The Fringe team -- with William Bell still in Olivia's body -- tracks a woman who doesn't seem to be able to die, no matter how hard she tries. And she is trying, by working with a suicide hotline so she can attach herself to the most hopeless cases and die with them. Bell -- and Olivia does a great job with the head movements, stiff walk and eyebrow-raising of Leonard Nimoy -- and Walter have a great time working together, no matter how much it's creeping Peter out. Bell's enjoying himself too -- hitting on Astrid, speculating about having his consciousness transferred to Gene, for God's sake.
The Fringers solve the case with the help of one Lincoln Lee, an FBI agent out of Hartford who's been tracking the woman, who was supposed to have died when her family was murdered. So the idea is she just wants to rejoin her family but she can't because she was struck by lightning twice science science science can't die. Until she can, thanks to a bomb on a train. She thinks she's supposed to die on the train, but doesn't die until she takes the bomb off the train, saving everyone, because that's her destiny, of course.
As far as getting out of Olivia's body, Bell's not worried about it -- at least until a church bell rings, bringing Olivia back momentarily and giving Bell cause for concern that maybe, just maybe, his consciousness inhabiting the body of someone half a century younger might not be really simple.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He hopes that the soooooul magnets subplot doesn't leave him sexually attracted to Leonard Nimoy. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
I presume that after Olivia started speaking with William Bell's voice, Peter immediately started crying and curled up in a fetal position. And now the rest of the Fringe team is involved, with Bellivia laid out on a stretcher while Astrid affixes electrodes to her... his? Oh, this is going to be annoying, I can see that already. You know what? Bell's a man trapped in a woman's body, so I'm just going to go with his own gender self-actualization and refer to Bellivia as him. And dear god I hope this doesn't go much more than an episode or two.
Anyway, Bellivia's saying that he understands their concerns, but Olivia's fine, simply resting. Unsurprisingly, Broyles would like a little clarification on that, and Bellivia explains that Olivia's conscious mind, her awareness, is in a state of rest. And this is exactly as he planned it: way back when Olivia first met him on the other side. "I gave her a cup of tea. The soooooul magnets were in that tea." So: soooooul roofies, then? Peter's standing there all grouchy, arms folded, as I imagine you would if your girlfriend, who you've FINALLY started having sex with, were to become inhabited with the consciousness of an octogenarian scientist who recently died.
I suppose to make sure that this isn't just Olivia pulling a big gag on everybody, Walter's checking out the brain's electrical activity. There are two distinct patterns he points out: "This one, active. That's you, Belly," he says, and he giggles, and so does Bellivia, while Astrid looks at Walter wide-eyed and Peter glares. "The other one inert. Like the brain waves of a long, dreamless sleep, which suggests that Olivia was aware of none of this."
Bell acknowledges that it might take some time to get used to. But hey, can't you see it from his side? Imagine how he feels! He never realized a bra was so binding! He starts snickering, and Walter laughs too, until Astrid gives him a subtle headshake, because the rest of the gang is unsurprisingly not made more comfortable about the situation by Bell talking about Olivia's breasts.
While Astrid takes the electrodes off, Broyles wants to make sure Bellivia's not making this a permanent arrangement. Bellivia says he just has to find a more suitable home to move to, and Olivia's brain can accommodate his consciousness for several weeks before anything would happen to her. Peter's all, "Weeks? Fuck that!" but Bellivia says he's confident Walter will find a stable home long before that. Twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours at the most, he says, and then he tells Astrid that she has lovely hands, which creeps her out terribly, and she withdraws them (but politely thanks him). Peter can't believe Broyles is seriously considering this, but Bellivia asks what they should do instead. "If I leave Olivia's brain now without finding a suitable host, I would die. And don't you think that my life is worth an extended nap?" Uh, can't your soul just go back to wherever it's been since your physical body died? Oh, no, because that would be ridiculous. Walter pleads Bell's case, saying William can help them understand Walternate's plan. Walter's like a kid pleading with his parents to keep a dog that followed him home. All Peter's interested in is getting Olivia back, and Broyles agrees to forty-eight hours to find a more suitable host: "Then I want you out of my agent. Or I'll have Dr. Bishop figure out how to drive you out. Agreed?" Bell agrees: "You have my word, young man." Peter doesn't look too happy about it, and quickly agrees to retrieve Bell's files from Massive Dynamic, specifically the one labeled re-entry.
Over in Roxbury -- a name that I hope someday I will be able to disassociate from that mind-bogglingly annoying Saturday Night Live sketch -- it looks like the middle of the night, some poor guy is sitting slumped on the roof of a building when a blonde woman joins him. "That was fast," he says, and she tells him he said she didn't have much time. Thunder crashes, and he says she was right, that it's going to rain. "There is hope in raindrops. Isn't that what you said? What does that even mean?" he says, and she explains, crouching beside him, that every drop of rain holds the promise of regrowth, each has a purpose, even if it doesn't know it. "I think we can feel that way, that we don't have a purpose. But we do."
He looks at her for a moment, and then bolds to the edge of the roof, stopping himself from going over and down what looks like four or five storeys, and she yells, "Jim!" and then he asks if she believes what she's saying about purpose, since she knows how he feels, and she said she knows pain and said she wants to kill herself too, and she agrees, and so he asks her what her reason to stick around is. Has she found her purpose? She looks haunted and doesn't answer. He lets himself start to fall backward -- if you can't be melodramatic when you're killing yourself, when can you? -- but she grabs hold and somehow manages not to be dragged over with him despite him being twice her size. She's braced against the low wall that's stopping him from going right over, and he tells her that she did her best, but he doesn't believe in hope anymore; all he knows is that they're all going to die. She stares at him, anguished, and then finally lifts her legs up and they go plunging over the wall together, flattening the roof of some poor bastard's taxicab directly underneath them, Jim under her, blood splattering the white frame of the cab, which we should all sincerely hope doesn't belong to Travis Bickle.
And then, her fingers twitch, and she opens her eyes, and she gets herself up and off of Jim, and off the car. Gingerly, her nose bleeding, she slides off the hood of the car and looks at her blood-spattered hands, and then notices the onlookers staring at her in disbelief from across the street. Considering Jim broke her fall and she doesn't appear unscathed by the drop, you'd think at least one of them would try to help, but they all just stare at her, and she turns and walks away.
After the opening credits, Peter's delivering the re-entry files to Bell, now outfitted in a white lab coat. He says he needs a computer with access to social service and medical databases would be useful. Peter's standing there with his arms crossed again, profoundly unsettled by the whole thing. Oblivious, Bell explains that he needs the host to be biological, able to cognate, but without its own governing consciousness. A human brain would be ideal, but not a prerequisite. Put him in a monkey. Put him in a monkey!
Bell comes across a picture of the Peter Doomsday device on the desk and looks at it, then looks at Peter and says that even if Walter learns more about the machine, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll be able to prevent whatever's going to happen. "That just could simply be your fate," he says. Now there's a theme that we'll have hammered into our heads by the end of the episode.
Peter's much too hard-headed to believe in fate, and promises Bell he won't be getting in the machine. Bell tells him -- Olivia cocking an eyebrow Nimoy-style -- that sometimes when one walks away from his fate, it leads one directly to fate's doorstep. It's really nice of Bell to come back from the dead and take over the body of Peter's girlfriend, especially if he's going to be an unrelenting downer about this.
Thankfully for everyone's spirits, Astrid comes in, saying Broyles just sent over something that he needs to see. And so out in the lab they watch a video taken by one of the onlookers across the street from the suicide the night before, one of those instances in movies or television where somebody just happens to be taking video for no particular reason. The camera is focused on a couple of buddies, so the video misses the actual fall, but they do show her getting up and walking away. "Nobody could have survived that impact," says Peter -- and he doesn't point out that they didn't actually see the impact in the video -- and Walter suggests that per
haps it's not the woman at all, but the location. Location, location, location! Bell knows what he's thinking: spatial decay, caused from a soft spot between the universes, and Walter gloomily says they're starting to see signs of degradation over here. Bell nods and says he's surprised it's taken this long.Bell's ready to grab a Geiger counter and go -- much to Walter's excitement -- but Peter won't have it, saying they can handle it. He wants Bell to concentrate on getting out of Olivia's body so Peter can get back in, but Bell says the computer's searching the local hospitals for potential hosts based on their parameters, and he's not someone who can make that happen any faster -- but he is the only person in this universe with extensive experience in interdimensional decay. That's a great thing to put on a resumé, too. Peter backs off, sulking.
Over to... Hartford? All right. At an FBI office, a fax comes in with a set of fingerprints and a picture from the half-suicide/half-miracle the other night. The agent who takes it off the machine runs out to get Agent Lee, who's walking away from the camera to build up the reveal that we're finally going to get to see this universe's version of Lincoln Lee, who turns around, looking Clark Kent-handsome in his glasses that appear to be of the "my vision is perfect but I like how I look in these" variety. He looks at the fax. "Where is she?" he asks. "Boston," says the other agent. Wouldn't that information be on the fax? Maybe Lee needs real glasses.
Over in Roxbury, the Fringe team's checking out the convertiblized taxicab, with Bell saying they have more advanced molecular-degeneration-detection technology over there, but a radiation test should be enough to see if that's what's going on here. He's running the Geiger wand over the taxi, and Peter impatiently wants to know if he's found anything. He hasn't. "So if it's not the place, then it's got to be the girl. Must be something about her that allowed her to survive the fall," says Peter, which means Walter and Bell will get to work gathering DNA. Walter giddily points to his grumpy son that he and Belly are collecting human tissue and fluid specimens, just like when they were kids. "Glad you guys are enjoying yourself," says Peter, too mad to let anyone else be happy or to use grammar that befits his supposed genius-level IQ.
And Agent Lee shows up, with Broyles introducing him to the Bishops, telling them Lee has information regarding the case. Bell strolls over, and Broyles and the Bishops are awkward about introductions until Bell introduces himself as Olivia Dunham with Fringe Division. Lee's all, "What division?" but no one explains, so he tells him the woman who jumped and walked away is Dana Gray.
Showing them crime scene photos, he explains that Dana was murdered eighteen months ago with her husband and two children in a home invasion. "They ever find who did it?" asks Peter, instead of "Hold on, she took two bullets in the head eighteen months ago?" Lee says they did, and the guy was killed in a shootout with FBI agents, so case closed until Dana's body disappeared from the morgue. He thought it was stolen until -- he's got another set of police photographs -- he got a report of a double suicide, two people jumping out a dorm window, but when cops got there, there was one body. Two sets of fingerprints on the ledge, though, including Dana Gray's -- which is insane because she's dead, says Lee. "Well, you know, stranger things have happened," says Bell, nonchalantly. Amusingly, Lee says, "Um, no. They haven't." Peter tells Lee not to listen to him, which he hastily corrects to "her." Anyway, not knowing what else to do, Lee put Gray's fingerprints into the system, and over the couple of months her prints were found at three other double suicides that turned out to be a single suicide by the time first-responders showed up. "I know this sounds insane, but I don't think this woman can die," says Lee. Walter leans over to Bell and says, "Isn't this our lucky day?"
I realize that Lee's an FBI agent, but considering the work they do you'd think the Fringe team would at least lock the door to the lab. Lincoln strides into the lab, and comes up short when he sees that there's an actual cow there. He calls out "hello?" and Astrid comes out to say "hello" and Peter comes out to say, "What's he doing here," like nice welcome, and Bell, back in his lab coat and working with Walter on dueling microscopes, says he invited him.
So Astrid introduces Lee to Gene, and Peter tells him that this is the place where the mysteries of the universe get answered. "And congratulations. Whatever your security clearance was, it just got about seven levels deeper," he adds. At what level of security clearance does the FBI start locking its doors, I wonder?
Anyway, Walter's got something to show them: they found two sets of DNA in the specimens they took from the scene. Really? In a cab? Congratulations on finding the cleanest cab in the history of ever. Anyway, they found something weird while conducting tests: the molecules of Gray's body didn't want to come apart; they're held together by an unusually strong electromagnetic bond. Lee actually raises his hand to ask a question: "You're saying that her body's being held together by magnetism?" Bell points out that everyone is held together by magnetism; our molecules are held together like these hematite rocks that just happen to be sitting there fortuitously for demonstration! "In Ms. Gray's case, the attraction was almost unbreakable. It's a miracle she left any blood behind at all," says Walter. "Miracle" or "plot hole"? Meanwhile, Bell's wrapping the hematite rocks into a bracelet around Astrid's wrist, and he says, "I think it suits you, dear." Thoroughly creeped out, Astrid thanks Bell but then removes the rocks and nervously buttons the top button of her blouse. Fortunately, she's not too unnerved by her increasing sexual harassment to ask how Dana got magnetically supercharged, and Walter wonders if she took the energy from the people she jumped with.
"Yeah, that'd make sense," says Bell. Yeah, that makes a LOT of sense. Bell takes it further: "She absconds with their life force at the moment of death." Lee, too polite to ask what everyone's been smoking, is all, "'Life force'? You mean like a soul? Is that even a scientific concept?" and Peter rolls his eyes and Bell lectures him on the evils of being "reductive," because every living thing is bundled energy, and maybe Gray has found a way to capture some vital portion of another person's essential energy and therefore has extended her own life. Lee, ignoring Bell's advice to not be reductive, skeptically says, "A soul vampire." Peter notes that in the file it said that each of the victims had already tried to commit suicide, so Bell figures Gray only wants to take the souls of those people that are already prepared to surrender their own. "A compassionate soul vampire," amends Lee, and Walter and Bell heartily agree. "Oh boy. Um, who are you guys?" asks Lee. Peter says he'll explain that on the way, and Lee didn't even realize they were going somewhere. "If you were looking for victims who had previously tried to commit suicide, where would you go?" asks Peter, and Lee suggests suicide hotlines and therapy groups, and Peter's all "Exactly." So... shouldn't you look a few of those up before you just jump in the car? Or are you planning to just drive down to Boston's suicide-hotline district?
Speaking of the compassionate soul vampire, a tearful Dana Gray kneels at the headstone where her 10-year-old daughter Kristin and 13-year-old son Eli are buried. She puts some fresh flowers in a vase, and then looks over at her husband Henry's grave.
Some time later, as she's leaving the cemetery, her cellphone rings. "Helpline. This is Joan." she says, sadness still in her voice. It's some downer named Brian who says he's going to hurt himself. "I guess you're in a bad place right now, huh?" she says, and he tells her that he's tired. She says lif
e can be tiring. Thanks for cheering him up, lady! She says she really wants to help him, but he has to let her, and this is too important to do over the phone. He thinks she's tricking him and is going to send the police to stop him, and she promises not to do that. "Now, sweetheart, just tell me where you are.Over at the New England Crisis Center, a supervisor recognizes Dana's picture, shown to her by Peter and Lee, and identifies her as Joan, who works there but hasn't been in for a few days. Peter asks if she was close to anyone in the office. She was friendly, but not close, did her job and went home. The supervisor shows the agents to Dana's desk and says she hopes nothing's happened to her, since she's one of their best counselors: "If there was a particularly challenging call, a person who was at risk, we'd forward it to her. She was amazing. In three months she saved at least 37 lives. She had an uncanny way of connecting with people feeling hopelessness," says the supervisor. She chalks up Dana's perspective on hope to the fact that she was struck by lightning twice and survived. Peter and Lee look at each other, and while the supervisor goes to get Dana's address, they wonder why, if Dana is stealing people's souls as they die, is she so committed to saving their lives? It's not that confusing. It was a cockamamie theory by a couple of drug-addled mad scientists!
Meanwhile, Dana shows up at Brian's house, where he's sitting on the floor, back against the wall, sunlight streaming in through half-blinded windows. She walks slowly towards him and he points a gun at her. She stops moving, but he can tell that she's not scared, and asks her why not. Instead of answering, she just asks why he's doing this. "You think you convinced me to allow you to come here. But it was me who wanted you to come," he says. He tells her that he doesn't want to hurt people, but he always does. And it sounds like Dana uses the same raindrop spiel on everyone, because he says he has no hope, like those raindrops that she mentioned on the phone. "You said they have a purpose. Well, I don't like my purpose. Do you think the raindrops will help those people on the train?" he says. She's all, what people on the train?, and he tearfully says that he doesn't want to hurt them but he will, and that's why she's here: to save them. Turns out Brian is having homicidal tendencies in addition to his suicidal ones, and he's got a duffel bag with a bomb on East Bay railway train 67, car 2, seat 17.
She grabs a nearby one and dials 911 -- part of me wondered if she was playing him and was actually only dialing 411 -- but as it rings, Brian says, "Like Azrael, let his angels carry my damned soul to heaven," and he puts the gun under his chin. Dana watches, and doesn't say anything, just hangs up the phone after Brian blows his head off. She notices some nearby pencil drawings of a man being carried by angels. Well, this one's going to lower her batting average a little.
Over at Walter's Harvard lab, the two mad scientists are smoking pot and listening to Supertramp, as you do. They're looking for host bodies for Bell, but coming up empty. "We're looking for such specific conditions to accommodate your transfer, William. A brain-dead patient like this could be one in a million," says Walter. Or you could just hang out at a movie theatre when the Twilight movie opens.
And then Gene moos, and Bell looks over, intrigued, and Walter figures out what he's thinking, and says, "No. No," and then they both start giggling.
Nearby, Lincoln Lee and Peter are going through Dana's stuff -- including books and a cash receipt from a flower shop -- but not finding much to tell them where they might find her. Then Lee notices that all the books are clinical except for The Afterlife of the Soul, a religious text. Flipping it open, Peter finds several highlighted passages on each page. "All the highlighted passages are about what happens to us after we die," says Peter. Yeah, uh, that's what the whole book's about. Nice work, FBI civilian genius. Lee jokes that maybe she's trying to convince people to jump by telling them how great heaven's going to be, but Peter finally hits upon the notion that maybe she's the one who wants to die, and I'm kind of surprised it took them this long to come up with that. Survivor guilt isn't exactly an obscure concept, and her family was murdered.
Anyway, Bell and Walter are grooming Gene and seemingly seriously considering the logistics of transferring Bell's consciousness into the cow. "We could communicate through my brainwaves. You would hook me up to an EEG machine and decipher my thoughts," says Bell, because why not make things more complicated? Walter says he'd still have to milk him, and Bell suggests assigning Astrid, and they both start snickering, and I have to say Astrid deserves a little better from these disgusting old men.
Peter tries to interrupt, but Walter says they're too busy sexually objectifying a co-worker, and Peter plows on anyway and asks if Dana Gray's double-lightning strike could account for her hyper-magnetism. Bell says the ions due to the multiple lightning strikes could cause her molecules to be supercharged, with Walter adding that could yes, intensify the electromagnetism, and Peter presents his theory that Dana's trying to die, not live forever. And then Lincoln Lee sees on his phone that Dana's description just went out over the police bulletin in Rochester: somebody spotted her. So Peter and his new best friend are off.
Over at Brian's house, Lee shows a picture of Dana to the landlady, asking if she's sure that's the woman she saw leaving the apartment. "Like I already told the police, I was making dinner when I heard the gunshot. I came out into the hall, and I saw that woman leaving," she says and then asks if the woman killed Brian. Lee says he can't comment on an ongoing investigation, and then the landlady weirdly gives him attitude about how he's the only one who gets to ask questions, and he manages to sincerely thank her for her co-operation.
Peter pops up to report that the medical examiner says the angle and wound powder burns are consistent with suicide, but the gun only discharged once -- and up until now, Dana's MO has been to try to kill herself with or directly after the suicide victim, and why is that? Lee figures thinks that her soul or energy is bound to her body, so maybe she's trying to go along with the victims. Like a hitchhiker he says, and Peter laughs and says, "A stowaway to heaven?" and Lee and Peter are getting along great, and I think Broyles should co-ordinate with the head office so Peter and Lee can have another playdate really soon. Anyway, if that's the case, says Peter, why didn't she just pick up the gun and try to shoot herself to catch a ride? What changed?
Elsewhere, Dana is in a combination church/library because a nun is bringing her the story that Dana was looking for, the ascension of Azrael, and the nun's surprised she's heard of it, and Dana makes up some explanation about a night class where she's doing an essay on the journey of the soul to the afterlife, and then the nun just tells Dana the whole story about a sinner named Azrael whose soul was condemned to purgatory, and then after years of watching Azrael suffer, the angels asked God to let Azrael free, for some reason, maybe because he was a really good guitar player or would look great in wings or something. God ignored the angels, because fuck angels, really, he's God. And then the angels were all "stupid God" and then they just brought Azrael up to heaven themselves because Azrael had suffered enough and God didn't get all pissed at them because the combined innocence of the angels' souls outweighed Azrael's sins, and so God was like, "That's cool" and welcomed Azrael into heaven, like THANKS FOR RUINING THE STORY, NUN, SOME OF US HAVEN'T READ IT YET. The nun wishes her luck on her assignment and leaves, and Dana unfolds a piece of paper where she's written the train and seat number that b
omb-makin' Brian told her.Back at Brian's apartment, the FBI team is swarming all over the place, and then Broyles seems to notice something a little off about the floor. Pulling aside a rug, the team finds a trap door and some stairs, and they walk down into a workshop filled with lost-cat posters and animal skeletons. "Oh, hello, freak show," says Peter, adding that this guy was clearly nuts, and goody-two-shoes Lee points out that the clinical term is sociopath. An FBI agent digs up an invoice for twenty pounds of plastic explosives that was in the bathroom for some reason. "This guy was making a bomb," says Broyles. "So where is it?" asks Peter.
Well, it's in car 2, seat 17, which is fortunately -- for Dana, anyway -- unoccupied when she gets on. She pulls the duffel bag onto her lap and surreptitiously zips it open to make sure the bomb's in there.
Then, perhaps in an attempt to make us root for the bomb to go off and destroy everyone on board, an obnoxious guy on a cellphone exasperatedly tells the person on the other end that he'll pick them up on the way. He hangs up and sighs and tells Dana, who in no way looks interested or was paying him any attention at all, that that was his sister, who had another baby. "Her and her husband, they're like rabbits," he says, adding that he's going to Providence to see them and asks where she's headed. Dana manages not to point out that she's not interested in the mating frequency of the relatives of strangers sitting near her on a train, but says, "I'm on the way to see family too." Yeah, but her family's dead, so ... ohhhhhhhhh.
Meanwhile, over at Brian's apartment, more bomb-making evidence is piling up, but they don't have any bomb itself. Broyles wants Brian's credit cards, ATM withdrawals, metro cards, etc., checked: "I want a list of possible targets, any places guy'd want to blow up." If it were me, I'd start with Tim Hortons near my workplace. Tim Hortons is annoying enough in the way it pushes itself (and people buy into it) as a Canadian icon, but it is the only coffeeshop near my work, so that's the one I tend to go to, except I think this particular franchise is an experiment on the part of the company to see how slowly staff can work without customers leaving in frustration. [Editor's Note: I take your point, but I'll put up with pretty much anything at Tim Hortons, as their two locations are a godsend in NYC. They're the only places you can get maple donuts here, because Dunkin Donuts has a damn donut monopoly on practically the whole island of Manhattan and they don't know shit about proper donut flavors. Good story, Mindy. -- Mindy Monez]
Anyway, Peter wonders if maybe they're tracking the wrong person, since Dana was there. "You think she took the bomb? Why would she do that?" asks Broyles, but Lee has an idea, that he acknowledges sounds insane: "She can't die. But she wants to. And she's been trying anything and everything she can to move on, right? She's been trying to stow away on the souls of the recently dead. Which is why she's been using suicide victims." But that plan's not working, so she's looking for another way: "Dana was here when this guy committed suicide. I think that he told her were the bomb is, and the only reason she didn't pick up that gun and follow suit is because she's gonna try something new."
Broyles says that even if Lee's right, they still have the same problem: how do they find the bomb? Peter spots a cellphone and asks if it's "the suicide's phone." Um, he had a name, Peter! He checks the recent calls, and finds a call placed half an hour before he killed himself, Boston area code. "How much you want to bet that's Dana Gray's phone number?" he says.
On the train, they've started the parade of innocent victims past Dana's seat so she can look conflicted. Then her cellphone rings. She takes it out, looks at it and sees "Unknown caller" and doesn't pick up.
Back at Brian's apartment, the FBI tech says they can't run a trace unless the line's open. She's got to pick up. Peter asks him to change the outgoing caller ID on the phone, and the tech says sure. Lee wants to know what Peter's up to: "She may not answer this number, but I know whose number she will answer," says Peter. K-Rock 97? She'd better answer with "K-Rock plays all the hits I love" though, or she won't get the jackpot.
On the train, Dana's phone rings again. She absentmindedly digs her phone out of her pocket again, and then answers it, shocked, when the caller ID lists "Henry Gray." She cautiously says hello, and Peter says, "Dana, please don't hang up," as the FBI folks get to work on the trace. He introduces himself, and says he works with the FBI. "Well, then I'm sorry, Mr. Bishop, but we have nothing to talk about," she says, and he quickly babbles out that he knows what happened to her and her family, and that she's only doing this because she wants to be reunited with him. Despite the fact (or perhaps because of the fact) that he's completely correct, Dana says that just because he's read some files about her, that doesn't mean he knows the hell she's been stuck in or what she has to do to make it stop. Peter says that he can help her make it stop: "The people that I work with are scientists. They are the best at what they do. And if you come in, I promise you they can help you," he says. Big promise! She thinks about it and tries to pin him down and says, "Can you promise me you'll reunite me with my family?" He quickly counters with "Can you promise me that killing a bunch of people will?" She says it's the best chance she's got, and she's sorry but she has no choice, and he tells her she does. They all do. "Not me. I should have died that night with my family," she says.
She calls it an "impossible cosmic joke" that she's still stuck here, and Peter tries to pretend that he knows exactly what she's going through, which is awfully presumptuous of him. "But believe me, Dana, this is not the solution." After a moment Dana says she guesses they'll find out soon enough, and Peter hangs up. Peter asks the FBI tech if they were able to trace it, and he shakes his head. Hey, try calling back with the Caller ID identifying you as one of her dead children! Maybe that will work!
Due to the magic of sound enhancement, though, the FBI team pick out the "stop, Norwood station" in the background. There are three possible trains that could apply this time of night, though; however, once Bell and Walter find out the time Peter spoke to Dana, they get to work calculating which train it would be, working and discussing it at the same time. Peter, hearing it on his end, asks Astrid what's going on, and she says that they're doing "that thing where they don't finish their sentences." Hee! They arrive to the same conclusion at the same time: She's on the 6:25.Meanwhile, on the 6:25, buddy across the aisle from Dana asks her to keep an eye on his stuff while he goes to the bathroom. Apparently he takes her tortured expression as a yes, because off he goes. Just moments later, the train grinds to a halt with metallic screeching as police and FBI pull up, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Broyles tells the... conductor? Ticket-taker?... that there may be an explosive on the train, which they think is due to go off in about eight minutes. Broyles shows him a picture of Dana, and the dude kind of hilariously says, "There are over three hundred people on this train!" Yeah, no shit? IS SHE ONE OF THEM? SHE HAS A BOMB, SO MAYBE YOU COULD AT LEAST THINK ABOUT IT. Seriously, it's not exactly a needle-in-a-haystack thing, illustrated nicely by the fact that bathroom buddy happens by at that moment and is able to say, "She's in the car."
Only she's not there anymore, so on come the bomb-sniffing dogs, and Broyles ordering an evacuation. But Dana's already far far away in a field on the other side of the tracks -- nice job securing the train, FBI. You're as good at setting up a perimeter as CTU in any given season of 24. She's carrying the duffel bag, and then she sort of collapses and drops the bag on the ground. Jesus, careful with that! "I'm sorry," she croaks, and then she gets up and starts walking away, leaving the bag behind. Back on the train, no sooner has Lincoln Lee said, "She's gone," then the train is rocked by an explosion nearby, scaring up screams from the passengers off the train. You think that's her?
When they find Dana, she's lying dead not far from the blast centre. She's dead, and Lee does the close-the-eyes on a corpse thing. He walks with Peter and wonders what changed: "After all that time trying, why is she able to die now?" Peter just says that's Fringe division: "Every answer you get just leads you to more questions." Wait, is he talking to Lee or to us? Lee says it's still a lot more exciting than Hartford, so they should feel free to give him a call if they ever need help, and Peter tells him to be careful what he wishes for. Aw. Grown men making friends!
Back at the Bishop compound, Peter quietly walks in, either trying not to disturb Walter or he's been out killing shapeshifters again. Walter's asleep on the couch, and Peter gingerly takes the half-full glass of milk out of Walter's hand -- and then is startled by his girlfriend standing there in a bathrobe, speaking in William Bell's gravelly voice. Bell says Walter thought it would be a good idea for him to stay here tonight. Peter takes this in with his usual scowl. Also, he made tea, and would Peter like some? Peter looks like he needs something a whole lot stronger than tea (like, say, heroin) but says yes.
In the kitchen, Bell rambles on about Dana Gray while Peter is clearly too tired to pretend to be polite and interested in what Bell is saying. Bell says his first thought was that the energy from the bomb somehow reset the electromagnetic charge in Dana's body, and it was the unique charge that allowed her to die permanently.
"OK, that makes sense," says Peter. No matter how many times I hear that on this show it always makes me laugh! Anyway, Bell now thinks that's wrong: "What if, Peter, this isn't about biology or physics? What if what we witnessed was the very reason that Dana Gray couldn't die?" Peter's not following, so Bell spells it out a little more: because she needed to be here to save those people's lives. "You think it was her destiny," says Peter, skeptically, and Bell goes into a whole thing about "the interconnectedness of apparently unrelated events," and doesn't Peter think it's curious that they meet a woman who can't die at the exact moment his consciousness seemingly returns from the grave? Based on the eye-rolling and head-shaking, Peter doesn't think this is curious. Bell says, "As a scientist, I like to believe that nothing just happens, that every event has meaning." Wait, don't scientists in fact think that things just happen? But Bell continues on, saying that everything has some sort of message, you just have to be able to listen closely enough to hear it. And they're quiet, and they hear church bells ring in the distance.
Peter's all, church bells, big whoop, but Bell all of a sudden looks like he's going to throw up. "You OK, Bell?" says Peter, and then the gravelly voice is gone, and it's Olivia again, saying, "Peter..." and despite the fact this is clearly NOT what's supposed to happen, Peter can't help but look excited, and he says, "Olivia, is that you?" but the moment passes and the voice gets gravelly again. "This may be a little more complicated than I first thought," says Bell. See, this is what I've been saying.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He thinks it's only fair if the Fringe fans who are women or gay men have to put up with Peter speaking with, say, Betty White's voice for an episode or two. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.