So the Clue poster outside the 1985 alterna-universe movie theatre last week wasn't just a coincidence, as this week's episode is called "Olivia. In The Lab. With The Revolver," and she actually plays the board game with Sam the Mystic Lebowski after she goes to see him at the bowling alley, feeling guilty about keeping Walter's secret about Peter the Glimmer Man. It's eating her up inside, but Sam reassures her that since she's such an awesome person, she probably has a good reason for keeping the secret. Still, she tells Walter that she's going to reveal the secret to Peter, and Walter's deathly terrified that he'll lose his son again once Peter knows the truth.
Anyway, the episode revolves around a dude who seems to be able to give people skin-blistering cancer just by touching them. As the victims pile up, Olivia's once-vaunted memory fails her for a while until she remembers the names as being on the height chart she saw in the classroom at the Jacksonville lab where the Cortexiphan trials were held: all the victims were kids in the trials, just like she was. Cancer Man turns out to be James, the brother of the first victim, and was in the hospital with cancer when she died, and it looks like he was weaponized. James doesn't actually really want to kill people, it's just kind of happening as he tries to track down people who might know something about his condition. The victim chain leads him to Olivia, who fights him off and avoids getting cancer. So that's good!
Along the way, she also confronts Nina about all the information that Nina likes to hold back (just like the old days!), and threatens that she's going to tell Peter the whole story. Nina thinks Olivia's bluffing, and it turns out she is.
Well, maybe she intended to tell Peter, but after a conversation with him, in which he awkwardly fumbles around the fact that he tried to kiss her -- which is why he thinks she's acting strangely around him -- she decides she doesn't want to rupture their family unit, either. She tells Walter that she's not going to tell Peter -- but Walter has decided that he is going to tell Peter. This can only go well.
Tonight's episode opens in a diner in Providence, Rhode Island, where a guy shakily drinks a glass of water across a table from a concerned woman (played by Diane Kruger, recently shot to death in a basement pub in Inglourious Basterds and who is apparently Joshua Jackson's girlfriend? Good for him!) who asks if he doesn't want some soup or tea or coffee to warm him up. He says he has trouble keeping anything down, so I guess the other diners ought to be grateful that he doesn't plan to barf anything up while they're enjoying their lattes. He thanks her for coming, since her office told him how busy she is. She nods, and says she's just trying to remember him (and maybe she's distracted by the alterna-universe-or-whatever-signifying lens flares that are going on throughout this scene). "I understand. It was a long time ago. We were just kids," he says.She asks if that's when he thinks he was "exposed to something," and he tells her that he's seen half a dozen specialists who think that's the only answer that makes sense. She starts taking notes (under the name "Neil") and says she might be able to help him, and he clarifies that that isn't why he asked to see her: "I wasn't looking to make money," he says, and she nods like she's heard this before but explains that if someone's responsible for his illness, her firm can help. Hey, great! Maybe we can see her on television commercials that run during Jerry Springer!
Anyway, the guy says the last doctor suggested he get in touch with other kids he went to school with, to see if they're suffering from any of the same symptoms: "It might help him identify what it is that's making me sick." She apologizes and says it was so long ago that she doesn't really remember names, but then comes up with one anyway: "I do remember one boy. Lloyd, um, Lloyd Becker. He made me eat a bug on the playground. I remember him." They share a laugh about how the name "Lloyd Becker" sounds like a "budding sociopath," and while we're on the subject of daytime talk shows, maybe she can do one of those shows where you confront the bully who tormented you in school and show him that you are now all that, and then Neil reaches across the table and touches her wrist to tell her that she really appreciates her helping her.
Then she's in her SUV driving down the street and telling someone via a hands-free cellphone to make an appointment for Neil Wilson with an oncologist at Rhode Island General: "You know, the one who always calls me 'honey.'" Not that you'd ever use that to your advantage, sounds like.
She shuts off her cellphone and waits for the light to change, and notices a slight redness on her wrist. She glances back at the light -- still red (and you can spot The Observer crossing the street and glancing at her vehicle) -- and a few seconds later, when she looks at her wrist again, it's bubbled up with what look like blisters. This would seem to be a concern, but before she can really do anything about it, she doubles over in pain.
Then the traffic light turns green, and it's not long before the honking starts up behind her. But as the blisters on her wrist are worse and she now has what appears to be a huge growth of congealed mozzarella cheese on her neck, she's got other things on her mind. And then the dude in the car behind her decides that it would quicker and more productive to get out of his vehicle and ask what the hell is going on instead of just pulling out from behind and driving around her. His annoyance softens somewhat after he taps on the window and notices that she's not sitting at a green light because she's busy applying lipstick like the lady drivers like to do but appears to be in distress. She has her face turned away, but when he taps and asks if she's OK, she turns towards the window, her face covered in angry white lumps. "Help me," she croaks.
After the opening credits, we see Olivia, lying in bed, unable to sleep. It's 5:18 in the morning, but since she can't sleep, she gets up. And where else are you going to go at that time of morning but your neighbourhood mystical bowling alley? Sam is not only awake, but he's on his back down one of the alleys, fixing a pin-setter. Oh, and he's listening to The Velvet Underground ("Oh! Sweet Nuthin'") and drinking, so just like that I'm transported back to college. "Is that you, Dunham? I thought you'd quit bowling, took up another sport," he says, and she acknowledges that it's been a while. "I see you're still not sleeping," says Sam, like look who's talking. He asks her to pass him a nut because he has a whole plateful of nuts and bolts, and she asks what kind he wants and he says "dealer's choice" because he's the mystical bowling alley man and can't just ask for the right damn size of nut, so she passes him a nut that's fortunately the right size.
Then he finally gets around to asking her what's on her mind, and she takes forever to tell him that she's been experiencing "things" like he said she would after her car accident.
He gets up from under the pin-setter and asks if she'd like a beer. "It's 6:30 in the morning," she points out. So ... whisky? "When you've been up all night, time is just a matter of semantics," he says, by which he means, "Do you want a damn beer or not?" She declines, because she's a big baby.
"So, I suppose you're here to find out what happens ," he says, and then adds that he can't help her because she has officially gone beyond his "field of expertise," and I find it hard to believe that anything is beyond the expertise of a bowling-alley manager who drinks at 6:30 in the morning, but there you have it. He does have some idea why she's not sleeping, though, and says it doesn't have anything to do with her accident and a lot to do with her being a cop: "You must make a dozen decisions a day, many of them life and death. One of them you're not happy about. You think you did the wrong thing. I'm right, aren't I?" he says. She admits that that's the case, but it wasn't exactly the job: "I agreed to keep a secret," she says. "A secret," he repeats, and her cellphone rings.
She answers it and tells whoever it is that she'll be right there. "Good thing you didn't take the beer," says Sam, and she starts to leave, but he stops her to tell her that she's a good person, one of the few he knows (that's what happens when you DRINK AT 6:30 IN THE MORNING): "If you agreed to keep this secret, I'm sure you had a good reason," he says. Olivia says "yeah" but doesn't seem exactly convinced.
So Walter and Peter are arriving at the Providence morgue, with Walter trying to convince Peter to come on a skiing trip. You know, if there's a show that could conceivably work in an episode titled "Hot Tub Time Machine," this is the show. Peter had no idea his dad was even into skiing, and Walter brags that he was once quite the "hotdogger" and tells his poor son about a secret trail called "the backside" because it was a nude ski run: "By the time you got down to the bottom, your testicles would be in your mouth." Pretty much whatever you do nude, if your testicles wind up in your own mouth? You're probably not doing it right.
Naturally, the Bishop boys stroll up to Olivia just as Walter gets to the balls-in-mouth part of the story, and Peter says, "I'm sure Agent Dunham is very thankful for that image," and he tells Olivia that Walter is advocating a father-son trip. Walter is very awkward with Olivia (and she with him) as he says that Olivia's probably not interested in that, and then all business-like says he understands there's a body to look at.
Yay, Broyles is back this week too! I wonder if he and Peter went somewhere during their week off, like Vegas. Anyway, he explains to the Fringe crew that the dead woman is Miranda Green, 30 years old, unmarried attorney: "EMTs responded to a 911 call phoned in by a Good Samaritan. She was dead by the time they got there," he says.
They arrive in the morgue while the post-mortem is actually going on, and Broyles introduces the medical examiner t
o the crew, but he already knows Walter and is quite excited to see him: "John Potash. I took your Advanced Biochem seminar, Dr. Bishop," he says, sticking his hand out to shake. Walter apologizes, as he seems to remember being a bit of a slave driver, and Potash agrees, but also says Walter was inspiring. "The truth is I was considering changing majors, but you encouraged me to stick with it and become a doctor." And look at you now! "Your father is a great man," Potash tells Peter.Olivia interrupts the love-in to ask which one Miranda Green is, and Potash leads the way, warning them as he uncovers the corpse that this might be a bit unpleasant, but they're mostly unfazed as they look at Miranda's blister-covered body. Walter, in particular, has lost all of his newly regained awkwardness and is practically giddy as he examines the body and rattles off the symptoms: "Epidermal blistering. Tissue necrosis, symptomatic of cytotoxins," he says, and asks Peter to get a sample of the pus. Peter is thrilled that he always gets the "good jobs."
Broyles lets everyone know that Miranda's coworkers say she was fine when she left for lunch, which was only two hours before the 911 call. Meanwhile, Walter and his former student examine the body, with the ME saying that he thinks the injuries are contact burns from some sort of synthetic chemical, but Walter says they look more like malignant tumours -- sarcomas, to be exact. "But that kind of cancer presents beneath the skin, not on the surface," says Potash, who apparently didn't learn everything Walter knows. Walter asks if Potash has a black light, and Potash goes to get it, and let's assume that there's a legitimate reason for a morgue to have one and not because Potash uses it to check large bills when he turns the morgue into a prostitution service like in Night Shift. Anyway, Walter says cancers always start with a specific point of origin and spread, so the cells near the point of origin should show more progression and therefore refract a different colour. Sure enough, where most of the spots on her body glow bright yellow-green, there's a rough handprint in orangey-pink on her arm. "Right hand, I'd say, which indicates not only what killed this woman, but also who," he says, triumphantly. Potash isn't convinced, though, because Walter is suggesting that someone touched this woman and gave her cancer. "It seems you've forgotten my very first lesson, doctor," says Walter. Is it "ingest massive quantities of mind-altering drugs"? Well, not exactly. But it's "when you open your mind to the impossible, sometimes you find the truth," which means pretty much the same thing with Walter.
And since Potash was apparently not one of Walter's better students, Dr. Bishop is now doing his own autopsy in his Harvard lab, while Astrid reports on the weather forecast -- snow week -- in Atlantic City for Walter, but she's not sure why he needs that info. "I was thinking of taking Peter there. He used to love saltwater taffy as a child," says Walter. And now that the mystery of Atlantic City is worked out, Astrid wants to know why they're cutting off Miranda's arm, and Walter says the handprint shows extraordinary levels of cellular detail: "I'm hoping to be able to remove the tumour and bake the skin and hopefully identify a fingerprint," he says, adding that they need two hot baths and an oven.
"You really think someone may have touched her and given her cancer?" asks Astrid, and Walter calls it a "terrifying possibility" but a possibility nonetheless. Oh, and they also need glycerin, corn starch, and food colouring. Food colouring? asks a skeptical Astrid. "Well, not for her, but since we're baking, we may as well make some taffy," he says brightly, and gets back to work SAWING OFF A CANCER-RIDDEN DEAD WOMAN'S ARM.
Over at Miranda's law office, a Mr. Messing explains to Olivia and Peter that he worked with Miranda for seven years, and she was fairly private, but if she were sick, he thinks someone would have known. Olivia wants to know what kind of cases she worked on. "Mostly toxic tort litigation," he says. "Class-action stuff. Asbestos, lead poisoning. She had a real thing about protecting those who couldn't protect themselves."
They walk into Miranda's office, and survey a table covered in books, connected to her current case. "She was prepping a case against Intrepus Pharmaceuticals. Trial was supposed to start week," says Messing, and Peter suspiciously wants to know how much money was at stake. "North of eight figures," says Messing, and then realizes what Peter's driving at: "Wait, are you suggesting that, that someone did this to her? I thought she contracted some kind of crazy disease." Olivia says they're not sure but they like to be thorough, and she asks if they can take her files on the Intrepus case, and despite this being a case involving apparently tens of millions of dollars, Messing just says, "Of course," like that would ever happen ever.
Peter brings over Miranda's appointment book, and shows it to Messing, asking if he recognizes any of the names. The first two appointments are for deposition prep, says Messing, but he doesn't recognize the name "Neil Wilson," which was her lunch date.
So Olivia and Peter drive back to Boston, with Peter wondering if Olivia really thinks that Intrepus killed Miranda, even though HE'S the one who seems to be pushing that theory. Olivia says "maybe," and Peter's doubtful because he says he's never heard of a drug that can do what was done to Miranda, although I've gotta say that it's kind of an odd assumption to make that if a drug company wanted someone dead, they'd use DRUGS. In fact you'd think they'd AVOID using drugs to avoid suspicion. But there's also this: "It just seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to kill somebody. Why not just hire a hit man?" he asks. "Well, a hit man would draw too much attention," says Olivia. Peter: "Really? And spontaneous, fatal tumour growth wouldn't?" Olivia concedes the point.
They stop in front of Peter's house to let him off, and as he gets out of the car, he invites Olivia to come inside so they can order a pizza and "noodle" on it, like the Fringe team is some kind of jam band like Phish or something, and Olivia begs off, since she didn't get much sleep the night before, so she should head home. Also, she's not hungry, and plus she can't bear to not tell you that you're actually from another universe, and you should shave more often. All those excuses seem to be enough for Peter, who says "all right." And while it's true Olivia didn't get a whole lot of sleep the night before, she doesn't seem to be getting a whole lot of sleep tonight, either.
So eventually Olivia drags herself into work, where Walter and Astrid are hard at work trying to get a fingerprint and/or making saltwater taffy. Probably both, since Astrid warns Walter not to "mix up the spoons." She tells Olivia that she ran Neil Wilson's phone number, which turned out to be a disposable cellphone that was deactivated yesterday. Olivia doesn't want her to bother running down the more than fifty Neil Wilsons in the tri-state area, since it's likely it was a fake name in the first place.
Olivia asks Astrid to give Walter and her a moment alone, which she does, and Walter obliviously asks Olivia to help him stir. When she doesn't respond, he looks at her and realizes she's got more on her mind than saltwater taffy. "Walter, I have to tell him. I've got to tell Peter the truth," she says, and Walter urgently tells her that wasn't what they discussed. Olivia says she's sorry, but Peter deserves to know the truth about who he is. Plus Olivia needs to get some shuteye! "No, you don't understand. Things have never been better between us. I can't lose him again. I can't," he says.
Olivia, rather optimistically, says Peter will be cool with it once he knows the whole story, since Walter saved his life. "He will never forgive me," says Walter, which seems reasonable, considering how long a grudge Peter carried against his father even after seventeen y
ears in a mental institution. Olivia considers this, rejects it: "I have to tell him. If it was the other way around, I would want him to tell me," she says, and Walter begs her to at least give him time to prepare, which is when Peter strolls in with the morning coffee order, and he's surprised to see Olivia there, otherwise he would have brought her one too, and it must be nice for Olivia that she doesn't have to get her ass out of bed as early as the rest of them seem to. Olivia gives Walter a quick nod.Then she answers her cellphone, and then gets off to let the rest of the team know that Miranda used her credit card at a downtown Providence café about half an hour before she died. "Sounds like her meeting with Neil Wilson. Excellent. Well, I'm up for a road trip. How about you?" says Peter, and Olivia heads out the door, with a quick glance back at Walter, who looks like he might burst into tears at any moment.
So at the café, the barista remembers the "pretty lady" and says she comes in all the time, and knows she's a lawyer. Olivia asks if he remembers if she was with anyone the last time she was there. "Some guy. She was taking all sorts of notes. What, does she sue doctors or something?" asks the guy, explaining that the guy she was with was real pale and skinny, with dark circles under his eyes. Great. Fringe team, be on the lookout for Robert Pattinson. "Looked like my uncle did when he was fighting cancer," says the barista.
As they leave the coffee shop, Olivia asks Peter if he's thinking what she's thinking. Probably not, unless Olivia is picturing herself naked. "I'm thinking that cancer isn't contagious," says Peter, but Olivia thankfully points out it wouldn't be the strangest thing they've seen: "But it would be close."
And there's "Neil Wilson," looking a lot healthier, strolling through a grocery store, putting some fruit in his basket -- and can I just say how annoying it is that the grocery store near my new house doesn't HAVE baskets, like if I just need a few things I've either got to juggle them or haul some huge shopping cart through the store? ANYWAY, the cashier rings through all his healthy fruit and protein shakes and wheatgrass or whatever, and asks if he's getting ready for a triathlon. "Just trying to stay healthy," he says, and as if on cue he starts to seem queasy. The concerned cashier asks if he needs her to call for some help. He says no and tries to shrug it off, but then runs outside to vomit, which probably freaked her out, but it's not anything the night shift at any 24-hour grocery store hasn't seen before.
After the commercial break, "Neil," looking as sweaty and awful as he did during his meeting with Miranda, is back in his apartment, on the phone, identifying himself as an "old friend" of Mr. Becker's. He has a coughing fit, and then says, "Oh, I must have the wrong Lloyd Becker. I'm sorry to bother you," and hangs up. He sits down with great difficulty, and crosses a "Lloyd Becker" off a list in the phone book, and picks up the phone to make another call.
Back at the Harvard lab, Walter's working away when Olivia comes in to tell him that Miranda Greene had lunch with someone who may have had cancer just before she died. "Cancer isn't contagious, of course," says Walter. Sounds like someone needs to open his mind up to the impossible! "Although... are you familiar with the Chinese notion of Ch'i?" he asks, and she is not, which means Walter gets to explain that the Chinese believe that all living creatures contain an energy, Ch'i, and that with proper training, a simple touch can reverse it, causing sickness or even death, and he talks about the "dim mak" which Peter knows is "the touch of death," which he calls just a legend, so obviously he hasn't seen Kill Bill, because that shit is real.
"Of course, what would be more interesting wouldn't be a transfer of energy, but an exchange," says Walter, who then shoehorns in a discomfort-inducing comparison to tantric sex as an experience in which couples seek to exchange energy, only with Miranda it was more sinister: "His cancer, for her health. It's possible that the man that Miss Greene met did this to her as a way to delay the progression of his own disease."
Meanwhile, "Neil Wilson," looking like hell, is knocking on the door of Apartment 304 somewhere, which is opened by Lloyd Becker, who greets "Neil Wilson," or, as he's calling himself now, "Alex Taylor." He thanks Lloyd for seeing him, and Lloyd puts out his hand for Neil/Alex to shake. Alex hesitates, but then pulls his gloved hand out of his pocket and shakes Lloyd's hand, then comes into the apartment.
Immediately we cut to Broyles strolling through the apartment with the Fringe folks, telling them the victim's name was Lloyd Becker, thirty years old. "A neighbour saw his door open. She came in and discovered his body. There's no sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle," he says. We see the former Lloyd Becker sitting at a table, skin covered in the same malignant sarcomas that were all over Miranda Greene. Broyles says police canvassed the building and neighbourhood but didn't find anyone who saw the suspect. Walter doesn't need a black light this time to see that the malignancies started in Becker's hand and spread out, and Peter suggests it came from a handshake. Meanwhile, Olivia's searching the apartment, but she can't find anything that would indicate why Lloyd Becker was chosen as a victim.
Outside, Peter and Olivia are going to making the trip back without Walter, who gets to ride in the ambulance with Becker's body. All the better for Peter to stare at Olivia until she asks him what's up, and he says that he thinks he knows what's bothering her, why she's been so awkward around him lately. Olivia looks kind of terrified, but what Peter's on about is something that she's probably already forgotten about: that they almost kissed. "We were both exhausted. We were both emotional. And, you know, if something had happened between the two of us, I mean, if we had actually kissed, then we'd have to deal with that, but we don't," he says, and Olivia, looking kind of relieved that Peter isn't talking about how awesome it is to totally be from the universe that they're actually in right now.
He babbles about how this is the longest he's ever stayed in one place, so he doesn't want to jeopardize the little "family unit" they seem to have going on. "I don't either," says Olivia, but she looks like either she feels guilty or has decided not to tell Peter anything. "OK, so we're good then, right?" says Peter. Well, good isn't exactly the word I'd choose.
Back at the lab, Astrid has discovered a few more deaths that fit the pattern of rapid-onset cancer, for a total of five over the past 20 months from Chicago to Harford. What this means is she gets to pin pictures of a map. "So what is it about these people that's making them targets? Astrid, we need to cross-reference their files, see if we can find what they may have in common," says Olivia. Astrid says she's on it. Olivia puts her finger on the photo of a Timothy Ober, who, near as I can tell from the lines and numbers, was killed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "Is his middle name Michael?" she asks, and Astrid says, "Yeah, Timothy Michael Ober," like I think we know how middle names work, ASTRID. Peter asks if she knows the guy. She does, but she's not sure how.
Back at her place, Olivia is studying the files and -- big surprise -- drinking, when there's a knock on her door. Given that it's quarter past midnight according to her microwave clock, she picks up her gun before she goes to answer the door but sets it aside after looking through the peephole.
She opens the door. It's Sam. "What's up, buttercup?" he says. "It's past midnight," she says, sounding more surprised than annoyed or creeped out, like she maybe should be. "Do you feel like playing a game?" he says, and if he's going to talk like Jigsaw then maybe Olivia wants to pick her gun back up. Anyway, he pulls out the boardgame Clue. And says he thou
ght it might be up her alley.So they play Clue, with Sam guessing "Colonel Mustard with the revolver in the billiard room." "See, that's the third time that you've guessed the billiard room," points out Olivia. His excuse is that he always wanted a billiard room, but Olivia figures it's more that he's a shitty detective. "I detected that you needed company," says Sam, and I hate to tell him that the jury's kind of still out on that one. He also points out that she's lived here a while but is apparently still living out of boxes: "Maybe you moved around a lot as a kid. A tumultuous childhood. A hard time forming relationships." Olivia just looks at him. "I may not be the gumshoe you are, but I've got some skills," he says. She tells him that he's right about moving around a lot, because she was a military brat, which he says explains "the uniform" but she doesn't know what he means. "Bland clothes. I don't think I've ever seen you in a primary colour. It's because it's more than a job to you. You're a soldier. Protector," he says, and she jokes that he would be a blast at dinner parties. "I don't get invited to many," he admits.
So she asks him what made him the way he is, and he says he's older than he looks: "I barely remember my childhood. I'm also taller than I appear," he says. This triggers something in Olivia. "That's it," she says, and rummages in her desk until she finds a notepad with "HEIGHT CHARTS NAMES" on the top. Looking at the list, you can see "Miranda G.," "Lloyd B.," and "Timothy O.," among many others.
So it's her turn to pay a late-night visit, to the Bishops' house, where a bathrobe-clad Peter opens the door. Olivia explains about the height chart in the classroom in Jacksonville, with all the kids from the Cortexiphan trials, and says she wrote them down. She points out Timothy O. "So that's where you remembered him from," says Peter. Olivia tells him to keep looking, and he sees Miranda G. and Lloyd B., and Olivia points out Julie H. and Alan D., the other victims, so for some reason this guy is killing Cortexiphan kids. "I think we should wake up Walter," says Olivia, but there's no need because Walter is of course still up, pulling his taffy in the kitchen.
Walter seems somewhat disconcerted to see Olivia and Peter together, but cheerfully asks if it's morning already, and Peter grouches that it's "still the middle of the night" like GO BACK TO BED THEN but if you're going to stay up then please stop complaining, and Olivia wants to know what "that smell" is, and Walter thinks she's talking about the taffy, but she's actually talking about the little mini-pizza-looking thing in the oven. Well, that would be the sample of arm with the handprint from Miranda Greene, baking in the oven. "I think we're close to getting a fingerprint. The papillary ridges on the forefingers are quite clear now. Once it's cooled a little, I should be able to run it through the scanner," says Walter, who is then surprised and disturbed to hear that the killer appears to be targeting Cortexiphan subjects. He doesn't have any idea why someone would do that, but he has an idea why the Cortexiphan kids (and really, can't you just see The Cortexiphan Kids as, at the very least, a Saturday morning cartoon?) might be susceptible: "The energy exchange that this man is creating, I don't think it would work on everyone. Cortexiphan was designed to allow children to access untapped parts of their brain, untapped energies," he says, so it's possible that whatever he's doing could only work on the Cortexiphan kids.
So Peter figures the question now is how does the guy know about the Cortexiphan trials, and how is he tracking down the children? Walter says he never kept a list of the children that he experimented on (really? That must be the ONLY thing related to his experiments that Walter didn't squirrel away somewhere) and if Bell had a list, Walter never saw it. Olivia suggests Nina Sharp might have one, since that's right around when she started working with Bell. Peter says they asked last year when Agent Harass was tracking down Nick Lane (you know, the guy who makes people want to kill themselves or others) and Nancy Lewis (the firestarter!), and Nina said she didn't have a list, so Olivia points out that Nina doesn't exactly have an open-book policy when it comes to providing the Fringers with information (and I'm kind of surprised that Paranoid Peter is so willing to accept what Nina said at face value).
Anyway, Olivia's off to Massive Dynamic to give Nina the Cole's Notes version of what they've learned, and she asks Nina if Bell ever showed her a list of Cortexiphan subjects. The answer's no, just as it for Olivia's follow-up question about whether there's anything in the Massive Dynamic archives. "As I've told you before, there's nothing on record. Do you doubt me, Agent Dunham?" asks Nina, a little more perturbed than she really ought to be, given that she does withhold information. Olivia points out that the information Nina has held back has prevented her from understanding the origin of "many, if not all" of the cases she's worked on. Plus, she knows about Peter! Nina seems surprised by this and asks if Olivia's told him.
"No. But I'm going to," says Olivia, but Nina doesn't buy it, because Olivia hasn't told him already: "And I'm guessing you've had any number of opportunities," she said. Olivia says that she's had her reasons for waiting, but it's the right thing to do and Peter deserves to know the truth. Nina's calling her bluff, though, saying she recognizes the look in Olivia's eyes: "I know that working together closely with someone can bring about feelings. I'm fairly certain that you're not prepared to lose him. You didn't come here today to ask me about a list that you already knew I don't have. And you didn't come here to announce that you're going to tell Peter who he really is. You came here to have me talk you out of it." Olivia can't really say anything, not even a "'Fraid not!"
A woman works on a jigsaw puzzle of Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam," using a magnifying glass to help her see the small pieces. It's mostly finished, and she puts a piece that makes up the gap between Adam's and God's index fingers just as there's a knock on the door. She goes to answer it, and it's Neil Wilson/Alex Taylor, only he's now calling himself "John McHugh," and he tells Mrs. Lane that he went to school with her son Nick. She corrects him, that Nick is actually her nephew, and then invites him in because he looks awful, which is bad news for Mrs. Lane. I don't think that puzzle's going to get finished. I mean, she's not a Cortexiphan kid, but she's probably dead anyway, right?
Over in the lab, Walter carefully handles the cancer pizza while Peter puts together some sort of machinery, with Walter "helpfully" telling him that the red wire goes in the red hole, and the blue wire ... well, that's enough, because Peter and his genius-level IQ are insulted.
He asks Olivia how it went with Nina, and Olivia casually says that Nina didn't have anything, and asks how things are going with the cancer pizza. Peter doesn't seem to have high expectations, but Walter tells him not to be so skeptical, especially since he "liked the taffy," didn't he? Peter's all "absolutely!" to his dad but mutters "I have my doubts" to Olivia.
So Walter has the cancer pizza on a photocopier that is "familiarizing itself with the genetic composition," or some such nonsense, and dismissing the foreign elements until it isolates the fingerprint. "It's amazing how much filth we carry around on our hands," says Walter, as he rubs his hands with some sanitizer.
So anyway, everyone is happy to see that the machine managed to snag a fingerprint, and Peter gives his dad a literal pat on the back. Olivia tells Astrid to run the print through the joint law enforcement database, like Astrid has done this before. It's not like Astrid's going to take a picture of the fingerprint around to other agents and ask if anyone recognizes it.
Unfortunately, the fingerprint scan turns up
nothing. The dude's not in their system. "So we're nowhere," says a frustrated Walter. Well, not nowhere. Everyone can chew on some delicious taffy!Meanwhile, Nick Lane's aunt is still alive and remembering Lloyd Becker (whom she calls a "sweet boy" and not a "budding sociopath), who "John McHugh" says told him he could find Nick here. Turns out that Nick lived here after his parents died, but moved to Brooklyn several years ago, but she doesn't have a phone number. "I haven't heard from him for some time," she says. Oh, no. Well, the news isn't good, lady; I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a phone call. "It's funny, though. Someone else from Jacksonville came by, oh, six months ago, asking for Nick. She must have gone to school with you as well." Neil/Alex/John asks if Mrs. Lane remembers her name.
Back at her apartment, Olivia is studying the files again, again with a glass of whisky in her hand. "God, what am I missing?" she says, which you can barely hear over the rattle of ice cubes in her glass. Suddenly something seems to connect in her head, and she looks at the file for one of the victims and again at her handwritten list of Cortexiphan kids, and gives God himself (also known as Broyles) a call, while she starts getting ready to go out.
"I think I may have found our killer. His name is James Heath, and he was a Cortexiphan subject too," she says, and Broyles recognizes the last name as being the same as the first victim's. "Julie Heath. She was his sister. James was in the hospital. She was visiting him, and she just suddenly collapsed and died. He was having chemo treatment. He had cancer."
She gives him the name of the hospital -- Abington Memorial Hospital, just outside Philadelphia -- and he says he'll check to see if they've got a current address for him. She thanks him, hangs up and heads out the door, only to see Mr. Heath himself standing in the hallway, looking like hell. "You're Olivia Dunham. You probably don't remember me. My name is Nate Reed." False alarm, Olivia! It's some guy named Nate Reed! It's not James Heath at all! "Nick Lane gave me your address?" he says. Well, she knows that's not true.
After the commercial break, Heath tells Olivia that they went to school together back in Jacksonville, and she does her best to pleasantly ask what she can do for him. "I was hoping you'd have a few minutes to talk." She says sure and invites him in, but as she slooowwly turns and unlocks her apartment door, he spots her badge hooked on her belt.
She looks back at him, and realizes the jig is up, so she quickly tries to duck in the apartment and close the door, but he's already on his way in, and he slams the door against her, knocking her against the wall before she falls and drops her gun. He pauses in the doorway, coughing, before advancing on her, kicking her gun out of the way. She grabs a floor lamp and beats him with it, without even saying anything cool like "Let's shed some LIGHT on the situation," and he falls to the floor.
She scrabbles for the phone and calls Peter, who's all "whassup!" and she screams out that the dude is in her house. The dude, meanwhile, is getting to her feet, and he chases her, grabbing her (fortunately clothed) leg, tripping her up. She kicks him off and runs to the kitchen, where she grabs a candlestick (also considered: the rope, the revolver, the lead pipe, the knife and the wrench) and clobbers him across the head with it. "You stay down!" she orders him.
But he's looking at her whisky-soaked files that have fallen to the floor, including a picture of a young girl who I'm going to assume is his sister.
"I didn't want this. I didn't want to hurt anyone," he says, so Olivia wants to know why he did, then. Heath, still on the floor, says a man came to see him when he was in the hospital: "He said when I was a kid, scientists had experimented on me, that because of the experiments, he could teach me how to fight the cancer. But it didn't work. I didn't get better. I got worse."
Olivia asks what happened to his sister, and James says she stayed with him while he was in the hospital. She'd hold his hand when the pain got bad, for hours: "And then, one day, it just happened. I called the nurses for help, but it was too late. I watched her die." "But you got better," says Olivia. Well, not exactly.
James says he had to find the man who visited him, and he thought someone from Jacksonville might know him. That's when he found Timothy. "And you killed him too," says Olivia, not exactly long on sympathy here. James says it wasn't on purpose, but that when he realized how the power worked. Haltingly -- he seems to be getting worse by the moment -- James says, "I think if that man had never come to see me, I would have died the way I was supposed to, and my sister would still be alive. They'd all still be alive."
While James cries over the pictures of his victims, a cop yells "in here!" and walks in with his gun drawn, and Olivia tells him it's OK, and then up is PETER, like NICE EMERGENCY RESPONSE for the guy who can give people cancer just by touching them. A uniform and Peter. Have no fear, Olivia!
Later, Olivia watches as Heath is trundled off into an ambulance, and Peter strolls over and asks why she called him instead of Broyles. "I have you on speed-dial," she says, and Peter pops a boner and can't believe he's No. 1 on Olivia Dunham's speed-dial, so she brings him down to earth by telling him that he's not, but she didn't think Rachel or Mr. Iyer from the Indian takeout would have been much use. He laughs, and she seems to be able to look directly at him for more than two seconds for the first time this episode, and she quietly and sincerely thanks him for coming. "You're welcome," he says.
Elsewhere in an austere facility that can't possibly be a hospital so I'm just going to assume it's a Massive Dynamics lab, Broyles and Nina watch James Heath, asleep, through an observation window. Broyles explains that Heath is in a drug-induced coma, which seems to have stopped the progression of his cancer. Nina asks if they know who it was who tried to activate him. "He sounds like the same man whom Sanford Harass hired to activate Nancy Lewis and Nick Lane," says Broyles, adding that he figures the activation failed and the cancer-transmission was an unfortunate side effect.
Nina figures Broyles didn't call her all the way down here just to share in his victory, which is about the driest, most boring acknowledgement of a booty call I've ever heard. But Broyles just wants to point out that there are nearly a dozen people unaccounted for from the Jacksonville experiments, and 30 more from the drug trials in Wooster. "If they all have capabilities anything like the ones we've seen, and if someone were to find them..." Nina says they need to find them first.
Over at the Bishop house, Walter answers the front door to Olivia, and he steps aside to let her in. She asks if Peter's there, but Walter says his son went out, which Olivia says is good because she needs to talk to Walter.
"I think that you may be right. I think that maybe some truths can do more harm than good, and that some Pandora's boxes are better left unopened." She's not gonna tell Peter.
Walter thanks her, but he's got something of his own to say: "The truth is I've done enough damage, and it's time to start to put things right, whatever the consequences. And that starts with telling Peter the truth. I have to tell him who he really is." Pacey?
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter, and he is reluctant to track down old classmates on Facebook, let alone give them cancer. Follow him on Twitter or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.