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Tonight’s pattern: Flower (top left), Apple (bottom left), Flower (bottom left), Flower (bottom left), and Smoke (dot middle left)
SPELLS BELLY (Walter’s nickname for William Bell)

In the movies, looks can kill. On Fringe, feelings can kill. Thank God for reality because either of those scenarios would suck if they were true! This week Olivia was at the heart of the episode with a connection unlike any other to a killer. That connection is very interesting and so was that video in the closing moments. Wow! Creepy.  So what if we could persuade people with our emotions? How dangerous and wondrous would that be? Could you imagine the impact that would have? How would you know what you were actually feeling? Was it you or someone else? It just opens a whole new can of worms! You could go to court and say your neighbor made you do it. Your friend was having a bad day so you jumped out a window. I’m starting to see a pattern emerge with these episodes. One episode is more emotionally based or character driven, followed by a thrill ride, followed by another character driven slower-paced thinker. There is a pattern to this that isn’t the allusive pattern we know so little about. Kind of ironic!  Let’s begin.

The episode opens on central station and a lone woman taking her child home from the circus. She is singing an ominous tune. The scene is very foreboding with loneliness and silence. It just doesn’t seem possible that there is no one else around her. Once she is at the train her baby loses a balloon and all of a sudden the woman jumps in front of the oncoming train leaving her baby behind on the tracks. Talk about having your child witness something so terrible it jades and scars them for the rest of your life! Or does she jump? Nope, it was… Olivia that pushed her? Why would you push her, Olivia? That is when Olivia wakes up. Oh, good just a bad dream! Looking back on the scene it didn’t seem real did it? Whenever is the New York City subway that empty? Quiet? Just when you think these bad dreams are just dreams, Olivia sees that the events of her dream actually happened in New York City. So what does that mean? How did Olivia know about this and why was she a player in the killing? Why is she dreaming of real events? Did she kill this innocent woman? Why?

After Olivia is shocked to see her dream on the TV, she asks Boyles for permission to investigate the subway suicide case. That is what they are calling it but Olivia knows better and tells Boyles she thinks the woman was murdered. He gives her 24 hours. She promptly goes and tells Peter and Walter about the dreams and recruits Peter to go to NY with her. Poor Walter. He really wanted to go see a Broadway play! You could tell on his face he was so excited, like a school kid going to a candy factory! Next time, Walter!  But could her dream be a reality?

So in New York, they go to central station like in her dream. They meet up with the metro detective in charge of the investigation and go to the scene of the crime. It is exactly like Olivia saw in her dream!  The balloon in the rafters and all! It is just all too real! Olivia wants to know what makes them think it was a suicide, and the woman divulges it is on the video tape that she jumped.  Back at the station, the father has come to collect his daughter from the police and he is visibly distraught. Wouldn’t you be? He can’t believe his wife would come to New York to take his daughter to the circus and then kill herself. So Olivia wants to look at the tape. Low and behold, the woman does jump! There was no one behind her! That doesn’t make sense does it? She takes a copy of the tape. In the lab, Walter says that dreams are not always literal, so maybe there was another explanation. Does she want someone dead in the mind? Wishing them dead? Why would it occur to a stranger in another city? It doesn’t make sense does it? Walter explains that mans greatest want is the ability to kill (or do anything) with their minds, their thoughts. Wow, is he jaded or what? Maybe I just didn’t hear that right. But what if it happens again? Olivia obviously believes him because she goes and gets caffeine pills. I would too. I would not want to dream and have people die.

After that, Olivia is in a restaurant surrounded by couples chatting closely together. That is when we notice a couple arguing at their table. The wife stands up and stabs her husband. Olivia why would you make that woman stabs her husband? I mean wow, Olivia was there and took the woman’s hand and made her stabbed him! It was like the woman had no control and Olivia did! But then Olivia wakes up. Was it just another dream or did it happen? Did Olivia kill someone with her mind? She calls Charlie to report a murder.

300 miles away at St. Vincent’s hospital, lays the man that was stabbed and his wife is at his bed side. She is distraught with guilt and can’t believe she did this. Olivia goes to interview the wife. She says they were at dinner and she didn’t know what happened. She became scared and convinced her husband would leave her, so she did it. Olivia is acting erratically. She thinks she did this and tells the woman, “It was you.” Peter stops Olivia and takes her out of the room. So they go off to the Italian restaurant where the stabbing occurred. They want to interview the owner but he is convinced it was just a jealous wife. They look around and Olivia picks something up. I’m not sure what. She asks the owner if she was there, he looks at her quizzically and says no. But there is a blonde man with a scar that shows up from time to time. Olivia gets a crazy look on her face. She has seen him before! But where?

Back in Walter’s lab, they go over the video tape again. There he is! He was at the scene of the subway suicide and the restaurant stabbing. But who is he? How is Olivia seeing his killings? What connection does she have to him? Because Olivia sees the actual details there has to be a connection right? It seems that Olivia was this guy in her dreams, so she didn’t kill anyone. I’m sure that is a relief. But still, we don’t know why she is seeing these things.

At FBI, Olivia, Boyles and Charlie are looking for the guy in her dreams with facial recognition software. His name is Nick Lane and he was a mental patient. Boyles asks Olivia what is going on with her and she tells him the whole story about the dreams and this guy. Boyles asks why she didn’t come to him because she knows they are under a lot of scrutiny right now with Harris. Thank goodness he isn’t there to see all the rules she broke. She asks for a short leave but Boyles calls someone on the phone and tells them that she is the lead on the Nick Lane investigation. She thanks him and leaves.

Olivia and Peter go to the mental hospital where Nick was once a patient. On the way, Peter opens up about how he thought that what happened to Walter was more something him and his mother had to deal with and didn’t think of the impact it actual had on his dad. Sounds like he was angry at his father for going away to the mental hospital and didn’t realize it affected Walter too. At the hospital, they talk to Dr. Miller who remembers Nick when he arrived 5 years ago. He had a very comprehensive military policy and after a while inherited a large sum of money. A lawyer came to talk this over with him and after that he left the hospital. (A lawyer, like the one that worked with Jones perhaps?) The doctor explained that Nick had an effect on people and when he was happy he had an emotional brightness, but when he was sad it was very bleak, suicidal even. It seemed his emotions were infectious. He was delusional and thought that when he was a kid that he was experimented on with some secret drug and he was told to be prepared to be a soldier when the day came. He was convinced he was recruited by a top secret military operation to form an army against a parallel universe. Um, what? And there it is: that is the mission statement of the ZFT manifesto! And wouldn’t you know it he was born in 1979 and lived in Jacksonville, Fl. So what does this have to do with the Cortexiphan and Olivia? Wasn’t it possible that Olivia was given this drug too? How would that connect them?

Olivia probes Walter for answers. It turns out that he knows about the experiments but said that it was highly experimental and it might enhance abilities in the children tested. He says that he didn’t test on humans though, but William Bell did. Walter explains that they were trying to change reality through perception and the mind. It is possible to travel between dreams and reality and to change that reality. Wow, right? It is also possible to change reality with thoughts and feelings. That must be it. He was affecting people with his emotions! Walter alludes to the fact that maybe this man was on the platform wanting to kill himself but the woman did it instead because his emotions infected her! So, his emotions are like a virus. I tell you what, I don’t want that virus! But what does this have to do with Olivia? Walter says that in the experiments they paired up children, which created an intense bond. The Cortexiphan amplifies that bond. Olivia looks visibly distraught and Peter says he’s fully creeped out! Wouldn’t you be? I mean it almost proves Olivia was a part of the experiment! What does that mean? Does she have the ability to infect people with her emotions too? What makes Nick different than her? That is when Walter says because of her connection to him that they can find him!

That night, Olivia is by herself walking down the street towards a club and she goes in. Obviously this is a dream because of the lack of other people besides one girl dancing on stage. Girl-on-girl kiss alert. I never thought I would see this on Fringe, but Olivia kisses the dancer! WHOA! Back in reality, we see that Olivia is actually under hypnosis. She is telling Walter and the team what is going on in the dream. The dancer goes back with Nick and after some action (if you know what I mean), Nick starts feeling sad and upset. He feels dirty and sinful and wants to kill himself. The dancer gets infected with his emotions, breaks a glass and slices her neck. Olivia begins to panic in her hypnotic state, but Peter calms her down so she can go on to find out where he lives. Bingo, she goes to a red door. It is his place. She knows where he lives and can go and get him!

Hello, Mr. Lane, it is nice to finally meet you! The audience finally gets to meet him at his house. Once Olivia and team get there, he isn’t there but they find a wall of clippings and pictures about the experiments. On the wall is the same saying from the ZFT manifesto and what Loeb had said to Olivia, “What is written will come to pass.” Uh oh. It occurs to the team that it was after the lawyer came to visit that it was almost like Nick was “activated.” What does that mean? How can you activate someone? Can Olivia be activated too?

We cut to Nick walking down the street with a dozen or so people following him, entranced by his emotions. He goes into a building. Olivia goes to him on the building roof and he and all the people infected by him around him are on the ledge. When Olivia gets up there, Nick immediately recognizes her and calls her Olive. How does he recognize her? He asks her to kill him. Too late, one of the people jumps off the building. Olivia can’t believe that he knows her. He tells her that they were designed to forget the experiment but he remembered. He tells her she was always the strong one. He asks her if she remembers and of course she doesn’t. He goes on about how the people who recruited him never came for him until the lawyer came to the hospital and woke him up. He says that he can’t be turned off and the only way to stop him is to kill him. So, Olivia shoots him and all the entranced people come out of the spell and are ok.

At the hospital, Boyles explains that Nina can’t give them information on the experiments because the files were deleted. How convenient right? It turns out Nick didn’t die, but they put him in a drug induced come to keep him from hurting anyone again. She wonders if she could ever be activated as well but claims she is alright. I wouldn’t be. If I knew that I could cause people that much pain, I don’t know what I would do. What would you do? Is it possible she could do this? Be harmful? Helpful?

The last two scenes gave me pause. Very peculiar. Charlie comes and gives Olivia the entire file on Nick Lane. She flips through it and finds clippings and various other things that I am sure will be explained in a later episode. What is in that file and will it help Olivia? The last scene was very cryptic. It was like the scene where we find Walter’s type writer was the one that wrote the ZFT manifesto. Walter is rummaging through old boxes of 1” tapes. He finds one and pops it in the player. There is a child cowering in the corner of the tape. Walter’s face as he views the tape tells the story: horrified. Is that Walter’s voice on the tape? Was he there? Bell was there too because a nurse is talking to him off-camera. And there it is: the child on the tape is named Olive! She looks scared and like she just did something terrible. What did Olivia do when she was a child to be on that tape? What does that all mean?

So Olivia really was experimented on with Cortexiphan! What abilities does that give her and what does she have to do with the pattern? So, Olivia has always been connected to Walter through these experiments. I guess he wouldn’t recognize her because she is older now and she doesn’t remember because she “they” made her forget. What a turn of events that they were ever connected before. Does Nina know this? Is that the reason they picked Olivia to work with Walter? I still want to know how involved Walter was with the ZFT and why he went to the loony bin. I so wanted Walter to be William Bell and just have a split personality or something like that. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? I mean, wasn’t that an awesome twist when they did that in Fight Club? C’mon it would be so much fun! But now that we know Spock from the original Star Trek is coming to play Bell is that theory blow out of the water?

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