Plot Overview
A woman is dumped from a van on the street. She wanders into a diner, dazed, but when the police arrive to try and establish who she is and how she may need help, she suddenly becomes volatile. Everyone in the diner is killed as blood boils their brains and the woman herself dies when her head abruptly explodes.
The Fringe team check out the case, and discover the woman in the diner – Emily Kramer – had only just had a remarkable recovery from a rare disease, known as Bellini’s Lymphocemia. They also learn another woman – Claire Williams – with the same disease has also gone missing and Olivia becomes convinced that she is being held by the same people who took Emily Kramer and she will suffer a similar fate unless she is found.
Olivia learns that a man named David Esterbrook, working for a medical company called Intrepus, is surely responsible for the abduction. But he is unyielding to any pressure to admit guilt, so Peter turns to Nina Sharp and asks for her help in pinpointing where David Esterbrook would have kept Claire Williams. Nina, in return, demands that one day Peter will return the favour whenever she asks.
Using Peter’s information, Olivia and her team swoop on the facility and manage to save Claire Williams before she triggers herself off with a fatal radioactive reaction. David Esterbrook is arrested on suspicion and hauled out in front of the press (improving Massive Dynamic’s stock as Intrepus is discredited).
Olivia had been in a bad mood all day, despite it being her birthday. She tells of a time when she was a child and she shot her abusive stepfather. He did not die, but disappeared afterwards. Every year, however, he sends her a card on her birthday to remind her of his existence. This year, at the end of the day, Olivia finds a card from him has been delivered to her home.
Episode Discussion
If Fringe is to ever be ascribed archetypal episodes, then this would be one of them. A single plotline involving an individual being used as a test subject in an experiment that physically effects their power as a human being. Throw in some ongoing plot threads with the main characters and this, more often than not, is the template for Season One.
So this episode’s ‘special’ power (the use of the word special isn’t the first time the term has been used) was apparently modifying people to be utilised as weapons or soldiers, but otherwise this was another episode presenting another ‘bad guy’ doing unscrupulous things for an objective we don’t yet know.
That David Esterbrook worked for a rival company to Massive Dynamic is something of a counterargument to the idea that these independent tests and scientific studies are all elements of Massive Dynamic; subsidiaries to the major corporation set up to run secretive tests in ignorance of one another. It may be the case that other tests seen throughout the series fit this ‘pattern’ but I am thinking Esterbrook, and his scheme to make radioactive people, wasn’t part of them.
Indeed, at time of writing Season 2 recently-aired the episode Fracture, where people were scientifically-altered to be used as bombs, which shares parallels with the ploys being, ah, employed here! Again, any link to these independent studies and Massive Dynamic is nowhere near concrete.
There are a couple of elements in this episode that, as far as I know, have not been picked up as at time of writing. The first was the matter of Olivia and her stepfather. Just the mere mention of her having a stepfather immediately raises the question: Who is her real father? Walter!? William Bell!? It seems unlikely because I recall mention of her saying she grew up on a military base, perhaps suggesting her real father was a military man that she does have some memory of. But that this stepfather continues to harass her surely sets up a situation where he could come to the fore and perhaps represent a very real threat in a future episode. One to bear in mind.
The other piece of business was between Nina and Peter. When they met up, Nina mentioned that she had known Peter as a boy, though he probably doesn’t remember it. Of course, this would be because the boy she knew was more than likely not the same Peter. Question is: Does Nina know that this Peter is not the same Peter she knew as a boy? (The best guess would be that she does; there doesn’t seem to be much she doesn’t know!)
Peter also ended the meeting in Nina’s debt, for a favour she could call in at any time. As far as I can remember this is not a chip she has cashed, so this too remains on the table as a potential future plot thread to be picked up. (I do hope Fringe bears all this stuff in mind and brings it into play – I love it when shows retain that kind of consistency!)
Observer Appearance
The Observer is seen in the background of the function where Olivia encounters David Esterbrook for the first time. (Curiously this isn’t a scene of a strange event, suggesting The Observer is actually observing Olivia!)
Point Of Interest
David Esterbrook is seen sporting an Aleph pin on his jacket, as below.
This same symbol also appeared during the sequence where Olivia merged minds with John Scott in the Pilot episode. It was on her uncle’s kayak (top left, below).
To draw significance to this meaningfully, at this stage, is not possible – but if this symbol crops up again against other people then it may potentially be the insignia of a particular group operating within the Fringe universe. .
The Glyph Symbols that appear throughout this episode spell out the word: CELLS
There are numerous meanings behind the word ‘cells’. The most obvious and literal would be the biological testing and genetic modification of human cells being conducted on the likes of Claire Williams as a result of her cellular illness. But given the potential for there to be various factions, like Interpus and David Estebrook, the word ‘cells’ could be considered as activist groups working independently for their own agenda.
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