Peter's got to try to convince the Fringe team that he really is who he says he is, which is difficult since no one has any memories of him, which they'd probably be pretty excited about if they knew what was going on. Plus they're trying to track down another shapeshifter, which has killed another couple of people in an attempt to track down a former Massive Dynamic scientist. She/he/it or whatever needs the scientist, Truss, to stabilize her fluctuating skin, which he agrees to do under the misconception that this person is actually a cancer patient who was treated with cell replication therapy based on old work he did for Massive Dynamic. Peter helps them by hacking the shapeshifter 2.0 device they have (after earning a shot based on his knowledge of the old shapeshifters), and they track down the shapeshifter and save the scientist. The shapeshifter gets away, though. I mean, not at first. At first the Fringe team forgets that the last person to see the shapeshifter ALWAYS turns out to have actually been the shapeshifter, even if there really wasn't enough time for her to change bodies and dispose of the other body.
Anyway, after looking into Peter's eyes, Walter knows that Peter is his son -- or at least an iteration of his son from yet another universe -- but the guilt he's carried since both young Peters died (along with the anger at acting Massive Dynamic CEO and Olivia's adopted mommy Nina Sharp, who he blames for the second Peter's death) means that he doesn't believe he deserves a second chance (or, really, a third chance) with Peter and so ditches his son. Maybe he can try again with Olivia, who's confused by Lincoln Lee rejecting her advances -- and also unable to explain why, if Peter's a stranger, he's been popping up in her dreams. You know, apart from being a fox, amirite?
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Don't you forget about him. He'll be along, dancing, you know it, baby. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
A fleet of SUVs makes its way through an empty underground parking garage, red and blue security lights flashing, even though there's no one there. When they stop at some super-duper secret underground entrance, Broyles is there waiting, and it's Peter who gets out, looking a little dressed-down for the occasion in a black T-shirt and jeans. To be fair, he probably hasn't had time to hit the Gap since he got back from being naked in Reiden Lake. Broyles stares/glares at him, then turns and leads Peter and a bunch of agents down the hall and opens the electronic lock on some sort of holding cell with a cot on one wall and a table of chairs and a mirror, in front of which I'm sure Peter will be encouraged to tell all his secrets.Elsewhere, Olivia shows up in the lab but there's no sign of Walter or Astrid. There is, however, a beeping sound that gets faster after a moment, as she heads to the back of the lab, where she finds Walter sitting in a chair, hooked up to some sort of intravenous apparatus that, as she approaches, injects a light blue liquid. Olivia urgently calls Walter's name, and after a moment he snaps awake, a little disconcerted to awaken to Olivia yelling at him.
She's relieved, at least, that Walter's awake, but a little concerned with Walter explaining that one syringe has sodium thiopental to help him sleep and the other one has adrenalin to wake him up. Like, did you ever hear of an alarm clock, Walter? Olivia wants to know, "Who sleeps like this?!" Just hipsters, now. Later, everyone.
Walter starts whining about a bunch of first-world problems, like this guy from his hallucinations who has shown up and is real, but no one will let Walter examine or even see him. Anyway, this is why he can't sleep.
Walter asks Olivia if the guy is speaking, and Olivia explains that he was, but has stopped cooperating so Broyles had him moved to a holding facility in the Federal Building and says Walter's the only person he'll speak to, which surprises Walter. "He's saying that his name is Peter Bishop. He says he's your son," says Olivia. Little more adrenalin for you there, Walter? Kinda looks like you could use it.
In Hillsdale, New York, a truck pulls up at a residence and a literally blue-collar guy walks into the house, where a woman is ransacking the drawers. "Hello," he says, and she stops what she's doing, and says hi. He stares at her for a moment and then finally says, "I thought you said you hated that sweater," and she, sounding like she's lying, says she thought she'd give it a second chance.
And since that the mystery of the sweater is solved, NOW the guy decides to ask why she's going through the drawers like a drunk looking for the bottle of whisky squirreled away somewhere. And she -- again, clearly lying -- lamely says she can't find the electric bill. Wait, an actual electric bill? Like one that's printed off and mailed? People still do that? Sounds like bullshit to me.
Buddy finally asks if this sweater-forgiving drawer-searching woman is OK, and she -- her eyes going to the key ring tethered to his belt -- says he's probably hungry, so she'll start dinner.
So he heads upstairs, saying he'll be right down and she stands in the kitchen, sweating, hands shaking. Then she hears the shower running and she goes upstairs, where Buddy has hung his pants over the door, keys dangling tantalizingly from the belt. She grabs them and heads straight for the safe in the closet, but she didn't even to check to see if he was actually in the shower yet, so he comes strolling out in his underwear wondering what she's doing.
She turns to look at him, and her skin is shimmering and translucent -- she's a shapeshifter! -- and this understandably freaks him out. She quite calmly asks him where his files are. He backs away from her in fear and falls to the floor, where he sees the corpse of his actual wife or girlfriend or friend-with-benefits or whatever under the bed. The shapeshifter picks him up and slams him against the wall, pinning him by the throat. Then she morphs in front of his face into an Asian woman. He does not seem to have a thing for Asians, though. Admittedly these aren't ideal circumstances to determine that sort of predilection. "What the hell are you!" he yells, and the woman, voice changing as she speaks, slides her hand up his face and says, "I'm only going to ask this once. Tell me where the files are." He appears to have absolutely no idea what she's talking about -- and really, if he's not talking after he's seen what he's just seen, I'd believe him, but either way, I suppose it's time for him to die.
I'm going to try not to imagine the entry point her thumb created in his skull, though. The spray of blood on her face is enough for me.
So after the opening credits, Walter -- venturing out of the lab again! -- is at the Federal Building. Astrid's along for moral support, clutching Walter's arm for dear life. Walter wants to know why they think there's any validity to this "Peter Bishop's" claim that he's related to Walter, and Broyles says a DNA sample they obtained from the IV (although you'd think Peter would have cheerfully volunteered one in order to prove it) and it's 99.7 per cent likely that he's related to Walter.
Walter's theory is that this is an iteration of Peter -- he stops himself short of saying "my son" -- from yet another universe. "Walter, people from other universes don't just show up in your dreams," says Olivia, like that's some kind of RULE or something, and an agitated Walter says Broyles asked for his theory but Walter never said it was flawless.
Broyles wants to know how this "Peter Bishop" got here and how he has all this classified information on all of them, and Walter glumly acknowledges that the best way for him to ask Peter. But he's not sure he's the best suited for it. Except for the fact Peter won't talk to anyone else. Wait, have they tried torture? Why haven't they tried torture? Just to see if anything shakes loose! Olivia says they'll be right aside, so if whenever Walter wants to leave he can, which is kind of funny given that he doesn't want to go in in the first place but that's not an option.
So into the holding cell, where Peter greets Walter warmly and Walter can barely make eye contact. Walter sits down at the table, opposite Peter, and slowly lifts his eyes. "You don't who I am, do you?" asks Peter, and Walter shakes his head. Peter says he knows this is confusing for Walter, but something's happened and he needs Walter's help. Walter says he'll try and Peter starts rambling on about the two universes, with both dying. Olivia, Astrid and Broyles are in the observation room, watching through the two-way mirror. "How does he know all this?" asks Olivia. Sssshhhh! That's what Walter's in there to find out! You're missing all the awkward reconnection!
It's when Peter starts talking about Walter building the Peter-powered machine that's a bridge between the two universes that he loses Walter. "There is a machine, but I didn't build it. I don't know who you are, what your agenda is, or why you claim to be my son," he says, somewhat angrily.
So now Peter starts talking about the Brief History of Dying Peters, and discovers from Walter that Peter 2.0 drowned in Reiden Lake. He's confused: "The Observer didn't pull us out of the lake that night? Well, that must be it, Walter." In the observation room, Astrid says, "What's an Observer?" Broyles looks at her -- does he have some idea and he just hasn't revealed it yet, like when he revealed it to Olivia?
Anyway, Peter's babbling on about how he was supposed to die that night, but since he didn't, he became a paradox and had to be "deleted" for the worlds to heal. This, naturally, raises more questions than it answers, like if he's already dead in both universes, how is he back?
Peter clutches at Walter's arm, and Walter gets agitated and all "This interrogation is over!" and scrambles for the door while Peter shouts after him things like "How am I back?" and "You have to help me!" and "Why did you throw out all my old comic books!" I find myself really curious about what Peter's been experiencing for the past little while. He hasn't said anything about being trapped in some sort of netherworld, but Walter's visions of Peter involved him asking for help. Anyway, Walter's let out by Olivia, who exchanges a long look with Peter before the door closes.
Then her phone rings, and she's off to the crime scene from the opening sequence. Once there, she demands to know from Lincoln Lee why he dragged her to the scene of a robbery-homicide, and it's always amusing on a television show when someone asks that question AFTER DRIVING ALL THE WAY THERE FIRST instead of asking that question on the phone.
Lee tells her it's because the victims' skin is translucent, like the others killed by the shapeshifters. Olivia thought they killed the last of them in the train yard, and why she assumed that one was the LAST one I have no idea. Anyway, Lee says this is the home of Dr. Malcolm Truss, who used to work in the biotech division of Massive Dynamic. But the poor sad bastard who was tortured by the shapeshifter is Donald Kellen, Mrs. Truss's mechanic boyfriend. Dr. Truss moved out ages ago, but the house is still in his name. So that means the shapeshifter is still out there looking, deduces Olivia, the crime-fighting genius.
Lee says since he and his wife separated, Truss went off the grid. They're still trying to find an address for him. "Well, we should hurry on that," says Olivia. Great advice! I'd love to see Olivia as a coach: "We should score more points than the other team."
But they're already too late: in Eden, Vermont, a schlubby looking biotech scientist sits in his backyard garden dripping some green fluid into a watering can when his dog, Sebastian, comes up to bother him, because the dogs can always tell when you're about to be attacked by an alien, vampire, leprechaun or shapeshifter.
The Asian woman striding across his yard says his name, and he seems wary, as she demands confirmation that he worked at Massive Dynamic. He tells the "young lady" that she's trespassing and he wants her off his property, but her response is to pull a gun on him and tell him she needs his help. Try honey, not vinegar, lady.
Over at Massive Dynamic, Lincoln Lee's mind is blown by the picture on Nina's desk of a young Olivia with a riding ribbon. Olivia explains -- in as few strokes as possible -- that after her mother died, she and her sister were supposed to go into the foster system but Nina pulled a few strings and they went to her. "So the acting CEO of one of the richest companies in the world was your nanny," he says, completely flabbergasted, and Olivia's all, "Something like that."
Nina comes in and she and Lee introduce themselves to each other. Broyles has filled Nina in on this sketchy "Peter Bishop" character, and she asks how Walter is taking it. Uh... you've MET Walter, right? Nina asks if there's anything she can do to help, and the answer probably is "stay as far away from Walter as possible," but Olivia just says they're here on a different matter: they're looking for info on Dr. Malcolm Truss, who left the company about ten years ago.
Nina doesn't have Olivia's memory, and she says the name doesn't ring a bell, but she'll see what she can find. Nina pulls up the file and now she remembers him now: graduated from MIT in '82, came to work for Massive Dynamic in '93, left in '01. "And isn't he that guy from Ellen?" asks Nina. She wants to know why they're interested in him, and Olivia explains about Truss being abducted from his house this morning, and they think a shapeshifter was responsible. "A shapeshifter? But what would a shapeshifter want with Malcolm Truss?" asks Nina, completely baffled. Oh, except for MAYBE HIS CELL REPLICATION PROJECT. "It was designed to help patients with extensive tissue damage -- burn victims, cancer patients, amputees. It copied the genetic data of the healthy cells of the patient and used it to replace the damaged ones," explains Nina. Well, it's a long shot, but that just may be something a shapeshifter's interested in. Truss never had a chance to find out if it worked, because William Bell shut the project down, citing ethical concerns. Lee's all, "ethical concerns?" but Nina doesn't volunteer any more information. Man, when William "Let's Experiment on Children" Bell has ethical concerns about a project, it must be some crazy mad science shit.
Road trip! Truss and the shapeshifter are heading down the highway, beers presumably in the cup holders, while the woman tells Truss about people who think very highly of his work and him. "You don't know them, but they know you. They share your vision. They will pay you to continue your research," she says. Of course, Truss is still a little put out by the gun, which she still has pointed at him. Don't hit any potholes, Malcolm. She says she couldn't take the chance he'd turn down their request for help. "I don't know what you're hoping to find in those files. That work never went anywhere. It's useless," says Truss. The shapeshifter starts unbuttoning her shirt -- best kidnapping ever -- but it's just to shop him her translucent skin on her upper breast. "I was terminally ill. Stage Four melanoma when they came to me," she says. Truss recognizes it as his old cellular replication baby and can't believe they did it. The shapeshifter says the cancer went into complete remission -- but the procedure didn't fully take. "The cells, they aren't stable. My cancer is gone, but... I'm still dying." She sighs, the perfect cap to her bullshit sob story.
Truss thinks about it for a moment, then says he'll help her. But there are no files -- it's all in his head. He calls her "Nadine" and says again that he'll help her, but he doesn't do his best work at gunpoint. Nadine rolls her eyes, evilly.
Back at the federal building, Peter is pulling a panel from the wall beside the door and tinkering with the wires behind it. Uh -- is anybody monitoring his cell? Outside, Olivia is explaining to Broyles that Walter says the shapeshifters at the train yards weren't able to complete their shifts, due to being flawed, and that Truss's experience with cellular repetition might be just what they need. Less talking, more shapeshifter-hunting! Broyles says if the shapeshifter is flawed, it might have something to do with the tech Walter pulled from the two they killed at the train yard. "I checked with Tech Services. They don't even know what the device is, the purpose it serves," says Lee.
Inside the cell, we see that Peter's fiddled with the wiring so he can hear what's being said outside somehow. Not only that, he's able to talk through the telephone speakers and tell the Fringe gang that the devices are memory disks. He's seen them before.
A very pissed-off Broyles busts into the room to ask what he knows about shapeshifters, and Peter says, smugly, "Quite a lot, actually." Like how if you shoot them in the head they bleed mercury, he says. "Those are the old ones. What about the new ones? The human shapeshifters?" asks an unimpressed Broyles.
Peter's has no idea what Broyles is talking about, so Lee moves on to the memory disks, and Peter explains that the disks are divided into three partitions: cognitive functions, biochemical functions, and mission objective, and he knows this because he's decrypted a couple himself. Lee asks if Peter could decrypt another one, earning the ire of Broyles: "I'll ask the questions, Agent Lee," he says, but Lee is undeterred: "We've been sitting on this tech for weeks. Our people aren't able to crack it. What's the harm in letting him try?" Broyles looks like he's about to eviscerate Lee. "You about done?" he says, icily.
And now Peter steps in to say that Lee has a point, like maybe the crazy Fringe prisoner is going to make Broyles come around.
Olivia wants to know what Peter gets out of this, because he's obviously not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Peter says he just wants to talk to Walter again, and Olivia points out that he upset Walter the last time that happened. "I'm sorry about that. I was talking to him like he was the man that I knew, which clearly he is not. He's different. Just like you are," he says. If that's not enough, Peter points out that he needs Walter's help, and they need Peter's. Lee asks if anyone has a better idea, and Broyles' glowering silence is tacit approval, so Olivia says she'll see what she can do.
At that moment, Walter is opening a box of trinkets -- little reel-to-reel wheels, toys. He picks up a shell and holds it to his ear, listening for the sea. He rummages through the box -- Peter is scrawled in a kid's printing on the underside of the lid -- and pulls out a coin and tries to roll it across his knuckles like they used to, but his hand is trembling much too much to do it very well. His face is halfway between a smile and a sob.
Gas station break in Rutland, Vermont! Truss tells Nadine, "I hope you have money." Ass, gas or grass, Truss. Nobody rides for free. Ehh, I suppose it doesn't matter. She has a gun, so either way they're getting gas. They get out of the car, and Truss has to tell Nadine that her nose is bleeding. She's surprised, and then unsure about accepting his offer to gas up the car while she cleans up, so he tells her that he said he'd help her, and he meant it, so she opens up her wallet -- well, the wallet of whoever Nadine was, and Truss notes the picture of the girl and asks if it's her daughter. "Yeeesss," says Nadine, practically adding, "My daughter! That's it! That's the ticket!" (Ask your parents. His name was Jon Lovitz.) She says her daughter's name is Hayley, and so Truss starts ruefully remembering how his wife wanted kids but he was too busy with work, and then when that ended, he was too busy being angry to pay attention to what she needed. He wistfully says that he hopes someday she'll let him be a part of her life again: "I hope she hasn't been murdered or anything, thus preventing us from ever reconciling. That would really ramp up the pathos here," he adds, finishing gassing up.
Nadine gives him some money to go inside and pay, and then she starts to scowl when she sees the state police cruiser pull into the gas station parking lot. She ducks around their car, out of sight, as the poor doomed state trooper radios back to HQ that he's spotted the vehicle they've been alerted to. He's told the suspect is armed and dangerous and that he should wait in his vehicle for backup. He's all "roger that" and turns to get back in his car, but Nadine's standing right there, and by the time Truss has paid for the gas and come back out to the car, the trooper is lying on the pavement, unconscious at least and most likely dead, tucked under the back end of the car.
Over at the Federal Building, Peter is hard at work tinkering with the shapeshifters' memory disk while Olivia and Lincoln discuss it (I assume they disabled Peter's jerry-rigged listening device). Olivia wonders if Lincoln thinks Peter can actually do anything with it, and he says Peter seems pretty confident about it. "He seems pretty confident in general," he adds. The word you're looking for is "cocky," Lincoln.
Walter curtly says he's fine, and that the man is a "scientific anomaly" and nothing more. But Nina points out that Walter is making Peter's favorite dessert, and Walter says that he finds baking custard calms him, and seeing this man has brought up many things he tried to forget. "That night at the lake, you begged me to stop, but I couldn't. I couldn't watch Peter die, not again. I couldn't stand by and do nothing," he says.
Nina tries to interject but Walter steamrolls right over her, saying he's hated her for twenty-five years: "Had you not been there, the vial wouldn't have been broken, and I would've healed Peter on the other side. He wouldn't have fallen through the ice."
Walter blames Nina for Peter's death, and Nina seems to be handling this outburst rather well, probably because she already knows how he feels.
Also, he doesn't blame her anymore, because she was right: "I'd crossed the line. For the sake of one life, I destroyed two worlds," he says. Point of order -- the worlds seem to be doing relatively OK right now. I have been wondering what effect the Peter-erasal has had on the state of the universes. Better? Worse? We've barely had a glimpse of what the other world looks like now -- I'm going to assume it's relatively unchanged.
Anyway, Walter says he's come to terms with the fact that he deserves to be punished and suffer, but Nina tells him he's not the same man anymore and he's done everything in his power to repair the damage.
Walter's not really listening, though: "I saw my boy in that man's eyes, the way he looked that night in the ice, floating away from me," he says, adding that seeing his boy's eyes in that man's face filled him with indescribable joy. So why did he bolt? Because he doesn't feel he deserves that joy. "Why should I be rewarded for what I've done?" he asks, and Nina suggests he's suffered enough. She doesn't know why this Peter fellow is here either, but maybe Walter's been given a second chance. Well, a third chance, really. Don't let THIS Peter die, Walter!
Broyles goes in to Peter's cell, because he was told Peter found something. Peter dramatically swivels his computer around to show Broyles the screen and say, "It's a DNA sequence," but Broyles doesn't know why that's important to Peter explains: "I found six distinct genetic profiles on that memory from the shapeshifter tech. Apparently these things are able to switch between every single identity they've ever taken, not just one."
Broyles no-duhs that that will make them a lot harder to find, and Peter says it will make them impossible to find: "They replicate their victims down to the molecular level, including every last strand of DNA," he says, adding that if they can perfect the technology, they could replace any person, and short of performing surgery to find the memory disks, there's no way of knowing. Surely there's a way to detect the memory disks, though (I mean security-wise for, say, the Federal Building)? Are they made of organic material?
Over at Truss Laboratory, the good doctor is almost ready to fix up Nadine, and tells her to lie back, warning her that she may feel a little nauseous. But something else is wrong -- she starts to seize up, skin going haywire. Truss stares at her, confused, as her face gets all lumpy and then morphs into his wife's face. He's all, "What the HELL" and Nadine doesn't appear to know that she's changed, so she says, "What is it?" He asks why she looks like his wife. Fair question.
Nadine looks at her hands, realizes her cover story is shot, and just elects to grab Truss and throw him around a bit, reminding him that he promised to help her. Well, he kinda promised someone else, didn't he? I'm not sure you can kill people, impersonate them, and then try to lay on a guilt trip about a broken promise.
Back at the Federal Building, Peter stares perplexedly at his laptop and then buzzes for Broyles, who comes in. Peter tells him it's broadcasting some kind of signal, but he can't figure out whom yet. "I can't break the high-grade encryption without a significant increase in CPU cycles," he says. Meaning he wants a bigger computer. Oh, everyone in an office wants a bigger computer.
But Peter gets in, and is now plugged in to the computers out in the main office, with the data being decrypted on monitors for everyone to watch. "Those are co-ordinates," says Olivia, so they pull up a map of the city. Peter: "So what do luxury cars and shapeshifters have in common?" he asks, like this ISN'T AN APPLE PRODUCT LAUNCH, GET TO THE POINT. He says they both have LoJack systems. I'm sure the good people at LoJack will be thrilled at the product placement in the shapeshifting assassins from a parallel universe.
"I think whoever's in charge wants to keep an eye on his agents," says Peter. One of the plotted co-ordinates is the one they have at the federal building, but there's another one by the port. "I think you just found our shapeshifter," says Broyles. The team springs into action, given that Peter says whoever's monitoring that network will know that he breached it, so they could shut it down at any time.
And over at the port, Nadine is coughing, hard. She doesn't look like Truss's wife any more, but the big baby won't let it go. "How did you do that? Why did you look like my wife?" he says, angrily. Nadine tries to tell him that it's not important, that her offer to allow him to continue his research was sincere, but he's not at all interested in that right now. And I gotta say -- the fact that she morphed into looking exactly like the guy's wife? Probably pretty friggin' important.
Nadine talks about great progress requiring great sacrifice, and his work created her, and that he needs to step back and see things objectively as a scientist. "You let go of Karen long ago for a greater purpose. Don't let that all be for nothing," she says, rather conveniently leaving out the fact that she left Karen dead under a bed in his old house. Plus he can take back what William Bell took from him. Truss stares at her for a long, long time. I think his scientific curiosity combined with him likely suspecting his wife is dead plus him assuming that if he doesn't help then he's dead too all add up to him saying, "It may be possible to alter the compound to accommodate multiple genomes." They just have to induce a state of permanent hyper-replication, he says, but she grabs his hand hard as he's about to inject a bonding agent into the test tube, and icily tells him that she knows enough about biochemistry to know that restriction enzymes would fragment her DNA and trigger a massive internal hemorrhage. She squeezes his hand, breaking the test tube. Hey! He needs that hand for mad-scientificatin'! She tells him to finish what he started. She's not going to ask again. So it's like that!
They're running out of time, though, because Olivia and the FBI team has rolled up to the gate of Clifford's Seafood Exchange. Not that they know that, but Nadine is getting antsy. Truss says they need five minutes for the centrifugation process, and then they'll know if the serum's complete. Of course, it's probably taken him longer because his right arm's splinted and bandaged up. Guess she broke his hand.
And that's when the Fringe team starts storming the gates, led by Olivia and Lincoln Lee (go Team One!). Nadine hears them come in and calmly heads their way to lay down some fire, forcing our heroes to take cover.
Truss tries to get the serum out of the centrifuge and scoot, but Nadine grabs the serum and throws him through a railing, and then she shoots her past some guards who don't die even though their names aren't in the credits or anything. She makes her way to the roof, helped out by the way she's able to Spider-Man her way up a wall.
Olivia gets to the roof, and finds one dead agent and another one wounded and leaning against an air conditioner. Nadine is nowhere in sight, and -- oh, come ON, Olivia. Don't put your gun away! She radios for paramedics for Agent Warrick here. He groans, "She jumped," and Olivia goes over to the edge of the roof and looks down into the water, which is still roiling. I mean, obviously since we didn't see Nadine get away, she just shapeshifted into Agent Warrick here, right? Olivia! This is common shapeshifter-fighting knowledge!
In the aftermath, Olivia goes to get a statement from Truss. "What that... thing said about Karen... it's true, isn't it? She's dead?" Olivia tells him that police found his wife in her home this morning. She says she's sorry, but Truss blames himself. "'Some things are not ours to tamper with,'" he says. This twigs with Olivia, who says, "Excuse me?" and he just says it was something someone once said to him that he didn't understand at the time, but does now.
They're interrupted by Lincoln Lee, who tells Olivia that the dive team just found a body. She rushes to the water, where they watch as a very soggy, very translucent-skinned Agent Warrick is dredged up. Olivia gets on her radio and yells, "Get dispatch on the line. We need all available units on that ambulance now!"
Said ambulance is askew on the side of a road in the woods, driver dead. A state trooper carefully makes his way, gun drawn, to the back, which is empty. Lucky for him, because that means he lives.
Back at the Federal Building, the agents putter around with reports and paperwork, with an agent named Jill giving Olivia the hourlies she asked for. Lee seems a little down, and Olivia assures him that they're going to find the shapeshifter: "Look at how much more we know now than we did this morning," she says. Lee doesn't seem too convinced, a little distracted. Olivia asks if he wants to get a bite to eat, and Lee -- apparently a STRONGER MAN THAN I -- turns her down and says he's going back to the hotel. It's not like Olivia made it clear to him that it might be a little less than friendly, but she looks sufficiently bummed to me that I think it's safe to say she's a little curious about the Lincoln Log. Throwing herself at Lee to try to keep her from thinking too much about how Peter's arrival is getting to her? And then Special Agent Jill comes by again, giving Olivia the hourlies she asked for. "Didn't we just do this?" asks Olivia, smiling -- but Jill has no idea what she's talking about. And when Olivia goes to show her that she already brought the hourlies, they're no longer on the desk where Olivia set them down. And now it's Olivia's turn to stand there looking confused.
Speaking of confused, Walter enters Peter's cell. "Are they feeding you?" asks Walter. Well, yeah, they kind of legally have to. Peter gets right to it, saying he doesn't know what to do, because no one remembers him. "Olivia looks at me like I'm a stranger, like she's afraid of me. I know what you're capable of. I need your help, Walter, to fix this," he says.
Walter steps forward until he's close enough to touch Peter's face, and the two men stare at each other. They smile, and Walter says that every day for the past twenty-five years he's wondered what Peter would look like as a man. And you're thinking, hey, great! Walter's going to help Peter! And then Walter withdraws his hands and the smile fades and you get a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Walter says he doesn't deserve Peter, and that Peter was sent here as his punishment: "You were sent to tempt me, to see if I would repeat the mistakes of the past. You shouldn't be here." He's heading for the door, much to Peter's chagrin. Walter says wherever he came from and however he got here, it doesn't matter, because he can't help. "I tried to help a boy, a version of my son, twenty-five years ago. But that boy was never my son. And neither are you," says Walter, who bangs on the door. Am I nuts or does the guard who let Walter out give Peter the stink-eye and reproachfully shake his head ever so slightly?
And where is our shapeshifter? She's at train station in Boston, making her way to the bathroom and hoping no one notices her freaky shimmering skin. Once inside, she injects the serum and her face stabilizes (although she could use a little exfoliation, but that's just me).
No longer with see-through skin, Nadine makes her way to a bank of lockers, and pulls from one a case containing a typewriter. You know, did the other side ever consider trying to do this with laptops? Typewriters aren't exactly inconspicuous.
Anyway, she types, "STATUS REPORT: DOCTOR TRUSS LOCATED. SERUM SYNTHESIZED SUCCESSFULLY." After a few moments, she gets the reply: "HIT THE CAPS LOCK KEY, DAMN." And then: "UNDERSTOOD. BEGIN PREPARATIONS. WE'RE SENDING THE OTHERS." She smiles. If I were her, I probably would too. I imagine her company Christmas party would be pretty boring over here with just her.
"The Others"? Great. Now I'm going to have traumatic Lost flashbacks.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. When you comin' home, Peter? I don't know when, but we'll get together then. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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