By Daniel
Now that the Fringe universes are working together to bring down the nefarious David Robert Jones, let’s … bring things to a screeching halt with a Monster of the Week episode! I mean, it's not bad, as they go, but I was kind of expecting a kick-ass team-up, and not MOTW, especially not one that seemed to pointlessly hearken back to a Season 1 episode.
Instead, we get a tiny teenage girl who has random visions of people's deaths. Her father, played by Hey! It's That Guy! Currie Graham, who I know mainly from a stint on NYPD Blue but has popped up on countless shows in the past decade, sees black-suit government agents around every corner and wants to protect his daughter from becoming the object of scorn and curiosity that someone with her ability inevitably becomes.
It's no surprise that Olivia takes particular interest, both because the girl was the focus of an unsuccessful attempt for study by Massive Dynamic, and because she wonders if the girl might be able to shed some light on the dire warning given her by the Observer. No luck there, but she learns a little more about the Observers from Peter, who of course is familiar with them in a way that the people in this timeline of our universe aren't yet. Of course, she's not reassured by his saying that the Observers know what they're talking about, future-wise (although he says this not knowing that September told Olivia she had to die).
Anyway, the girl goes against her dad's wishes and decides to help the FBI prevent the deaths of many people in a courthouse bombing by someone with some sort of custody-case judge grudge. But somehow the girl's ability also kills her, due to some vague explanation about the extra electrical activity in her brain causing a stroke. But at least it brings Olivia closer to Nina Sharp, who is helpfully going to give Olivia some new Massive Dynamic medicine to help turn her into a shapeshifter, I mean "deal with the headaches she's been having."
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Emotional father-daughter scenes usually leave him a mess of tears, but this one had no effect, which concerns him. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.