By Daniel
Animal rights activists break into a testing lab to free all the innocent beasts therein, only they open a door to an animal's cage, one who's really sick of having its eyes jabbed with mascara brushes. It violently attacks and kills the lab worker who responds to a tripped alarm, kills one of the activists on site, and then chases down and kills the other three activists, even though they're in a car.
So the Fringe team investigates, because the wounds indicate some kind of freaky animal not indigenous to the area (fang marks four full inches apart, huge claws), and they hit on the idea of some sort of genetic hybrid. Naturally, Walter did some work in that vein a few decades ago, so he thinks this is one of those "someone carried on my work" cases.
So he feels guilty when Charlie is hurt checking out an Animal Control report of a "monster" sighting. Worse news: one of the dead activists busts out all over with the larvae of the unleashed creature. Seems the monster lays its eggs in its victims using its tail. An ultrasound confirms there are plenty of the little critters swimming around Charlie's insides, and the best idea Walter has for getting rid of them is to inject Charlie with the blood of the creature, because his theory is that if the parasitic larvae think they're feeding off one of their own, they'll stop feeding, and die.
So no problem: just catch this thing, right? Like in The Host. Olivia's investigation discovers one of the activists was the son of a geneticist at a nearby lab. He tries covering up the genetic experimentation, but soon withers under Olivia's sunny determination, and provides the team with the monster's genetic makeup. It's part bat, which are highly maternal creatures, so Walter and the team head into the sewers -- which is how the animal's moving throughout the city -- to bait it using its own larvae.
Walter, despite finding out his work was not to blame for the current monstrosity, recklessly tries to take care of the creature himself, by ingesting poison that will kill the creature if he's devoured. Fortunately, the animal winds up being brought down by a couple of gunshots, and the blood is used to cure Charlie, who can go home to his wife and her terrible jokes.
Oh, and Peter and Rachel are spending time chatting on the phone, about -- among other things -- that ridiculously annoying "if you like pina coladas" song, which might be the weirdest aspect of the whole episode.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see vlogger Sean Crespo's possibly more twisted take on Fringe in No Prior Knowledge!
So Olivia's reading a Burlap Bear book to Ella -- like, nice to see Rachel's apartment hunting is going so well -- and Rachel comes in to say it's time for bed, and Ella whines and says this is the last book, which her mom reminds her is what she said about the last book, and then there's Olivia saying, "We're almost done," like, way to undermine your sister. "You two work well together. And I don't like it," says Rachel.
The phone rings, and Olivia's got the cordless in bed with her and Ella, and it's Peter, so Olivia assumes something's wrong, and he says there's not, and then he asks to speak to Rachel, which throws Olivia for a loop. She conceals her surprise, and Peter bashfully says it's something stupid and he can call back tomorrow if they're in the middle of something, but Olivia passes the phone over to her sister, who's all, "Yeah, did you remember it or not?" And then she's laughing, all, "Are you serious?" and walking away with the phone, and Olivia watches her go, like maybe Peter's calling Rachel because she sounds happy to hear from him instead of going all angel-of-death "what's wrong?" on him. And Ella has to ask her Aunt Liv to keep reading the damn book already, and Olivia continues on with the story of the Burlap Bear not believing there's a monster just down the road. "Aunt Liv? Monsters aren't real, right?" And Olivia, instead of saying, "Man, the shit I could tell you..." is all, "Of course not."
Quick cut to a bunch of animals in cages, monkeys and birds and rats, in a dark lab going completely bonkers. Four animal-rights ninjas wearing black and flashlights on their foreheads bust in and spray-paint the security cameras and open the animals' cages. Which I'm sure they appreciate. I mean, shouldn't these people be taking these animals with them? Instead of, "Here you go, chicken. Now you can run around the floor of the lab instead of staying in a cage in the lab"?
One of the activists is calmly spray-painting something on the wall, and refusing to be rushed by one of the other activists, who's worried that there's a backup system. "No, there's not," says the first guy. He tells the other one to finish up in there, and says he's going to go check out a door that has red light shining through the door's window. He smashes the padlock keeping the door closed and walks in, oblivious to a blinking red light and an alarm now going off. And I have to say that this seems kind of foolhardy to me. I mean, it's a lab with caged animals. The bigger the cage, the bigger the animal, right?
Meanwhile, a cell phone on a night table rings until its owner stirs and picks it up. "Automatic Notification" it says. My god. The two most chilling words a cell phone alarm can use! thing we know, he's racing through the deserted city streets in his SUV.
Back at the lab, Jonathan is still checking out the red-lit rooms, despite his co-defendants wanting to leave. He opens a big metal door, and proceeds through the plastic-strip curtain into a darkened room.
Meanwhile, the guy who got the alarm alert pulls up in his SUV to the parking lot of "Swift Research" and runs in through the shipping and receiving door. Carrying a gun and a flashlight, he yells, "Stop right there!" and an activist gives him an earful of "You should be arrested!" and "How would you like it!" etc., and he completely ignores her when he sees the open door that Jonathan went through. He walks towards it, and Jonathan appears in the doorway. "Please tell me you didn't open that door in there," says the alarmed employee, and Jonathan is all cocky, "You bet I did," and the employee yells for them all to get out, and he pushes past Jonathan, with the woman still yelling at him. "Somebody shut her up!" yells the employee, and it's the last thing he'll say, because he's suddenly grabbed by something in the corridor, and we hear snarling and ripping, and he's tossed about and blood gushes from his mouth.
The activists freeze for a second before deciding that hauling ass is probably a good idea, and they race out to the parking lot, Jonathan bringing up the rear, and he doesn't quite make it out the door before he's pulled back inside, and his three amigos keep running for their Jeep.
Driving away, the three of them scream at each other: "What was that thing?" "It grabbed that guy!" like, yeah, it also grabbed YOUR FRIEND, and it's the woman who says they can't leave Jonathan, as if Jonathan isn't already in the creature's stomach right now.
Well, maybe it doesn't have a full belly, because something has apparently caught up with the goddamn JEEP, and there's growling and then something hits the vehicle, and they swerve, and get hit again, and the Jeep goes flying off the road into a wooded area, coming to rest on its roof. The three of them hang suspended by their seatbelts. The woman and one of the men are alive, but another guy, named Chris, isn't moving. There's a trickle of blood from his mouth. "What did that?" asks the other guy. Well, that would be the thing right outside your window, apparently there to finish you off.
So the day at Harvard, Peter's dropping off people's coffee orders, and he spies his dad's uneaten omelet and decides to help himself to a chunk while his dad, working away, has his back turned. He's sawing into it when Walter turns around. "Peter, no!" he says, and Peter's all, "Walter, we talked about sharing," and Walter tells him the omelet's not for eating, and he flips it open, and there's what appears to be a human ear sitting in the midst of the egg, which Walter explains is a "protein-rich incubator" which I don't think really answers Peter's question as to why Walter is growing an ear in an omelet, let alone why the omelet is just sitting around in the open while people are having breakfast, but I also have very little sympathy for Peter's outrage because a) he was trying to steal his dad's food, and b) given that his dad's certifiable, I wouldn't be going anywhere near anything in that lab. I mean, it's a lab. So when Peter complains that yesterday he almost washed his face in a sink full of acid, I can't imagine if I were in Walter's lab and I saw a sink full of liquid my first instinct would be to reach in and splash it on my face. Walter points out Peter looks both ways before crossing the street, which I think is a big assumption anyway, and Peter's assertion is that if he doesn't, he's the only one who gets flattened. (Well, there'd be damage to the car, too, Peter). "You, Walter, you live in a society with other people!" and meanwhile Astrid has answered the phone and is trying to get their attention, and they finally yell at her. "That was Olivia!" she says, all indignant.
So the Fringe team is trudging through the woods -- minus Astrid, of course, who as usual has to stay behind and make sure that Gene doesn't eat any organs that Walter's happened to leave growing in breakfast foods -- to the scene of the car wreck, with Broyles explaining that whatever did this to the kids isn't indigenous to the area. Walter's fascinated by the carnage, while Peter calls it disgusting. Walter says whatever did it must have had huge claws, like a bear or an eagle, only the v-shape of the wounds would be more like an eagle, only much, much larger. "We're looking for Big Bird," says Peter, like how nice it must be for the Fringe team to have Peter along, so that while they're looking for clues he can stand around and make jokes. Walter tells him not to be ridiculous, and then suggests that maybe they're looking for a pterodactyl.
Olivia learns there was no identification on the bodies. "Maybe this is why," she says, holding up what Peter describes as a "Brockhage lockpick gun." His personal opinion is that they work great but are a little bulky for his taste, because Peter hates to waste an opportunity to remind everyone what a criminal he is/was. "Looks like these kids were out for more than a joyride," says Charlie. And then, for God's sake, Walter has just helped himself to a wrap or a sandwich or something that he found in the car, and when Peter freaks out about it, Walter sarcastically asks everyone to excuse his son: "He's been in a mood all day!" and naturally Walter's voice is muffled because he's got a mouthful of food that he filched from the smashed car full of dead bodies.
Olivia looks inside at the fast-food cups. "Four drinks," she tells Charlie. "Three bodies," he says. Well, maybe they took an extra cup to spit their chewing tobacco into. Broyles says the surrounding area was searched by canine units and no other bodies were found, so maybe one of them survived and got away. Charlie says he'll check the hospitals for people suffering animal attack wounds.
Peter, meanwhile, has finally made himself useful, and looks at the JG logo on the cups, and says they're from "Junkie Genie's," a fast-food joint by MIT. He says the food is crap but it's cheap and they're open late and always filled with undergrads. I'd hope that, what with these supposedly being militant animal-rights activists, that Junkie Genie's serves a mean veggie burger as well. Broyles says he thought Peter falsified his degree from MIT -- which is a chance for Walter to get in another dig at Peter not finishing what he starts -- and what I think is weird is that Broyles for some reason seems to think you need a degree from MIT to know what fast-food joints are around MIT. Olivia suggests going through the student database to see if they can identify any of the victims.
So thing you know, Olivia's strolling up the steps of some frat house and knocking on the door. Yeah, all the animal-rights people I went to school with ate fast food and belonged to frats, too. The door's opened by some shrimpy guy who seems surprised to see the cougar at his door. He very much has a young Tom Cruise look to him, by which I mean he doesn't really look like Tom Cruise used to look, as much as how he looks like a younger version of the current Tom Cruise. If that makes sense. Even if it doesn't make sense, you're watching Fringe, so you probably like it anyway.
Anyway, he does his best to act all suave, and she introduces herself and says she understands Chris Hawkins lives there. Young Tom says Chris isn't here right now, and Olivia says she knows that, and was hoping to ask him a few questions. "I'm Carl. And no, I would love it," he says, putting on his best "hey, baby" face. Olivia just stares at him.
Then when she enters the frat house, she stares at the bong left out on a counter, which he awkwardly says isn't his but was left by a stranger. He puts it away, and then asks if he can get her anything. She suggests pants, and we notice that Carl is wearing boxer shorts. I don't like this guy very much, but my irritation is dissipated somewhat by the Rocket From the Crypt poster on the wall behind him. But it probably belongs to someone else. Someone who WEARS PANTS. While Carl gets dressed, Olivia asks how well he knows Chris, and Carl acts out a little play in which he and Carl basically just say hi to each other. Carl asks why Olivia's asking, and she says she's not at liberty to say. "He doesn't seem like the type to get into FBI-kind of trouble," says Carl, explaining that Chris is always printing up flyers and going to rallies. Yeah, student activists NEVER come to the attention of the FBI, Carl. Anyway, Carl says Chris's cause was Animals First. "He was an animal rights activist?" asks Olivia. "He'd save anything with a beak or a claw," says Carl.
Speaking of beaks and claws, the Fringe team is examining Chris, especially the huge claw gash on the front. Walter checks out the back, and there are two loonie-sized fang punctures, which Walter thinks came from a viper. "So this thing had the claws of a lion and the fangs of a snake?" Walter says that reminds him of a woman he knew in Cleveland. Peter points out the punctures are over four inches long, and then he consults the handy fang-separation-to-length formula he apparently knows by heart and says the snake would be eight feet long, but Walter's too busy reminiscing about this awful-sounding woman in Cleveland who he thinks was named Harriet, like do the Bishops ever BOTH work at the same time? Or is it stipulated that one works and the other cracks jokes?
Olivia comes in to say she's identified the victims as activists in Animals First, and the group surmises that they were breaking into a lab and releasing animals. So far, so good, but Peter says it doesn't explain what kind of animal ripped a door off a car. Olivia asks Walter what kind of lab animal could have done it, and he suggests he can think of a trio. "Right, a motley crew of lab animals got together and decided to exact their revenge on mankind," says Peter sarcastically. Olivia asks Astrid to check out nearby labs that do animal testing, and as always, Astrid is on it.
Everyone scatters except Walter, who keeps examining the dead body. He digs in the wound and pulls out what looks like a quill or a needle or something. "Oh no," he says, and it looks like we're going down the "someone is finishing what Walter started!" route.
Meanwhile, out in the woods, an Animal Control van stops and two guys get out, grumbling about the report of a "monster" that they have to check out. "It's always 'a monster.' 'Monster' must be housewife for 'raccoon,'" says the one guy. Really? Are we supposed to believe that Animal Control gets enough "monster" calls that turn out to be raccoons that this guy needs to be a douchebag about it? Then they hear a rustling and snarling in the bushes. They look kinda scared, but creep forward anyway.
Back at the Fringe lab, Peter comes into Olivia's office to ask if there are any leads on the fourth victim, and she says no, and then stares at him to the extent that Peter asks her what's up, and she says "nothing," but then does a bad job of nonchalantly asking him about calling Rachel, whether it was anything important.
Not only was it not important, but it was annoying as well. Apparently Peter and Rachel were trying to remember the name of the mind-bogglingly irritating "if you like pina coladas" song, like, did either of these two ever hear of Google? More important, did they ever hear of shutting up instead of talking about the pina colada song? And Olivia's all, "So you two are friends now," and Peter smiles at her. "Does that bother you?" he asks. She says no, and he keeps grinning because he knows that it does. The phone rings to break the awkward tension, and Olivia answers: "Hey, Charlie. What's up?"
Walter frantically rifles through his files until he finally finds the one he's looking for, and he looks through. "Oh, good heavens," he says, quietly. Behind him, Olivia comes in to tell Astrid that Charlie got a report from Animal Control about a woman in Newton who nearly hit a "monster" on Route 30, so she's going to meet him there to check it out, and she wants Astrid to call her with any news. As she heads out the door, Walter calls out with a very worried-sounding "be careful," and she pauses, and then thanks him, and then takes off instead of asking him what's up. Peter, though, strolls out of Olivia's office and asks him what that was all about. "Nothing. Just want her to be safe," says Walter, and I guess that's the end of that.
Charlie's driving along the road in the woods when he comes upon the Animal Control van. He gets out. "Hello?" he calls, and he walks towards the van. We can see, on the passenger side, bloodstains on the open door. You know what? Given the viciousness of the attacks on the students, and the report of the "monster," should the FBI think about instituting the buddy system? I mean, is Charlie worried at all that there's no sign of life from the van but there's a huge SMEAR OF BLOOD on the driver's door window, which is spiderwebbed with cracks? And there are claw gouges on the side panel? He opens the door, and a dead body falls halfway out the truck.
He gets on the phone for backup and medevac, and then he hears something growling in the woods, too, so he gets out his gun and gingerly heads towards the woods. You can tell he's terrified because his eyebrows are really pressed upwards. Beside a big tree, he sees a body lying still on the ground. And then he PUTS AWAY HIS GUN. Jesus Christ, I'd be drawing a second gun, and then spinning around and firing indiscriminately all around me, hoping to hit something! I suppose he's holstering his gun to help the CLEARLY DEAD guy lying there, and he doesn't see the huge reptilian tail uncoiling itself from somewhere up in the tree behind him.
Which is right around when Olivia pulls up, and she checks out the Animal Control van and then hears animal noises and gunshots and Charlie grunting, so she hauls ass into the woods, where she finds the dead body. Charlie's sitting up against the tree, with a scratch on his forehead on a wound on his chest. "I'm all right," he says. "What was it?" she asks him. "Big," he says. Well, they knew that, Charlie.
So Charlie's being tended to by an EMT, who pulls a quill from his chest, which is quickly collected by Walter. The paramedic tells Charlie that he should get his wound looked at at the hospital, but of course Charlie's much too tough for that. And Walter starts interrogating him on what the animal felt like: was its skin rough like a rhinoceros? "I haven't felt any rhinos lately. But, uh, it was coarse like sandpaper," says Charlie. Walter asks about the tail: was it segmented like a scorpion? Charlie says he couldn't see because it kept knocking him on his ass. Walter says maybe Charlie DID see, but the trauma has blocked it from his mind, and so Olivia and Peter finally pester Walter into saying what he's thinking (after getting him to inadvertently admit to taking hallucinogenics last Friday): "I believe we may be dealing with a transgenic species," says Walter, which he explains to Olivia is an "animal creation," made up of the genes of multiple species. "You're saying that you think the creature is man-made?" Walter says it's possible, even though a lot of problems would have to be solved: "Incompatible species, massive mutual rejection, similar to when a transplant recipient rejects a donor organ. Peter says there's a reason for that: "Making a bunch of species to create a Frankenrhino is unnatural. And a really bad idea." Well, if something's unnatural and a bad idea, then I'm sure no one would do it, right, Peter?
Olivia's phone rings. It's Astrid, calling with some info about labs near the crime scene.
And then we're right over to Swift Research, where Olivia chats with Dr. Swift. I bet they hired him because he had the same name as the lab! She asks him what sort of work they do there, and Swift explains that they're commissioned by pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies to test their products to make sure they're safe before using them in human trials. "By testing them on animals first?" asks Olivia, and Swift calls that an "unfortunate but necessary" step, adding, "You know, it's better to have an animal experience an allergic reaction to a certain perfume so that you don't have to." He sounds a little bit defensive about it.
Anyway Olivia asks him if he knew about the college students who were attacked and killed last night, and Swift doesn't, and Olivia's explaining what happened, but his attention wandered, and it looks like he might be listening to the animal noises in the background. Olivia asks if he's OK, and he says he's not: "We're three days behind on a deadline. You'll excuse me if I seem insensitive, but what does this have to do with me and this lab?" Olivia tells him the students were animal rights activists who were killed after they broke in and released animals from a facility much like Swift research (which I'd like to point out she doesn't actually know for sure). Swift seems a little surprised that she thinks a lab animal is responsible for it. "Maybe one that was genetically altered. Do you do any of that sort of work here?" Swift says they only test products, and besides, there was no break-in. This would be the worst time for someone to walk by carrying a paint roller, right? Olivia asks if they're doing some cleanup work, and Swift nervously says there are hundreds of animals in and out every week, so the cleanup never ends. Jesus, seriously. I have two cats and a dog. I can only imagine what a lion/cobra/eagle/scorpion mess would entail. Olivia asks if she can take a look, and Swift says she can't, which he chalks up to them dealing with billion-dollar trade secrets, and he's obligated to respect their clients' confidentiality. Olivia nods, although it doesn't look like she actually buys it.
Back at the lab, Walter's off his meds or something, because he's wandering around muttering to himself, and when he finally swears and says, "How can I concentrate with you running around?" poor Astrid thinks he's talking to her, but he assures her he's just "thinking out loud," and I really think Astrid needs to get her iPod and just keep her headphones in all the time.
Olivia comes in and asks Walter what he'd need to create a genetic hybrid, like specific things, so she can check to see if Robert Swift bought any of it, and Walter's checklist is as follows: Sodium bicarbonate. A house in the country. "Some Mahler for the late nights." And time, a lot of time. And then Walter wanders off, which is fortunate, because it saves Olivia from killing him. She makes an exasperated face at Peter, who says Walter's been like that all day. All season, actually, but I get what he means. Olivia asks Peter to try to focus him. "Focusing Walter is at the best of times just a matter of degrees," says Peter, like for once just a yes or no answer would be appreciated, and then he says he'll try. By which he means that he gets up and yells at his dad to come back "to the planet Earth" and to focus on something that isn't about him, for once. Walter, looking at a notebook, says he's worried that this is about him, about his work. He shows Peter the book he found in his old files, which is filled with drawings of hybrid animals, like a snake with spider legs. Peter waves Olivia over so she can have a look at it, and then he asks his dad if this is the creature. "No. But I fear it's quite similar," says Walter, explaining that he tried to make it 20 years ago. "Are you saying you created this?" says Olivia, and Walter says he didn't make this one specifically; his experiments were a failure.
Peter proceeds to rip Walter a new one, saying that he knew this was connected to his work and had information that could help them, but he kept it to himself. Meanwhile, Astrid stands by one of the dead bodies, covered up with a body bag, only something is moving underneath. Nobody notices but her, because they're too busy arguing. Olivia asks Walter who he was working with 20 years ago, and Walter says he was working with Kelvin Genetics then, but he can't remember any specific names.
Astrid finally gets everyone's attention with the moving corpse, and everyone rushes over Peter unzips the bag, only to find a mass of writhing larvae all over the torso. He thinks they're maggots at first, but Walter says they're larvae from the creature, and he orders Peter to get a petri dish so they can collect them. Just then the rib cage cracks open, spilling hundreds more out. "Make it a bucket," says Walter. Astrid covers her mouth and says she's going to be sick. Walter: "Two buckets!" Snicker. Olivia asks Walter how this is even possible, and Walter thinks about it for a minute, before deducing that the creature's stinger carries the eggs, transferring them to a suitable incubator. "What, you mean it plants the eggs when it stings you?" says Olivia, which Walter says is fascinating, and then Olivia finally realizes what everyone watching thought when we first sawy the maggots. "Oh, God. Charlie."
And it's our first-ever glimpse into the Francis household, where Charlie's babe wife (played by Kirk Acevedo's real-life wife Kiersten Warren) watches the news about reported sightings of a mountain lion, in the area, and Charlie plays dumb and says she married him so he can protect her from all the things that are out there. Charlie's got his shirt off so we can see his bandages, as well as his Emerald City tattoos, for crying out loud, and Sonia asks who's going to protect him. He says it's just a scrape: "Bad guy, broken bottle," nothing he hasn't handled before a dozen times. And Sonia accepts this excuse that somehow her FBI agent husband is intervening in bar fights or something.
And then the doorbell rings, so Charlie goes to get it. It's Olivia, and he asks her what's up, and she doesn't really say anything, so he asks if she's OK, and she says she is, but he might not be. Like, did you ever hear of a TELEPHONE, Olivia? The man HAS LARVAE INSIDE HIM.
At the Fringe lab, now, Walter squeezes some gel onto Charlie's stomach to get him ready for the ultrasound, and it's only NOW, after Olivia showed up, and took Charlie down to the lab, that Charlie decides to ask what this is about (but it's OK, because he said, "Enough with the suspense" first, is that it?) and Walter explains that he thinks the stinger that was inside Charlie implanted some embryos. "I think this is why the creature didn't eat you. I think you may be carrying its offspring," he says. Charlie's all, are you telling me I'm PREGNANT? "We're hoping not," says Olivia. Yeah, thanks for that.
So Walter runs the ultrasound wand thingy over Charlie's stomach and looks at the monitor, asking Astrid to go to ten-times magnification, which she does, and sure enough, there are little wormy things crawling around inside Charlie. Walter says, "One small piece of good fortune is the creature doesn't mate in the traditional way," like I'm sure Charlie feels better about the larvae inside him since he wasn't RAPED BY THE EAGLE REPTILE, and Peter gives Walter crap for his "great bedside manner." Olivia asks what they do now, and Walter says he doesn't know, because they've already spread throughout his system. He looks really down, and walks away. Peter follows him and quietly tells his dad to calm down.
Charlie, meanwhile, asks Olivia how these things were actually born in the other victim. Olivia smiles and says, "It doesn't matter, because, um, it's not going to go that far." Which I'm sure Charlie is smart enough to translate as, "If it goes that far, you're going to be in a world of pain that will make you crave the sweet release of death, which will actually be coming pretty quickly itself."
Peter's telling his dad that there has to be something he can do, but Walter looks awfully despondent. "You can't check out right now. We cannot let this man die!" His dad snaps that he knows that, loudly enough that Astrid, Olivia and Charlie look over to see what the commotion is. Walter says he's thinking, and then he looks over at a beaker with a couple dozen writhing larvae. He tells Astrid to draw 25 milliliters of blood, and tells Peter to get some trichlorimide; he's going to try poisoning them.
Astrid warns Charlie that the needle is going to pinch a little bit, and Charlie grimaces, like you'd think it would take a lot more than this to cause him pain, considering what he's just been through. While Peter and Walter prepare the poison, Charlie asks how much time he has if this doesn't work. Olivia says, "The last victim, we figured 24 hours after he was..." "...knocked up," finishes Charlie. Olivia says yes. "So I have about 16 hours," says Charlie. Well, I have an idea! Someone pull up a television and a couple seasons of Arrested Development, and the time will fly by!
We head over to a park now, where a woman shows up with her young son, who goes off to play on the equipment while his mom sits on the park bench to yap on her cell phone. As the boy runs around, we see a huge tail, with spines and a rattle at the end of it is pulled into one of the large pipes for kids to crawl through. Nobody's seen this yet? Still, let this be a lesson to people who talk on their cellphones instead of watching their kids: your kid might get eaten!
Over at the federal building, Broyles tells Olivia he's made a few calls for her and got the army to declassify some information on Kelvin Genetics, which had five lab assistants who worked with Walter and William Bell, all of whom are now in the private sector, none working in biogenetics, as far as he can tell. And he couldn't find a connection to Robert Swift. Olivia's still hung up about finding the fourth activist: "And if they're out there and impregnated, then who knows how many more of these things we're looking at?" she says, although Broyles points out they'd presumably have heard something by now. He asks if there've been any more sightings, and Olivia says, "Not within the last ten hours," and Broyles wonders if maybe it's gone: "Maybe it went into the river or died from lack of proper food," he says, like the Fringe team should be so lucky.
A desk agent tells Olivia that Peter's on line two, and she picks up and he tells her he's got bad news: "The poison killed the larvae, but it also poisoned Charlie's blood." Well, it's poison, Peter. It was kind of a dumb plan. Olivia asks how Charlie's doing, and Peter says he's putting on a brave face, but he's not doing well; his blood pressure's down and his kidneys are failing, which Olivia doesn't understand, and Peter explains that the larvae seem to be acting as parasites, feeding on their hosts for nutrients. Well, sure. Human larvae (i.e. fetuses) do that, you dingbats.
Oh, and Walter's got a theory as to how the larvae can be tricked into self-destructing, says Peter, who says they need to mix some of the creature's blood in with Charlie's own: "That way, maybe the larvae will think he's one of their own and stop feeding and die of starvation." That's so crazy it just might work! Why don't people say that anymore?
Anyway, Olivia's on board with the plan, and Broyles asks her what's up. "We need to find the creature," says Olivia. Well, easy enough, right?
Back at the playground, the woman's still on her cell phone with her friend talking about some house, and her son, Tuck, is running around all over the place, and goes into one of the pipes connected to the one the monster's hiding in. Finally, Mommy sees something through one of the vent holes in the side of the pipe, hangs up and goes after her son before he becomes Tuck, Decidedly Non-Everlasting, and we hear some movement and snarls, and background screams, as the beast decides to go for a little walk, apparently.
Back at the lab, Olivia's looking at a map, at the different places where there've been sightings, and she can't figure out why there haven't been more reports. Meanwhile, Walter's giving Charlie a sedative to relax him. "I'm sorry this has happened to you," says Walter, and Charlie's all, "It's not your fault," and Walter's all, "Yeah, the funny thing about that is..." but he doesn't get a chance to tell Charlie where the creature came from before Olivia excitedly asks Astrid for a schematic of the sewers, because she thinks the creature's traveling underground.
Fortunately, Astrid gets the translucent schematic so its easy to overlay onto the map (fortunately in the exact same scale) and they can see that the sightings are all near major storm drains. Walter says it makes sense: "If it's part tiger, then it would prefer dark. And a python would seek out water." Peter guesses it's only surfacing to eat or... to mate, and then he's suddenly quiet, and his dad is all bummed out again, because if the creature is traveling in the sewer, then it could be anywhere. Well, wouldn't that be even more true if the creature were traveling above ground? Olivia tells him it's OK, that they're making progress. "No, it's not OK! You tell Agent Francis it's OK!" he snaps, and Peter says he'll go talk to him.
Before he gets the chance, though, Charlie starts groaning loudly, and the Fringe team (minus Walter) rushes to his bedside, holds him down and lifts his shirt. We can see the larvae writhing around through the skin on his abdomen. "They're getting bigger," says Peter.
After the commercial break, it looks like Charlie's been stablized or sedated, and Olivia's getting off the phone after discussing another sighting in a public park off Hawthorne, which is nowhere near the other places. There's no predictable pattern, says Peter. Olivia's phone rings again, and this time it's that Carl kid from MIT: "You said to call if anything came up, and I think maybe something might have," he says. We see him walking through his frat house, and fortunately he already has pants on this time. He tells her that this guy named Jonathan hasn't been in class for the last few days. "I don't know if he was friends with Chris or whatever, but he was into all that animal rights stuff, too. Anyway, no one's seen him." Olivia says she'll look into it, and asks for the kid's last name. "Swift. Jonathan Swift," says Carl.
Since Olivia's pretty swift herself, she heads over to Swift Research, ignoring the receptionist as she stomps right on past to find Swift talking to a couple of other researchers. "You lied to me," Olivia tells him. "You obstructed the course of a federal investigation into the deaths of five people." Olivia! Not in front of the other researchers! You're embarrassing him! Swift excuses himself so they can talk privately, and Olivia blasts him for not telling her his son was at MIT, and Swift says he's not sure how that's relevant. "Three of his classmates were torn limb from limb the other night, and he hasn't been seen since. I would say that that would be very relevant," she says. Swift says whatever happened, his son wasn't involved, but he does admit, under questioning from Olivia, that it's been a few days since he spoke to his son, adding that he's very busy at school, and Olivia says she thinks Jonathan found out about his dad's studies, and he and his friends broke in two nights ago. "But what he didn't know was that you do more than just test on animals. You create them. Dangerous genetic hybrids," she says.
Swift's heard enough and starts to walk away, telling Olivia that any further questions have to go through his attorney, so she switches from Angry Cop to Please Be Reasonable Cop, telling him the thing has already killed five people and infected an agent with its offspring. "Do you really want his death on your conscience? Now your son is out there, maybe injured, maybe infected, and I can help. But you need to help me, too," she says.
Swift's crying. "It didn't kill five people," he tells her. "It was seven."
And then Olivia's on the phone to Astrid with the good news that Swift broke and admitted the hybrid came from his lab. "Apparently he was collaborating with a geneticist called Cameron Deglmann." Astrid asks where Deglmann is, and we find out that Deglmann was the guy who responded to the alarm, so he's not much good to anybody anymore. Astrid asks what the link to Kelvin Genetics is, and Olivia tells her to get a pen.
After she gets off the phone, Astrid relays the news that Swift confessed, and that the monster had nothing to do with Walter's work. She tells them Swift was working with a guy named "Cameron Deglmann," and Walter's all, "Of course!" and explains that Deglmann was a pioneer in hybridization: "Quite brilliant. In fact, it was his work that inspired my research in the first place." And Peter's a little choked that it never occurred to Walter that this Deglmann guy might be involved, which Walter chalks up to the guy having a very forgettable face.
Oh, and Olivia was also able to get the combination of animals that went into the hybrid: Gila monster, a parasitic wasp, and a type of bat. "Of course! Why didn't I think of it before?" says Walter, and Peter knows where he's going with this, and the two of them explain to Astrid that the bat's immune system makes it a perfect candidate for hybridization. "They can carry hundreds of different diseases without ever being affected," says Peter, with Walter adding that that would enable the creature to mature without rejecting its various parts.
So Astrid wants to know if they can help Charlie now that they know what the animal's made of. I'd like to point out that before Walter and Peter interrupted her to go on their little bat tangent, it sounded like Astrid was about to list another ingredient in the genetic Zoodles creature, but I guess not. She suggests that they try baiting it in the sewers. Peter scoffs at the idea of going down into the sewers and waiting for the thing to eat them, but Walter thinks it's a great idea. Well, at least the going down into the sewers part of it, but not to bait it with food: "We do have something that it is interested in."
And Olivia' back by the time Walter's holding up the beaker of larvae and explaining that bats are a highly maternal species, quite protective of their young, so they're going to find a central location in the sewer to lure the thing, since bats are capable of seeking their offspring from miles away.
And since I'm by this point just outright ignoring Peter's constant sarcastic comments, I'll just say that Walter goes on to say that since he knows the biological makeup of this thing, he thinks he can kill it: "Assuming you can provide us with 50-calibre incendiary rounds, Agent Dunham." Yeah, how many animals could you not kill with 50-calibre incendiary rounds, Walter? Olivia gently tells him that that's not exactly FBI standard-issue. And is he sure about this? Yes, he's sure they can lure the thing. But he's not sure they can survive the encounter. He says the first part loud, and the second part quiet.
So the Fringe team saddles up with big guns and a carton of wriggling larvae. Walter cautions Peter to be careful with the larvae, and Peter snidely says he wouldn't want to hurt the "monster babies," and slams the carton down.
Olivia asks Charlie if he needs anything, and he asks for a shot of JD and a chaser of beer, before getting serious and telling her that hunting the thing in the sewers isn't a good idea. "Don't get hurt for me," he says, and she tells him that's not a fair thing to say because he would do the same for her. Hey, you know what would be a good idea? CALLING CHARLIE'S WIFE. Everyone saddles up to go, while Walter secretly takes a bottle of trichlorimide while ominous music plays.
So out on the sidewalk somewhere, the gang finds a manhole cover, which Walter says will make a "fine infiltration point" -- like, it's not exactly Fort Knox, Walter -- and passersby are watching the crew because they look less like a public works crew than a ragtag bunch of bank robbers planning their heist.
Once underground, Walter leads the way to an intersection that he says will "conduct the sound most effectively." He explains that the larvae are conducting a vibration: "Frequencies of sound detectable by bats and hopefully our guest of honor." They get to the spot, and he puts the carton of larvae down on the ground and uncaps it. Peter says he now knows what it feels like to be live bait, and I can only imagine that after 20 minutes of Peter's wisecracks, I'd be offering myself as live bait to the creature.
So finally Charlie has realized, "Hey, I might be DEAD soon, I suppose I should give my wife a call," and he calls home just as she's arriving home from the market, where she ran into Jody. And from what I can tell, Jody is this annoying woman with a supply of corny jokes from the '50s, and Sonia tells Charlie one about a doctor asking if he'll live longer if he gives up "wine, women and song," and the doctor says, "Well, no. But it'll feel longer," and Charlie is in too much pain and also presumably annoyance to laugh too much at that antique, and can only muster a kind of wheeze-laugh, and she pouts that he didn't think it was funny, but he says that he did, and then she asks if he's going to be home for dinner, and instead of saying, "Probably not, and probably not ever again," Charlie just says he doesn't know. Sonia says she'll see him when he gets home, and she tells him that she loves him, even more for laughing at that joke. Charlie says he loves her, too, and they hang up, and then Charlie continues to lie there dying alone. Well, except for Astrid. Hey, maybe he doesn't want his wife there so he can keep checking Astrid out.
Back in the sewers, the gang sits around waiting for the monster, and Walter says in a frightening situation like this, he's reminded of a couple of things: "The first is a song I used to sing to Rufus," which was the Bishops' dog, because the dog used to have night terrors, and he starts singing this old song about a guy named Van Amburgh who sticks his head in a lion's cage, or some damn thing, at least until Peter says, "Think we can wait down here to be mauled in silence?" Like, is that what you'd like your potentially last words to your father to be? Walter, chastened, quiets down, except Olivia reminds him that he said he was reminded of two things. "Oh, the second thing. I need to tinkle," he says, and asks if either of them can direct him to "the facilities" -- like, first of all, it's not like Peter or Olivia have ever been there before, and second of all, as Peter points out, "You're in the sewer, Walter. You're knee-deep in the facilities."
So Walter steps away, surreptitiously putting his gun in his pocket, and Peter says to Olivia, "Don't say that I never take you anywhere," like how nice to start hitting on her now. And their flirtation is interrupted when Walter clangs shut a metal screen door and uses a crowbar or metal rod or something to bar it shut as Olivia and Walter rush up to it. Peter orders Walter to open it. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Peter. No one else is going to get hurt. This thing is a mistake, and I'm going to correct it, alone." Peter yells again for Walter to open the door, and Walter says it's like Peter pointed out: "I live in a society. And I need to clean up after myself." You happy now, Peter? This is all because your dad didn't want you to eat his ear omelette!
Peter points out that this creature wasn't the result of Walter's work, and Walter says it could have been, because he was pursuing the same science.
Olivia tries reasoning with him, saying he's not prepared for this: "That thing could tear you apart," she says, and Walter's all, "Yeah, that reminds me!" And he pulls out the bottle of trichlorimide, and chugs it. Peter freaks out, and Walter says, "Should the creature consume me, it will only be poisoning itself. Afterwards, you remove its blood and save Agent Francis." Yeah, but... wouldn't the trichlorimide then be in the monster's blood? Walter ignores Peter's pleas not to do this, and says, "Should I live, there's an antidote in the lab, which I should ingest within the hour. So time is of the essence," and strolls away, Peter screaming and banging on the door after him.
After the commercial break, Walter walks through the sewers, singing his Van Amburgh song quietly, and we can hear the sound of something snarling in the distance. Somewhere behind him, Peter and Olivia frantically work to pry the door open, with Peter promising, "If he lives through this, I am gonna kill him myself."
Walter keeps singing the song, carefully making his way around the corner, seeming somewhat relieved when his face isn't eaten. Only then he seems to have come to a dead end (or just a way up to another manhole). He turns around, and hears something faint, and sees something dripping in a puddle near his feet. He looks up, and we see just the claws first as something climbs down upside-down onto the ceiling. A lizardy thing, huge teeth, snarling and menacing, tail uncoiling and rattling behind it. "Oh, dear God," says Walter. This is just when Peter and Olivia come running up, and Peter yells for his dad. The creature swivels to look at them, snarls and drops to the ground, knocking Walter over before lunging at Peter and Olivia. We hear gunshots, and suddenly the thing is on the ground. That's it? All it took was a couple of bullets? Shit, I could have taken a couple of bullets and still finished my lunging. Walter's holding the smoking gun, his hands shaking. Peter asks if he's OK. "Yes. Although when I mentioned that the poison would kill me within the hour, did either of you happen to notice the time?" Probably not a good idea to mention that you'd think a genius would have remembered to bring the antidote along too, just in case.
Back at the lab, we get the Montage of Science-Type Things Happening, with beakers of fluids and syringes and that spinny thing the you use to mix solutions, and then Walter injects something into Charlie and hooks him up to an IV bag, Charlie says, "That's it, then?" Yeah, that's pretty much it. Walter tells Astrid to prepare Charlie for the ultrasound. Which gives Charlie enough time to weakly tell Olivia that he and Sonia have been talking a lot lately about having a baby, and Astrid interrupts so she can gel him up.
Meanwhile, Walter's telling Peter that he was right when he said before that he doesn't think of the consequences. "Never have. Don't know if I can. That's not who I am," he says, like how nice to just absolve yourself of any requirement to change by saying, "That's not who I am." Peter says he knows that, but Walter was very brave today. Walter offhandedly accepts the compliment and then heads over to check on Charlie. They watch the ultrasound monitor, and the little larvae are wriggling away. "It didn't 'work," says Astrid, and Walter says, "Ever the pessimist," and they keep watching. Slowly (although much more quickly then you'd think this actually would happen, right?) the larvae stop moving, curl up and shrivel up. "They're dying," says Olivia. Charlie asks what happens now. "Now you crap 'em out," says Walter. Could they have not just tried that in the first place? Given Charlie some Ex-Lax and a bucket? Everybody has a good giggle.
And later, Charlie goes home to his poor wife who has no idea her husband almost died, and she's in bed asleep and he gets in behind her and snuggles in and kisses her. "You feel good," she says. "So do you," he says, already falling asleep.
And Olivia heads back to her own place, where Rachel and Ella are asleep on the couch after reading Burlap Bear again, apparently. Olivia settles into her own bed and turns off the light, and closes her eyes. But the wind howls, and Olivia opens her eyes, turns the light back on, and goes back to sleep. It's worth noting that although we can't actually hear anything other than the wind, after the screen goes to black, the closed captioning says "[creature snarls]." Guess they thought better of throwing that in there.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see vlogger Sean Crespo's possibly more twisted take on Fringe in No Prior Knowledge!