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Tonight’s pattern: Apple(dot lower left), Flower ( dot upper left), leaf (dot lower right), leaf (dot lower left), Smoke (middle right dot)  SPELLS EIGHT

“Sometimes what goes bump in the night is real Part II!” 

“Sometimes what goes bump in the night is real Part II!” Two weeks ago we had a literal dragon, hybrid Frankenstein monster; this week it’s a human vampire. What next, a Werewolf? Zombies? Did you know that syphilis not only makes it hard to have children but also causes rabid neck chewing like a vampire? So maybe we are looking for Dracula? And if being a vampire comes with those cool, crazy blue eyes, where do I sign up? I kid. A solid episode that helped with some of the questions about the ZFT and if it is real: Definitely real, definitely bad. Right? Here is how I came to that conclusion:

The episode opens on an apartment building where Bobby gets ready to go out, as he watches the news of a serial killer on the loose. He goes to a club and meets a strange woman there who seems to be looking for someone. He takes her home where they begin to kiss, but before anything more, she cracks his neck. Cut to Bobby’s girlfriend trying to call him but he is dead on his bed. His spine is protruding out of this body and the mysterious woman is licking her lips. Ugh. Did she drink his blood like a vampire? I sure hope not.  Bleeeck! So who is this woman and why is she acting like a vampire? What was up with her eyes? They were a glowing blue color, kind of cool but freaky. So Bobby’s girlfriend finds him dead in his home and Charlie goes to the apartment. They all wonder what is going on with his neck because it looks like “shrimp cocktail,” I mean it is protruding out of his body. Walter swears up and down that he found bite marks and that whoever did this was human and was chewing on him! Um, yuck. Maybe we are looking for Dracula? Walter expresses that he or she was definitely human.

In the lab, Walter goes over the body and finds that the killer took all the man’s spinal fluid from his neck. He also finds that there are traces of the STD syphilis bacteria in his neck as well and it’s probably from the killer. What is even odder is that the strain has been extinct for decades! Great, a human wanna-be vampire that has syphilis of the mouth! They send it to the CDC and they alert the team that that exact extinct strain was shipped to a pharmaceutical company in Boston a few weeks ago. The representative for the CDC came in person because they found out that the company is at a local residential address. He explains that anyone who is a doctor can obtain small amounts of very dangerous viruses for research purposes. Is that true in reality? Do we really trust that it won’t fall into the wrong hands? Uh oh. They also ordered RUD390, which is a bio-weapon and was linked to the episode where the people’s eyes, mouth, nose, ears closed on them, remember that? Yep! The same people!  See? I told you we couldn’t trust them! Are these people connected to the ZFT?

With that, Boyles authorizes them to move on the company in the residential house. They first encounter a dog with crazy blue eyes like our killer. This must be the place right? They look a little further and find a man in a wheel chair sawing open a corpse. His name is Dr. Nicholas Boone whose offices are in a split level house! Olivia goes into attack mode and asks what is out there killing people. She throws out many questions like how long have you worked for the ZFT and how he is connected to them. She asks his connection to Mr. Jones and who funds them. He ignores her questions and says that someone was infected with something he created and that is what is going on. Olivia wants more answers but Dr. Boone says that Olivia has to help him out first. His wife is being held by the ZFT and he wants her back. So first, they have to get her back and then he will talk. If he makes it that long! Since when doesn’t someone die in custody right?

So Olivia finds out that Dr. Boone didn’t know who he was working for and once he did he wanted out. They took his wife to force him to finish his work. He tells them where to find her, which turns out to be a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Charlie and Boyles don’t believe that his wife is in danger, but Olivia says it can’t hurt to find out.  I don’t blame them for being skeptical. Why do all these people that work for ZFT and the pattern always act so cryptic? Why can’t they just divulge what they know? Are they brainwashed into manipulation? It is frustrating! But it turns out the restaurant uses 500x more power than they should. So what is this restaurant? A front for the ZFT? A lab? I guess we will find out since the team is off to raid it!

In the restaurant they are looking around but cannot find the wife. I’m sorry but do chefs really wear lab coats? It really looks like a make-shift lab in the back, but there is no wife! Dr. Boone says that he knows she isn’t there but he needs something that is! Wow! I could have told you that she wasn’t there by the way he acted. But what does he need? It turns out that they are holding the small amounts of the rare syphilis strain that created the monster that is killing. He explains the person killing was injected with that strain and he needs it to create an anecdote. The kicker is that it was his WIFE that they dosed. He explains that when he tried to leave ZFT they dosed his wife and created a monster to show him he can’t leave. He just wants his wife back to normal and is willing to create a cure for the team; in exchange they will get their answers. Man, ZFT sounds like one big, bad organization doesn’t it? They hurt people randomly and have a mass bioterrorism capability. They don’t have any boundaries or ethics! But are they bad? Is it for the greater good or just to further science?

We go back to the club and see that Boone’s wife is standing outside and finds her next victim. She gets in his car and they drive away. Cut to them in the car where he comments on how warm she is. They get close. She says she is sorry and pounces on him with her mouth open ready to bite. A little while later the police find his car. While this is going on, Olivia is at FBI when Peter shows Boyles a video from three weeks ago with Dr. Boone and his wife. The curious thing is that Boone isn’t in a wheel chair. It turns out that Boone was giving his wife his spinal fluid to keep her from feeding on others. The more he fed her the more she craved the fluid until he couldn’t give her anymore of his. He would die if he gave her much more! But why does she even need someone else’s spinal fluid? It turns out her body runs a high fever, which uses all her spinal fluid up and she must refuel. It is a survival instinct because without refueling she would die. Then Boone says something that is surprising; he says ZFT wanted to create this type of creature to SHOW OFF to other scientists. They created, what they call, a “human nightmare.” I would say! It is like a real life cannibalistic vampire! So not only is ZFT able to manipulate and control, they also can weaponize this into an army or to rein terror on the Earth! I think it is looking more and more likely that they are the bad guys!

That is when Olivia gets a call from Charlie. They found Bobby’s car in Mission Hill but they don’t know where it had been since it was completely stripped in a chop shop. Peter says that he knows a guy at a chop shop that can help them. Of course he can! He has ties to all those shady businesses! At the chop shop, Olivia and Peter talk to Maaco and find out the GPS is out for resale. Before they can get to the GPS, Maaco says where they found the car and Olivia says she won’t report him. It turns out they found the car near the water in Weymouth and when they get there another body with its spine hanging out is found in the brush. Yuck.

With Boone needing a lab to create a cure, they send him to work with Walter. I agree, Peter, one mad scientist is my limit too! Haha! So both scientists start working together on a cure for the syphilis with the vials that Olivia took from the restaurant. They are making what they call super penicillin for the super syphilis. They get a rat and inject it with the bacteria. The rat begins to run a 105 degree temperature so they know the injection took. Their first attempt at the cure fails and the rat dies. That is when Walter and Boone talk about what man should know about the world and if they will be judged for their scientific crimes in the afterlife. They also ponder redemption. I for one think that they will definitely be judged for crimes they commit in this life. But there is hope, repent now and try to fix it or at least stop doing it and then there is redemption. You will be rewarded later. Walter expresses that he and William Bell used to have the same argument about that very subject. Boone perks up at that name and says he knows who Walter is and Walter jokes he doesn’t even know. But if Boone knows who he is than who IS he?

After that Olivia and Peter come back with another victim. Astrid realizes something and asks them to turn out the lights. When they do they see the glow in the dark stamp on both of the victim’s hands. There is their link, the club called The Cavern! Boone insists he needs more time to keep working on the cure, so Olivia and Peter go to the club to look for the wife, while Walter and him keep working. And let me just say, isn’t it just like Walter to get a clapper for his lab? He bought it from TV! Like a kid in candy store!

This is where they juxtapose the club and the lab switching from finding the girl to working up the anecdote. I think the two separate worlds work well together to show the sacrifice that Boone makes. At the club, Peter brought a thermal scanner and is looking for the woman by her body temperature. They split up and Peter finds her along the back wall. Eventually, she exits the club with a man and Charlie is waiting outside with an injection that will knock her out.

In the lab, Boone realizes that they need spinal fluid that is compatible with the kind in his wife as a catalyst for the anecdote to work. He talks Walter into taking just a little bit more fluid from him, since he knows his is compatible. He assures them that he still has some that he can give without dying. So that is what they do. They take a gigantic needle that I would never let near my body and get some fluid. They take that and continue making the cure. Boone starts to shake and looks to be having a seizure. Walter realizes that he lied to him but Boone asks him how far he would go for someone he loves. Point taken. Astrid injects him with something and he seems to sleep.

Olivia and Peter have the wife in the back of their car and are on the way to the lab to bring her back. They are discussing Olivia’s sister and her divorce when the wife awakes and strangles Olivia. They fight her off and stun-gun her. Man is she strong! Isn’t that injection to make her sleep supposed to work longer than that? So they get her back to the lab and inject her with another gigantic needle containing the anecdote. She starts shaking violently and then calms down. They look at her eyes and they begin to return back to normal. It’s over! She is safe! That’s great except, Boone isn’t responding on the other table. He is dead! What about the answers he promised the team? No answers again! Darn it!

After the wife is safe and leaving the lab, Walter hands Olivia a tape that Boone asked him to give her. What is on the tape? Are there answers on that tape? Please? It is a tape made by Boone. He explains that he made mistakes but one thing he wouldn’t do is go back on his word. This tape contains answers to the questions and he is going to keep his word! He said he never really knew anyone he worked with but there are names of the ones involved that he can name, cut to new scene. What! Where are my names? Why can’t the audience get to see the tape too? In the next scene, Olivia meets Boyles at a restaurant and says that she knows everything Boone knew about the ZFT. I want to know! Tell me! The only thing that is divulged in this conversation is that the ZFT is funded by a name we all know… William Bell. Of course it is! Who else would have the type of money to experiment and purchase such highly technological things? We all knew he was funding it didn’t we? So what else does Olivia know that we don’t? Will we get those answers soon?  I hope so!

One thing I didn’t mention in the plot above was about Olivia’s sister and the divorce/home life subplot. It turns out that Olivia’s sister’s husband is filing for divorce and asking for sole custody of Ella. Ok, maybe not asking but suing for sole custody saying that she is an unfit mother. So what does this have to do with anything? Is it just showing Olivia’s home drama? Is it so Peter can hook up with the sister in future episodes and not be a “home wrecker?” Plus, we find out that Boyles is divorced because Olivia asks for his divorce attorney’s number. I’m just wondering when we find out the sister is involved with the pattern or ZFT. That would be so cool! Wouldn’t it? And in the coming weeks it looks like we get to have some more face time with the observer(s) and get to meet William Bell (finally)!  I’m still pulling for him to be Walter’s split personality! I know the chances are slim but it would be so much fun to play for John Noble and Leonard Nemoy wouldn’t it? Could you imagine? Oh the shenanigans that would ensue!

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