By Daniel
Massive Dynamic. Nina strides down an austere corridor (are there any other kind at this place?), and uses her keycard to enter a room filled with keepsakes, artwork and artifacts. Old helmets on display. Outdated books like (ahem) Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care. She gives the items a brief look, but she's there with purpose. Looking at what appears to be a heat vent, Nina slides the thermostat all the way to "Off", and the grille shimmers out of existence, revealing a safe behind it. Just in case the hologram didn't trip people up, someone has scrawled "Stay out! This means you!" on masking tape affixed to the door of the safe. Nina enters in a code -- #, in case that winds up being important -- and swings open the safe.
Then she starts going through his things -- a red matchbox car makes her smile. There's what appears to be the preliminary sketch for the Massive Dynamic logo. There's an old Photoshopped picture of John Noble and Leonard Nimoy together, and there's Leonard Nimoy's massive head superimposed on the body of someone embracing a young Blair Brown. She lingers over the photos for a moment, then moves on, and pulls a well-worn book out of its protective leather wrap. Die Ersten Menschen is the title, and Nina helpfully translates for us: "The First People," she says, adding, "You and your secrets." She takes out her cellphone and dials and tells someone else to call Agent Dunham, like Nina herself doesn't have Olivia's number in her cellphone.
Nevertheless, Olivia's now in Nina's office, thumbing through one of four copies of The First People that Nina has collected. "So they all say essentially the same thing?" says Olivia, and Nina says, "Not essentially, precisely. Despite being attributed to different authors." She also has no idea why William Bell was pursuing it, but tells Olivia just in case Olivia forgot the information in the books led to the co-ordinates where they found pieces of the doomsday device. "Which makes them impossible to discount," says Olivia.
Nina wonders if Fauxlivia's journal might shed some light, and Olivia says that she read them and there wasn't anything like that in there. Nina suddenly feels a little embarrassed, not realizing that Olivia had read the journal. "I imagine that must have been awkward, reading her account of her time with Peter," she says, and I swear to god the first time I watched this I thought she said "her time in Peter."By Daniel
And since there's nothing more awesome on this show than hitched-throat blatherings about the Fauxlivia-Peter-Olivia love triangle, Nina and Olivia discuss it at great length, with Olivia understanding how Fauxlivia came to have feelings for Peter, and she wonders if Peter felt the same way. "I was her for a while, and she's -- she's like me, but better." Oh, no, Olivia, no! She seems to mainly mean that Fauxlivia still has her mother and wasn't experimented on as a child (well, you don't actually know that, do you). "And she can laugh. She has real friends. She even wears a dress every once in a while." SHE EVEN WEARS A DRESS EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, is what Olivia says, because why not keep this show's streak of cases tailored directly to the Fringe squad's personal problems going, and then Nina says, "Yes, but even so, you don't know what Peter's thinking. And there's no possible way you ever could, unless for some reason tonight's episode winds up giving you a way to READ PETER'S MIND."
Then Nina starts going on about how if Facebook had been around in the 1700s when she and William Bell were doing each other, her relationship status would have read "It's complicated." And now she regrets that they never honestly acknowledged how they felt about each other, and then she wraps this up because everyone would rather picture Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson doing it instead of Blair Brown and Leonard Nimoy doing it, so she tells Olivia not to make the same mistake she did: "If you want to know how Peter feels, ask him."
And then we go over to an office birthday party at good ol' Intrepus, and I'd like to point out that the company logo is all small letters now, and the man of the hour opens a present that turns out to be a Magic 8-Ball, like thanks for breaking a tenner for that gift, whoever you are, and he asks the 8-Ball if they're going to get the "Fowler Grant," and then he does that thing that people in movies and television always do where they shake the Magic 8-Ball which really just makes for a million air bubbles in the little window, sometimes blocking the answer. Not in this case, though; no air bubbles in the chamber, just the floating answer: "Outlook not so good." And then Warren bums out the crowd by TELLING them this instead of pretending it was a positive answer.
And now people are bringing him a cake and singing "Happy birthday to you," which is going to cost Fox some money, and he's told to make a wish so he wishes to never hear them sing again, and everyone laughs their asses off even though it was kind of a dick thing to say, so this guy is probably their boss. Then he blows out the candles.
Later in his office, his departing assistant tells him he's very popular today, which he wryly notes happens once a year, and he's got another box to open. Inside is a little black and white doll. Puzzled, he pulls the ring on the back of the doll's neck, and it starts to giggle, nice and creepily. Then a puff of blue powder explodes from the front of the doll, all over Warren's face. Almost instantly he starts grimacing, and he slowly collapses as his arms and legs seem to fold in on themselves.- 1
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By Daniel
His yells aren't loud enough to attract attention from anyone but Grace -- "he's in trouble! Those aren't his usual cries of anguish!" -- and she comes to the turn, and starts screeching when she sees Warren dead on the floor. We get a little glimpse of his flattened body, but we have to wait until after the opening credits for the full effect.
It's now dark outside, ninety minutes later, as Broyles leads the Fringe team into the quarantine zone. He tells them about Dr. Warren Blake, a scientist working in the company's R&D Department. "The victim's reaction doesn't match any known biological or chemical weapon," says Broyles.
Walter's utterly confused: "But why would anyone kill a scientist? What did we ever do?" Fortunately for Walter, the only reaction he gets is from a wry Peter, who simply says "Really?" Olivia, whom Walter conducted experiments on when she was a child, says nothing.
Inside, the team wears badass-looking red Hazmat suits as they pick their way through the remnants of the worst office birthday party ever. Walter crouches down by the body, just a shapeless mass of flesh and clothes. "I feel nauseated," he says, but not because of the body, but because he farted inside his suit. Always nice to have Walter along! He examines the body, and notes that there doesn't seem to be a single bone left in, and he notices a blue substance on his face that Blake must have inhaled.
This is one of those incredibly horrifying products that Walter seems to wish he'd thought up: "Ingenious. It destroyed bone matter but was nonreactive with everything else. The work of a highly proficient chemist, no doubt," he says. Meanwhile, Peter's found the doll delivery system, and he pulls the tab and spews MORE of this incredibly toxic stuff into the air, and he gives the killer "bonus points for the creepy factor." In the box the doll came in, Olivia finds a card that says "Happy Birthday from Madison." There's no return address on the box, but Olivia's looking at it thoughtfully, until Peter asks her what she's thinking. "That this is too big to go in a mail drop," she says.
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By Daniel
So they're back at the Harvard lab. Broyles tracked the postal code, and they've discovered that the package was sent from Chelsea two days ago, and Olivia is just downloading the post office security footage. Olivia explains all this to Peter as he strolls in, placing a coffee cup by Olivia's computer, very prominently in the foreground in a "this is going to be a plot point" kind of way. Olivia starts looking through the footage, and absentmindedly takes a sip of the coffee, then pauses and subtly looks at the cup. There's an X in the milk check box on the side. Oh, good! I was worried we were all done with the complaining about Fauxlivia this episode.
Meanwhile, Walter's got the doll in one of those airtight containers that you stick your arms in through holes in the side -- I don't know what they're called. While Astrid reads a bio of Blake -- a doctor who vaccinated thousands in underdeveloped countries -- Walter is spraying blue powder on a gnawed-on chicken bone, which starts to disintegrate. "How many times are you gonna test that? Or is this just a way for you to break your diet?" Astrid says, and Walter tries to pretend that he doesn't enjoy eating greasy fried food instead of telling Astrid to mind her own goddamn business. He says if he can figure out exactly what the substance is, then they may be able to figure out where it came from, and then he shows her a computer model of the molecule, and says a whole lot of fanciful blah blah blah about how the powder's molecules are capsulized, which preserves the agent until it's delivered into the host, and then it strikes him that he and Bell used a similar technique in the '70s when they were using their powers only for good and trying to find a way to vaccinate people without their knowledge. Walter says they discontinued the project when "Tricky Dicky" tried to use their research to develop biological weapons. Astrid is stunned by yet another one of Walter's breezily offhand revelations, and then floored when Walter says Nixon's wife kept coming on to him.
Walter's too busy ripping into the back of the doll, which I'm kind of surprised hasn't been done already. "Now, little lady, let's see what makes you tick. Because if I'm right, this is not some rogue's creation at all."
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By Daniel
And then Peter and Olivia come in because they have already found footage of the guy sending the package. "Good thing lunatics still have to use the postal service," says Peter. Walter says there have been two breakthroughs, because he suspects the cylindrical dispersal device is military in origin. Olivia's shocked, for some reason. "U.S. military? How would our suspect get his hands on something like that?" Uh, because he is or was in the military? Let's ask Astrid, who took all of five seconds to definitively match the surveillance photo with a former marine named Aaron Downey. "He doesn't have a criminal record. He has a military one," she says, but he's been out of the service for four years. Olivia gets the address, and makes a quick call: "This is Dunham. I need a team in Quincy now."
But he's long gone by the time the FBI SWAT team raids the place, and a hot kettle on the stove tells Olivia that they just missed him. That doesn't seem to spur any sort of urgency among the team to try to "establish a perimeter" in the neighbourhood or whatever it is you normally do in these circumstances. Also, I love how quick people whip off the Hazmat gear a split-second after the area is declared free of chemical or biological agents. You'd hate to do that the day that gear malfunctions, hey?
Anyway, Peter and Olivia are looking through the house, examining his service medals, and discussing how a marine ends up a terrorist. Olivia's reading some sort of file. "It says here that Downey's service record was impeccable and then four years ago, he just abruptly resigned his commission," she says, adding that he disappeared for a couple of years, and then resurfaced and bought this house, all cash.Peter, meanwhile, has found a photo album with several pictures of the same woman. "She was obviously important to him. Maybe she knows where he is," she says, and then she zones out. No, Peter, don't ask. You aren't going to like it, Peter, don't ask. Don't -- oh, he's asking if she's OK, and Olivia comes back with, "Do you still think about her?" Peter's a bit taken aback, and Olivia explains that he's bought her a hundred cups of coffee and he knows that she takes it black with one sugar, but his morning he brought her one with milk, so she's assuming that that's how "the other Olivia" likes hers. Come on! We're all calling her Fauxlivia now! I hope the look of sadness on Peter's face, by this point, is at least a LITTLE bit due to him thinking, "OK, seriously, how long is this going to go on?" Olivia's pleading face does break your heart a little bit.- 1
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By Daniel
Peter says he does think about her all the time, and lets Olivia stew on that for awhile before he clarifies: "I think about how she used my feelings for you to manipulate me. How she lied to me and everyone else." But Olivia, despite having earlier appeared to be getting past this, AND WHO REALLY HAS SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT TO DO RIGHT NOW, reminds Peter of how he said that Fauxlivia was fun and had an easier smile. Peter's probably fighting back the urge to say something like, "Yeah, what could be more fun than this," but just says that he only said that because he wanted Olivia to know that he noticed the differences. "But I thought it was because of me. Because of us. I thought that I was bringing out a different side in you. But it was never because I wanted to be with her more. Because I don't." I guess that's about the best he can do. He also apologizes for the coffee too, which we DIDN'T SEE HER PAY FOR.
Anyway, one of the FBI SWAT members who is actually doing some work comes in to tell her that they've got something downstairs.
It's a case with some large military ordnance canisters -- three of the slots are empty. Broyles tells her the serial numbers have been filed down, meaning they're stolen.
Back upstairs, Peter hears a cell phone ring, somewhat muffled, then sees someone run across the roof outside the window. "He's here!" he yells out to the FBI agents who raided a house and didn't spot a man on the roof who's so dumb that he hid but didn't set his cell phone to vibrate. Peter chases him across the roof and down to the street, where buddy gets hit by a car. I suppose that, considering how Peter is this lethal weaponized version of himself now, Downey got off easy.
After the commercial break, we're at the hospital, where Downey is stabilized, but with a fair bit of swelling in the brain, pushing down on the brain stem, cutting off the blood supply. The doctor doesn't know if he'll regain consciousness. "If he does come out of the coma, he won't be able to talk or swallow or even breathe without a machine," she tells them. Peter's all, "So much for interrogating him," but Walter looks at the guy's chart and notes that there's still neural activity in the cerebrum. "I may know a way to question the suspect. But I'll need to go back to the lab first to think about it," he says. Or you could wait until he dies and then question him then, like this show used to do.
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By Daniel
Olivia gets a phone call that tells her the woman in the photographs is Downey's ex-wife. All the information the FBI had at its disposal and none of it mentioned a wife? Really? Anyway, she's agreed to talk to them, so off they go.
So they interview Sara Downey at the federal building, where they show her a picture of Dr. Blake. "He finally did it," she says, shocked, and explains that Aaron said he was going to kill Dr. Blake, she just never took him seriously. Sounds like Sara's gonna get sued by the Blake family!
She tells Olivia and Peter that Aaron left the Marines to do private contract work that took him overseas for a couple of years. When he got back, they tried to start a family, but the baby died seven months into the pregnancy. Olivia says she's sorry. This probably also reminds her of Fauxlivia and Peter somehow. "The doctor said that there was something wrong with Aaron, some DNA pathogen that he passed on to our child. Aaron was convinced that it had something to do with his time overseas. He kept talking about a weapons project, that he must have been exposed to something. Dr. Blake was the scientist who oversaw it."
She can't remember the name of the project, but we do learn that their child was a daughter who they were going to name Madison. "She died like all the others," she says, explaining that there were two other men in Aaron's unit whose babies died the same way. "I'm sorry for asking this, but how did your daughter die?" asks Peter, and Sara says it was a bone disease that left her without a skeleton.
So Olivia's going to call Broyles and see if they can track down some of Blake's old research grants in an effort to find the names of the other two men. Peter's cell phone rings. It's a frantic Walter, calling from a pay phone in New Hampshire. "Peter, bring your wallet. I haven't got any money and I'm starving!" yells Walter. Frankly, I'm surprised he got as far as he did!
Wait, did Olivia need to come along to rescue Walter too? Isn't there something more important Olivia could be doing? Never mind. Walter ducks her question about where he was driving to, at least initially, but finally admits that a boy, Simon Phillips, in the Wooster Cortexiphan trials lives just up the road, and he may be able to help them. Olivia steps in with her photographic memory to point out that there was no Simon Phillips listed in the Cortexiphan trials. Peter says that's because Simon never completed the program: "Simon was beginning to develop the ability to read minds. We hadn't intended it to happen. None of the other children were affected in such a way," he says.
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By Daniel
Peter figures it out immediately, that Walter kicked Simon out of the program because he was worried that Simon would read Walter's mind and know Walter's secret. Alcoholism? No, right, right, taking Peter from the other side.
Anyway, Walter figures the mind-reading ability is probably dormant, but if Walter can reactivate it, then he could read Downey's mind and find out where the attack's happening.
Then Walter goes nuts because a blue Volkswagen Beetle drives by, and Walter slugs Peter and says, "Punch buggy! Blue!" and Peter and Olivia look on, bemused. So they all go off to meet the guy, who lives in an isolated cabin. "I don't think this guy's big on company," says Olivia, and she and Peter go to the front door while Walter decides he's going to take a piss and just does so by the side of the house.
There's no response as Olivia and Peter knock on the door and call out Simon's name. Walter finishes peeing into the pond and zips up, and turns around to find a guy pointing a gun at him. Walter doesn't say anything, but the man says, "Yes, I know who you are. No, I wouldn't call it wonderful at all." So this must be Simon Phillips! And then Walter practically fries the poor guy's brain with the random thoughts whizzing through his brain. The first one is bacon. How about that! That's something Walter and I have in common! "Unicorns, Peter's birthday, dash of cinnamon, z2 equals z1 squared plus c, Reiden Lake... what does that mean? What are you trying to do to me?" Walter says his mind just kind of does this sometimes. Simon tells Walter that he has to leave, and then Olivia's behind Simon pointing her gun at him.
He swings around, and the swirling audio of Walter's thoughts is replaced by silence. "How come I can't hear you? Why can't I read you?" Walter tells Simon that she was a Cortexiphan subject too, and sometimes the children were immune to each other's abilities. Walter's thoughts start poking into Simon's head again, and he collapses in anguish, but not before saying, "'Berry Boom'? Don't you mean Frankenberry?"
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By Daniel
Simon's recovering in the cabin with Olivia, while Peter and Walter wait outside. "Every new thought he reads is an added stressor. To cope, his brain pumps adrenalin and cortisol into his system. Naturally, he experiences headaches, nausea, accelerated heart rate. That's why he gets sick." I know people who get like that when they haven't checked Facebook for a while. "How many more, Walter? How many more are gonna come crawling out of the woodwork?" asks Peter, and Walter stays grimly silent instead of saying, "Yes, maybe I should be more forthcoming, and while I'm at it I'll let Broyles know about you going all Terminator on the shapeshifters."
Inside the cabin, Olivia brings Simon some tea or coffee. Looking around the room, she sees the walls covered with several sketches of a woman. After a few moments of silence, he tells her that it's refreshing not to be able to read her mind. "It's the first real conversation I've had in twenty years," he says. Great, he's going to ask her if Nirvana's got any new records out. That's going to be awkward. He explains that his mind-reading started when he was about 10, and could hear other kids' thoughts in school. It kept getting worse, though, and now he can't control it.
Olivia asks if that's why he lives alone. "It's the only place that's quiet. Do you know how it feels to be burdened with something that makes it impossible for you to relate to another person? That makes you feel completely alone in the world?" Yeah, funny you should ask. Instead of saying, "Yes, but fortunately every file we handle these days has parallels to my personal situation that help me work through my feelings," Olivia just says she can imagine.
But let's get down to business, shall we? Olivia awkwardly segues into saying that sometimes their capabilities, while difficult, can also help people. "Look, I don't have to be able to read your mind to know that you want something. What is it?" he says, and Olivia says they need him to help with an investigation by reading a suspect's mind. So in other words, this ability that drove you crazy and into isolation and also makes you horribly ill? Yeah, we need you to do that. He's reluctant, and Olivia pleads with him to come back to Boston. "A city the size of Boston?" he says. Well, Boston. "You've got to be joking. All those thoughts, they're like millions of needles in my brain." He says there's got to be another way. And despite the fact that every case up until now has been solved without reading minds, Olivia puts an awful lot of pressure on him by telling him that if he doesn't help, more people will die. He just stares at her for a moment.
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By Daniel
Over to Canopy One Defense Corp, where a trio of suits are hustling into a frosted-glass elevator and bitching about "Barry" calling a last-minute emergency board meeting at 5 o'clock. "I've got dinner in the city in an hour. Ninety-three is gonna be brutal." Yeah, Barry should really try to schedule an emergency meeting at a more convenient time. There's another rag doll attached to the ceiling, with a card, identical to the one that killed the scientist, only this one reads, "Happy Birthday from Carla." From outside, we see a flash, a cloud of blue smoke and the three suits collapsing and yelling, while their concerned colleagues look on as the elevator makes its way up the middle of the building.
Over at a hospital, an official-looking woman is barking orders, telling staff she needs non-critical patients in the lobby, as she strides over to meet with Broyles and Walter, and tells them the hospital is moving them as quickly as they can. "Can I ask what this is for?" she says. "We need a mind-reader to help us find a bomb," says Walter. The scene ends there, but I presume Broyles then said, "Walter, how about I do the talking from now on."
So with the wing evacuated, Olivia leads Simon to Downey's bedside, while Broyles and the Bishops watch on closed-circuit television. Peter says they should think of a backup plan. Broyles: "You got any ideas?" His idea was that they should get a plan! He can't do everything!
In the hospital room, Simon concentrates and tries to pick up Downey's thoughts, but what he can hear is unintelligible, like a poorly tuned foreign-language radio station. He grunts and has to stop. "It's not working, is it," says Olivia. Simon suggests Olivia try asking Downy a question. "All right," says Olivia, sounding unsure. Because now it would be weird. So she asks Downey to focus on her voice, and asks if he can hear her talking to him. Through Simon we can hear a woman's voice saying, "The doctor says there's something wrong with our baby." Olivia keeps pressing, asking Aaron who he was working with. The noises get louder and Simon is practically vibrating at this point, and then we cut to him barfing. In the sink, not the toilet! Gross! Olivia asks him if he's OK, and once he can speak he tells her to get a pen.
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By Daniel
So the Fringe team reviews the list that Simon writes down, which includes a lot of food, and also "grasshopper" and "oxidized" and "Maryann" and "Project Jellyfish" and "stat" and "NK8749J" and Peter figures they should just discount all the vegetables, which naturally bothers Walter, and then Peter asks if there was any reference in Downey's file to a Maryann, and Olivia says there wasn't. Was this the same file that didn't include the information that Downey was married? So Olivia asks about Project Jellyfish, like of COURSE that's it, because, as Walter points out, Jellyfish are one of the few creatures that don't have any bones. It's not like the weapons program is going to be called Project Make Bones Disintegrate Now.
Broyles' cell phone rings, and he disappears (I mean, not literally. But since this is Fringe thought maybe I should specify). This gives Peter and Olivia a chance to have a heart-to-heart about Simon. "He can barely function around people. The Cortexiphan trials ruined his life. He's broken," she says, and Peter says he knows what she's thinking. She looks surprised. Not literally, Olivia! "You and he are nothing alike," he tells her.
Before Olivia can start whining some more about Peter banging Fauxlivia, Broyles comes back to tell them that there's been another attack: "The powder killed three senior executives at Canopy One." Olivia wonders if that's who funded the weapons project. Broyles says he'll call Nina ("Nina Sharp" he tells Peter and Olivia, who may not have known which Nina he meant). "She's had more experience with the Defense Department than I have," he says. Yeah, right. It's Friday, time for another booty call, am I right?
Olivia then goes over to sit down with Simon, who asks if his info helped. Olivia says they hope so, then asks about the picture Simon is currently sketching -- another picture of the woman plastered all over Simon's solitary cabin in the woods.
"She works at a coffeeshop by my house," says Simon, and Olivia asks what she's like. "She's perfect," is all Simon says, and Olivia manages not to ask if Simon ever accidentally had sex with her alternate-universe version because he didn't know the difference. But she puts two and two together: "You haven't met her, have you," she says and Simon says he sees her sometimes when he drives by. This guy drives? Walter practically drove him insane just by thinking! What happens when he pulls up to someone thinking, "You know, what my truck needs is one of those sets of plastic balls to hang from the rear bumper"? Olivia asks if he thinks it would be too painful, and Simon points out that if she pretended to be nice or even flirted with her out of pity, he'd know how she really feels: "That I'm too much of a freak for her to even consider being with." Guy, Larry King has been married like fifteen times. I'm sure you could find someone.
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By Daniel
"But you don't know that. That's what you're afraid is gonna happen," says Olivia, and in this it's not so different from anyone scared to ask someone out: "And so what if she's not interested or that there's somebody else on her mind or that she doesn't love you. I mean, isn't it better to know?" she says. Simon looks at her like she doesn't get it, and I suppose she doesn't, because Simon has a bit of an ethical problem with it: "No one should know exactly what someone else is thinking," he says. Olivia agrees in principle, and then overshares some of her personal life by saying she wouldn't mind having that ability right now. Then her gaze drifts down the hall to Peter, and Simon turns and looks at him too, tuning in a couple of his thoughts.
Over at Massive Dynamic, Nina tells Broyles, "Officially, Project Jellyfish never existed," and he's all, "You brought me all the way out here to tell me that?" rather grumpily for someone looking to get laid. Nina says no, and uses the intercom to tell her aide to send in Agent Edwards. The double-doors to her office swing open, and my first thought was, "Holy shit! Agent Edwards is hot!" but it's just one of those impossibly perfect human specimens that wander the halls of Massive Dynamic, looking great in sweaters and skirts. I imagine they live there, like Oompa Loompas at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Anyway, Agent Edwards is the spook coming in behind the aide. "I might have guessed that this involved the CIA," snorts Broyles. Edwards says it doesn't: "But Nina asked me to do some digging, and we both know that what Nina Sharp wants, she gets." Broyles slowly swivels his head back toward Nina with a look that clearly says, "Seriously? Him?" Nina gives nothing away, just folds her hands coyly. Edwards outlines the details of Jellyfish: a weapons project that had three men carry out the live field tests.
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By Daniel
Broyles asks how the men survived. "Apparently they were inoculated. But when they tried to start families..." says Edwards, and Broyles finishes the sentence: "...the toxin affected their unborn children." Edwards says he couldn't find anything in Downey's personal file that Fringe hadn't already seen, but he did find something in the Department of Defence payroll database: "In addition to a large cash payment, Downey was given three acres of government land. Farmland at Pembroke, twenty-five miles south of Boston." Well, it's great that there isn't already a SWAT team descending on the place. Guess it's more important for Nina to dramatically bring in a CIA agent for a nice leisurely chat about disgruntled soldiers who have killed twice already.
Yeah, that barn is, right now, the site of a test being run by the remaining two soldiers, one of whom has attached a vest to a mannequin. He sets it off, and the vest explodes, filling the barn with blue smoke. "Yeah, we're good," he says. Yeah, you could be arrested right now, if Nina hadn't wanted to put on a little puppet show with a couple of her lovers.
Looks like early morning now by the time the FBI team is on scene. Peter, Olivia and Broyles wait outside while the Hazmat guys check everything out. Walter strolls out of the barn and takes his helmet off. "We're fine. The powder is fully oxidized."
Inside the Fringe folks marvel at the mess that these so-called former marines left behind -- the vest, the layout of what is probably an overview of their potential target. "The vest would allow them to spread the powder themselves," says Walter. Elsewhere, Broyles has found the traditional stash of newspapers clippings of a killer's target, as well as detailed plans that will lead anyone who finds it right to them. Yeah, why would the marines clean that up? There's no chance that anyone would find it, right? I mean, they're only using ultra-unique stolen military weaponry and testing it on land that the Department of Defense knows belongs to one of them. Are they trying to get caught?
Anyway, the victim is Congressman Jim Thorn, a former army general who was senior military advisor to the joint chiefs at the time of Project Jellyfish. He steps away to alert the congressman's security detail, while Peter keeps looking over the schematics. Something catches his eye, because one of the soldiers has very helpfully circled in red the Maryann-Douglas Wing on a map of the Fine Arts Museum. "He's holding a fundraiser. It's an event for 300 of his top donors. It started half an hour ago," says Broyles, getting off the phone.
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By Daniel
Poor Simon -- just trying to do some sketching in the car while he waits. Olivia opens the door and looks at him. "I'm not going home, am I?" he says.
Nope! Fundraiser attendees mingle and schmooze at the Fine Arts Museum, while Olivia is preparing in an FBI van. In an amazing coincidence, after she mentioned that Fauxlivia would occasionally wear a dress, she is now wearing a dress. And she is applying lipstick. SHE IS APPLYING LIPSTICK. An agent asks how good a shot Olivia is: "If either of those two guys have a hand trigger, you're only gonna get one shot. Put it through the mouth to sever the spinal cord. That way the suspects won't have a chance to detonate." Broyles indicates a very nervous-looking, tuxedo-clad Simon, and asks Olivia if she's sure he's up for this. "I hope so. Because without Simon, we can't identify the suspects." Broyles tells her to get out of there if Simon can't do it.
Anyway, I will just state that I had trouble following the plot for the little while, because Olivia looks fantastic. And it's nice that they didn't do a Sandra Bullock, Miss Congeniality awkwardness here, but just kept Olivia as no-nonsense and kickass as normal. She clops up to the congressman security detail and wants to know why they haven't taken him to safety yet. "You ever try telling a four-star general to take a death threat seriously?" says one of the security guards, while the other one blatantly checks Olivia out. She orders them to keep the general in the back, since she's already seen what these guys are capable of.
Simon, meanwhile, is hanging on to a railing for dear life. Olivia goes back to him and he says, "The tall one thinks you're hot," as she leads him away. She allows herself to smile at that. By omission, the other one just must not like women. Which is fine, because Broyles or Peter must be around somewhere depending on what he's into.
The two of them make their way downstairs and through the service corridor, with Simon getting snippets of thoughts as he passes people, Olivia murmuring encouragement as he struggles down the hall.
They're stopped by a big tuxedo-wearing guy who we recognize as one of the former marines. He tells them this area is for staff only. Olivia says they're just looking for the restroom, since her buddy has had too much to drink. Simon stares at the guy and we hear his thoughts: "Who is she? A cop? I have to get out," and then he tells Olivia that the restroom's downstairs. He walks past them down the corridor, and Simon says, "That's him," and Olivia makes him say it a couple of times because they've got all the time in the world to waste, and then she tells Simon to wait there.
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By Daniel
She follows buddy down the hall, but quickly loses him in the maze of shelves and boxes and general clutter. She draws a gun from somewhere, and we see him hiding somewhere doing the same. Fortunately, she sees his reflection in a shiny serving plate and she wheels and shoots him in the chest, killing him instantly. She quickly searches the guy, and radios to Broyles that this one doesn't have the vest, so the other suspect must be carrying the toxin. "I'm going back out there with Simon," she says. Simon, meanwhile, looks to be in greater and greater distress.
After the commercial break, we get the overhead shot of the reception area that matches up with the layout in the barn, with the third marine making his way up the stairs that encircle the room, which Olivia and Simon are entering, Simon in agony as thoughts go in and out of his head. Finally he picks up the third guy, thinking, "Where's Thorn? Something's not right." Simon tells Olivia that the guy's here. Looking around, he finally picks him out on the stairs -- currently thinking, "Something is definitely wrong" -- and points him out to Olivia, who hurries up the stairs as fast as her heels will take her.
Upstairs, the marine is approaching the security detail, genially saying he's looking for his wife, who he thinks went out on the balcony. "You'll need to use a different exit," says the security guard who mystifyingly doesn't find Olivia hot, and he puts his arm out, which is when he sees the marine's hand trigger. But a split-second later, Olivia puts a bullet through the back of the guy's neck, killing him instantly and sending everyone around her running away in terror. The guard opens the dead man's jacket to find the bioweapon. I bet he thinks Olivia's hot now! She looks down from the railing to Simon at the bottom of the stairs, shaking in pain.
Later, Olivia sits at a table, jacket over her shoulders, watching the bodies of the marines being wheeled out in bodybags. He's brought her coffee. "Black, one sugar," he says, and he is REALLY asking for it. But Olivia smiles and thanks him, and then he gets all horndog on her and tells her how great she looks in the dress. Not that he's wrong.
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By Daniel
Across the room, Simon watches them. He's in turn approached by Walter, looking like he wants to say something, but then he stops, unsure. Simon looks at him, and then the two of them nod slightly.
Some time later, Olivia walks Simon to the front porch of his cabin, and thanks him. Then it's time for Olivia to dispense some advice about this guy she just met: "It doesn't have to be like this, you know? Living out here the way that you do. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should go and talk to the girl." Simon repeats that we're not supposed to know what others think, so she tries telling him to not let his ability stop him from living his life.
He looks at her for a while, nods, and then takes out an envelope. "I may not be able to read your mind, but I read his. This is what it's like to be me," he says, giving it to her and then going inside. Oh, that does not sound good. Olivia turns the envelope over in her hands, and then turns to go.
The day, I suppose, we're in Nina's office as she looks at the various copies of The First People books that she has, and then gasps "No!" as she looks at the name on a spine and realizes something. Taking out a pad of paper, she writes down the names of one of the authors -- M. Weiselauss, Seamus Wiles is another -- and starts anagramming it. Hey, it's kinda like the end of The Usual Suspects!
And then we're at the bowling alley, where a push broom glides along the floor and hits Nina's feet. Sam Weiss, aka Samuel Weiss, aka M. Weiselauss, aka Seamus Wiles, looks up at Nina. "I can see you didn't bring your bowling shoes. That's gonna be a problem if you intend to break a hundred," he jokes. Good god, has he slept with her too?
Nina wants him to tell her about The First People: "Start with why those books seem to indicate that you wrote them, then move on to what the device is intended for." "So you found it," he says, and she crabs that he never told her about it. In his defence, he says Peter's her problem, not him: "That device can either be used as at tool of creation or as a weapon of destruction. Depends on your point of view. And Peter Bishop is uniquely tuned to operate it. Whatever frequency Peter's vibrating at will determine how the machine reacts."
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By Daniel
All right, none of this is making sense so far, so Nina asks what determines Peter's frequency. "Depends on his state of mind, which in turn will depend on who he ends up with. Olivia from here or Olivia from over there. Whichever one he chooses, it'll be her universe that survives," says Sam. Then, uh, isn't Olivia the key? Anyway, Nina sees no cause for alarm in that: "He'll choose our Olivia." Sam simply says he wouldn't be so sure of that, and dramatically rolls a bowling ball down the ball return into another ball. But they don't explode.
Back at Olivia's apartment, she's reading the note from Simon, which simply says, "He still has feelings for her." Since "I thought she was you" isn't working, how about this: "We were on a break!"
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. If someone could read his mind, they would wonder if maybe his brain could better use the space currently being taken up by the theme song for Toonces the Driving Cat. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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