FRINGE: “A Short Story About Love” Recap

It seems like forever since Peter tried to break things off with Olivia, but in our timely it has really only been a few short weeks. We pick up after the break with Olivia still reeling from the rejection. She is waiting for Nina to join her at a restaurant, and she’s looking very lonely. When Nina finally arrives, Olivia confesses to her that she’s in love with Peter. She knows that may sound absurd, since she barely knows him but it feels like she’s known him all her life. Nina thinks it’s Peter projecting memories, as Walter had theorized, but Olivia reminds her that she has memories Peter never had. She’s scared. Nina tells her they will figure it out, and time will heal her pain over Peter. Nina is alarmed when Olivia says they should get together like this more often, because they do this same thing every week. Olivia is gaining all these new memories, but losing her old ones in the process.

A woman arrives home, listens to condolence calls on her voice mail. Her husband has very recently died, and she‘s just returned from his funeral. A disfigured man watches her from the shadows. She turns on the light, and he’s behind her. She asks who he is and what he wants. He attacks and she fights him off, then she reacts as though she knows him. She kisses him, strokes his face, is happy to see him. Then she’s terrified again, and he kills her by suffocating her in plastic wrap. He then removes Q-tips from a vial and rubs her wrist and neck before replacing them. The vial reads “Jane Hall sample.”

At Harvard lab, Walter welcomes Olivia. He shows her a teddy bear that conceals a camera, he originally bought it to keep an eye on the cleaning crew. It caught the event that happened with Peter and September. There is a slight glitch when he views it, he thinks something happened that wasn’t detectable to the human eye. Olivia seems sad, seeing Peter in the video. She’s thankfully distracted by a call from Broyles, calling her to the scene of Mrs. Hall’s murder.

Mrs. Hall and another victim were both recently widowed, and their husbands died under mysterious circumstances. The killer is targeting couples. In both cases, DNA of the deceased husband’s were found on their wives’ necks.

Walter is still reviewing the lab video, and is finally able to manipulate it enough to find what he’s looking for. He calls Peter, who is on his way to New York in order to stay away from Olivia. Walter stresses that it’s urgent he return to the lab, he thinks September did something to Peter’s eye. As Walter checks Peter’s eye in the lab, they talk about Peter’s plan to try and put distance between him and Olivia. Walter marvels at Peter’s strength, letting her go. Walter is successful in finding a tiny object in Peter’s eye, and it has writing on it. When they blow up the image with a projector, they find an address. Walter thinks the information would have etched itself in Peter’s brain if it had been left inside him, and he would have eventually found himself drawn to that address. His theories are interrupted by the arrival of Jane Hall and her husband’s bodies. Meanwhile, back in his own lab, the killer conducts experiments on the samples he took from Jane Hall.

Walter tells Olivia and Lincoln that not only was the husband’s DNA on the widow’s body, but his pheromones were as well. It’s possible the killer is creating some sort of love potion. Lincoln trips over Peter’s suitcase as he leaves the lab to get started on the investigation. Walter tells them they are Peter’s bags, he made him get off a bus to New York. Olivia is shaken by this news, she didn’t know he had planned to leave.

Peter finds the address from the object. He opens a creaky old door and goes inside and investigates an apartment that appears to have not changed at all since the 1950‘s. When he opens the closet, he finds a nice assortment of Observer hats.

Olivia reaches out to Walter regarding her memory problems, revealing that her own memories are slipping. She originally didn’t tell him because if she was with Peter she didn’t care. But it’s getting worse and she wants to get her own self back. Walter promises her he will think of something. He walks away and Olivia looks at the two corpses….lying side by side on the examining tables, their hands almost touching.

The killer is scouting for his next victims, approaching couples in a park and offering to take photos for them. The first couple he approaches turn out to have a young child, so he let’s them go. He soon finds another mark, though.

Walter has Astrid smell something for him, and it’s horrendous. It turns out it’s road kill. Lucky Astrid, he wants her help with what he‘s researching. In another room at the lab, Olivia and Lincoln work on the case. One thing both couples had in common were statements from friends that they had solid, loving marriages, so Olivia theorizes maybe he’s targeting couples that personify the type of love he wants. Lincoln glares at Olivia with a concerned expression, he wonders if she’s okay and tells her if she needs anything he’s there for her. She touches his hand and smiles at him, but Lincoln sees something is going on with her. Astrid interrupts and asks which has fearless nasal passages. That’s it Astrid, pass the buck!

Walter talks about the history of perfume making. The killer is using a chemical compound similar to one found in some perfumes, mixed with the pheromones, to lure the women. There are only a handful of perfume makers that use it, so they can likely trace it.

Peter is still searching September’s apartment. He finds a briefcase full of Observer tools, one of which is beeping and appears to be some type of GPS. He picks it up and moves around the room to see if it changes.

Astrid lets Olivia know she found a place that fired am employee recently for stealing the substance they are tracing. She has a photo, it’s the killer, his name is Anson Carr. In Chelsea, Massachusetts, Carr is currently in the process of removing the fluids from his latest victim as the man screams. Carr goes about his business, mixing his potions. He opens a box and stares at a photo of a woman.

When the FBI and Fringe team storm the address they tracked down for Carr, they find the latest victim still in Carr’s machine, dead, but Carr is gone. They learn the victim’s identity and go after his wife to try and save her.

Peter is still following the path the detector is leading him to. The ground beneath him starts to shake and something emerges from the ground. It looks like a capsule of some sort.

In Milton, Massachusetts, another woman arrives home all alone. She opens her door to take out the trash, and just as it feels something is about to happen, the Fringe team shows up. They let her know about her husband, and they sit with her and wait for the killer to approach. She tells them she and her husband married after their senior year at Brown. She continues to talk about her marriage as they wait. At the same time, Carr is seen standing outside a house, putting his potion on his neck.

As the current would-be victim goes on about her marriage, it’s obvious that they were not as happy as the other couples. When Olivia questions her more about the marriage, she learns the husband was having an affair and realizes they are in the wrong place. She and Lincoln rush to the other woman’s home.

The other woman, meanwhile, finds her door standing wide open. She closes it, then turns to find Carr standing behind her. Just as he did with the previous victim, he attacks and the woman struggles, then seems to know and love him and relents.. She quickly realizes he is not her beloved and starts struggling again. Carr tries to strangle her, only to be interrupted by the Olivia’s voice ordering him to stop. He does, and the woman survives.

Olivia asks Carr if he knows how much pain he caused. He says he didn’t do it for himself, or at least not just for himself. We’re not meant to be alone. He says it’s every human’s right to know love and if he had succeeded and found the right balance of chemicals he could have given the world what Olivia has, love. He says he can smell that she’s in love.

Olivia goes to see Nina and tells her some of the circumstances of the case, and how the woman she met wasn’t in love with her husband. She had let go of the possibility of finding love. Olivia saw herself in that woman and didn’t like it. She feels the version of herself that loved Peter is a better version of her, and has decided she wants that. Nina tries to convince her otherwise, she doesn’t want to lose their mother-daughter relationship and wonders how long they have before Olivia loses all of those memories. Nina eventually encourages Olivia to find happiness, and Olivia asks Nina to try and rebuild their relationship if Olivia doesn’t remember.

Peter is still examining the thing that came up from the ground, which he has taken back to September‘s pad. The object lights up, then September appears in the apartment. He thanks Peter. The other Observers had hidden the universe from him and locked him out. The object he led Peter to was a beacon and he needed Peter to activate it so he could find his way back. Peter asks him for his help in return, to get back home. September tells him he has been home all along. There isn’t an explanation, but his theory is that Peter could not be fully erased because he and his loved ones would not let each other go. Olivia really is his Olivia. Peter turns to go and September disappears, along with his beacon. Peter and Olivia find each other out on the street and run into each others arms. They embrace and kiss, finally back together.

Fringe airs Fridays at 9/8c on Fox.