Fringe: Ability

Comic Con suddenly made this show cool again.  Suddenly, nobody’s half as annoying as they were before.  Except the writers, who are still kind of awful.

Oh, and then there’s the thing with … just kidding!  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  What kind of time travel show do you think this is?

Previously on Fringe: Mr. Jones escaped a fake German prison!  The show recaps it all for us.  Here you go.  Oh Cromwell, we hardly knew ye.  Olivia visits the Bishops for a refresher before meeting with Former Agent Loeb, Jones’s only known colleague.  Doc explains the transporter and how Mr. Jones “zapped” his way out of prison via the device.  Then he explains how his transporter is different from Gene Roddenberry’s, so it’s not quite the same as stealing.  Doc’s device lets you travel through time, whereas Gene’s was only about space.  See?  Completely different.  Also, rematerializing through Doc’s machine has some painful and uncomfortable side effects.  No one mentions the word “impossible.”

In a warehouse, Jones emerges from a sealed chamber, recovering from the bends, and thanks a group of men for their hard work and sacrifices.  Somewhere along the mean streets, a man wearing glasses buys a newspaper from Tommy the Cinephile with a two dollar bill.  After fondling it fondly, Tommy’s eyes and mouth start to seal shut!  He’s blinded and suffocating, and anyone who’s ever had a nightmare about being unable to speak, scream or shout sits and watches this, tense and agitated.  I hope I’m not just talking about me, folks.  In a crowd full of screaming people, Tommy suffocates and dies.

Olivia meets with Loeb, who tells her only that Jones is a part of the army, and that “what is written will come to pass.”  Off of that, Olivia cleverly deduces that ZFT might refer to Jones’s bible as opposed to the name of his terrorist group.  Which leads her to a self-published book, out of print and rare.  She implores Peter to use one of his “weird” connections to find a copy, and lo and behold!  Peter knows a shady book collector!  He’s like Exposition: all of these impossible people he knows.  Shouldn’t Peter be rich and running the world or something with all of these connections?  Hey, maybe Peter’s William Bell!

Back at the FBI building, David, of Damages fame, finds Charlie Francis and presents information on Jones’s businesses that might be filtering money to the ZFT, complete with addresses.  Note the red tie, and no, that’s not a Valentine’s Day reference.  Further scrubbing on the addresses finds a warehouse that restarted its electricity two weeks ago, exactly when Jones escaped.  Finally, real detective work!  But wait!  Before Broyles can call a strike force, Jones pulls a John Doe, entering the FBI Lobby and demanding to speak to Olivia.  I hope he doesn’t give her any gifts.

The best part of this scene by the way, is Francis yelling, “Eeeeverbody Dooown!”  He spent the first half of the episode in semi-Exposition mode, and spends the second half shouting out cop phrases.  Unintentionally hilarious, but I laughed nonetheless.

In the interrogation room, Harris keeps Olivia from meeting with Jones, because he has a bigger penis and he can piss farther than everybody else.  She pushes the theory that Jones is connected to Tommy’s death, but Harris insists that she provide some evidence to back up her theory.  Doesn’t Harris know that logic doesn’t apply to the Fringe department?  Off Olivia goes to join the raid, for once following orders.  A phone call from Peter catches her up on his discovery of the earliest, type-written copy of the ZFT book, a manifesto against technology.  Or something.  I’ve seen it twice and I’m still barely following.  He quotes, specifically, “Our technological ambitions have not only driven us to the brink of catastrophe, the catastrophe has already begun.  What will the apocalypse look like?”  The Matrix! Just kidding.  It will look like “warfare.”  That answer seems obvious, but maybe there’s a double meaning in there we don’t know about.  Let’s hope, because otherwise, snooze.

Olivia’s team raids the warehouse, evidence proving it belonged to Jones.  Then David and his red tie find a two dollar bill.  This isn’t CSI, so he doesn’t put on rubber gloves first.  Just picks it up like an amateur.  Guess what happens?  Screaming!  Sealing orifices!  Poor David.  If he’s not having his head bashed in with the Statue of Liberty, he’s suffocating on his own skin.  Well.  That’s what you get for wearing a red tie.

Back at the FBI building, Olivia wins her argument and so interrogates an increasingly ill Jones.  He sends Olivia to an amusement park to pick up a package he left there for her.  Not a box! He left a test for her, which she must pass, or else the virus that attacked Tommy and David will be unleashed on the city.  It will go off, bomb-like, in sixteen hours, unless she can disarm it.  He doesn’t hide the information, or the fact that he won’t help – she must do this on her own.

Jones’s box is filled with 10 games, or tests, the first of which Olivia must pass before visiting Jones again.  The instructions read like the text of the ZFT book, which is Doc’s new favorite reading material.  Olivia must use her mind to turn off all of the lights in a small lightbox.  Was I the only one rolling my eyes?  She doesn’t of course, and in her frustration returns to Jones, angry and demands that he quit his game.  He reveals that she was treated with an experimental drug, Cortexiphan, as a child, and that she had been kidnapped to confirm this.  Then, naturally, he collapses, all de-molecular-ized, and Olivia transfers him to Doc’s Lab.

Olivia visits Nina Sharp regarding Cortexiphan, a clinical trial drug created by Dr. William Bell in 1981.  Basically, anyone who took it would develop differently, possibly with enhancements.  The trials were conducted at Ohio State University, by Dr. Bell, before being abandoned in 1983 for having failed.  Since Olivia grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, Jones was wrong and she’s off the hook.

Back at the Lab, Olivia and Peter rig the lightbox so they can trick Jones into thinking she’s passed.  He happily upholds his end of the bargain, and tells her where to find the bomb.  She and Peter rush over, and there it is again – a high-powered lightbox bomb, set to go off in four minutes.  Just like the one Olivia faked her way through!  She calls Jones, and tries to talk her way out of it, but no one’s surprised when that doesn’t work.  She must use her mind, or the bomb will explode.

She tries to do it, and Peter bails, because he doesn’t want to die.  Except, oh wait!  There he is!  He comes back, just as Olivia succeeds, somehow using her mind to turn off the lights with two seconds left.  Later, she refuses to believe she did anything, while Peter believes something happened.  He’s all for drinks to celebrate not exploding, but Olivia opts to visit Jones at the hospital to find some answers.

As a quick aside, Doc reveals the effects of the Transporter won’t kill you, but they will do something unthinkable to you.

So let’s think about it!  Olivia arrives at Jones’s hospital room to find a giant hole in the wall where he Hulk-smashed his way through, and escaped!  Not so sick, really, is he anymore?  He leaves a note on the wall saying, “You passed.”  Later, Olivia receives a call from Nina Sharp, who informs her that another trial was in place in Jacksonville, Florida, where Olivia grew up, on an army base, with her father.  Uh oh.

Back at the lab, Doc rifles through the manifesto, and notices a slight hiccup in the typeface.  The “y” is slightly askew throughout the printout.  He pulls out his old typewriter and types the word “Ability.”  The “y” is slightly askew.  Uh oh indeed.

Next week: Nothing!  Because it’s another break!  Every time this show gets going, they stop dead.

So here’s my issue.  A good episode, yes, but this Olivia’s got powers thing feels like it’s coming out of left field, much like time travel feels on Lost.  I know they’ve hinted that Olivia is special, but this is where they were going?  I’m a little disappointed.  It seems easy and a lot less interesting than all of the other places they could have gone.  I wasn’t even turned off by the German manifesto until I learned Olivia might be a superhero.

As for the rest of them, Joshua Jackson looks like he lied about Peter at Comic Con, since this week Peter did everything Josh said he wouldn’t do.  I think I need to find some private time with Mr. Jackson to get to the bottom of this.  And by alone, I mean … Happy Valentine’s Day to me!  Good night, everybody!

Season 1, Episode 14: Ability (originally aired February 10, 2009)

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