By Daniel
Jesus, another kid who had scientific experiments performed on him? Well, if it makes us feel any better, this kid -- a baby with a super-painful sensitivity to light -- was supposed to die. Nope, doesn't make me feel any better. Especially since the experiments wind up keeping Eugene from dying and turn him into an invisible super-spy. Now he's killing people for their pigment so he can be a normal person who gets to fall in love with the cute woman who lives in his building. The problem is his treatment will return him to his original condition, which will kill him. It's just as well, because the Fringe team has a hell of a time doing it (to be fair, the guy's invisible). At least the guy dies happy, because he realizes the pretty woman in his building was aware of his existence! The ending might be a little more poignant, if it weren't for ALL THE PEOPLE HE KILLED.
Peter, meanwhile, is making friends with his Fringe bodyguard and making plans to build a machine to snap him into whatever timeline he's supposed to be in. He's so far removed what everyone else is doing that he might as well be on another show.
And then there's Olivia, who's been getting terrible migraines that force her into nocturnal roamings where she runs into lonely Lincoln Lee. It's at the end of the episode where we find out where these migraines seem to be coming from -- Olivia's gassed in her house by a couple of goons under the direction of one Nina Sharp. They inject her with something or take a sample of blood, or something -- I was too busy picking my jaw up off the floor to tell for sure. I'm not sure why I was so surprised. I mean, they couldn't keep Nina non-evil forever.
One other thing: if you have an episode that's supposed to be the "fall finale" and a baseball game in extra innings causes a change of plans, if you simply bump that episode to year and call the one the "fall finale"? That kind of makes it obvious that the term doesn't have any actual meaning, doesn't it?
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Come on, try a little. Nothing is forever! There's got to be something better than in the middle. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
It's the middle of the night, and a very rough-looking Olivia goes to her medicine cabinet for a bottle of pills. She shakes it. Empty. Well, you really have no one but yourself to blame for putting an empty pill bottle back in the cabinet. Unless your adorable niece (do you have one in this timeline? I don't remember) is stealing medication to sell at school.
Olivia walks gingerly into an all-night pharmacy and goes over to the counter, where the pharmacist has her phoned-in prescription ready. He tells her it's her last refill, so her doctor will have to call in the prescription time. Olivia says she was hoping she wouldn't need these anymore, as she gobbles a couple down. Yeah, the pharmacist hears that a lot, Olivia. Don't sweat it. Worse comes to worst you could always just get Walter to whip you up some new happy pills.
Walking home -- already looking more sprightly and less haggard -- Olivia passes by a diner, glances in the window, then does a double-take, and goes inside, because Lincoln Lee is sitting at the counter, having a cup of coffee. The clock on the wall tells us it's three in the morning.
"This is bizarre," says Lincoln, when he sees Olivia approaching, not that he's unhappy to see her. She says she was just on her way home and lives only a few blocks from here. He says he didn't know that, and then looks confused: "You're just heading home now?" Look who's talking, Mr. Not Heading Home Any Time Soon, Apparently. She says she was going for a walk because of migraine. "And you know, fresh air helps," she says, leaving out the part about getting horse tranquilizers at the drugstore. As for him, he says that as far as twenty-four-hour dining goes, this place is better than most, and invites her for a cup of coffee if she wants to join him.
So: sitting in a booth while Mazzy Star plays in the background (it's difficult to comprehend how a late night conversation between two people while Mazzy Star plays doesn't lead to sex, but here we are), Lee confides that he hasn't slept since he got here. As in Boston, not the diner. Well, have you tried a bed? Coffee at three a.m. in a diner doesn't usually put me to sleep either. He says he's having a hard time adjusting to a new city.
The look on his face suggests there's a little more to it than that. "You remember a couple weeks ago you asked me if I was..." he begins, and Olivia interrupts to finish: "Freaked out?" He says that just a few months ago he thought he understood the world they live in. "I mean, there were basic truths that I thought were, well, true. I used to sleep like a baby. Blissful ignorance."
Olivia says this will eventually just become his life, which isn't exactly the most comforting statement I can think of. He asks if that's what happened to her, and she's all, "Yeah, uh, sort of."
Cut to a nervous-looking well-dressed man walking down an alley, furtively looking behind him. His cellphone rings. "Hi, babe. Are you close?" asks a woman when he answers. He says he's almost there, and he took the shortcut behind the theatre. He sounds a little off and she asks if he's OK, and he says he thinks he's being followed. Wait, did you feel that way before you took the shortcut down this deserted alley? His wife/girlfriend/whoever is all OMG! and asks who's following him. He says he doesn't know, and he's sure it's just his imagination. She wants to call the police, and he tells her no, he's just two blocks away from Willow. But Meg's already gone. Hello? Meg, if you call the police, I'm going to be so mad!
He purposely steps around a puddle of water and a few steps later he hears a splash. He looks behind him and sees the puddle rippling. That might quicken your step a little.
He's on the walkway to his building -- the atmospherically lit and overgrown bushes encroaching on the path -- and at the door when his cellphone rings. It's Meg, letting him know the police are on their way. Putting his key in the lock, he tells her that it's OK, that he's here, he's ... he doesn't even get the word "home" out before he's struck from behind by a transparent blur that knocks him into the foyer. The door swings shut, his key still dangling from the lock.
The police arrive, moments later (he is white). They find him dead in the lobby, hair white, eyes red. Albino-style. "Dear god, what happened to this guy?" asks one of the cops, after the other, Officer Grant, calls for an ambulance. Then Grant catches a glimpse of the vaguely humanoid blur in the lobby. So he's all "What the hell was that?" and starts firing, shattering the glass in the door window as the blur heads out the door and down the path. "What are you shooting at?" yells the other cop, and Grant is all, "I don't know!" I'm no cop -- and not a gun expert -- but I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to fire your gun at "I don't know."
The cops' nerves aren't exactly helped by Meg running into the lobby, a little freaked out at the sound of gunshots and her dead husband lying there. She screams while the police hold her back and we get a good long look at his lifeless red eyes.
After the opening credits, Peter is shopping in some department store -- accompanied by a dour FBI escort -- and glibly marveling at being able to find baked goods, car parts and video games all under the same roof. The agent, Tim, says, "Yes, sir," and so Peter jokes that he's "moving up in the world" and asks if Broyles told Tim to call him that, to keep up the level of formality. "That way, you don't get attached to your prisoner."
Tim says Peter's not his prisoner. "So what, then, you're my bodyguard?" asks Peter, and Tim, sounding like he'd just as soon shoot Peter as look at him, says, "Maybe just imagine I'm a friend." Peter sarcastically says that every 32-year-old man needs a friend to chaperone him while he's underwear shopping. Well, considering you're in the Tupperware aisle, it seems you COULD use some help with the underwear shopping.
Tim's reminded that Broyles told him to tell Peter that he's been authorized a $200 weekly allowance. "Big spender," says Peter. Friggin' ingrate.
The only thing else he needs is safety glasses. Oh, there they are, just off the toy aisle. That makes no sense, but it allows some little redheaded kid to come in and strain to reach a toy on the top shelf. Peter moves to help him, and he gets a hand on the chest from Tim, stopping him. "I'll get it," says Tim, staring Peter down. He gets the toy for the kid, and Peter wants to know what that was about: "You really think I'd hurt a kid?" Tim tells him that he's been instructed to limit his interaction with civilians. "It's not personal," says Tim. Although maybe if Peter has been out of underwear for some time, it's for the best, olfactorially speaking.
Peter grouches that he investigated fringe events for three years, and he never thought he'd become one. Tim awesomely rolls his eyes and says, "Like I said, it's not personal." I like Tim. I hope he doesn't get shot to death. I like him.
Over to the building of the recently murdered and albinized Jack Zoephel. Broyles fills in Astrid, Olivia and Lincoln (those last two looking remarkably chipper considering how late they were up last night) on what happened last night.
The agents get a glimpse of Jack when the sheet is pulled off his body. "I'm assuming he didn't look like this before he left for the night?" says Lee. Correct, says Broyles, and Astrid says Walter's going to love this. Olivia asks about all the broken glass, and Broyles explains about the officer thinking he was shooting the perpetrator. "So he can identify the guy?" asks Olivia, and Broyles is all, not exactly.
Lincoln and Olivia interview the agents, and are skeptical at Grant's explanation that he unloaded his entire clip just because he got spooked. "I don't know what to tell you. I overreacted."
Lee diplomatically says he's guessing that he doesn't want to risk telling them what happened because he's concerned about his reputation. "You don't need to be. Whatever you saw, however bizarre it is, we need to know what it was," he says. Grant hesitates, saying he doesn't know how he'll file a report for this case, and Olivia says they'll take care of that if he just tells them what he saw. "I didn't see anything, exactly. But I felt something," he says. "Like what, a ghost?" asks Lincoln. Grant's not touching that, though. "You said ghost, not me."
Meanwhile, Astrid's examining Jack's body. His neck is broken. Walter, listening to her report from the lab, says that could have happened post-mortem, but Astrid can't understand a word he says because he's busy stuffing his face with "Onion rings from Sully's." I was going to ask if "Sully's" is a real place in Boston, and then I realized that there are probably dozens of places in Boston called "Sully's."
Anyway, Walter suggests that Jack could have died from a rapid spike in adrenalin from fear, which would explain why he's white as a sheet. Astrid's all, "Are you saying that he was scared to death? Walter, that's just an old wives' tale." This was where I figured out the date this episode was originally supposed to run, before the baseball playoff game went long, to decide if this was supposed to be an extra-special Halloween episode. Anyway, Walter asks Astrid where her imagination is. "You must have been a very boring child," he says, pissing her off enough to make her turn off her headset. You know, Walter is still supposed to be part of the investigation.
While Lincoln examines the steps, by the broken glass (we can see blood on a shard) Olivia goes over to ask Astrid if Walter has any theories. Well, none that made any sense around Walter packing his gob with onion rings. She says he'll want to run some tests before he knows anything for sure.
Then Olivia decides to ask Astrid if the stuff they see at Fringe -- like this -- ever gets to her. Astrid's all, DUH, every day. "If I wasn't seeing the agency shrink, my head would have exploded a long time ago," she says, because it's not like she can talk to family and friends about it. She asks who Olivia talks to, and Olivia admits that she doesn't talk to anyone about it. "I'm starting to think that's weird. That's just not normal, is it?" Before Astrid can say anything -- hopefully something like "well, whatever works" -- Lincoln's back with a back of evidence that rules out ghosts: bloody broken glass.
And now it's time for the part of the Freak of the Week episode where we visit the Freak's lair! It's got tons of shelves and mementoes and keepsakes, necklaces and the like. There are huge vats simmering over burners, with tubes and uh ... Erlenmeyer ... uh ... Fahrenheit ... um ... flasks and ... whatever, there's lots of mad-scientist shit.
There's also a huge tub filled with bubbling water and a translucent greenish liquid, with a breathing apparatus hooked up inside even though there's no one in there. At least, it didn't look like there was, but then a humanoid shape starts to appear in the water, which then coalesces into an actual person, who sits up gasping and checking out his own skin.
And then he's all dried off with his hair combed and a suit on, pushing the down button for an elevator on the fourteenth floor. It arrives. The doors open. He looks inside, sees no one, lets the doors close and he pushes the button again.
This time, when the doors open, there's a woman there. So he can turn invisible and produce beautiful women out of empty elevators? Probably the best unnatural ability we've seen on Fringe yet.
He gets on. They don't say anything to each other, but stand there staring straight ahead, as you do. He looks like he's about to say something when the elevator dings again, and some guys gets on who immediately starts to make effortless small talk with the woman, and then they get off on the same floor, living Buddy behind, looking sad. He looks at his reflection in the elevator's button plate, and then he starts to disappear.
At the Harvard lab, Olivia's discovered that there have been three bodies similar to this one found in the area over the past two weeks and wonders why this is the first they're hearing about it. Astrid says that before they ran the medical records, the police just assumed the victims were all suffering from albinism. Uh -- well, then, shouldn't they have assumed that a serial killer was targeting albinos? Brief albinism PSA from Astrid, who tells us that it's more common than people think. And she hasn't found a DNA match for the killer yet, but he may not be in any databases. She's going to try hospitals .
Meanwhile, Walter's examining Jack Zoephel and creeping Lincoln out by talking about how the Kishwahili tribe from Tanzania called albinos "Zeru" which means "ghosts and how witch doctors sometimes used body parts from albinos in portions for good luck or fortune." Good luck for anyone but an albino, I guess.
Anyway, Walter's found something: a mucus-like substance on the body, a residue of chromatophore cells, which are found in creatures like octopi and chameleons. They're cells that can translocate pigment in the body, which is what the animals use to blend into the background.
And Astrid's already found success: a positive ID on the blood sample: "Baby Boy Bryant," born July 26, 1989 at Park View Hospital in New York. But he died four days later, according to the records. "Perhaps we're looking for a ghost after all," says Walter, managing not to finish that with an evil cackle.
So Lincoln and Olivia are in the hospital's records room, with a brief throwaway line from Lincoln about how the hospital only started automating their records twenty years ago, which is the contrivance to send them here, only I'd like to ask if this timeline doesn't have fax machines that can send copies of the files they'd need, but anyway. Olivia notes that the poor baby wasn't even given a proper name, and Lincoln says he was born with an "unclassified genetic variant" and was examined by more than ten specialists but no one could diagnose what he had. Meanwhile, Olivia has turned off one of the desk lamps, because she's started to get another migraine. Lincoln ignores her feeble protests and helps her open her bottle of pills, and goes to get her some water. Olivia keeps reading, and notes that Dr. Blake West and Nurse Teresa Jaffee are listed on the death certificate, and wonders if either of them is still working here. Well, lucky you made the trip!
So they interview Nurse Teresa in the cafeteria about Baby Boy Bryant -- she was there in the delivery room when he was born. "He was so pale. When Dr. West held him up, the lights in the O.R. burned his skin," she says. They had to put him in a special ward with no windows or lights, and when Dr. West told her the baby had died, she was relived he wasn't suffering anymore.
But there's something else, which she's never told anyone: "As they carried him out, I thought I heard him cry." It was faint, but she thought she heard him -- she'd just assumed she'd imagined it. Olivia asks if she remembers where they took him, and Nurse Teresa struggles to remember the name of the private insurance company: "Something like... Cilas, or Cypro..." Olivia helps her out: "Cyprox?" Yep, that's it. She was told they'd be handling the autopsy.
Lincoln's a little surprised that Olivia knew Cyprox, and asks her about it after the nurse leaves. "They paid my mother's medical bills while she was dying of cancer. And Cyprox was a subsidiary of a larger company called Kelvin Genetics," she says. Lincoln's already got a bad feeling about this, and sure enough, Kelvin Genetics became Massive Dynamic.
So that's a visit to Nina Sharp, then, who marvels that it's been years since she heard the name "Cyprox, Inc." Olivia says they believe Cyprox abducted an infant from a hospital twenty-two years ago. Almost amusingly, there's no "I can't remember" from Nina this time. She's basically, "Yep, that's Cyprox." "What can you tell us about him?" says Lincoln -- who is really jumping the gun in assuming that Cyprox only did this once! Anyway, Nina says the boy's genetic deformity would have killed him in a matter of days, but that same abnormality made him suitable for some -- and you're going to make a big deal of this, Olivia! -- genetic experimentation. Olivia tells her about the chromatophores Walter found on the body of the victim, and Nina says the boy's cellular abnormality allowed those cells to be implanted into his system, so he could blend into his surroundings. "Making him the perfect spy or soldier," says Lincoln, and Nina concedes that there were military applications. Still, they were surprised that the experiment allowed the baby to survive; something about the chromatophores offset his very fragile condition.
"And you knew about this," says Olivia. Nina holds her gaze for a moment before saying no, that this was one of dozens of satellite research facilities, and neither she nor Bell had any specific knowledge of what was going on. Well, that's good enough, because had Bell known there was experimentation happening on a child, he DEFINITELY would have stopped it. And not that Nina's making excuses, but she says the child would have died had he not been part of that program. "Maybe that would have been better," mutters Olivia.
Well, that's the end of the interview, then! Nina says she'll send the boy's files over to Walter's lab. But Lincoln has one more question: if she didn't know about him, how is she so familiar with all this now? Nina tells them that there was a fire in the lab 10 years ago. "We assumed that all the subjects had died in that fire," she says. Really? So it went something like this: "Hey, where's that kid who can turn invisible?" "I don't see him. He probably died." Lincoln picks up on Nina calling him "Eugene," and Nina says that's what the researchers called him: "u-gene," short for "unknown genetic disorder." "His entire life, he didn't have a proper name," mutters Olivia. Nina, seeming at least somewhat contrite, says again they assumed he'd died, and it was impossible to prove otherwise. Well, until now anyway. Olivia sighs heavily.
Over at Eugene's building, the woman from the elevator gets off -- alone -- on her floor, the fifteenth, and goes back to her apartment, where she kicks off her high heels and locks the security chain on her apartment door -- but behind her, before she closes the door, there's a transparent blur moving behind her. Time to relax after a hard day at work! She pours herself a glass of white wine, lets her hair down, takes off her jacket and puts some music on. I get this familiar but long gone feeling of relaxation and calm you get coming home to an empty house -- single life before parenthood, I tell you. Of course, this is much more sophisticated than my version of it -- boxer shorts and a beer on the sofa. She's got a bowl of fruit on the granite countertop and everything. Class-AY.
While Eugene skulks invisibly around in the background, she notices the empty dog bed and starts calling for her dog, which she has apparently -- and unconscionably -- named "Ziggy." Eugene picks up her hairpin and puts it back down.
Going into her bedroom, she drops her wine glass, which shatters on the floor, when she sees an entire florists' worth of rose petals scattered on the floor and on her bed. She hears the sound of her apartment door opening and closing, and she goes rushing to it, without even going for a knife first, and sees the security chain dangling, unhook. She hurriedly locks it again, and then stands there, her back against the door, looking scared.
Over at Casa Bishop, Peter pins up a schematic for some sort of machine to a bulletin board. Because he's had nothing but good luck when it comes to blueprints for mechanical devices!
He answers a knock at the door to find Lincoln Lee standing there, with a box of stuff -- he apologizes for how long it took Broyles to sign off on it. Peter says he was starting to get worried, but Lincoln says he's surprised Peter didn't get a badge for all his help the other day. Man, truth!
Peter smiles and says "Thank you" and Lincoln shrugs it off with a "that's my job" and Peter explains that he means, "Thank you for treating me like a human being. I haven't been getting a lot of that lately," like POOR PETER, I mean I realize that Walter's being a dick to him, but other than that I think he's being just a little melodramatic.
Anyway, Lincoln asks Peter if he really thinks it'll get him back to where he came from, and Peter says, "The machine was powerful enough to snap me out of my timeline. Stands to reason that it's powerful enough to snap me back in," which Lincoln says "makes sense" like there's that phrase "makes sense" again.
Lincoln starts going on about alternate universes and different timelines. "Olivia says that, eventually, all of this is going to seem run of the mill. Which, frankly, I'm having a hard time believing." He says it's insane how none of this fazes her, and Peter recognizes someone else taken with Olivia's charms when he sees him, and says, "She's made quite an impression on you, huh?" and Lincoln allows that he's never met anyone like her before. Peter chuckles and says he knows what Lincoln means, and then Lincoln has figured out that Peter and Olivia were together where Peter came from. Peter confirms it, and then things get a little awkward and Lincoln apologizes but Peter tells him it's OK because the Olivia that Lincoln is talking about isn't his Olivia. Their awkward male bonding is interrupted by Lincoln's ringing cellphone, and after he answers it, he excuses himself by saying Walter's got something he wants to show him. Peter goes back to work, which at this stage seems to consist solely of tacking things to bulletin boards and sighing heavily.
Over at the lab, Lincoln and Olivia arrive to see a little octopus in an aquarium and Walter waxing rhapsodic about what charming creatures they are, and how they build gardens. Wait, that's a real thing and not just a Beatles song? Also, they're like chameleons, says Walter. You know what are even more like chameleons? ACTUAL CHAMELEONS.
Then Astrid comes in, wanting to know why they just got a bill for $818, when she should really know better by now. Then she sees the octopus, and gripes that she's going to get blamed for it.
Walter defiantly says, "Tell Agent Broyles that science has no pricetag!" and Astrid's not particularly enthused about delivering THAT message. Anyway, she tells Olivia that Nina's sent over some files. Walter calls Eugene's story fascinating, and Olivia floats the possibility that Eugene's trying to make himself visible and so is killing people to steal their pigment. "Is that even possible?" asks Lincoln, and Walter's response is, "It's possible, of course. Leprechauns are possible," and maybe Walter should get one designated day every week to do all the drugs he wants so he can lay off the rest of the week when they're investigating cases.
He thinks about it, though, and says that Olivia's theory would explain all the mucus on the victim's body -- it's acting as a conductor, and that's how the chromatophores are absorbing the pigment. "To overcome what's been done to him would require a considerable amount of pigment," he says. Olivia, as usual, is more concerned with the real-life consequences than the scientific fascination, and she zeroes in on that meaning that there will be a lot more victims.
Speaking of! Some dude gets into his car in a parking garage, but he doesn't get anywhere before a transparent blur smashes his window and starts knocking his head against the steering wheel, all the better to wear him out for strangulation purposes!
Back at the lab, Walter has some news: First off, "Chameleon Man," as Walter is apparently calling him, is dying. As we watch a mouse making its way through a maze, Walter says that he's spent the past few hours trying to recreate what they assume Eugene is trying to do, his repigmentization. "The condition he was born with was killing him. If he is now attempting to reverse what was done to him, to make himself normal, or what was normal to him, then he is, in fact, committing suicide." He is, in a sense, poisoning himself. Walter allows that he might not be aware of that fact that his body would be reverting to the deadly condition he had when he was born.
At that, Walter picks up the mouse, which has reached the end of the maze. "How long until he dies?" asks Olivia, and Walter says that John will be fine. Lincoln has to clue Walter into the fact that Olivia wasn't asking about the mouse. "The human? Well, I can't say. I suppose it depends on how successful he is," says Walter.
Olivia points out that none of this matters if they can't actually find the guy. "How do we find something we can't see?" asks Lincoln.
And this reminds Walter of the other thing he wanted to tell them about. He turns off the lights (using a Clapper, naturally), and then shines some ultraviolet light on the maze. "Come on, Yoko, where are you?" he says. I assume in another cage somewhere, Paul, George and Ringo are working on their own mazes which they'll never solve as well as the mazes they solved with John.
Anyway, the UV light reveals a mouse that was heretofore invisible, so Walter couldn't remember that he TURNED A MOUSE INVISIBLE. "She's been there the whole time?" says Lincoln, but they don't get to enjoy this "holy shit!" moment for too long because Astrid says Broyles is on the phone: "They found another body."
It's the man in the car we just saw get killed. With the cops and FBI on the scene, the doorman leads the crew to the body -- albinofied -- and says it took him a little while to realize that it's "Mr. Ryerson."
Lincoln asks about the surveillance cameras, which were installed just a few weeks ago due to some break-ins. "And you say that nobody left the building?" There's an emergency alarm on the back door, and you were at the front door the whole time? You never walked away, not even to go to the bathroom?" says Olivia. The doorman says no, and he watched the security footage again, just to make certain. Olivia asks what she says she knows is an odd-sounding question: "Did any of the exterior doors open on their own?"
Before he can answer (with something other than, essentially, "You crazy?") the police dogs start barking because they've picked up a scent. They're scrabbling at a door that leads to the upper floors, and the doorman tells them there aren't any building exits on the floors, which means he could still be up there. Broyles orders the building locked down -- that wasn't already done -- and gets on the radio to order every available unit to Elmwood Apartments.
After the commercial break, it's dark, there are more Boston Police dogs going nuts outside, and an agent tells Broyles that the last floor is evacuating, and the residents have been instructed to leave their doors open. Broyles orders everything shut down except the elevators, and the building goes dark.
Agents make their way inside shining UV lights everywhere. Olivia's taking her team up to the highest floor and working down, while Lincoln's going to the parking garage and basement and working his way up. They'll meet in the middle.
So the agents go searching, and we get lots of atmospheric flashing blue lights, and after searching ONE FLOOR, Olivia decides, as they're heading down the stairs to the floor, that this is taking too long, and says they should split up. She'll take this floor, and she sends the other agents down to the one. Uh, I know you have UV light on your side, but you're assuming that Walter's mouse experiment will translate to a human (I mean, I know he's always eventually right, but STILL) and might I remind you that you're searching for a serial killer WHO IS INVISIBLE so maybe the buddy system is the best way to go?
But no, Olivia's going to wander through the dark alone with her UV flashlight. She finds herself in a part of the floor that seems to be undergoing renovations -- and she falls into some sort of hole. It's too small to be an elevator shaft -- some sort of heating/electrical access or something? Whatever it is, it's deep, and Olivia barely manages to catch herself on the lip. See, Olivia? BUDDY SYSTEM.
Meanwhile, the agents down below her are following the dogs, which have caught a scent, but it just leads to a discarded shirt, which they classify as a "false alarm" because yeah, what would a discarded shirt have to do with a guy who can turn his body invisible? At this point you have to wonder if a future Fringe plot will involve someone adding stupid pills to the Boston city reservoir.
Anyway, Olivia's struggling to lift herself up, when Eugene slowly comes into range of the UV. He looks all creepy and ghostlike under the UV. Actually, he reminds me like nothing so much as Michael Myers in his mask, with the black eyes.
She notices him behind her, and asks for his help. Instead she gets a little lecture: "You understand right now how important it is to be seen. Your life depends on it, me seeing you right now," he says.
Then he yanks her up, effortlessly, but grabs the gun from her holster as he does so, and then he points it at her. Olivia's all, "Hold up, you're dying!" and asks him to let them try to heal him.
But he's -- rather understandably -- skeptical, given a) how he was brought up, as a freak scientific experiment, and b) the fact that he has, you know, recently murdered people. "If you're here to help me, it's because I have value to the military. And they don't want the long-lost Experiment to self-destruct. Not when they've found him again. Olivia says she has nothing to do with the military; she just wants to stop the killing.
And here comes the diatribe: Eugene starts talking about watching other people live their lives, watching them fall in love. "To be looked upon by the right person, to connect, and to see in their eyes kindness. Happiness ... and recognition. That's when you exist," he says. Olivia's radio -- which she's been unable to answer for a few minutes -- crackles with Lincoln asking if she's OK. She ignores it to tell Eugene that she works with a scientist for the FBI in a Harvard lab. "If anyone can hope to undo what they've done to you, she says, but Eugene interrupts to snap, "I lived my life in a lab! I am not going back!" Swing and a miss, Olivia. She tries telling him that if he treats himself again even once, it might kill him.
By this point, Lincoln and the other agents are storming up the stairs because they haven't heard back from her. Eugene bolts as the agents come crashing in, and Olivia warns them that Eugene has her gun.
So Olivia and the agents race around looking for an invisible man, but there's no trace of him, somehow. I wouldn't mind an explanation of how he escaped -- given that he does have a physical form -- but Olivia finds her gun set down and figures he's gone.
Downstairs, outside, Olivia tells Broyles that the dogs have been through every floor twice, no trace of the guy, so Broyles gives the order to let everyone back into their homes.
Everyone starts filing back in, and -- does no one really notice the guy who then comes OUT of the building and is walking in the opposite direction of everyone else? Especially given that the dogs are now going nuts again in the back of their police vehicle? The agents look around futilely to find the source of the dogs' excitement but come up with nothing. Maybe let the dogs out again?
Anyway, an agent radios Broyles to tell him about something he's going to want to see. Turns out it's sub-basement where all the pipes run, designed as a service bay. That's where the find all of Eugene's pigment-restoring equipment and all the tokens he's kept from everyone in the building -- he's been watching them. Lincoln, examining the equipment, says it looks like Olivia was right, that Euguene was trying to cure himself.
Picking up a heart-shaped locket, Olivia says, "This isn't about curing himself. This is about being seen." She looks at all the tchotchkes and doesn't say anything about how poor Peter is going through something similar.
Back to the elevator of awkward silences and unrequited love. The Object of Eugene's Affection is there when the door opens, but there's no sign of Eugene. She casts a quick glance out the doors. Nothing. Is that ... disappointment? Then, just before the doors close, Eugene sticks his hand in and gets in.
She smiles and says -- to his utter shock -- that she thought he wasn't coming today. "I see you every day. I thought you might have caught the cold that's been going around," she says. When Eugene can finally he speak, he croaks out a "no" and she says, "Well, that's good, then. It's too beautiful a day to be sick." Eugene's much too gobsmacked to even think about not staring creepily at her and saying, "The most beautiful." Gah! He introduces himself as Eugene, and Julie does likewise (I mean, as "Julie," not "Eugene," but you probably knew that). He stares at her just a little too intently (to the extent that you half-expect her to say, "Wait -- are you the person who broke into my apartment?" Instead, she just beams at him. After she gets off at her floor, Eugene stands there for a moment, looking at his blurry reflection in the brushed metal of the elevator, then he turns around, leans against the doors, smiles slightly, then slides down the door -- and dies. And yeah, yeah, it's touching and poignant in that he dies happy, realizing he was seen and known, only I can't help but thinking about the people he murdered.
On to the denouement, then, with Olivia visiting Nina to tell her that they found Eugene Bryant's body, so it's over now. Until the thing, anyway.
Nina points out that Olivia could have called her with this news, but it seems like Olivia wanted to deliver a pointed little speech about how all Eugene ever wanted was to be like everyone else. "But how could he? He'd never be like anyone else. Not after what they did to him," she says. Nina thinks this has Olivia thinking about what was done to her. "Even with my colleagues, I'm different. Things that should bother me -- do you think it's possible the Cortexiphan trials stunted my emotions?"
Nina goes after that on two fronts: the first is that she can't let what happened to her as a child define her, and the second is that she doesn't think it stunted her emotions. "You are perfectly normal, at least as normal as any of us is normal," says Nina, adding that life is an experiment, and you have to find out where you belong, your own place in this world.
Olivia wonders if she shouldn't already know where that is, and Nina says not necessarily: "Before you and your sister came to live with me, my life was work. And I didn't think that I could find the time or the room for you girls in my life. Now, I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn't taken that risk," she says, beaming at Olivia, producing a warm fuzzy moment that will resonate with the viewer for all of about three minutes, given the final scene of the episode. I don't want to say that Nina is still probably very evil, but ... I don't know how to finish that sentence.
Over at the Federal Building, Peter strolls up to Lincoln's desk and plants a glasses case on his desk. "I got you something," says Peter. Lincoln opens it up and raises his eyebrows at Peter, although we don't get to see what's there. Peter's all, "Just trust me," and then says he's got to go, because Broyles is letting him use the lab. Really? Thought they had a "humans only" policy in the lab.
He says "hey" to Olivia, who passes by on her way in to see Lincoln, who is just finishing up the paperwork on the case. "Guess we can put this case on the list of things that makes it hard for you to sleep," she says, and he acknowledges that the list is getting longer. Yes, by one case! Like she said! Then Olivia, kinda charmingly awkwardly, says that if he finds himself at the diner tonight, say, around 3 a.m., she might see him there. I love Olivia's awkward flirting. So gawky. It practically has acne and a breaking voice.
But at least this time her flirting seems to have found its mark, because he says, "I'll see you then, maybe," she smiles and walks off.
Lincoln turns around to get back to work, but opens up the glasses case Peter gave him, which contains -- well, glasses. Yeah, it's a weird gift. Lincoln takes off his own thick frames and put the new ones on, which make him look ... older? More professional? Not sure, but I really like his normal ones. Lincoln checks himself out in the reflection of his computer screen. He doesn't need Olivia at all now!
The diner. 3:10 a.m. Lincoln works on a crossword puzzle, sitting in a booth alone. Is he being stood up?
Well, not exactly -- Olivia's still awake, she just hasn't left it. Jesus, get some dinner and go to a movie at a decent hour, you freaks. Kids these days! She's trying to decide on her hair, and elects for the sporty-yet-sexy ponytail. She's tying up her shoes and just getting up to get her jacket when we can see feet outside her door. Gas starts piping in, and in just a few seconds -- I guess it would have to be, to prevent Olivia from reacting -- she's unconscious on the floor.
A couple of dudes in gas masks and hair nets come in, with one of them going to a corner and we get a camera's-eye view of him approaching the ... security sensor? He flips open the cover and plugs something in. The other guy's got a briefcase full of syringes full of -- Cortexiphan! "Should we move her to the bet?" His partner says there's no need: "She's not gonna remember the last two hours anyway. When she wakes up, she's gonna have one hell of a headache." They inject her in the back of the neck, close up the briefcase and stroll out, past -- who else -- Nina, who at least has the good sense to look conflicted as she leaves and closes the door.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. If he could be invisible, he'd never get a bus transfer again. And that's just for starters. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.