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“We are all victims of our own gene pool, someone must have peed in yours.”
This week’s Fringe Icons spelled:

Mole rat DNA + Human DNA + Scorpion DNA = Gollum! Our lovable “friend” from the Lord of the Rings trilogy now has a sibling and he is a freak! (But watch out, he bites). This week’s episode of Fringe felt like one part M. Night Shyamalan film, one part Tremors the movie and one part Children of the Corn. I’ll be the first to confess that corn rows creep me out!  I was just waiting for children to walk out all demonized, didn’t you? Why like Tremors as well you ask? If you have seen it, you know that the creatures lived underground and used holes to trap people. I found it eerily similar. Then, there were so many revelations this week, like Nina had cancer and a guy named Sam Weiss “put her back together.” Olivia was having an audible reaction to the inter-universe travel. The clarity of what she is hearing must be obnoxious. I mean, hearing a fly so clearly must be odd. So, let’s get to it.

Once six people go missing in small town Pennsylvania residents become suspicious and scared for their lives. Our first glimpse of why people are disappearing begins with a construction worker that leaves his coffee mug behind and goes back to retrieve it. How many times can you scream at the TV, “don’t go near the corn,” before they will listen? Seriously! If it was me and people were disappearing, I wouldn’t go anywhere alone. First rule of a horror movie, don’t open the door, right? Second rule of a horror movie, don’t go anywhere alone! Sheesh. So the poor guy gets pulled underground and all we can do is watch. When he wakes up he sees he is now in an underground tunnel with other dead bodies: dogs and human alike. That is when he encounters what I would like to call “Gollum’s little brother.” We all know it has to be something that is part human, but what? A mutant like in X-men? A mythological creature? A sad little boy? We shall wait and see. I kind of wish that in this episode, they would have kept the creature a mystery from us. That would have knocked it out of the park!

The first we see of Olivia is that she is getting discharged from the hospital. And whoda guessed it, Charlie or “not-so-Charlie” is watching her and Peter from afar. Gives. Me. Chills. Speaking of Peter, he really is becoming one of the leads on the team, proactive I would say. He finds the mysterious disappearances happening in Pennsylvania and wants to investigate them. He wants to see if there is a link between what happened to Olivia and these people.  So, they trek over to PA to do some detective work. Also, Walter finds some interesting blue goo and takes it back to the lab. What is that stuff? It looks like silly putty or slime. Of course, there is the usual Sheriff character wondering why they are there, but he reluctantly gives over the files. I would like to mention that the sheriff’s name is GOLIGHTLY. I chuckled a little under my breath at his name. What was that a shout out too? Does anyone know?

Back at the lab, Walter is trying to recreate Olivia’s car accident from last week’s episode. They have done it over and over and can’t make her disappear. He figures she was gone from her car for a little over an hour before she miraculously burst through the windshield. Walter then goes back into his long-winded analysis of how she had to have gone to an alternative reality, and then he realizes he has told her that before. That is when he gives her a warning: traveling to an alternate reality has consequences. (Dun Dun Dun!) When I was watching this warning, I started thinking of Nina.  She has a faux arm, is that from time traveling? Did she get stuck in a worm hole like Jones did last year? Is that why Sam Weiss is so important, because he can fix the reality jumping consequences? Hm.

While at the lab, Olivia and Peter find a lead in the evidence. His name is Hughes. So now, the team must go to Hughes and get answers as to why he has been helping victims’ families out that he barely knew.  Another startling fact is that while Walter is toying with that blue goo from the corn field , he says it is a paralytic substance that is made of human DNA, but mutated. Oh, that’s good… So, when they get there the first thing I thought was: Did you see that house being used as the set for the Hughes house? Man, I swear they just had demons in it on Supernatural or Lana Lang would walk out of it on Smallville. Crazy. I couldn’t get over it the whole show. Inside the house, they only find that he is a doctor and has an old chemistry lab upstairs. He doesn’t seem to be tied to these crimes, but that is when Olivia hears breathing and a heartbeat that isn’t anyone they can see. She knows someone is there but can’t find him, so they bring Hughes to the FBI.

At the FBI, it turns out that Hughes lost his wife and child seventeen years ago. From what I gathered in the house, I could see that there was a reason that chemistry lab was there. It had to either be that Hughes didn’t bury his son, but saved him by some mutation OR that he created a “son” to take the place of his son, but it went awry. So when Peter says that there is evidence that Hughes might have killed his wife, I didn’t really believe it. Why would he do that? But, they are going to exhume the bodies anyway to make sure they are there and to see if there was foul play. The wife’s body is there and is taken to Walter’s lab. The son’s body isn’t. There is evidence that he broke out of his coffin and burrowed his way into the ground. BINGO. He must be “Gollum’s little brother.” I told you so!

So did Hughes think he was dead? How could he have lived? What did Hughes do to him? Walter finds the answer in the mother. She died during childbirth after all, but she had lupus and it would have been impossible for her to bear children. Hughes must have altered the child in utero with what Walter finds as scorpion DNA and mole rat DNA. YUM. I bet that kid is going to win best costume at the town’s Halloween Ball! So Olivia goes to talk to Hughes, who while in the interview room has hung himself.  Great, now what? What I wondered though is why now? Why is “Gollum’s little brother” taking these people now? Why not before? Weird. Is it that he is becoming an adult and can’t survive on dogs anymore?

Back at the Hughes house, the sheriff is marking the crime scene when he gets taken underground. That is the scene where it reminded me of Tremors the movie. So similar. I felt bad for him; I knew he was next because the ambient music and Shyamalan type directorial work. The way the camera looked out from behind walls or around corners or even from the corn rows. Erie. I hope they use that type of cinematography again. It was so cool! Anyway, the team goes back to Pennsylvania to find the Sheriff is missing at the Hughes house. The team frantically look for clues as to who or what or where this son is and they find a wall that has been bricked over that leads to the underground caves he lives in. They are close, so close that baby Hughes grabs Olivia and Peter goes after them. They struggle but Peter eventually stabs the thing. Gollum’s little brother doesn’t die and tries to retreat by digging, only to be crushed by the police cruiser that comes crashing down on top of him; thus, ending the hunt and investigation.

This episode was full of side stories that are worth of note, just not as integral to the plot. First, “evil” Charlie. As we know, he is now taken-over by the shape-shifter from the premier. He is acting as if he is the real Charlie, gaining Olivia’s trust. We got another fine scene in the lone room in the back of the pawn shop where he talks to someone on a typewriter in an alternate reality. They advise Charlie that he must make Olivia remember what happened over there. But why is that so important to them? Why is she so important? I got chills when she was riding with Charlie near the end of the episode and he told her he would help her remember what happened to her, even though she says she might not want to remember. Step away, “Charlie.”

Second is the Sam Weiss sub-plot with Nina Sharp. My burning question this week is: who is Sam Weiss and what does it mean to “get put back together?” Why does he work at a bowling alley? What does he have to do with all this? And we have the Peter and Walter sub-plot about fishing, which came in handy with distracting Hughes. Peter obviously was telling Walter a story about when he was a boy about how he wanted his father to go fishing with him, but Walter didn’t get it. In the end, the most touching moment of the episode was when Walter asked to go fishing with Peter and the good son said “It would make the trip.” Sigh. Heart flutter! They really are connecting. What is going to happen when Peter finds out that he is from another universe?

Finally, the consequences of Olivia’s travel between realities seems to be audible. First, she heard a fly in the sheriff’s office, then she heard baby Hughes in the house when he was underneath it, and a guy talking on his cell across a parking deck. During the next to the last scene Olivia is in her tub and hears almost everyone in all the apartments/condos around her. That prompts her to go see Sam. So what is happening to her? Will other things start to heighten, like her smell or sight? What is the end game of these consequences? Will it be like Jones who basically rotted away? I wonder.

What I find interesting is that something has been glaringly missing: the pattern. Where did it go? Did it end with Jones’ death? Did I miss something? What does everyone think of the second season so far? I like that the Fringe Division is going to take a proactive role in finding these anomalies before they happen. I like that Peter has taken charge and he seems to interact more with Broyles than Olivia. I like that Walter is as wacky as ever and they encounter strange creatures in a strange land. Wish list: more William Bell, address Peter’s death, see more of the other universe, get more observer time and get a back story on Broyles and Nina Sharp. Those are some of the big things I would like to see this year, of course there are another forty things but I can’t list them all here. What is on your wish list to see this year? Discuss.

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