Fringe

Last week's episode of Fringe could have been titled "The Case of the Rapidly Aging Man-Baby."  After a newborn developed into an elderly man in a matter of hours, Olivia and Peter tracked down the father, who was actually a lab experiment gone horribly awry.  In addition to that delightfully nasty storyline, Dr. Bishop revealed that some mysterious circumstances surrounded the birth of his son.  Was Peter grown in a lab?  Was he subjected to freaky experiments as a toddler?  We'll have to wait and see.

On tonight's episode of Fringe, the gang question a man who can predict Pattern-related catastrophes.  Perhaps he can help us understand what the heck The Pattern actually is, though I wouldn't bet on it.

A man enters the confessional at St. Anne's Cathedral and claims that the devil is speaking to him.  He sees horrible things before they happen, and he's especially freaked out since his latest sneak preview shows a man releasing a deadly toxin on a city bus.  The terrorist puts on a gas mask and escapes while the passengers freeze in place, dying almost instantly as an amber-like substance envelops them.

How great is the Twilight Zone-esque theme music for this show?  Michael Giacchino is a god.

Mark Valley is still listed in the opening credits of this series, even though the episode begins with Olivia attending his character's funeral.  I have a feeling he's going to return as a zombie sometime this season.  John's mother lays a guilt trip on Olivia using only her eyeballs, which is quite a talent.  Olivia still feels terrible about being used and abused by her two-faced beau.

Dr. Bishop (John Noble) has been making his own medication in his lab, which may explain why he's so crazy.  While he has lunch with Peter in a local diner, Peter sneaks off to rough up a photographer that's been following him around.  The guy is obviously following him for a reason, and whatever it is it's something that Peter would like to keep hidden.

The attack on the bus wasn't biological in nature, so what was it that froze and killed everyone?  Dr. Bishop takes some of the strange amber-like toxin back to his lab to check it out.  While there, he confronts Peter about his run in with the paparazzi, but his son acts coy and doesn't explain a thing.  Meanwhile, the terrorists dig through a bag that they snagged from a passenger on the bus, only to discover that it doesn't contain whatever they're looking for.

Olivia (Anna Torv) finds a video of the bus passengers and discovers that the missing bag belongs to a dead DEA agent.  She questions the woman's partner to find out what shady business she was involved in, and soon discovers that she had infiltrated a drug cartel that knew about The Pattern.  She allows the guy to spend a moment alone with his partner's body, which is a very bad idea.

Believe it or not, the gas on the bus was manufactured by Massive Dynamic.  They really do make everything under the sun, don't they?  Across town, the cops have found Premonition Guy's apartment, which is filled with drawings of deadly terrorist attacks.  Olivia rushes over to investigate, but something about the guy's demeanor makes her believe he's innocent.

While Charlie (Kirk Acevedo) questions Premonition Guy, aka Roy, about how he can draw things before they happen, Olivia visits Nina over at Massive Dynamic.  She wants to know why every case she investigates comes back to that company, and Nina claims that it's simply because they're so involved with all things scientific.  Nina also informs her that the gas was used one previous time in Prague.

Poor Roy.  If he were on Heroes he'd be using his power of premonition to save the world, but on Fringe he's simply haunted and disturbed.  He's been getting his visions for about nine months, which is the same amount of time the FBI has known about The Pattern.  Weird.  Dr. Bishop tries to explain that Roy is psychically linked to someone who is responsible for the terrible events.  Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick) thinks he's talking gibberish, but Bishop claims he can prove it.

Olivia confronts Broyles about the Prague incident, but he's playing the role of secretive FBI guy and refuses to tell her anything.  Meanwhile, Peter (Joshua Jackson) and his father begin their experiments on Roy.  They try to give him a CT scan, but the magnetic machine clashes with some substance in his blood and nearly rips his face apart.  Whoops!

After digging through some files, Bishop discovers that this entire case ties into experiments he used to conduct with William Bell, founder of Massive Dynamic.  Back in the day, the government wanted to create a "ghost network" to transmit information from one brain to another.  It'd be the perfect way to pass info around the globe without anyone intercepting it.  Bishop figures out that someone has perfected the ghost network, and Roy, who was once a guinea pig for the experiment, is intercepting what the human walkie talkies are doing.

Dr. Bishop's latest idea is to rewire Roy's brain so he'll be able to hear the ghost network instead of seeing it.  After Olivia and Peter retrieve some ancient equipment from the Bishop family home, the wacky surgery begins.  With the strange equipment sending electroshocks right into Roy's brain, Bishop begins showing him pictures and asking if he can hear them.  It's not long before Roy is speaking Latin and telling them that people will soon be meeting at a nearby train station to make an exchange.  He also says, "She had it on her the whole time," which helps Olivia realize that the dead DEA agent had a mysterious disc embedded inside her palm.  Unfortunately, her partner stole it when he visited the morgue.

Olivia rushes to South Station to stop the exchange from taking place.  While the terrorists make plans to meet, Roy begins reciting their conversation word for word despite being miles away.  This is quite a handy way to track people down, I must say.  Olivia is too late to stop the exchange, which provides a perfect opportunity for our weekly chase sequence.  Olivia and Charlie corner the guy and get the case, but he throws himself in front of a bus before they can take him in.

The case contains the same type of disc that was found in the dead DEA agent's hand.  While that's strange as all hell, the good news is that Roy is no longer receiving transmissions.  Once the ghost network was compromised the shady folks behind it likely shut it down for good.

As the episode comes to an end, Broyles has a mysterious late night meeting with Nina (Blair Brown).  He gives her the tiny disc retrieved from the case, which she then has analyzed in the Massive Dynamic lab.  They need the disc to decrypt something that's being held inside the dead John Scott's brain.  They've still got his corpse hooked up to machines and are ready to bust into his head for information.  Apparently, Mark Valley gets paid just to lay around dead for a few episodes.  That sounds like the best job ever!


- Don Williams, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)