FRINGE: Neither Here Nor There Recap

As the Fringe season premiere begins, we return to no mans land, the locale of Peter’s disappearance. Olivia and Fauxlivia are having a face-off. Apparently now that they are working “together” they have to read each others case files, boxes and boxes of them. Each reminds the other that their side was the cause of all those files. There is a heavy feeling of distrust in the room, but they part without it escalating any further.

Two observers, sitting around talking. Nope, not the opening of a joke, just a glance into observer damage control. Peter should have been erased, but traces of him still bleed through. One tells the other that he started it, he must be the one who ends it. Observer two knows what he must do.

Lincoln Lee shows up at his partner, Robert’s, house before work. Rob’s kids love him. Why wouldn’t they? They probably think he’s Clark Kent. I admit I sometimes expect him to tear open his shirt and reveal a giant S. Lincoln even gives Robert’s wife a little peck, it’s obvious he is a part of their family.

Lincoln and Robert chase a bad guy. All in a day’s work for FBI agents. Bad guy tries to shoot Lincoln in head, but Lincoln takes him down first. He calls out to Robert, but there is no answer…because some shapeshifter hybrid was busy trying to take the late Robert’s blood. Welcome to the world of Fringe division, Lincoln Lee.

Olivia and Astrid arrive on the now busy crime scene. Olivia introduces herself to Lincoln. The observers, well, they observe. One points out that Lincoln used to know her, before things changed.

Lincoln describes what he saw to Olivia. Olivia asks questions, she seems to think it sounds like a shapeshifter, only…not. Fringe is taking the remains of the partner, and Lincoln is having no part of it. He wants to talk to someone else. Olivia tells him there is no one else. Expresses her sympathies and exits.

Walter is not happy. He doesn’t think the cooling system is accurate. Mutters something about how Walternate can’t be trusted, he doesn’t care what he says. Olivia reads Robert’s file in her office as the sound of Walter ranting in the next room fills the air. Lincoln Lee arrives, and Walter has him hold a dead bird while Walter gives it a shot to rejuvenate it. Walter says it’s still dead… but it flies a bit, then drops to the floor, once again dead. Walter’s attention is on his failed experiment, but Olivia just wants to know what Lincoln is doing there.

In searching for leads on hybrid-shifter, Lincoln tapped into traffic camera feeds without a warrant. Olivia isn’t happy about this and threatens to call his boss. Lincoln, in turn, threatens to call a reporter. Saved by the ring of Olivia’s phone, there is a new victim and Olivia has to get to the scene. Lincoln wants to go along. Olivia wants to get him fired. He convinces her he may be able to help. She relents, he can be fired later.

While Olivia checks the body, Astrid calls Walter. Normal day for Walter. He’s listening to classic rock, eating popcorn, and enthusiastically watching the exam of the victims body on the tv screen as though it’s his favorite movie.

Lincoln and Olivia discuss the crowd of people gathered around, all of whom claim to not have seen anything. Lincoln notices one of them seems different. Olivia questions her, learns she was on the street to get better phone reception and saw everything. She got a photo of hybrid-shifter. Olivia brings Lincoln to Broyles, he’s getting in too deep now. His clearance is raised and he is read in on previous attacks. They go into the morgue where he sees all the previous victims. His partner was like family to him, something he thought he’d never find. Lincoln is deeply affected by his death.

The observer on mission to erase traces of Peter is shopping in a little electronics shop. He’s interested in a little switch he found. The clerk finds the old tv tube he needed and wonders why he needs all this stuff. He needs to erase someone from time, of course, why else does anyone shop there?

Astrid can’t find Walter. Olivia doesn’t know where he is…they start looking for him all over the building. Lincoln hears a noise in the water tank. It’s Walter. Walter is very nervous, he wants to know if the man is gone. Walter insists he saw a man in the mirror, when he turned he was gone. He’s very agitated. Olivia talks him down, soothes him. Astrid gets dry clothes.

Lincoln wonders if Walter is alright. Olivia says depends on your definition of alright. Sometimes he’s quite brilliant, just never had anything to tether him to reality.

Walter receives the test results on the victims. Lincoln’s partner was taking iron pills, they checked all the victims to see if they shared that ailment. They did not, but all did have some type of ailment. All caused by some type of metal poisoning. Hybrid is taking things from their blood. Walter doesn’t have a hypothesis yet, but thinks whatever hybrid is taking, he must need a lot of it. Hybrid is briefly seen, injecting some type of fluid into his arm and making notes. After the injection, there are changes to his skin that make him look more human. He seems pleased.

Olivia wonders how hybrid identifies the victims while Walter examines the latest victim. Lincoln learns they can’t return the victims to their families and he is upset. Olivia tells him why they cannot return the bodies, it would bring attention to Fringe division that they cannot have. He still doesn’t like it. The families are hurting.

The last victim was picked up at commuter rail parking lot, so the group heads to the rails. Olivia and Lincoln are on stakeout. She tells him she knows what it’s like, losing a partner. She lost hers three years ago, an event on a plane. It affected his skin. Walter was in a mental institution at the time, she checked him out to find who did it and save her partners life. But even Walter couldn’t save him.

One of the other agents on the stakeout spots something, Olivia hits the gas. During the excitement, one of the other agents is grabbed. Olivia and Lincoln find him under a railcar, dead. His partner has been shot. Lincoln tends to the wounded agent while Olivia chases the perpetrator. Hybrid is burning all his records when Olivia closes in on him. “Don’t move”. Wouldn’t if I were you, guy, she’s pretty good with a gun. He attacks Olivia, they struggle. She stabs him with a syringe, then shoots him. Multiple times. Lincoln hears and runs to see what happened. Lincoln is visibly relieved to see Olivia through the window. It seems to be all over. Then the wounded agent struggles to talk, he tells Lincoln there is more than one. Lincoln draws his gun and goes looking for the other perp. He finds him and shoots.

As the two hybrids bodies are taken away, Lincoln asks “who are they?” Olivia says better question is “What are they?”

Another hybrid, a female, who has the same skin deformities as the other two, is seen standing by a tower. Her skin turns normal. She turns and walks away.

At FBI headquarters, Lincoln looks at his partners ID. Puts it away, looking quite lost. Someone gives him an envelope. He reads it’s content, his mood suddenly seems much lighter.

Walter is talking to Olivia and Astrid about a book, one he saw at the mental hospital he was in previously. Lincoln arrives in the lab. Walter wants to know if he brought candy. Lincoln is there to talk to Olivia. The papers Lincoln received were his partners body being released to him. Olivia pulled strings for him. He came to see her to ask why. Walter discovers something in one of the hybrids. He thinks it’s from “that man”. The hybrids are human, but they have the same components inside them that the shapeshifters had. The tech is not from here. Olivia immediately knows where it must have come from. So does Lincoln…China.

Olivia gets Lincoln an ID, he’s going to need it. They ask a lot of personal questions, Lincoln squirms but answers. He passes. Olivia and Lincoln walk down a long corridor, with a lot of guards. While they wait for entrance to their destination, she tells Lincoln about the hole in her life. She joined Fringe division because she knew it’s where she would find her answers. The door opens, they enter no mans land, where the machine still stands. Fauxlivia is there. She wants to know what it is they have to show her. Olivia shows her what they recovered from the hybrid. Since the last ones that carried this kind of tech reported to Walternate, Olivia implies these might also, and that’s why she doesn’t trust Fauxlivia. Faux just smirks and walks away.

Lincoln sees a blimp. He hasn’t really blinked at any of the bizarre things he’s seen all episode, but that blimp…wow. He really does belong in Fringe division.

The observer has his “erase traces of Peter” device ready to go, outside Walter’s place. Walter is in bed, eating, and watching tv. The observer turns on device, then closes the case and walks away. Walter turns off his tv to go to sleep….when he looks up again, Peter is on the screen! This is he man Walter saw in the mirror earlier. Walter is terrified.

What did you think? Will the observers erase Peter? Will his traces drive poor Walter to another breakdown? Is Lincoln Lee really Clark Kent?