By Daniel
Olivia thinks that kissing Peter was only an aftereffects from being in Westfield during last week's reality storm, but now she's migraine-ridden and embarrassed at having kissed Peter. Meanwhile a mental patient named Sean seems to be experiencing a man's home invasion murder remotely and in real time. The case lands in the Fringe team's collective lap, and they interview Sean, who describes his experience of the crime as "hearing voices," like the kind of voice-hearing that landed him in the schizophrenic ward in the first place, only more violent. Walter suspects that since the voices are real, Sean isn't schizophrenic after all, as previously assumed, just telepathically connected to the killers. What a relief, right? Walter decides to test the theory by taking Sean off his meds and seeing what the voices do then.
Olivia's also having some difficulty concentrating on the case, what with having come around to remembering everything about her original timeline. Including, one assumes the Peter and Olivia Sexytimeline. Obviously this is unsettling news to Peter, who's been operating this whole time under the mistaken assumption that he's in the wrong universe with the wrong people. And a session with a suddenly calm Olivia under Walter's magic hair dryer doesn't improve Peter's mood, especially when Walter blames Peter for somehow projecting his memories into Olivia.
Meanwhile, they get a break in the case, suggesting that Sean may be a brother to one or more of the killers -- which is odd, because he was an only child. Except that his mother conceived him with IVF from an anonymous sperm donor, through a clinic that was being looked into by the very man killed early in the episode. Walter forms a theory that Sean and his "voices" are operating as a hive mind, like a colony of bees with a powerful protective instinct, while Peter and Olivia track down the fertility doctor in question at an assisted living facility. That gentleman calmly informs them that he messed with the embryos' DNA (all of which came from his own nasty loins, of course) back in the day, so now his science-demon seed are killing anyone who might make their story public. When Peter and Olivia go to check out a stash of the doc's data, they walk into an ambush, and the doctor himself is killed. Plus, Sean is cut out of the hive mind loop, which he takes pretty hard, even after being comforted by Astrid.
Meanwhile, Walter figures out from a hair sample that Olivia's currently being dosed with cortexiphan -- like, as we speak -- so he and Lincoln go and brace Nina Sharp, all but accusing her of being behind it. And since Nina boasts about being the only one who still has access to the stuff, they soon stop pretending not to be suspicious. After surviving the ambush and closing the case, Olivia and Peter end up kissing for real, even though Peter's understandably gun-shy about repeating the mistake he made with Fauxlivia. And while Walter and Lincoln arrive at Massive Dynamic to find Nina's tightly guarded stash of cortexiphan swapped out for fakes, Olivia disappears from the gas station where she and Peter stopped. She wakes up, beaten and bound to a chair in a dank basement, facing an equally battered… Nina Sharp. The real one, I assume, and not the presumably fake Nina currently enduring the accusatory stares of Walter and Lincoln. On the bright side, at least now we know the real Nina isn't evil. Unless of course she beat up a Mark Two shapeshifter that looks like herself and stuffed her in a basement with Olivia. Probably shouldn't rule anything out.
We pick up from where we left off last week, with Olivia kissing a very surprised Peter, who inexplicably didn't just go with it. Instead they sit down and Peter wants to know if Olivia's OK, and she says she is. "Then why did you kiss me?" asks Peter, because clearly it's a sign that something is very amiss if someone wants to kiss him. Olivia says it just felt normal, like it's what they would do.
She's perfectly aware of who she is and who Peter is, she says, and she thinks this is just residual effects from being welcomed to Westfield, and she deflects Peter's suggestion that she should let Walter have a look at her. "I think what I need is just some rest. I'm sorry that I kissed you. To be honest, I'm a little bit embarrassed about it." He offers to stay, just to make sure she's OK (with sexy results, I'm sure), but she says she wants time alone and she thinks she's got another migraine coming on, and he leaves, but first wrangles a promise from her that she'll see Walter in the morning if she's still feeling wonky. She closes the door on him, and then flashes back to that time the other Olivia came over for her date with Peter and he was all glimmery, which was when we all knew that Peter was from the other universe.
Welcome to Deerfield (Mental Hospital), where a young man is shuffling around in the dead of night in his pajamas and bathrobe, shushing someone, although he's the only one around. He goes to the window of what appears to be the cafeteria. "It's time," he says.
And we immediately jump to Douglaston, New York, where a trio of ne'er-do-wells are entering a home that is not their own. Back at Deerfield, the young guy whispers, "He's in the kitchen." In Douglaston, there is indeed a middle-aged man in the kitchen, burning himself on some popcorn that he's taking out of the microwave.
The Deerfield kid whispers for the three guys in Douglaston to fan out, which they do, while the man in the kitchen empties the bag of popcorn into a bowl, and somehow manages not to have either tons of kernels left over or that clump of browned and burnt popcorn. But the Deerfield mastermind is interrupted by a woman named Bernadette, who comes into the kitchen and calls him "Sean" and says he should be in bed. He resists somewhat, but then acquiesces as Bernadette leads him down the hall, telling him that the voices he's hearing in his head aren't real. Then he stops when the popcorn man leaves the kitchen. "He's coming your way. He's coming your way," Sean says, as though the three young lads are in some sort of danger from the middle-aged man with the bowl of popcorn who doesn't even know they're there. He's startled and drops his popcorn when he spots one (who has a knife) and then another, and then he backs his way up the stairs, frantically telling them they can take whatever they want, only to be jumped from behind by the third thug, who wraps a plastic bag around the man's head and then all three of them start attacking the guy, breaking a glass door in the process. Plus the whole place now stinks like that nasty fake butter they put on microwave popcorn, so this is a tragedy in so many ways.
Back in Deerfield, Sean is writhing and screaming about being cut. "There's three of us and one of him," he yells, and Bernadette needs help from an orderly named Charles who helps wrestle Sean into his bed while Bernadette prepares a sedative. Popcorn Man will never taste that popcorn. He's lying dead on the floor. And Sean has calmed completely down. "He's dead. It's over," he says, and Bernadette looks at Charles, presumably getting ready to tell him to pretend this never happened so she doesn't have to deal with all the paperwork.
After the opening credits, Olivia and Lincoln Lee are at the mental hospital, where they're doing that thing where an agent gets filled in on the details of a case like FIVE SECONDS before he's going to be helping to interview someone involved. She's explaining what a killing in New York has to do with a mental institution in Deerfield: "Apparently, a nurse here watched the news report this morning, and last night a patient with schizophrenia had recounted the entire crime in great detail as it was happening," she says, leaving Lincoln Lee to lament the lack of normal days at work in this job. But... I mean, since this is Fringe, isn't this a normal day? Try to acclimatize, Lee!
Meanwhile, Walter's already there, because he's Mr. Field Trip now, and Astrid managed to lose him but finds him talking to a patient -- a Mr. "Silbiger" -- and suggesting that he's the one who turned Timothy Leary onto the whole LSD thing. I'm going to assume that the emphasis place on learning Silbiger's name means it's a reference to something, but it's beyond my capabilities to suss out.
As Bernadette leads them down the hall to Sean Keenan, she tells them Sean's been a patient there for about three years, although she's sure he spent time in at least two other hospitals before coming here. Olivia's having a hard time paying attention though, because she keeps having flashbacks (which isn't quite right, because this didn't happen to her) of going to St. Clare's with Peter to meet with the heroically bearded and crazy Walter all those years ago.
Sean is a little perturbed at the idea that the voices in his head may be real, but Olivia's not willing to commit to that theory quite yet. She shows him a picture of the victim, but Sean says he's never seen him before. "But you know how he died," says Lincoln. Not a question. Sean tells him he didn't hurt the guy, and the agents do know that. He can't hear the voices now, though; they come and go, and -- in response to a question from Walter -- they never come from objects, like a tree or a wall. They're always from inside his head.
He says he thinks there are eight or nine voices, but not always and some of them he doesn't hear for weeks. Last night there were three -- which Lincoln tells everyone is how many assailants the police suspect there were -- but then one of them left while the other two went to a subway station. So not to the sandwich shop, then. "I heard them say that one of them was hurt, like he was cut. He needed to get cleaned up before he got on the train," says Sean, adding that it was in the bathroom. That's the last thing he remembers before the sedative started working and he fell asleep.
While Lincoln gets down to the business of arranging the search of subway stations near the victim's home, Walter asks Sean if the voices speak directly to him. They don't, he says, at all. "They only speak to each other?" asks Walter, which Sean confirms. Olivia asks what Walter is thinking, but Walter just asks Sean if he'd be willing to go off his meds if it would help the investigation.
We don't see Sean's answer, but we do see Walter later walk down the hall to Bernadette, who's giving Sean's medical records to Astrid. Walter tells her that he thinks her diagnosis of Sean is fundamentally flawed, and he says it about as tactfully as we all know Walter would, practically spitting it in her face. He points out that the voices Sean hears don't persecute or relate to him at all. "In fact, recent evidence proves that what he's hearing are the real thoughts of other people," snaps Walter, who both as a scientist and someone who works with the FBI probably knows the difference between "this person says this happened" and "proof." At any rate, Olivia looks like she wants to crawl under a rock when Walter starts talking about "psychological symbiosis" and "mental telepathy," but she is on board with Sean agreeing to go off his meds, even if Bernadette looks like she doesn't think that's such a hot idea. "We're hoping that the more he is able to hear the voices, the more likely it is that we will be able to catch whoever's responsible for the killing," Olivia explains. Bernadette reveals that this is a bit of a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest thing and that Sean is here voluntarily, so he can do what he wants, but she's still going to explain it to his prescribing physician. Olivia offers to come with her: "That way I can keep walking around this mental hospital and continue having flashbacks of memories that belong to another Olivia," she says. Which she then does!
That night, she visits Peter at his campus housing, and he's excited to see her. Probably going to get some! She asks if it's OK if she comes in and has a look around. Of course that's OK, and she strolls in. She notes the spot where, in Peter's timeline, Walter used to sleep. "How did you know that?" Peter asks, surprised. Olivia looks around, and gets a flash of a memory of Peter and her toasting "to disaster narrowly averted," and then current Olivia talks about how she remembers that case about the couple in Apartment 6B, they came back here, and then they went upstairs, if you know what she's getting at, and in case you don't, there's a flash of the two of them kissing. "I remember," she says. Peter says that's not possible, when it is far from the least possible thing that's ever happened on this show. What else does she remember? She remembers William Bell, and crossing over to bring Peter back, and Jacksonville, and seeing him shimmer the first time they kissed -- which is kind of conflating two separate events, but since things to be a little scrambled up we can either allow it or chalk it up to a missing comma in the script. "I remember you walking to the machine and getting inside and being scared that you were going to die," she says. She's not freaked out about this -- in fact, there's almost a beatific calm about her -- but Peter's pretty concerned; he says he doesn't know what's going on, but something be wrong. "I remember it. I remember us. I remember everything," she says, eyes shining.
So it's off to Walter's lab for testing, and Olivia is sitting under one of Walter's souped-up salon hairdryer things, asking her questions like what her name is and where she lives so he can calibrate his machine or whatever. "All right, let's see if we can figure out what's going on inside your head, hopefully give you some peace of mind," he says, and she's all, "I'm not scared, I keep telling you both." Peter's standing around, glowering, and he says, "That makes one of us," and Walter tells them both to shush, and then asks Olivia where he and she met. Olivia starts talking about St. Claire's, because her partner had been injured in an explosion and she was hoping Walter would be able to save his life. "And Peter was with me because I needed a family member to sign you out," she says, and Peter shakes his head and tells her that's what happened in his timeline. Olivia smiles at him, and Peter just keeps glaring. Walter asks if she can remember going to get him without Peter, and she thinks about it and says she can -- she remembers getting lost, but it's hazy and indistinct, like an old dream.
Walter asks Peter about the brain scan, which is what I guess Peter is looking after when he's not busy making mad faces at everyone, and he says there's nothing unusual with the brain scan, but something has to be wrong, because how else does Olivia have memories from the other Olivia that are stronger than her own?
Walter's theory is empathy: during the Cortexiphan trials, he and Belly noticed how well Olivia, even as a child, was able to intuit what people around her wanted. "I suspect that Olivia may be empathizing with your strong desire to be reunited with your Olivia, and she meets that need by, in effect, becoming your Olivia," he says. Peter thinks that's bullshit, because no matter how much he wants to be with his Olivia, he can't make "this one" have memories of things she didn't experience. Walter admits to being perplexed by that as well, but he has a couple of ideas. One is some form of thought transference, and then he can't remember the other one he was going to suggest, much to Peter's irritation. "I lost the thought. Too many drugs of my own," he says. Then he snaps back to business, and asks Olivia if he can take a few strands of her hair to test, and she says yes. Walter plucks them and then gives them to a still-pissed Peter so he can prepare a slide.
Lincoln Lee comes in to see how Olivia's doing. "We don't know yet," growls Peter, because his sunny disposition is such a big help in figuring out the problem here. Olivia tells Lincoln that she feels fine, and he's got another piece of good news: transit authorities found a wad of bloody paper towels at the Roosevelt Street station bathroom. The DNA analysis suggests they're looking for a Caucasian male, but they haven't had any hits from the database yet. Walter has a look at the report, and says he's seen one like it before: Sean, their misdiagnosed schizophrenic. They put the DNA reports side by side so Walter can show them the chromosomal spur that both Sean and the suspect have on chromosome 7, the point being that a spur like that is so rare that it can only mean Sean and the killer are brothers. Actually, half-brothers, because they share just one parent, but Walter says it lends credence to his mental telepathy theory, since there are many documented cases of siblings communicating non-verbally. Usually it's identical twins, but not always.
That doesn't explain, says Lee, how Sean can hear the thoughts of all three of the killers, but it's Olivia who takes Walter's theory to the logical step and suggests that they're all related. "According to his medical records, Sean is an only child," points out Lincoln, who seems to be getting annoyed with being the only sane one in the place. Olivia saddles up to go talk to Sean's mother, but not before the menfolk -- Lincoln and Walter, anyway -- start to decide for her whether she should be allowed to go anywhere, but Olivia's not having that. "You said there's nothing wrong with me physically. So if something shows up in the tests, let me know. Otherwise, we've got a case," she says.
After she and Lincoln leave, Walter gets pissy with Peter, saying he knows what Peter's doing: "I know what it's like to want something back that you loved. I have succumbed to that temptation myself," he says. Peter, rolling his eyes, says that whatever's happening to Olivia, he's not doing it. Walter thinks he is, even if he doesn't realize it. "And it's wrong, Peter," he says. Uh, it's wrong even if Peter's not able to control whatever it is that's happening?
Anyway, Sean's mother lives in Florence, Massachusetts, and she looks a lot like a much older Janeane Garofalo. She's understandably alarmed at the suggestion that her son doesn't have schizophrenia, largely because that's what he's been treated for during the past seven years. Olivia asks if Sean has any siblings, and Mrs. Keenan says they only had one child. Lincoln diplomatically asks if it's possible that Sean's father could have had another child. Mrs. Keenan is all, his biological father? Well, sure. Turns out Sean was conceived through in-vitro fertilization, and they used a sperm donor. Oh, so there could be hundreds of half-siblings. Terrific! Olivia asks what she can tell them about the donor, and all Mrs. Keenan says is that he seemed impressive on paper. So instead they ask about the doctor, a Dr. Owen Frank, and Mrs. Keenan says he was referred to them by a friend who said he "only took the best donors" so that his results were better, which I'm sure is markedly different from other doctors who like to tout their average donors and middling results. But since we're taking time to note that the doctor promises just the best donors, we know it's going to turn out to just be him.
Anyway, Mrs. Keenan says that a reporter called and left a message a couple of days ago, doing some sort of piece on in-vitro fertilization. His name was Daniel. A reporter named Daniel? That this show kills off? I OBJECT! Olivia's all, "Daniel Greene?" and Mrs. Keenan says that's it. She called him back, but he never returned her call. She offers to go get her IVF file that she dug up after the reporter called. While she's gone, Lincoln (calling Fringe the "Department of Strange") and Olivia discuss the possibility that the children killed Greene -- and somewhat bafflingly, this is the first mention of the victim's name or occupation, which makes me wonder if there was an earlier scene cut from this episode -- because of the story he was writing. Lincoln says he'll contact the editors to see if they knew anything about his angle, or anybody else he may have interviewed.
We go over to a retirement home, where ER stalwart John Aylward is watching a television newscast discuss the death of "local hero" and "acclaimed author and journalist" so we know this is some sort of alternate timeline where a journalist is some kind of local hero. One of the orderlies notes the picture of Greene and says, "Hey, that's the guy who was here, the reporter." The orderly jabbers away about the details of the story, and then asks the old guy, "You were a doctor. How long does it take someone to suffocate?" like nice clunky way to let us know this guy is Dr. Owen Frank. Anyway, the doctor looks perturbed by the news, and not just in the usual way of old people who think the world's going to hell around them. "I want to go back to my room," he says.
Back at Deerfield, Astrid's sitting with Sean in the cafeteria, as eight or ten people mill around, muttering audibly in the background. On second watch, the noticeable background chatter seems like an obvious clue for the upcoming reveal, but it's something I just found annoying on my first time through.
Anyway, Sean's wolfing his food down, and apologizes to Astrid for being such a pig. He says he doesn't know what's happening, but it's like he hasn't eaten in years. She explains it's a side effect of the detox program Walter has him on to wean him off the medication.
Then he tells Astrid that she's pretty. Well, now we know his eyes aren't crazy! She thanks him, and then he asks if she trusts "the scientist." She says she does, adding that when he starts to hear the voices again, that's how he'll know this is working. He glances around a little, and says, "Well, in that case, it's working now." He can hear them again. Astrid asks what they're saying, and Sean listens for a moment before saying he doesn't know, because there are too many of them. And that's when we pull back to see the whole cafeteria again, only this time it's empty save for Astrid and Sean -- but the muttering continues.
After the commercial break, Walter's in the lab, putting Olivia's hair on a slide -- wasn't that what he asked Peter to do? Maybe Peter got in a snit and didn't want to do it. Then he seems to remember something, and then rushes to retrieve the tea that's brewing in a beaker over a Bunsen burner.
Meanwhile, Olivia's in the office, trying to track down Dr. Frank, who hasn't left a current address with the American Medical Association. She asks Peter -- coming in with a drink for her -- to go through some old utility bills from his clinic in the hopes of finding a contact in there that they can follow up on. Then she spots a scar on his hand and almost hopefully says that maybe she doesn't remember everything because she doesn't remember having it. He says, though, that she wouldn't, because he got that only a month ago. Then they hold hands for a good twenty seconds while Olivia looks beseechingly into Peter's eyes, and Josh Jackson does some fine work as he struggles with his feelings and finally breaks her grip just before Walter clears his throat. He's standing in the doorway to the office. "I think I've had a breakthrough," he says. Olivia walks out first, looking hurt as she goes.
Outside in the lab, Walter's got a huge glass container filled with hundreds of bees, and he starts talking about how these miraculous creatures work together to feed, shelter and protect the colony. Also: they communicate over long distances, via pheromones, messages that are received by their antennae. Naturally, Walter couldn't just talk to them about bees, he had to go out (or send someone out) to get a HUGE BOTTLE FULL OF BEES just to be all dramatic about it. He starts to rattle off other kinds of animals that use some form of non-verbal communication, until a bored Peter urges him to get to the point. Walter snaps at him, and then seems to again lose his train of thought before picking it up and barfing out some half-baked theory about Sean and his brothers being linked in a telepathic network and forming a collective identity, operating as one, doing whatever it takes to ensure the survival of the hive.
I've often wondered how long Walter's science lessons would go on if he weren't interrupted, as he often is, by Olivia answering her cellphone. While Walter glares at Peter, Olivia gets the news that someone located Dr. Frank at an assisted living home outside of Roxbury. She asks Peter if he's coming. He is, but not before he has a staring contest with Walter.
Over to the retirement home, where they have a television screen the size of North Dakota in the common area. A nurse points Olivia and Peter over to where Dr. Frank is reading a newspaper. Olivia introduces herself and says she wants to ask him about his clinic, and then brings up the man who was killed. Dr. Frank's not surprised; he tells her about Greene coming to see him, to talk about his work. "This isn't the first time that they have killed," he says. That gets Peter's attention; up until now, he'd mostly been staring at Olivia. Dr. Frank explains that three years ago he hired a writer to document his work before he was no longer able to, but the day before they were meant to start work, the writer was stabbed to death. At the time, he thought it was a random event. Now, though, he's sure it wasn't.
The doctor then goes on to confess, without much need for any kind of prodding from Olivia, that his clinic work was just a vehicle for his real experiments, which was genetic manipulation. "The babies that I gave life to, I had altered their DNA. I thought ...what I thought really doesn't matter. Suffice to say I was attempting to make a better..." he says, and then trails off, prompting Peter to finish for him: "...a better human being." Yay! Someone said the title!
We've moved not to Dr. Frank's bedroom, where he's got old files and the like, and he starts talking about recombinant DNA, which Peter explains for us all is a DNA sequence created in a lab using the genetic materials of different species. Dr. Frank says he used that process on the subject embryos he implanted. Olivia asks if his patients were aware of what they were signing up for, and she exchanges a look with Peter as Dr. Frank says he promised them successful pregnancies and healthy babies. So that's a "no," then. Dr. Frank dresses it up a bit, saying he was trying to reintroduce abilities that humans have long since evolved away from, the hard-wired instincts that we share with other animals. That includes, yes, telepathy and a heightened protective instinct. As for who they're trying to protect, it's themselves, of course. If the doctor's work went public, people would start to ask questions and start searching for them, wanting to study them. Way to finally figure out that motive, guys, since it was the exact same fear of the family of the girl who could see people's deaths like TWO EPISODES ago.
Peter asks for a list of the doctor's patients. They're in storage in Back Bay, and as he starts rummaging around for the address, Olivia finally asks the important question: "How many are there?" Dr. Frank figures there's about two hundred of them. That's way more than there are voices in Sean's head, but that's because the doctor was constantly modifying the process, and each modification meant another sample group. "And they're all from the same donor, all two hundred," says Olivia.
The doctor hesitates for a moment before saying yes, and Peter half-laughs to himself while Olivia presses on, obliviously asking if that information is also in the storage facility, but Peter's way ahead of her. "It's you, isn't it?" Olivia looks at the doctor, shocked.
Dr. Frank takes off his glasses. "Can you imagine that? The hubris of trying to improve upon god?" he says. Uh, have you met Walter Bishop? Plus every second Fringe case involves some mad scientist toying with knowledge that man was never meant to trifle with, so yeah, Peter and Olivia can imagine it.
Over at Deerfield Hospital, in the cafeteria, Sean is pacing around, relaying the fear and anxiety of the voices in his head, while Astrid writes everything down. "They're worried, they feel threatened," he says, then pauses to listen. "There's a new voice. He's one of the three. He's telling the others to wait, he's coming," he says. Astrid asks where the guy is, but Sean doesn't know. We get to see, however; he's wrapping his arm in a bloody bandage in a dingy bathroom. He looks in the mirror. Looks like he's getting ready for a freestyle rap battle with Eminem and Mekhi Phifer.
Back at the lab, Walter gets a printout from some big fancy machine, and he says, "Good god" when he looks at it. Lincoln Lee strolls in to let Walter know that Olivia and Peter are on their way to get Dr. Frank's research files. "That's not important now. I need you to take me to the bridge," says Walter. Not just any bridge, you understand. Actually, no, Lincoln Lee doesn't understand. Walter says he needs to see Nina Sharp: "I know what's happening to Olivia."
After the commercial break, it's off to Liberty Island, where Nina has an office. She's "surprised" to see Walter and Lincoln Lee, and she's as pleasant as possible given that whenever Walter barges in, it's pretty much guaranteed to be bad news. They tell her that Olivia has been dosed recently and repeatedly with Cortexiphan. Walter did a chemical analysis, he explains. Nina's shocked, which doesn't tell us much. Because either she's not involved and it's a shapeshifter, or she is involved, and is going to keep lying about it. She asks if he's spoken to her. "I examined her. As far as I can tell, she's not in immediate jeopardy," says Walter. He's glaring at Nina. He clearly thinks Nina's responsible, while Lincoln's much more diplomatic; he just wants to figure out what happened, and asks Nina where the remaining Cortexiphan samples are kept. Nina says they're under Massive Dynamic's tightest security. Lincoln's a little skeptical, but Nina explains that the vault is biometrically secured; she's the only one with access. This was where I figured that Nina's not acting; if she were involved, then that's not really the kind of thing it'd be a smart idea to admit to. Of course, given what's to come, I suppose a fake Nina would have to act as though she had no reason to lie.
Lincoln wants her to take them to the facility, and Walter growls that he and Belly numbered the samples before they were stored, so if anyone has tampered with them, he'll know. Nina says she just needs to make a few phone calls, but Lincoln's only willing to be so diplomatic. "No calls. The less people who know about this the better," he says. Yes, it would be preferable if he knew when to use "less" and when to use "fewer" but the fate of the universe may be at stake here!
Peter and Olivia are now at the storage facility in Back Bay, looking for Unit 2251, although it's a mystery why they didn't just stay in the car rather than hoofing it. And speaking of units, Olivia is talking about how she misses Peter's. "In case you were wondering, it's hard for me too, you know. I keep expecting to see that look in your eye, and it isn't there. Or it is, and you're pulling back," she tells him, and he says he's confused. So is she, she says, adding that she feels like she knows him better than anyone else in the world, but then when he looks at her, "it's like none of that is true." At this point they're not even looking for Unit 2251 but standing there being whiny at each other. Peter says he doesn't know what she wants from him (although given that he's gone through exactly this you'd think he might be a TAD more sympathetic here, and she says she wants him to behave naturally. Well, he is scowling a lot! Doesn't that help? She says she wants him to treat her like he knows her better than anyone in the world too, because he does. He sighs and grimaces and such and keeps moving, and finds Unit 2251, which is right in front of them.
They approach the unit, Olivia especially cautiously, because the last time she opened one, she reminds Peter, it was rigged with Semtex. He asks if she means with John Scott -- just in case there are other storage-facility explosions he's not aware of. He asks how she knows it was Semtex, and she explains that when they were trying to figure out what happened, they traced the explosive back to a munitions trader in Hong Kong. She asks why he's asking. "'Cause I didn't know it was Semtex until right now," he says. Olivia doesn't know why that's a big deal, and he says Walter's theory that he's projecting his memories onto her can't possibly be right. "You can't have memories that I've never had. I don't understand how this is happening." Given that Olivia doesn't have amnesia of everything that happened before she met Peter in whatever timeline Peter came from, I'm not sure this disproves Walter's theory the way Peter does, but whatever. Peter doesn't understand what's happening. Neither does Olivia, but she's a lot less concerned about it. "Whatever this is, whatever the cause, I told you: I'm not scared." I can't be the only person raised on Star Wars who hears "I'm not scared" and hears a raspy old voice say, "You will be. You. Will. Be." Anyway, Olivia LIKES the feeling that she's in love with Peter, so yeah, something clearly is wrong here. She's beaming again, and Peter looks constipated. So back to work! Olivia turns back to the unit, and finds the large padlock is unlatched.
But before we can see what's inside, we go back to Astrid and Sean, who's looking concerned. "They feel threatened. They need to stop someone," he says. Astrid asks who. "They're gonna kill her," he says.
At the storage facility, Olivia and Peter open up the storage locker -- note the vehicle we can see behind them -- and find a mess of smashed hard drives. "Someone got here before us," says Olivia. No, no! The doctor keeps the real hard drives under the smashed ones to throw off those guys with the shows where they auction off the contents! Olivia answers her cellphone. It's Astrid, warning her that "they know that you're there!" just as the SUV that's been creeping up behind them suddenly roars into ramming speed, and Peter pushes Olivia -- who has frozen literally in the headlights -- aside, and then the two of them are set upon by a pair of batwielding hive-minders who are dispatched almost amusingly quickly by Peter and Olivia.
Over at the retirement home, a couple of Boston's finest have shown up at the reception desk, asking for Dr. Frank. The attendant says he's on the third floor, and gets up to show them. But at that moment, Frank is being joined by a couple of other visitors: two of his children, who stare at him ominously. "You're... you're mine," he says. They stare at him, blinking. They don't say a word. They grab a pillow and approach him, and by the time the police officers arrive, the hive-minders are gone, and Dr. Frank is dead, eyes and mouth open, head tilted back. A police officer yells for the facility to be locked down.
Over at Deerfield, Sean's in his room, watching some old black and white movie in which some sort of disaster is causing people to flee in terror from some unseen creature. It's abruptly shut off, and we see that Sean's mother is there. "I told you, Sean, it's too loud," she says. Sean, you may be telepathically linked to a bunch of homicidal genetic freaks, but you mind your mother! She ignores his demand to turn it back on, but then he's distracted as Astrid comes in, because he's just realized he can't hear the voices anymore. And he seems saddened by that, because it's different from when he couldn't hear them before; then, he still felt like they were with him. Not like now: "They're gone. There's nothing anymore, just silence." He asks Astrid why, but she doesn't know, and says they may never know, and she comforts him and this is all wrapping up kid of early, meaning that more shit is going to go down. Mother and child cry, Astrid smiles, all is well. And, um, that's it for the army of two hundred hive-minders? Really? OK...
Peter and Olivia seem to think so. They're pulling up at a gas station and discussing Walter's theory about the telepathic Boys From Brazil just protecting the hive. Olivia's got something else on her mind, which is apparently how once she and Peter were done with a case, they'd go back to one of each other's houses and, you know, get bizzay, like can someone just turn the hose on Olivia already? She's like Pepe LePew after a cat with a stripe of white paint down its back. "So now, I don't know if I'm just supposed to ignore that, or what you want, and I guess I just... Peter, how do you want to play this?"
At least Peter's chuckling now instead of scowling, and when Olivia says she just wants him to think about it, he confesses that he has been thinking about nothing else, but he's afraid because he's made this mistake before. Hey, haven't we all made that mistake before? Cheating on the love of your life with her doppelganger from an alternate universe?
The thing that he's really afraid of, he says, is that when he looks into her eyes, he knows it's her. Well, right. I mean, it is her, isn't it? I mean, this is Peter's timeline, it's just that it was as though he never existed. And so now that he is here, isn't the original timeline just bleeding through? And if he needs to use the machine to pop back into his own timeline, doesn't that make this timeline just revert? And why -- oh, they're making out now, so I guess it's time to shut up.
You know, there are people behind you waiting to get gas, guys.
They come up for air, and Olivia says she just has to go pee, and she gets out of the car, and this is all very ominous, like HAVE NEITHER OF YOU SEEN THE VANISHING?
Now we're over at what is either one of those clubs that Stefon is always talking about on Weekend Update, or it's Cortexiphan storage at Massive Dynamic. There's a huge safe door, behind which is a barred door, and then Nina has to enter a code and her hand print for the biometric scanner, after which one of several lit circles dotting the walls pops open, sending a row of red energy drinks out of the wall. "There. Twenty vials present and accounted for," she says triumphantly. Walter's disappointed, but while Nina babbles on to Lincoln about wanting to see Olivia, he opens one of the vials and tastes it. "This is not Cortexiphan," he says. "What are you talking about?" she says. "It's potassium iodide with food coloring. Red No. 4. The Cortexiphan has been replaced." He's glaring at Nina again, and Lincoln Lee is looking at her suspiciously.
Meanwhile, Peter has made his way into the gas station and heads to the back -- past rows of potato chips, including Miss Vickie's lime and black pepper, which I love and haven't seen in local stores in AGES, to the bathroom. Which is empty. He goes back to the cash register and asks the barely sentient clerk about the tall, blonde "girl" who came in a couple of minutes ago, but the clerk says he didn't see her.
Peter furrows his brow and heads outside. Note the poster for Slusho! (Bet you can't drink just six!) in the window. He looks around perplexed. Where's Olivia?
She's coming to, groggily, in some sort of dank basement, tied to a chair. Someone's calling her name, barely penetrating her consciousness. As she recovers, she realizes it's Nina, who's tied to a chair opposite her. "We're gonna be OK," says Nina. Then she says it again. It'd probably be a little more reassuring if they weren't, you know, tied to chairs in some dank basement somewhere. Olivia hangs her head, and Nina doesn't actually look too optimistic either.
And we're out! So -- the Olivia-migraine-inducing is an evil shapeshifter, right? And this is Peter's Olivia who ... was somehow kidnapped from the gas station without anyone seeing anything, right? Thank god this isn't the "midwinter-finale" or some bullshit where we don't get another episode for three months.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Seriously, send him some lime and black pepper chips, he'll love you forever. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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