Back at the lab, Walter is dropping some liquid into a test tube filled with an opaque white liquid. Gene is mooing, which she only does when it's appropriate, so I guess it's milk. I like to think that Gene is on set every day but only gets lines in some episodes, and she has a trailer that she waits in, and scans the script looking to see if she has any lines that week.
Anyway, Astrid wants to make sure that Walter's not giving Gene any of the liquid to drink, and he says he won't until he understands the long-term side effects. "But imagine the possibilities if this can permanently erase cell decay!" Well, for starters, milk and cheese that don't go bad. And, well, probably immortality, right? But let's stick with the milk and cheese.
Anyway, Astrid's got a big box with "Yatsko Project" slapped on the side, and Walter was right, that they were misfiled: "It turns out that the research that you and William Bell did on human-tissue preservation didn't stop when you went to Saint Claire's," says Astrid, which Walter thinks is "fascinating" despite the fact that just about every episode for a while featured a case involving someone who furthered Walter's research. He's got a hypothesis, though, and needs Astrid to get him something. Not much. Just what's left of the organ donor's body.
Peter and Olivia are talking to Amanda Walsh's mom right now, actually, and seem to have just filled her in on what's happened. "Oh, god. The only consolation I had was her passing gave other people another chance," she says. Well, too bad we had to ruin that for you. Olivia asks if Amanda was dating anyone or if she had any friendships that were cause for concern. Peter twitches noticeably when Olivia says "dating anyone." Mrs. Walsh says that in fact she didn't have any friends, didn't like school, didn't want to do sports. "It was ballet. That was the only thing that ever made her happy," she says. There's a framed picture of a girl in a leotard on the table near Mrs. Walsh, who, when asked by Peter, says Amanda killed herself and had been clinically depressed. "She was on anti-depression medication. She also did a lot of group therapy. She kept trying different ones, but there were a few that she stuck with," she says. Olivia asks for the names of the doctors and the groups, and meanwhile Peter's phone rings. It's Astrid, because she needs to demonstrate the video-chat capabilities of a particular phone whose company hopefully paid a lot of money to earn such a jarring product placement.
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By Daniel
Back inside, Mrs. Walsh is giving Olivia Amanda's schedule and info, and then Peter rolls back in to ask permission to exhume Amanda's body. "You can't," she says, and Peter takes that to mean that she doesn't want them to, but she says it's not actually possible.
And then there's Peter carrying an urn into the lab like he's playing football with it, and he plonks it down to Walter. "I hope there's a good reason for this, given all that family's already had to suffer," says Peter, and Walter opens up the urn and takes a pinch of ash on his fingers and then tastes. I mean, we already know it's not Amanda, but Peter and Astrid don't, so they're appropriately disgusted, and are somewhat suspicious when Walter says, "I suspect it's some kind of hardwood. Cherry, maybe mahogany, and concrete." Peter asks if he's sure, and Walter says, "I know that these are not human cremains," and I don't think anybody really wants the answer to how Walter knows that. Astrid asks where Amanda's body is, then. Walter says it's likely with the rest of the organs: "I believe whoever is stealing these organs is trying to put this girl back together again."
Speaking of that, Mr. Mary Poppins has a lifeless Amanda Walsh sitting in a chair, with ropes secured to various joints on her body. "It's gonna be good for you, very good. We need to keep your body strong, don't we?" he says. Then he puts the needle on the record on an old Victrola and goes to a series of levers connected to pulleys, and -- well, the name of the episode is "Marionette," after all, so it's not like this was ever going to be a surprise. He pulls some levers on what looks like some kind of 19th-century contraption, because he's got this whole steampunk thing going on. On some level I found it creepy, but on another I found it a little too cartoonish to be that unsettling. Technically well done -- it's remarkably easy to believe that the woman playing Amanda Walsh is an actual corpse -- but the elements -- the old-fashioned music on the old-fashioned player, the Industrial Revolution machinery, etc. -- added up to something that felt too manipulative to actually manipulate me. Anyway, good thing this guy was obsessed with a ballet dancer and not a crunk dancer. I can't even imagine what that contraption would look like.
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By Daniel
Back at the lab, Astrid's on the phone with Broyles, who lets her know that Amanda's body was stolen before it could be cremated. "And the funeral home covered it up. Apparently, stealing bodies is not all that unusual," she tells Walter. Does she expect Walter of all people to be surprised to hear of grave-robbing? He points out that the theft of corpses is a "time-honoured tradition" in the fields of science and medicine. "My dear, we've been stealing from the dead for as long as we've been burying them," he says, telling her that in the 19th century it was the most common way doctors and scientists had for getting cadavers to study. "In fact, the practice was so common that it inspired the gothic novel Frankenstein. You may have heard of it." This sounds kind of like the thing they do on Law & Order for legal reasons, where the lawyers or cops explicitly refer to the real-life case that the episode is based on to add a little layer of legal protection. Only this is Fringe, so the real-life case is Frankenstein.
Anyway, Astrid asks if Walter believes the dead can be brought back to life. He doesn't, but it's not for lack of trying on his part: "Belly and I dabbled in that arena for years. But alas, we never could revive Yatsko," he says. Astrid looks at him. "Peter just loved that cocker-spaniel," he finishes, and Astrid's face wrinkles up a little. Anyway, looks like the rigor mortis is setting in, as Walter looks over the corpse. "Feel that. Finally some stiffness," says Walter, and I think this scene got cut off too soon because obviously Astrid would have added, "That's what she said."
Elsewhere, Peter and Olivia are going through the stacks of files on the groups Amanda was in and the people she knew, having already removed anyone who doesn't have a medical or a scientific background. Peter's got one: Ellis Rourke, from the General Depression group, which he was in with Amanda for almost a year. Age 36, majored in biology, has an anger-management problem, arrested twice for battery. Olivia rejects him because she thinks whoever's doing this isn't driven by anger. Peter gives a slight eye-roll as he tosses the file aside, and an FBI agent comes in with more patient files from Col. Broyles, and I guess now everyone is going to call him Col. Broyles to remind me what an idiot I am. Anyway, Olivia says Amanda was also in a cognitive behavioral group that focused on ways to cope with depression. "You'd think that someone who was working that hard at being OK would get some sort of payoff," says Peter, who probably means well but displays a sadly common misconception of depression, and Olivia quietly says it doesn't always work like that. Anyway, Peter picks out another file: "Simon Whelan, age 29. Says here that he is socially and sexually incompetent," he says, but Olivia dismisses that one too.
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By Daniel
Peter says he knows profiling is one of her specialties, but she could at least listen to what he has to say before she just dismisses it out of hand. "Well, he's not the guy we're looking for," says Olivia, tersely. Peter wants to know what he's missing, since this Whelan guy ticks off all the boxes: loner type who has difficulty making friends, who more than likely has parents who are either living far away or deceased. "Therapist says he displays symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, which means caring about other people is not exactly his strong suit."
Olivia just says again that he's not the guy, and Peter presses her on why. "Profiling is not just about checking off the facts. You have to weigh them. You got to feel it in your gut," she says, which still doesn't satisfy him, and she finally snaps, "He doesn't love her. Whoever's out there fighting to give Amanda back her life, even though she chose to end it, loves her. OK?" So Peter knows this isn't just about this, but is also about that. She realizes that she's being a little short with him and says she's sorry. He tells her not to be, even though he clearly wants her to be.
Anyway, then he finds Roland David Barrett, who worked in animal research. But then Peter figures it's not him, because he dropped out of the group last spring, and it doesn't take a genius to determine that he dropped out the day that Amanda committed suicide, but Olivia asks the pertinent question.
And then they're racing towards Barrett's house, while Peter fills in more of the background: only son to Nathaniel Barrett, heir to the Stanfield Chemical fortune, which he inherited 10 years ago. "Does his post-doctoral work on cell decay and regeneration, but then quit abruptly because of an onset of severe depression," he says, adding that a few years ago he picked up his work again at the Duk-Hee Genetic Institute, where his research contributed to the creation of synthetic life on the cellular level. "I wonder if he could actually do it," says Peter. "Reanimation."
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By Daniel
The whole while, we're also watching Barrett working with some thankfully much more modern equipment while Amanda is laid out, electrodes attached to her head. I was half-expecting his reanimation equipment to be coal-powered. He affixes a last electrode to her wrist, and then picks up a little control box, and turns up the "Base Current Control" knob up, and her body instantly convulses, and then she flatlines again. And then a moment later, she sits up, eyes wide open, gasping.
After the commercial break, she's lying back, eyes darting back and forth. Barrett strokes her forehead, and says, "It's me, Roland. You made a terrible mistake, but it's OK now. You're back." He soothes her, holds her head and she looks utterly insentient. He stops smiling as her breathing gets slower and more infrequent, and he lays her head back down and her head lolls and he starts to get upset -- but it's only going to get a whole lot worse for him, as from upstairs he can hear the sound of the FBI banging on his door. So he leaves Amanda lying there, head swiveling from side-to-side like a stunned baby drawn to lights and sounds.
Upstairs, FBI agents are moving through the stately mansion, with its stained-glass windows and many leather-bounds books and smell of mahogany. While Broyles finds steps into the basement, Barrett has apparently come upstairs a different way and probably wishes that maybe he was wearing sneakers, something that would make a less clip-cloppy noise on the hard floors. He runs into Olivia, who tackles him and growls, "Where is she?" Barrett says she's downstairs.
That's where Broyles, Peter and Walter are searching. It's Peter who finds another set of stairs into an even danker part of the basement.
Upstairs, Barrett tells Olivia: "I was trying to correct a wrong. She made a mistake." Olivia asks what his relationship was with Amanda. Nothing sexual, apparently, which is good, because we wouldn't want this to be CREEPY. He just says he wanted her to have another chance, to live a life. Olivia asks him if he has anything profound to say, something that might have some personal resonance for her own life. "When I looked into her eyes, it wasn't Amanda. I don't know what I brought back, but I know it ... it wasn't her." Olivia stares at him grimly. You got it, Olivia? This man brought back the woman he loved from the other side, and he could tell just by looking in her eyes that it wasn't the woman he loved.
Now, there are some differences. For example, I'm sure that if Peter had reanimated Olivia's dead body -- after first reinserting donated organs -- he should probably have some idea that it wasn't going to be the exact same person. But other than that IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME.
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By Daniel
Meanwhile, the boys have found Amanda, who's sitting lifelessly, eyes open, in a comfortable chair. Walter inspects her, says she's dead, does the close-the-eyes thing that people do on television that I'd probably be too freaked out to do in real life.
Later on outside, Walter asks his son what he needs after a day like today: a strawberry milkshake. Peter says he can do that, but Walter's request of "extra whipped cream" is pushing his luck too far with his grumpy ingrate son.
And Olivia's sitting all by herself in the darkness of Barrett's yard, with lawn furniture that of course makes it look like a 19th-century English garden nightmare, and Peter asks if she's OK. He touches her shoulder, and she recoils, her head in her hands. He sits down to her and asks what's up. After a moment, she tells him what Barrett said, about looking into Amanda's eyes and knowing that it wasn't her. Peter knows this isn't going to go well, and he really doesn't have much choice to listen to Olivia's anguished lament about how she understands the facts of the matter, which is that Fauxlivia would have had reams of information about her, and reasonable explanations for everything. "But when I was over there, I thought about you. And you were just a figment of my imagination. But I held onto you, and it wasn't reasonable, and it wasn't logical, but I did it, so ... why didn't you?" It's not a question that Peter's going to have any kind of acceptable answer to, kind of like, "Whose bra is this?" Olivia's not finished: "She wasn't me. How could you not see that?" she says. Peter looks sad, but at least he has the good sense to keep his mouth shut and let her finish and not offer up any non-comfort like "she smiles more" and "she's less intense." And then Olivia drives the final nail in: "Now she's everywhere. She's in my house, my job, my bed, and I don't want to wear my clothes anymore, and I don't want to live in my apartment. And I don't want to be with you. She's taken everything." She gets up and stomps off, Peter looking miserable. After she's gone, much too softly for her to hear, he says he's sorry. I get the feeling that he ain't seen sorry yet.
And then we see the fabulous Bishop Boys' shaggin' wagon pull up outside Peggy's Malt Shop, and I was pleased with myself for spotting the Observer's silhouette in the foreground, because I hardly ever see the damn guy, only it turns out to be a plot point. As the Bishops go in, he dials on his freaky Observer cellphone thingy, and says, "I have arrived. Yes, I am looking at him as we speak. He is still alive." Walter's in the centre of the malt shop shot, but I think that's a little bit of misdirection. I think he's talking about Peter, and that this has to do with them correcting the fact that an Observer intervened to save Peter's life (like in that episode "August"). But then again, Peter's significant, no? Or maybe he isn't anymore. Well, I guess we'll find out week. What's that? I'm being told that this awesome season is off now until Jan. 21. That does not seem fair. Well, let me just circle the date on the calendar ... hold on, now. Thursday is Jan. 20, so that date must be wrong. Unless they're moving Fringe to Fridays. Boy, wouldn't that be awful? I mean, Friday is where underperforming television shows go to die, isn't it? I mean ...
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By Daniel
Oh. Oh no.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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