FRINGE: “Wallflower”

A few weeks ago on Fringe, we saw Olivia awkwardly asking Lincoln out. At least I think she was asking him out. This Olivia doesn’t really have a lot of game. It left me questioning what was going on with her.

This week we open with Olivia taking medication of some kind. She doesn’t look well. She goes to pick up a prescription, and feels so lousy she takes a pill right at the counter. As she walks away from the pharmacy, she catches a glimpse of Lincoln through a window, seated at a diner counter. She goes in, flirts with him. At least I think that’s what that was. She really doesn’t have any game, but she’s trying. They sit in the booth and talk. He opens up about how freaked out he is over what he sees in Fringe division, and she assures him that he will get accustomed to it, it will become his life.

A man is rushing down an alley, talking to a woman on his cell phone. He thinks he’s being followed. A puddle of water is disturbed as though someone stepped in it, but no one is there. He picks up his step. He gets to his apartment, and as he unlocks the door to the building he is attacked, but no one can be seen. When police arrive, the man is dead…and he’s also white. He has white skin, white hair, pink eyes. It’s as though all the pigment in his body is gone.

Peter is shopping with a friend. Friend, guard, whatever. Peter gets a $200 a week allowance, and he needs underwear, and what guy doesn’t like shopping for underwear with his friends? When Peter tries to help a child reach something on a top shelf, he realizes his new “friend” has been instructed to minimize his interaction with civilians. Peter is not happy. They are still treating him like a criminal.

Broyles briefs Olivia, Lincoln, and Astrid on the albino corpse. The officer that was on the scene is reluctant to tell Olivia and Lincoln what happened, because it makes him sound crazy. They work in Fringe division, they get a lot of that. It turns out that he didn’t see anyone when he arrived, but he could feel them.

Walter’s professional opinion is that the guy was literally scared to death. Olivia, apparently pondering Lincoln’s feelings about what he’s seen, asks Astrid if these things they see ever get to her. Astrid says yes, every day. She talks to her shrink about it. Who does Olivia talk to? No one. That makes me feel pretty sad for this version of Olivia. Lincoln interrupts to tell them they can rule out a ghost, because he found blood and ghosts don’t bleed.

There is a tank of water, and a body can be seen lying deep inside it. He sits up and is inspecting his skin as though it’s something new to him. Next we see him waiting to get on an elevator. A woman gets on. He watches her. Another man enters the elevator next, and talks to the woman. They don’t seem to notice the man. He appears unhappy about this. He stands there looking sad, then literally starts disappearing.

Back in the lab, Walter is researching. Astrid finds a match to the blood, a baby boy Bryant. He was born in 1989 and died after four days. Walter ponders that maybe they’re looking for a ghost after all. The hospital records say many specialists examined him, none could diagnose him. Olivia has to stop working for a moment, she has another migraine. Back to the baby search, Olivia wants to find some of the medical staff and they locate a nurse. She remembers he was born very pale, the lights in the OR burned his skin. They had to put him in a special ward with no windows or lights. The doctor told her he died. She never told anyone, but as they carried him out she thought she heard him cry. The autopsy was handled by Cyprox inc. Olivia knows the company well, they paid her mothers medical bills….it was owned by a company that would eventually become Massive Dynamic. All roads always lead back there, don’t they?

Nina confirms Olivia’s suspicions that the company abducted the infant for genetic experimentation. There were animal cells implanted into his body, allowing him to blend into his surroundings. Nina denies that she had any knowledge of what happened at the time. The child would have died without their program though. Olivia ponders whether that might have been better. The boy never even had a real name, they called him Eugene, or UGene – Unknown Genetic Disorder. Nina first heard about him 10 years ago. She assumed he had died.

The woman who didn’t notice Eugene on the elevator arrives home, and doesn’t notice him lurking there either. It’s because he’s invisible this time. She walks into her bedroom and there are multi colored leaves all over her bed. She drops and breaks her glass, then hears her front door close. When she goes to check it, it’s unlocked. She’s shaken.

Peter is working in the Bishop house. He has a lot of technical drawings. Lincoln arrives with some things Peter wanted. They have a bromance moment. Peter appreciates that Lincoln treats him like a human being. They talk about Olivia. Lincoln asks Peter about he and Olivia being together. Peter tells him that the Olivia they are talking about, that’s not his Olivia.

Nina sends some files Olivia requested to the lab. Olivia suspects Eugene might be trying to make himself visible. Maybe he’s killing people to steal their pigment? Walter thinks it’s possible, but it would take a lot of pigment. If Olivia is right, there will be a lot more victims. Right on cue, we meet victim number two. Eugene breaks his car window and apparently strangles him.

After running tests on lab mice, Walter determines that if Eugene is trying to reverse what was done to him to return back to the condition he was in before the experiments, then he is basically killing himself, because that’s what the condition he was born with was doing. Also, with ultra violet light, Walter reveals another mouse, it was there unseen the entire time. The lab experiment show and tell is interrupted by the report of the second victim.

Olivia asks the detective on scene if there were reports any doors opening on their own. He reacts to this question as one might imagine. Ah, Fringe division, where crazy is all just a part of the days work. Broyles orders everyone out of the building, all lights off, and doors open. Fringe unit is going in – with ultra violet lights. They plan to search room by room, but Olivia decides it’s taking too long and goes off alone. Not a good move. She falls through the floor and has no one there to help pull her up. She is still there when Eugene approaches. He says she understands right now how important it is to be seen, her life depends on it. He pulls her up. She tries to tell him that what he’s doing to himself is killing him and pleads to let them help him, but he doesn’t believe that‘s all she wants. She wants him to come to the lab, to Walter. He won’t go, he spent his life in a lab. She tells him that if he does it again even once it could kill him. Lincoln is closing in, so Eugene runs. He gets away. Broyles tells them to let people back into the building. They don’t know what Eugene looks like when he can be seen, so they don’t see him slip by them.

The Fringe team goes back into the building. They examine all the things in Eugene’s lab. Olivia tells them it isn’t about trying to cure himself, it’s about being seen. She understands what was tormenting him. Eugene, meanwhile, is back in the elevator. The woman notices him this time. She says she thought he wasn’t coming today, he’s there every day. He seems overwhelmed and in shock that she noticed him. He introduces himself. It’s a great moment for Eugene. She departs, and he sinks to the elevator floor as he’s dying. Olivia’s warning was right.

Olivia reports to Nina that they found Eugene’s body, the case was over. Olivia says all he wanted was to be like everybody else, but how could he after all they did to him? Nina asks her if it reminds her of what they did to her. Olivia opens up a bit, she wonders if the cortexifan trials stunted her emotions. Even with her colleagues she’s different. Nina gives her a pep talk about finding where she belongs.

Peter brings his bromance a gift. Lincoln opens it and looks confused. Peter says to trust him and leaves, just before Olivia arrives. She sort of, kind of, in a way asks Lincoln out. They may or may not meet at that diner again. Lincoln looks at what Peter brought him again, then tries them on. A new pair of glasses. He looks less like Clark Kent in these.

Lincoln goes to the diner. He’s working the crossword puzzle, apparently wondering where Olivia is. She’s in her apartment, fussing with her hair. As she’s putting on her shoes, smoke can be seen filtering in under her door. It’s gas. She passes out, and some men in masks rush in. One turns off the surveillance camera, another opens a case and pulls out a needle. They inject something in Olivia’s neck. He says when she wakes up she will have one hell of a headache. The men leave, and who is standing there in the doorway supervising but Nina Sharp. She closes the door and leaves. I knew she couldn’t be trusted!

This could explain why Nina took Olivia and her sister in after their mother passed away. Not out of any sense of maternal concern, but out of concern for continuing the cortexifan trials on her. That sounds more like the Nina we know. Has she been having Olivia injected regularly all these years? It seems likely to me. Will Olivia start figuring it out? Will she ever manage to have that date with Lincoln?

Fringe airs Fridays at 9/8c on FOX.