Fringe: The Same Old Story

I hope you liked Fringe’s Pilot, because Episode 2 looks so much like it, thank god the plot is a poor man’s Twilight Zone episode.  But be not discouraged, viewers – it’s still an entertaining, gross, and mystery-laden night!

Another motel room, another post-coital, illicit couple.  This time a hooker and her john, who we’ll call Christopher (as it’s revealed later).  Her name is Amber-Loraine.  He re-dresses and takes a satchel into the bathroom, which unrolls to reveal a series of cutting instruments.  He loads a syringe.  As he prepares to do awful things to Amber-Loraine, she screams in the other room.  Her stomach distends and something moves underneath her skin.  Total buzzkill.  Christopher freaks, packs up his evidence quickly, shoves her into his car, drops her off at the closest hospital, and disappears.

Inside, Amber-Loraine looks nine months huge, but screams she isn’t pregnant.  In surgery, a doctor shouts the need to remove the baby immediately, no time for anesthetic.  Remind me never to get injured in Boston.  Just as they prepare to cut, there’s a horrible ripping sound.  Amber-Loraine collapses, dead, and they cut the baby out.  Only when they do, one murse vomits, another murse stares in horror, and another nurse screams her head off.

Boston at night.  In a conference room, Agent Broyles debriefs a small group, including Massive Dynamic’s Nina Sharp, about the incident/anomaly at the hospital.  We are not clued in on who these people are.  He introduces his new team for those of us at home that didn’t see the Pilot: Doctor Bishop, his son Peter, and Olivia.  We’re reminded they all have special qualities that make them useful to this project.

Another timely, early morning phone call to Olivia, and Broyles summons her to the hospital for investigatory purposes.  First stop: the Bishops, and there’s Peter, half-naked and scruffy. . .a good episode already!  Irritated, he goes to wake up Doc and finds him in the closet.  They exchange more backstory, then Doc tells of another patient who used to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” every night in the Institution.  Doc can’t sleep without hearing it, hence his being in a closet.  Or something.   Short version: Doc is ka-razy.

At the hospital, Peter makes it clear he’s there merely to babysit, and Broyles recaps the introduction.  In transit to ICU, the baby began to grow.  That’s it?  So why such a violent reaction of the hospital staff in the opening?  The newborn remained alive for thirty minutes before dying of natural causes.  Broyles brings them to the body, and they find an old man lying bloody on the floor with the umbilical cord still attached.  Broyles asks Doc how this might have happened, and though Peter doubts Doc has answers, Doc rattles off something about mitosis, reversing cell cycle inhibitors and catalysts.  I hope no one was expecting me to recap actual science.  We also learn Peter’s eyes were green when he was born.  Write that down.  Doc forgets he has a lab, but that’s where we’re headed next.

At the Harvard Lab, Broyles explains that a series of scientific experiments have been occurring that have his and other agencies on alert, and suggests a larger strategy in place, called the Pattern.  Olivia’s assistant appears to fulfill her sole purpose, which is Exposition, and tells them about the john.  Peter and Olivia head to the motel to investigate.  Olivia reads the clues around the room like this were an episode of Psych, but less funny, and recognizes the trail of a serial killer she once pursued while working with Agent Scott.   She explains the killer would murder five women over the course of a few days.  He brought them to motels, gave them a muscle paralyzer, and while awake, he’d make an incision in their gums to pull back their mouths and remove a piece of their brain through their nasal cavity.  I promised you gross.  They don’t see the connection to the baby, but she says if it’s the same guy, he will kill again.  She can’t trust her work with Scott, and feels the need to go over everything they worked on together.

Out in Stoughton, Mass., Christopher drives up with a hooker to a warehouse.  Romantic.  He distracts her by ordering her to stare out at the bridge, then unrolls his tools and syringe and, while they kiss, sticks her with the relaxant.

At Harvard, Doc’s exam of the “80-year-old man/baby” can only confirm the suspicion that Amber-Loraine was impregnated by a man who was the result of experiments like the ones Doc performed over thirty years ago, in this very lab.  Also, Doc remembers where he parked his car 17 years ago.  Off to another storage unit!  You know, there was a car in a storage unit in the Pilot.  Relevant?  JJ Abrams is all about clues, isn’t he?  Am I going to have to examine everything?  Well, just in case, the combination to the lock is 314159, and a black SUV drives by as they enter.  Peter pulls out a hand in a jar.  Why hasn’t anyone asked the Doc exactly what he worked on all those years ago?  Peter fixes the car to transport the station wagon full of files back to the Lab.

There, as they pull out the Doc’s old files, Doc rattles off science including “pituitary gland.”  Olivia perks up and says that’s the serial killer’s MO: remove the pituitary gland before overdosing victims on anesthesia.  Junior Agent Exposition uses the FBI database to find a Dr. Claus Penrose, a colleague of Doc’s back in the day who also ran similar rapid growth experiments.  On the way, Olivia contacts colleague Agent Francis to keep an eye out for their next victim.

In the warehouse in Stoughton, we watch as Christopher preps his girl for surgery and gets to work.  At Boston College, Olivia and Peter find Dr. Penrose.  Questioning produces no answers other than Doc Penrose was not proud of the experiments and resigned.  Peter thinks Penrose is holding back (duh).  Francis calls with the latest victim.  He transfers the corpse to the Lab.

Doc confirms the pituitary gland of the victim had been removed.  Cue The Twilight Zone intro.  He tells the story of how, once upon a time, his team was tasked to design a program to grow soldiers – if perfected, the baby would grow within 3 years to the ideal specifications.  The problem was finding a way to stop the aging process once the “person” had reached a desirable age.  The serial killer is the product of these experiments.  The Twilight Zone twist is not that premise, but the consequences of the action.  Scientific progress is great, but what are the societal ramifications?  Christopher kills to survive.  To slow the aging process, he must extract the hormones from the pituitary glands of his victims to stay young.  When Amber-Loraine accidentally became pregnant, the gene was passed on, and the man-baby was the result.

Interesting, yes, but it would be more interesting if we couldn’t already guess the end of the episode.  But no jumping ahead!  Because of Amber-Loraine’s pregnancy and screaming, the killer freaked out, and changed his MO.  Which is why the currently dead hooker was killed somewhere different.  This upsets Olivia because they now have no idea where to start searching.

Christopher walks through another warehouse, and is stopped by his father: Doc Penrose!  Penrose warns him to be more careful, and reminds him one more victim and the worsening pain will get better.

At the lab, Doc examines the hooker and channels Jules Verne, presenting the idea that the last image we see right at the moment of death is permanently imprinted on the retina of the victim’s eye.  Peter meets his skepticism quota for the episode, and Doc poignantly asks him when it was he lost his imagination.  This seems to hit home, so Peter mans up and plays along to solve the technicalities.

Peter meets Olivia at a park, and she apologizes for losing control.  Peter admits that he’s not proud of his father’s history, and she’s not alone.  He explains Jules Verne to her, and says they need a certain piece of equipment, and the only patent is owned by … Massive Dynamic.

As if enough weren’t happening in this episode.  Nina Sharp meets with Olivia and plays some head games, thanking Olivia for her discretion, bringing up Scott, and “not” suggesting she and Scott had a relationship.  Then she produces the electronic pulse camera the Bishops require.  Elsewhere, Christopher picks up his next victim at a bar, and we cut to the warehouse where he and Penrose are prepping her for surgery.

The Lab.  One eye removal later, Doc makes science magic happen, and they pick up the bridge the hooker saw.  No poking holes through this theory, viewers.  Too easy.  Exposition locates the warehouse, and Peter and Olivia run out, while Doc, the mad scientist, remains triumphantly behind.

The warehouse.  Olivia and Peter find Penrose poised over the victim.  Olivia leaves Peter with a gun and Penrose, then chases Christopher.  Penrose sabotages the victim’s fluids, sending her into cardiac arrest.  A waste of a scene follows, with the point being Peter had to let Penrose escape – he needs to save the woman, obviously.  Don’t worry, he does.  Meanwhile, chase scene redux!  Even as he rapidly ages, Olivia can’t keep up, until she finds Christopher collapsed down an alley, hidden in shadow.  He tells her that someone had paid Penrose, but the old man loved him like a son and couldn’t let him die.  The light reveals the face of an old, old man.  And then, unhelpfully, he dies.

Later, Olivia returns the camera to Sharp, who happily offers Olivia a job at Massive Dynamic, and equates the work there to fighting crime with the FBI.  Also, the position could speed up Olivia’s search for answers regarding the Pattern, among other things.

Cut to Broyles debriefing Olivia on Penrose’s disappearance.  Short story: he’s gone.  He reminds Olivia that the details of her job are classified, though certain civilians, like Sharp, have limited access.  He asks if Sharp commented or asked about the Pattern or the investigation.  Olivia tells him about the job offer.  Surprised, he asks about her response, and she tells him he’s giving her a raise.

Olivia is with the Bishops asking them to sign over their rights to the Federal Government.  Peter gets angry and refuses; Doc Bishop asks for a pen.  Peter stalks off, and Doc laments scientists who play God, like himself.  After all, if Olivia’s read his file, she knows the truth about Peter’s medical history.  She interrupts that there was no such history in the file.  Clearly, there’s no need to ask for her discretion then.  Hint hint hint.  Peter’s going to have a hell of a few episodes.  Eventually.

The episode ends with Doc trying to lull himself to sleep by rattling off numbers which are probably significant.  Peter finally starts singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” off-key.  Doc is confused and touched.  And we go to credits on “Life is but a dream.”  And the image of three dead (?) bodies in a room.  I have no idea what that means.

Tuesdays at 9/8C, Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox