FRINGE Recap: “A Better Human Being”

In the awkward aftermath of Olivia kissing Peter at the end of last week’s episode, we open this week with her immediately trying to explain why she did it. It felt normal. She knows who she is, and who Peter is, and that she’s only known him three months. But more and more of her memories are the memories of the Olivia from the other timeline. Peter’s Olivia. She feels another migraine coming on, so Peter leaves. As soon as he’s gone, she’s having more memories of their time together.

A young man, Sean, in a mental institution stands alone in a recreational area of the hospital. That’s his reality. But in his mind he’s with a group of other young men, sneaking quietly into a man’s home, seeking him out. He can hear the others thoughts. A hospital employee finds him and guides him back to his room, but he fights her all the way. She and another employee have to sedate him to calm him down. As he finally relents, the intruders he felt he was with succeed in killing Daniel Green.

Arriving at the institution, Lincoln wonders aloud to Olivia what a killer in NY has to do with a mental institution in Deerfield. The nurse who had wrestled Sean back to his bed saw the news report on television and recognized details as those Sean was recounting as she tried to calm him the night before. Walter is enjoying socializing with patients, he’s in his comfort zone. The meet with Sean, who has been institutionalized with schizophrenia since he was 14. Olivia isn’t hearing a lot of the information, she’s having too many memory flashes. Sean swears to them he didn’t hurt the man, he just hears the voices. They try assure him that they believe him. Walter questions him more about the voices, how many he hears, do they ever address him directly? They don’t. Walter disagrees with the boys diagnosis. He isn’t schizophrenic. The voices he’s hearing exist. Sean agrees to go off his medication to try and assist in the investigation. He tells them about one of them being injured during the attack and where they might find bloody towels he used to clean up his blood.

Olivia visits Peter at home. She’s troubled by the memories she’s having and wants to have a look around. She points out where Walter used to sleep. Peter is thrown by her newfound knowledge and wonders how she suddenly knows things that he experienced with his Olivia? She tells him she remembers everything. More to the point, she remembers them.

Walter tests and questions Olivia, trying to figure out what’s going on, why she has these memories. Peter is worried, but Olivia feels quite comfortable with what is happening to her. It almost seems that she finds it freeing. She recounts to Walter how they met, but it is the meeting that happened in Peter’s timeline, not theirs. She can still remember how it happened in their timeline, but it seems unclear, like a dream. Walter thinks it comes down to empathy, that Olivia is empathizing with Peter’s strong desire to be reunited with his Olivia and is meeting that need by becoming her. Walter believes maybe she’s channeling Peter’s memories in some way. Lincoln arrives with DNA info they got from blood found on the towels Sean directed them to. Walter notes that there are common chromosomes in those DNA strands and Sean’s, they appear to share a parent. Maybe their connection has something to do with how Sean communicates with the others via some type of telepathy. Olivia and Lincoln go to seek answers from Sean’s mother. After they leave, Walter warns Peter that he knows what he’s doing. He thinks Peter is doing this to Olivia and it’s wrong.

Sean’s mother tells Olivia and Lincoln that Sean was conceived through IVF and they used a donor. Dr. Owen Frank was their physician, he only took the best donors so that the results were better. She reveals that a reporter called to ask her about it a few days earlier. He was writing a story on IVF, and his name was Daniel Green…the man who was murdered. Lincoln speculates whether these children the doctor brought into the world are the killers. At a nursing facility, Dr. Frank is watching a news report of Green’s murder, and becomes agitated and wishes to return to his room.

Sean is detoxing from his medication, and getting to know Astrid. He seems uncertain about what they are doing, and whether he can trust Walter, but with her reassurance he confides that he can hear the voices again. He can’t understand them, though, there are too many now.

Olivia tries to track down Dr. Frank, but his clinic is closed. Peter helps her go through some old records, and she notes a scar on Peter’s hand that she doesn’t remember. He tells her he only got it a month ago. They stand there, holding hands, having a quiet moment together. Peter finally becomes uncomfortable and is pulling away, when Walter breaks the awkwardness with news of a breakthrough. Walter shows them bees, and describes how they communicate by pheromones. That isn’t necessarily how the killers are communicating, but there are ways in nature, and however the killers are linked they have formed a collective identity and will do whatever it takes to ensure survival of their network. Olivia receives a call informing her of Dr. Frank’s location and she and Peter go to see him while Walter continues to give Peter disapproving looks.

Dr. Frank tells them that this isn’t the first time they have killed, he seems to suspect exactly what has happened. He hired a reporter to document his work a couple of years earlier and he was killed just before they started. He thought it coincidence at first, but not now. His work had been practicing genetic manipulation, altering the DNA of the babies he gave life to. He was attempting to make a better human being. Telepathy and a heightened protective instinct were among the traits he tried to reintroduce to the human species through his research. There were approximately 200 subjects, though not all were given the same traits, and he was the donor for all of them.

Sean is anxious and agitated, telling Astrid what he’s hearing the voices say. They are scared, they feel threatened. There’s a new voice, though, telling the others to wait. He’s coming, and he’s in pain. We see a young man with a bandage on his arm check himself in a mirror, then turn to leave.

Walter tests strands of Olivia’s hair and finally thinks he knows what is happening…there are traces of cortexifan, and she’s been subjected to it recently. He has Lincoln take him to confront Nina, but she insists that all the cortexifan that remained was securely stored. She is the only one with access. Walter wants to see the vials, if anyone has tampered with them he will know. Lincoln won’t let Nina call ahead, the fewer who know, the better.

Olivia and Peter go to Dr. Frank’s storage unit. On the way, she tells him it’s hard for her too. Elaborating, she tells him she keeps expecting to see that look in his eye and it either isn’t there or it is, but he’s pulling back. They find the unit as they walk and have their conversation. She tells him last time she opened one of these it was rigged with Simtex. Peter comes to a halt. He knows what she’s talking about, but he never knew it was Simtex until right now. So he can’t be projecting memories he never had onto her. The unit is unlocked. At the same time they are opening it, Sean tells Astrid that they’re going to kill Olivia. She calls to warn them. Peter knocks Olivia out of the way of a speeding car just in time, and the two of them manage to overtake the attackers who confront them.

Back at Dr. Frank’s hospital room, he is visited by a couple of his offspring. They say nothing, but pick up a pillow. He cries “no”. Wee see Boston police approaching his room, having been warned he was in danger. When they enter, they find him in his chair, dead.

Sean is watching television in his room, and it’s loud. His mom turns it off, and Astrid asks him what’s wrong. He can’t hear the voices any longer. Before it felt like they were with him. Now they’re gone, and there is nothing. He doesn’t understand why. Astrid tells him we may never know why, but she understands why silence would scare him. He’s not used to it. But she assures him that what he feels now is normal.

At Massive Dynamic, Nina retrieves the cortexifan. It all appears to be accounted for, all 20 vials. While Nina questions them with concern about what’s happening to Olivia, Walter tastes the contents of one of the vials. It is not cortexifan. It has been replaced.

Olivia and Peter pull into a gas station, still discussing the case. She tells him that she remembers when a case is over they would go back to one of their houses, and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do now. She wants to know how to proceed, and he tells her he’s afraid because he’s made this mistake before and betrayed his Olivia. But when he looks in her eyes, he knows it’s her. They kiss, and she is happy. She takes leave to go to the restroom and he watches her walk away. When she doesn’t return, Peter goes in to check on her, and finds the restroom empty. When Peter questions the clerk, he says he didn’t see her.

We next see Olivia slumped over in a chair, and she is tied up. Nina’s voice calls to her and as the view pans across the room, we see that Nina is also tied up. She assures Olivia they are going to be okay, then the scenes fades to black.

Fringe airs Fridays at 9/8c on Fox.