Fringe TV Show - What Lies Below - Fringe Recaps, Fringe Reviews, Fringe Episodes | TWoP

Recapped by Daniel · Aired 2010-01-21

In Boston, a bike courier rides up to an office building. We can tell he's a courier as opposed to a biking enthusiast because he's doing the pant-leg-rolled-up thing. He locks his bike up and heads into the building, past the Vitas Petrol sign.

Into the elevator he goes, which already holds an older man with close-cropped hair, who's already pushed the button for the 16th floor, which is where the courier's going. "Going to be a nice one today," says the courier as he glances over the man, receiving a curt agreement in accented English from the other dude. There's a little bit of sweat rolling down the older man's face. "You don't look so good," says the courier, which is easy for him to say, with his youth and his hairline! The older guy turns his head, and there's a little trickle of blood coming from his left nostril. He wipes his nose with a tissue, but there's more blood coming, and as they get off the elevator, he's pale and glistening with sweat. He wanders away from the direction of Vitas Petrol's reception desk, and the courier tells "Helen" that he thinks there's something wrong with the guy. Helen calls to him to tell him he needs to sign in, and the older guy looks at her, and it's not clear if he's even comprehending her.

Then he collapses and is on his back on the floor while people freak out and the courier performs CPR on the guy to no avail. He checks for a pulse around the guy's neck. "He's dead," the courier tells the office worker who was trying to help.

But wait, there's more! Suddenly the veins in the dead guy's body are all standing out in sharp relief as his body convulses, and a red mist spews from the corpse's mouth, splattering on everybody nearby, which is a lot of people, since the looky-loos had all come over to see what was going on. In a talking head, Michael Scott says, "Reminds me of the time Meredith collapsed after a bender the night before."

After the opening credits, we watch Astrid anxiously make her way through the Boston Children's Science Center, until she's stopped by a helpful employee. Astrid says she's looking for someone who's lost, and the employee assumes she's talking about a kid, but it doesn't take a genius to see where this is going. "Ah. A special needs individual," says the employee when Astrid tells him it's not a student but a man. "You have no idea," says Astrid.

Sure enough, there's Walter, lecturing a bunch of kids about the history of the first circumnavigation of the world, and that when the Victoria arrived back home, only eighteen of the original 237 crew members were on board. A little girl asks what happened to everyone. "They all died, little girl, horrible and most likely painful deaths," says Walter, looking slightly annoyed at being asked, while the woman with the "Science is fun!" sticker on her sweater looks uncomfortable. Heh. Walter starts telling them about the price to pay for opening certain doors, and gives them the example of how when you check under your beds for monsters, you are immediately eaten, whereas if you hadn't looked, you wouldn't wind up "being slowly digested in the stomach-sac of the creature." I'm not convinced this is as self-evident as he seems to think it is. The bright side, though, is that maybe their screams will serve as stark reminders of the grim butcheries that await us under our beds.

By Daniel

Aaaaaand Walter's got his season pass revoked, and he's not happy about it. He mutters as he and Astrid leave the centre, Astrid pointing out that he terrified the kids. "These children should know the truth. They're tragically coddled and ill-advised," he grumbles. And while he attempts to cause the children to burst into flames on the strength of his withering glare, Astrid takes a phone call from Olivia, and tells Agent Dunham they'll be there right away.

Peter and Olivia are already at Vitas Petrol, taking in the scene. A body under a yellow tarp on one side of the office, a bunch of nervous office workers congregated on the other side. A detective Kassel welcomes them, saying they're taking witness statements, and hands over the dead guy's Dutch driver's licence: Poor Radjan VandenKemp. They pull back the tarp and have a look at the blood and Radjan's blood-drained face. "I've never seen anything like this," says the detective, which lets Peter give him a been-there-done-that "lucky you."

Olivia goes off to talk to the witnesses, and asks the receptionist if the guy had an appointment there, and she says no: "No one knew him. No one was expecting him," she says, adding that when he got off the elevator, he seemed confused, and then he collapsed.

Peter gets off the phone with Broyles, who's downstairs, and tells Olivia that Broyles is going to run VandenKemp's name and see what turns up.

Up strolls Vincent Ames, who introduces himself as the VP of geotechnical engineering. And Olivia without her camera! He asks if they're going to be able to leave soon, and Olivia says not yet. Vincent glances at the tarp-covered body and aks if they know what happened to him yet. "That's what we're trying to figure out. But we'll let you know as soon as you can leave," she says.

By Daniel

The receptionist tells Olivia that courier Mike rode up with him. Which one's Mike, Olivia wants to know, and the receptionist points out the guy who looks ready to shit his pants any minute -- only he's gone.

He's in the bathroom, splashing water on his face ... and then droplets of blood in the sink make him look in the mirror and see the trickle of blood running from his nostril.

Outside, Broyles strolls over to Astrid and Walter and tells them about the dead guy from the Netherlands who walked into the building at 7:30 this morning, and his veins ruptured. That was at 7:30 in the morning? Busy office! Walter theorizes vasculitis, or an arteriovenous fistula, which is an abnormal channel between the vessels resulting in swelling of the veins. "Until they rupture?" asks Astrid. No, not usually, admits Walter. "But then that's why we're here, I imagine," he adds, as they walk towards the doors of the building, just as a very sick-looking bike courier tries to get out. Walter instinctively holds the door shut upon seeing the man's face just as the veins start to rupture, and the courier spews blood all over the other side of the clear glass doors, which you'd think might be gross, but I did spend a year in residence at university.

Walter's excitement over the case has completely darkened. "This building must be quarantined immediately. No one goes in or out. I believe we have a contagion on our hands," he says. Just then, Olivia and Peter come down the stairs. For anyone who doesn't understand what quarantine or "no one goes in or out" means, Astrid says Olivia and Peter will be trapped inside. Walter looks like he'd like to change his mind, but repeats the instruction to quarantine.

After the commercial break, a frantic Walter is on the phone with Peter, trying to find out more information about the dead Dutchman: "If I can find out where he came from, where he was, then I could begin to ascertain what could have infected him." Peter says they don't know, and Walter says the guy must have been coming to see someone there. Then Walter notices the CDC arrive. This does not seem to be good news to him.

While Astrid tries to console Walter outside, Vincent Ames is starting to get a little irritated with the quarantine, and then some of the other office folks are asking about Mike. Olivia confirms that Mike is dead, and then a bunch of them start bickering over who got the dead guy's blood on them, and then they notice the office airflow has been shut down, which Olivia says is protocol in case the virus is airborne. Then she says she wants everyone to divide into two groups: one that was near VandenKemp, one that wasn't. Nobody moves particularly quickly, and then Peter grumpily snaps at them to get a move on.

By Daniel

Outside, an Arnold McFadden, field director at the CDC, introduces himself to Broyles, acknowledges Broyles has two people inside, and asks if this is a bioterrorist attack. Broyles says they're considering that possibility. And as the two of them watch a helicopter circle overhead, it's pretty clear McFadden's pursuing some other possibilities of his own. He tells an assistant that they want to get a team into the lobby, get some blood work underway, and they need to cut out a two-block radius with barriers.

Meanwhile, Walter bursts into a tent and tells the befuddled biohazard worker that he needs at least half-a-dozen of the blood or tissue or whatever samples the guy has, and he demands to be taken to the centrifuge. Dude is all, "Excuse me? Who are you.

Aaaand the thing we know, Astrid is telling Broyles that Walter has been arrested. It's like the science museum all over again, this time with the possibility of jail time!

McFadden and Broyles walk into the tent where a couple of New England's finest have Walter handcuffed behind his back, one of them explaining that Walter breached the security lab: "Claims he's FBI, but he's got no credentials or identification." Broyles backs up Walter's story, so the cops let him go. Walter anxiously says he needs to get back to his lab with a blood sample so he can determine what pathogen they're dealing with. He gets into a grouchy credentials-off with McFadden, who ought to win, because he was also President John Keeler in 24. Well, what happens is McFadden is quite reasonable yet firm, while Walter implies McFadden is a small-minded bureaucrat. Broyles is all, "That's not helping," to Walter, who does apologize. And then Broyles vouches for Walter, who McFadden grants some samples to, but Walter's got to be accompanied.

Inside, Olivia's having no luck trying to track down VandenKemp in the database. "But he must have been here to see somebody. How far back did you go?" Peter asks. Olivia says she went back two months.

Peter stops to look around at all the office workers on their phones, and he notes they're calling their families: "Wanna call your sister? Just to let her know what's going on?" he asks Olivia, who pauses briefly before not responding and just going right back to work. And she notes that Ames had two appointments this morning, but cleared his calendar at the last minute yesterday, but was still here today anyway. And before their annoying argument over whether it means something or not goes on TOO too long, Det. Kassel comes over to tell them they've got a problem.

By Daniel

And by "problem," he means a dying woman: one of the office workers seated on the floor in a hallway, nose bleeding. "What's happening to me?" she asks, like HOW DID YOU MISS WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU, LADY, and Peter gets her all nice and comfortable, like maybe she can fall in love with him like the teenager did in "Unearthed", and Olivia goes to get her some water, and then Peter leaves and Olivia's still there and she asks Peter, "So how much time do you think she has?" Peter points out the courier was dead half-an-hour after giving VandenKamp CPR. And maybe she doesn't have time left, so maybe Olivia could just get her the damn water she promised.

Then a gaggle of office workers shuffle over to find out what's going on, and the one they call Elaine points out that Linda didn't get any of the blood anywhere near her, and then they're bickering for a few moments, and Peter tries to calm everyone down. Meanwhile, Olivia takes advantage of the confusion to ask Ames to talk to her one on one.

She says she knows VandenKamp was here to see him, so what's up with that? Ames says the guy came by to try to sell them some information from one of their competitors, something to do with a recent reserve field, but he wouldn't say what it was: "All he said was, 'I have something to show you.'" Olivia asks where the information is, and Ames says he didn't know, since VandenKamp didn't actually have anything with him. Ames says he knows he's broken a dozen federal laws, but he'd rather go to prison than die here. Olivia snaps, "It may be too late to trade one for the other now, Mister Ames." Outside, a bustling cottage industry of disease control has sprung up around the building.

Over the phone, Broyles tells Olivia that they've discovered that VandenKemp was an oil consultant who arrived at Logan three days ago from Dubai. They've already contacted most of the passengers on board, with no one showing any signs of infection. Olivia asks if they've been able to track his movements, and Walter says he was staying at a Continental Inn. "No symptoms reported there, either, but also no indication of any information he was selling." I don't buy that the agents were able to sort through all the bacteria and viruses present on any hotel bed duvet that quickly. Seriously! Watch an investigative piece sometime; you'll sleep with your clothes on in hotels for the rest of your life. Olivia asks if Walter's been able to identify the virus. He hasn't, but Broyles promises to let her know.

By Daniel

Walter's working away in his lab with Astrid and the CDC guy, who's probably unaware that he's as likely to be a test subject as an assistant whenever Walter's around. Walter explains to Astrid that if they can isolate the strain, they may be able to understand the virus's "personality," and Astrid is all, "Silly Walter! Viruses aren't people!" and Walter explains that viruses seem to have minds of their own: "The rabies virus can't survive in water. So it inflicts its host with a paralyzing fear of water." Astrid thinks that sounds silly, but it's worth pointing out that rabies is also known as hydrophobia. Anyway, Walter delivers a little speech about the unbelievability of viruses and how they deny our definitions of living and dead, and how their only function is to survive: "And they use us as a vehicle to do so. It's the folly of humans to believe we're at the top of the food chain. In truth, viruses are."

Meanwhile, the CDC guy, who appears to be the one actually working instead of blathering on about whatever, pulls a sample from the centrifuge and says the strain won't isolate, because the sample was too fragile. Walter says he was afraid of that, but the good news is that he's pretty sure the virus isn't airborne: "If it were, there'd be many more people showing signs of infection in that building. We need a better sample." Not airborne, other than the victims spewing their infected blood all over everyone, I suppose.

Meanwhile, Peter and Olivia are chatting about the case, like what exactly is Detective Kassel actually DOING, and Olivia fills Peter in on what Broyles just told her. Peter asks if she called Rachel, and Olivia says she didn't try: "She just went through all this stuff with me in the hospital, and she's still having nightmares about me being dead. What's the point in scaring her again? We are gonna get out of this," she says, because she's already filmed several more episodes that Fringe still has in the can, but I'd just like to say that if one of my siblings neglected to give me a heads-up that THEY MIGHT DIE then they pretty well BETTER DIE because I WILL KILL THEM. Peter says it's just like Olivia to try to protect her sister: "I thought that was the point of having people who care about you in your life. To have someone to talk to when you're scared," says Peter. Olivia explains that she just saw Up in the Air over the weekend and now never wants to get close to anyone ever again, although she did find Anna Kendrick just delightful.

By Daniel

Peter and Olivia stare silently at each other for about eight hours, and then Olivia notices, behind them, the receptionist standing there looking at them. She doesn't say anything, then eventually turns and walks away. "She's out. The receptionist," says Olivia, and she and Peter get up to follow her. They lose her in the office's halls and corridors, so Olivia and Peter split up, with Peter winding up in the reception area, and all of a sudden the receptionist is screaming in Peter's face, and she just came out of nowhere so I guess part of the virus's "personality" is that it turns you into a ninja, and Peter, startled, slips and falls in VandenKemp's blood. Meanwhile, the receptionist runs off down the hall and launches herself right through a window and plummets 16 storeys onto the windshield of a CDC van.

Up in the office, Olivia arrives in the lobby and is stunned to see Peter with VandenKemp's blood on him. She says his name, and they look at each other some more, and then he runs off while Olivia answers her phone. It's Broyles, understandably wanting to know why people are hurling themselves out of office windows. In the background, CDC guys hose down the corpse and van with some kind of foamy white material.

In the bathroom, Peter frantically scrubs at the blood on his arms, and Olivia comes in and tells him to be careful. Peter looks thoughtful for a moment, and looks at Olivia, who looks like she's doing her best to appear optimistic.

But Peter has other ideas, because the thing Olivia knows, he's rifling through VandenKemps pockets, much to her horror. The way Peter sees it: "I got his blood on me. If I wasn't infected before, I probably am now." She says this is insane, and he says, "They're down here, and we're up here. And they're not sending anybody else up. This is our last chance to figure out whatever it was that he came here to try and sell." He finally comes up with what he was looking for in the dead man's pockets: rental car keys. As Peter says: "Never take anything into a negotiation that can land you in jail. Always leave it in neutral territory." Yeah, great deduction, Peter, although I'd like to point out that I think A) it's odd that the FBI hasn't managed to consider that a guy flying in from Dubai might need a rental car, and B) if they didn't maybe you should have just called them and suggested it, because once they know what car to look for, they're not going to actually need the keys, so you didn't need to expose yourself again.

By Daniel

Anyway, we watch as a CDC team opens the trunk of a car and removes a briefcase, and then Walter's arriving at the scene again, telling Broyles about his hypothesis as to how the virus behaves: "This virus has to spread itself, but in order to do so, it needs other organisms to infect," Walter "explains," even though what he's saying amounts to "It has to spread, but in order to do so, it needs to spread." Walter says it wasn't until VandenKemp was in an office full of people that he sprayed. "But having successfully infected other people, I believe that the virus now senses that it's contained within the building, and ... and it wants to get outside to continue spreading." Broyles is all, "The virus wants to get outside? Doesn't that strike even you as a bit far-fetched?" Walter points out the courier only spewed as he approached the outside doors, and then the receptionist hurled herself outside before she sprayed. "The virus compelled her to leave the building. It wanted to get outside." "You're saying the virus made her jump," says Broyles, and Walter's all, bingo! They could call the virus Kris Kross!

Then they go into a tent, where we watch some video feed of CDC techs poking around at a cylinder of material they found in VandenKemp's briefcase. "Among other things in the briefcase, we found a drill core sample from an exploratory dig." Microscopic shots of black stuff and red stuff! "This is our virus," he says.

After the commercial break, we learn that the sample was stolen from Solum Oil Corp., and should have been stored in an airtight, protective case, and it came from 10 miles below the surface. "In that case, I believe we're in the presence of a 75,000-year-old terror," says Walter. Always keeping things clinical, our Walter. He suspects this virus might have been responsible for wiping out the ice-age mammals. "Some things are meant to be left alone," he adds.

By Daniel

Broyles wants to know if he can find a cure for it. "Maybe, in time. But right now, we need to keep the safe people safe. Now that I have an isolated sample, I can produce a tox screen. At least we can identify who's been infected," he says.

In the office, Peter's watching old Lost in Space episodes (as opposed to new ones, I suppose) when the CDC guy who was helping Walter walks in with Walter and Astrid and another dude or two. He introduces himself to Olivia as Bill Hubert, and says they need the office to divide into two groups. Peter's standing by himself looking all surly in a grey tank top. Walter waves, but his smile fades, and Peter gives him a grim little nod.

Outside, McFadden says to another suit, "Call the State Department. Get approval for a Level Six eradication." My immediate response: "Oh, I don't like the sound of that 'level six'!" Which is then pretty much the assistant's response, too. "We don't know how to contain it. If anybody on the outside got infected..." says McFadden. He doesn't have to finish that sentence, because we've all seen 28 Weeks Later.

Back in the office, Peter's handing out bag lunches to people when he sees a couple of droplets of blood on a bag. He puts his finger to his nose, and it comes away bloody. This is his cue to start looking sinister in lots of close-ups with shadowy lighting.

And then it's on to the tox screen, where Olivia tells Peter they're just getting started. Aaron A. Aaronson, please come on down! Vincent Ames steps up and wonders how he'll know if he's infected. Is he worried the CDC guys wouldn't tell him? Walter explains that if he's infected, the solution will turn black. He gives Ames a swab for the inside of his cheek. Ames does it, and gives the sample back to Walter, who swirls it around in the tube. It turns amber, which means Ames is in the clear, at least virus-wise. Olivia-wise, he's not out of the woods yet: "We'll be in touch," Olivia tells him, just a bit of menace to her voice.

Then it's Peter, and then Olivia. They look at each other for a moment, and then Peter says, "Ladies first." So Olivia goes through the process first, and gets a clean bill of health from Walter. So Peter steps up for his turn, and takes the long cotton swab and swipes it in his mouth, and then surreptitiously flips the swab around, handing the clean end to Walter. Well, that's great. This virus could destroy humanity, but we'll let you provide your own samples.

By Daniel

Fear is etched on Walter's face as he swirls Peter's sample and holds it up, fingers trembling. Olivia watches from behind. The relief on Walter's face and his struggle to keep his voice from cracking as he tells Peter that he's OK almost made me cry, especially knowing that Peter's infected. Peter quickly orders a group to come downstairs with him.

Downstairs, the first group of uninfected (and Peter) file their way outside the doors guarded by CDC guys with guns. They check the names of each of the office workers as they walk outside, with Olivia just in front of Peter. She walks through, and then turns, smiling, to look at Peter just as one of the CDC thugs notices Peter's nosebleed. They grab him, as Peter's veins start to constrict and he lunges for the door, at Olivia. "I just have to get outside!" he yells.

Back upstairs, a man's sample turns black. "But I wasn't near anyone," he says. "Steve, you need to come with me," says Detective Kassel. Nice of him to show up. Where is he when people are throwing themselves out windows? Walter looks perturbed. He ain't seen nothing yet.

His son, downstairs, is pounding on the glass and yelling for Olivia to open the door. "Peter, I can't. You know that," she says. And Peter, looking like he's on heroin, tries to look as cheerful and normal as possible before he gets angry again, and runs off somewhere in the building.

After the commercial break, Det. Kassel is being cleared by Walter, and he's the last one. Astrid calls Olivia to tell her they finished the tox screens, and Olivia tells her about Peter: "The test was wrong. I, I don't know how, but... but he's bleeding from his nose and he's still in the building." Astrid's too shocked to say much more than "OK," and she hangs up and Walter asks, "What was that about Peter?" We don't get to see him react to the news.

Meanwhile, McFadden is telling Broyles that the Cambodian outbreak of 2004 killed 7,300 people, which could have been avoided if the Chinese authorities had moved quicker. "That was Level Four. This is classified as Six. Right now, it's the only option," he's saying. It sounds somewhat disingenuous for him to say "it's being classified as Six" when really he ought to say "I've classified it as Six" but the point is he's a suit who has to make tough decisions, right?

Olivia comes in to tell Broyles that the tox screens are finished, and McFadden already knows: "Eleven civilians infected, and your colleague. I'm sorry." Olivia asks what they do now, but she's not going to like McFadden's answer: "Extract the rest of the ones that tested negative, and the State department has authorized us to have the Army move in and contain the rest." Olivia's all, "'Army'?" and Broyles can see this going south in a hurry, but Olivia takes no notice of his warning "Dunham" as Olivia snaps, "There are still a dozen people in that building. You cannot tell me that killing them is our only option."

By Daniel

McFadden tells her to follow him, and he takes her over to a computer screen where a tech runs an outbreak simulation, showing what happens if just one person gets out and infects someone on the outside. The map quickly goes from street level to a view of North America that shows the continent being overrun in just two weeks. Naturally, I look at the map for places I've lived. Amusingly, you can see a big outbreak between Fort McMurray, where I lived for six years, and Fort Chipewyan, which is more than 200 kilometres to the north. I say "amusingly," because the outbreak is growing in an area of northern Alberta where nobody lives. And by "nobody" I don't mean a bunch of small towns, I mean "nobody." Well, apart from the scattered hunter and trapper, I suppose. But to get from Fort McMurray to Fort Chip, you have to either fly or wait until the winter to drive, because a portion of the ground trip happens over an ice road that's built in the winter and unusable by the spring. So I love that one of the epicentres for the spread in Canada is in this no man's land. Other viewers might have seen similar incongruities in parts of the map based on their geographical knowledge.

ANYWAY, the point is that there are a bunch of angry circles depicting sick people -- and then we go to the world view as the world slowly turns red. On the plus side, it looks like the sea people of the Atlantic Ocean will be immune. "We have no symptom blocker, no cure. What solution do you propose, Agent Dunham?" Olivia just stares at the screen.

In the office building, Walter removes, to Astrid's horror, his vacuum-sealed helmet. He grumpily tells her that it doesn't matter, because the virus isn't airborne, and is transmitted through bodily fluids. Yeah, and twelve people in that office have managed to contract it, so I think all things considered, I'd rather have the helmet, but of course Walter's also reckless because his son has been exposed, and Astrid recognizes that and tells him that they're going to figure out a solution and Peter's going to be fine. Walter doesn't say anything.

By Daniel

The CDC guy comes by to tell them they're taking all non-infected people out of the building. Astrid tells Walter that they're going to have to help Peter from outside the building, and Walter just stands there, so then Olivia gets a phone call from Astrid, who has removed her helmet, telling her that Walter won't leave: "He thinks he can come up with a cure." Not that he has a plan yet, or anything. Olivia tells Astrid that the CDC doesn't want to risk contamination, so they're going to kill everyone inside. Astrid starts looking like she wishes she'd had that information before she decided to stick it out with Walter, but she says they're gonna be fine and hangs up, despite Olivia trying to convince her what a dumb idea it would be to stay there. Walter asks what Olivia wanted, even though Astrid phoned Olivia, and Astrid says, "Nothing." I don't think this information would change Walter's mind, but I do think it's information he deserves to have...

So Walter gets Astrid to help him drag the Dutchman into the kitchen, where there's a table and a sink. "Homo sapiens persevered 100 millennia ago, so something must have killed this virus," he says, and starts thinking out loud about possibilities.

Astrid asks what she can do, and Walter is quiet for a long time before he finally says, "I can't let Peter die again. He's going to. They all will. There's nothing I can do about it." Astrid's a little stunned at Walter's bleak attitude, and then she reminds him about Magellan's crew, who he was talking about at the science museum that morning, pointing out that 18 of them survived: "That's what you said, Walter. Despite the odds, 18 of them came back to their families." "The rest died of scurvy," says Walter, who starts listing the symptoms of scurvy: "uncontrollable diarrhea, pustulous bleeding." When I was in college, I saw a show by a band called Pustulous Bleeding. Better than you'd think! They all died, Walter says again, except Astrid's point was that they DIDN'T all die. And then he perks up: "Except ... we're still here. Seventy-five thousand years ago, our virus here wiped the planet clean. Then life resumed. So something must have killed the active virus." Then it occurs to him: "Ash!" Ash from the Evil Dead movies? THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. Astrid's so conditioned to Walter getting her name wrong that she corrects him to "Astrid" but we're both wrong. Although I maintain my idea is better. No, he's talking about actual ash, and says the biggest volcanic eruption in the last 25 million years was Mount Toba, and it blocked out the sun. "Sulfuric ash rained down all around the world," says Walter, waggling his fingers for rain like he's singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" to Astrid. Walter figures sulfur could be the culprit. Astrid wants to know where they get sulfur, so he tells her to check the break-room fridge and tell him what they've got. Astrid starts rattling off the random things that appear in office fridges, and mentions horseradish, and Walter tells her to grab that, because the glycoside in horseradish is high in sulfur, so if he's right, it should attack the virus. He takes a blood sample and then mixes up a little horseradish in a vial, and then he holds up his little vial and holds it up and his hands are still trembling so Astrid grabs them to steady him, and then takes the vial, shakes it up, and uses an eyedropper to drip a little solution on the blood, and the solution turns amber. Walter's relief washes over his face, and he thanks Astrid. I think the two of them need to leave a note for the horseradish owner saying they'll replace it, unless they want to find themselves the target of a randomly capitalized and punctuated note on passiveaggressivenotes.com.

By Daniel

So then Olivia is taking down the recipe from Walter, although I don't know why they don't just go over to Costco and get a big vat of horseradish. Meanwhile, the infected people in the building are angrily trying to get out. One dude throws a chair at the glass wall, and the chair just breaks off. Nice of the construction company to use the indestructible glass on the ground floor, but sixteen storeys up, anyone can just throw themselves through the window.

McFadden's making his own plans. He's on the phone, dictating instructions: "After we've notified the families of the deceased, we'll release a statement: 'The virus has been controlled. And we don't have any fear of a further outbreak.'" A giddy Olivia rushes up to tell McFadden that Walter found a cure, and McFadden, not exactly giddy, hangs up the phone and pooh-poohs the list of things Walter needs: "Sulfide base, neuraminidase blocker. We'd need a chemical supply lab. The closest one's in Wellesley ... and several hours to synthesize the antidote." McFadden says they don't have that much time: "That glass isn't gonna hold much longer." Indeed, Peter has picked up a fire extinguisher and his pounding the glass with it. Hey, just have a receptionist run at it, you'll be out in no time!

By Daniel

Broyles says they could buy some time by pumping fentanyl gas into the building: "Knock them out long enough to synthesize a cure. We could have a gas truck here in ten minutes." McFadden's not having it though, because the gas won't disperse, what with the building's ventilation system being down, and he's not going to risk sending any of his people inside to turn it on. Olivia immediately volunteers, and after Broyles agrees, McFadden gives them fifteen minutes.

After the commercial break, Olivia's running through the building with a map, and gets to an elevator bank. At the same time, Peter is racing back to the security desk at the front entrance for some reason, but he happens to spot Olivia entering an elevator on the security camera. Broyles radios her to tell her the gas truck is there, and he wants to know what her "twenty" is, and she tells him she's on her way to the parking garage. Peter studies the monitor, looking to figure out where she's going, while Olivia checks her map because SHE doesn't even really know where she's going.

She pushes through a swinging door into the parking garage and is immediately attacked by Peter. Stunned, she pulls her gun and tries telling him that she's there to help him. No, not by giving him her gun, as he requests. She warns him that the army is going to shoot him: "They're gonna kill us all anyway. The cure is out there. They're lying to us. And you locked me in here," he says, stomping forward. Naturally, Olivia can't actually shoot Peter, and they struggle, Peter slamming her on the trunk of a car. "You betrayed me!" he roars as they fight. Peter slams her against a wall, banging her gun. The gun goes off, and Olivia drops it and it skitters under a car. Olivia knees him in the groin and breaks free, diving across the floor to reach for her gun, but Peter stomps on her arm and grabs it first. He tells her to stay down, and points the gun at her, and then he wanders off.

Outside, Broyles is trying to get a hold of her, but she's not responding to the radio. So he calls Astrid, who tells him the ventilation system isn't on yet.

McFadden comes up to point out that the fifteen minutes are up, and Broyles asks for another ten minutes: "There are people in there that are like family to me." Wow, Broyles glowers at his family a lot. McFadden says, "I'm sorry," and walks away.

These things are happening all at once: Peter's in the elevator, loading a fresh cartridge into his gun; armed teams are entering the building through emergency exit; Olivia runs down the stairs to the building operations room, where she easily finds the control panel with its clearly labelled breakers and turns the ventilation system back on.

By Daniel

The guys with the gas are positioned by the outside ducts, and when the air whooshes on, they start pumping the gas in.

Inside, Astrid notices the ventilation system come on, and she grabs Walter's helmet and tells him to put it on. When he seems surprised, she just says "trust me" because I guess she's too busy to explain what's happening.

How long has Peter been in this elevator? Is he going to the roof? No, just up a few floors, where the CDC guys are standing, guns levelled and pointing at the elevator doors. When they open, Peter's unconscious on the floor. Nice roomy elevator! Aww. No matter how homicidal he acts when he's awake, Peter always looks so sweet and innocent when he's asleep.

And there's a hazy, dreamy montage as Peter swims in and out of consciousness, his dad injecting him with horseradish... Olivia's unconscious too. "You're going to be OK, Peter," Walter says, which makes its way through Peter's fuzzified mental state. And then Peter wakes up, and sees Olivia, Astrid and his dad standing over him. "Thank you," he says, groggily. "All of you." Olivia asks if he's feeling better, and he turns his head towards her and says he wasn't himself. "It's lucky for me that you were," he says. Wish I could be that pithy at full consciousness, let alone while waking up from being knocked out so a 75,000-year-old virus that almost wiped out mankind could be scrubbed from my body. Walter's a little bit overcome with emotion, so he goes for some fresh air. Astrid watches him go, and then follows him because she needs to ask him something: "Inside, upstairs, when you said, 'I can't let Peter die again'..." she says, and his face goes a little stony, all, "Oh, yeah, I said that," and he quietly says, "Some things are meant to be left alone, Agent Farnsworth." You know, Astrid's not the one constantly dropping cryptic hints, WALTER.

Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland, which is at least a half-hour ahead of the rest of North America, and almost always enjoys scenes of defenestration. Follow him on Twitter or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.