Fringe Fodder

Fringe 2-18 – White Tulip

Preview:

Another mysterious killer. And this one may be time travelling.

Key Points in this week’s mystery:

• A commuter train is pulling into a station. The lights blink on and off and a man appears in the aisle from nowhere. (It’s Peter ‘Robocop’ Weller!)
• A young panhandler/pickpocket works a train platform as the commuter train pulls in. Seeking more mark he steps onto the train brushing past Weller. Inside he finds all the passengers dead. The doors close and he screams to be let out.
• The dead passengers almost appear asleep. No signs of violence – some lividity. Olivia notices all the lights are out. Peter notices all electronic devices have dead batteries. The team has a description of the killer from the pickpocket and are searching surveillance cameras for him.
• Autopsy indicates that all cell mitochondria are drained of energy, just like the batteries.
• The team traces the killer to a restaurant but finds no record of him leaving. A waitress recognizes the killer, and a credit card receipt gives him a name – Alistair Peck. Fringe searches his house – he’s not home and the walls are covered with mathematical flourishes. They find he’s a professor at MIT – in astrophysics. Walter says the math is far beyond his comprehension but it appears Peck has turned Einstein’s theories upside down. In the middle of the search the suspect walks right in past a dozen FBI agents to ask them what they’re doing with his things. He’s instantly surrounded by drawn guns. Among his things are lattices of wire and bloody bandages and surgical instruments.
• Olivia asks Peck what he did to the “twelve innocent people on that train.” Pecks replay is “Those people aren’t dead, miss. Not permanently. At least they soon won’t be, while others, unfortunately, will be.”
• The skin of Peck’s body is pierced by hundreds of wires. Walter calls it a “Faraday shield” – a temporal isolation capsule. Pecks body shimmers and disappears. He reappears on the same train and is confronted by the same pickpocket. But details differ and the tells the young man “I’m sorry you have to go through this again.
• Next we repeat the first fifteen minutes of the program, but with some variations. This time they get a fingerprint and trace Peck that way. This time the walls to the house are bare. Olivia thinks she senses having been through this before. They find a photo of Peck and a woman.
• Peter finds templates for machine parts. Somewhere in a dingy machine shop, Peck works on those very parts which he’s blending into his own body.
• They interview his MIT department head who sais Peck quit and disappeared a year ago. She telsl them the woman in the photo is Alistair peck’s fiancé, Arlette. She gives them some manuscripts peck left behind.
• Walter says it would take him 20 years and the assistance of great minds to understand the manuscripts. But he thinks they mean Peck has discovered how to travel through time
• Agent Astrid discovers the fiancée’s name is Arlette Turley, and she died in a car accident on May 18, 2009. Olivia says she thinks this explains why Peck is attempting to time travel. He wants to save her.
• Walter says the energy absorbed this morning is indicative of only a 12 hour jump – a 10 month jump would absorb a great deal more – possibly killing hundreds. They find Arlette’s cell phone is still active and broadcasting from near the MIT campus, where they think Peck may be working in his old lab. FBI tactical squads spring into action, but w begs to be allowed to go in alone – he thinks he can persuade Peck to give up his quest. Broyles agrees as long as Walter wears a wire.
• Peck is turning himself into more cyber-machine as Walter enters. Peck knows who his is. Walter begs for time to talk. Peck says each jump clears the previous one. But, Walter says the last jump will kill many and he won’t jump again. Peck says he plans to jump t a large field where only plant energy will be drawn, no one will be killed, and he can save Arlette. He feels guilty because they argued about the impending wedding pans and he spent the day in the field perfecting his time travel theories.
• Walter pulls the plug on his wire and explains he’s found a flaw in Peck’s calculations that explains why he hasn’t been able to jump back to May 18. But he explains his own experiences with Peter, and how Peck will never be able to live with the consequences. He tells Peck after his episode, he now believes in God and has asked for a specific sign of God’s forgiveness, a white tulip. He begs Peck not to try, and Peck is appearing to be persuaded, but the FBI paranoid about their wire, assaults the building. Peck time-jumps away in reaction.
• This time the street near Peck’s is littered with bodies. The FBI springs into action again. Peck watches them approach. He’s been recalculating with Walter’s information. He pens a letter to his MIT department head, then dodges the FBI’s shots and time jumps.
• Peck appears in the field, the grass dying instantly. He runs to where Arlette is parked, jumps into her car just in time for them both to be hit and killed by a truck.
• It’s ten months later, and the MIT department head unseals the letter, finding another letter to Walter Bishop. It’s delivered to him as he finishes his letter to Peter, then drops it in the fireplace. Walter open the letter from peck and finds inside – a drawing of a white tulip.

Key points in the ongoing story arc:

• The FBI has lousy search site security.

Key points in Personal Stories:

• As the story begins Walter is writing a letter to Peter telling the whole story of his abduction from the other world. The phone rings and it’s Peter’s voice on the answering machine, giving Walter instructions as to how to answer the phone.
• Peter says Walter will enjoy this incident because he loves trains.
• Peter tells Olivia he’s noticed Walter is avoiding him and seems sad.
• Walter asks if he can ride home with Olivia, because he can’t bear being alone with Peter. He tells her of the letter, but he hasn’t worked up the courage to deliver it to Peter.

Tonight’s Secret Word: SECRET

Walter’s? Peck’s?

Best Quotes:
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Walter: I, too, attempted the unimaginable, and I succeeded. I crossed into another universe, and took a son that wasn't mine. And since then, not a day has passed without me feeling the burden of that act. I'm going to tell you something that I have never told another soul. Until I took my son from the other side, I had never believed in God. But it occurred to me... that my actions had betrayed Him and that everything that had happened to me since was God punishing me. So now I'm looking for a sign of forgiveness. I've asked God for a sign of forgiveness. A specific one: a white tulip.
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Walter: And if God can forgive me for my acts, then maybe... it's in the realm of possibility that my son, possibly, may be able to forgive me too.
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Peter: (to Walter) I just got off the phone with Olivia, she said there was an incident on a train. And I know how much you like trains. Thought it might cheer you up.
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Peter: Have you noticed anything weird?

Olivia: Not yet, but give it ten minutes.
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Walter: Take samples of this man's lung, brain, and skin. Something's not right here.

Astrid: Yup, I think it's my paycheck.

Walter: Hmm?
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Peter: Yeah, I read that deja vu is Fate's way of telling you that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. That's why you feel like you've been there before. You are right in line with your own destiny.

Olivia: Well, do you believe that?

Peter: Mm.. no. It's a bit mystical for my taste. I never get them, myself. Maybe that's because I'm not on track with my own destiny.
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Carol Bryce: Alistair sent me these about six months ago to proofread. He had hopes of seeing them published.

Olivia: Uh, can we take them?

Carol Bryce: They're only gathering dust here. But they are pretty dense. Most would say it's gobbledygook.

Olivia: Well, I happen to know someone who is fluent in gobbledygook.
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Alistair Peck: Walter, God is science. God is polio and flu vaccines and MRI machines, and artificial hearts. If you are a man of science, then that's the only faith we need.
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Analysis:

The more I watch of this show, the more everything looks like a weapon for out earth against the other. Wil the FBI train Chrononauts? Attack the enemy before the battle begins. Kill them merely by showing up in their midst? But then you can’t jump again or the come back to life. One_use weapon?

Remains to be answered:

1. If time travel is possible, can this be used as a weapon against the other dimension?

Next Episode: "The Man from the Other Side"

Our shape-changing villain, Newton, is back. And Peter appears to have learned the truth.

Regular Cast:

Anna Torv _________ Agent Olivia Dunham
Joshua Jackson _____ Peter Bishop
John Noble ________ Dr. Walter Bishop
Lance Reddick ______ Agent Phillip Broyles
Jasika Nicole _______ Agent Astrid Farnsworth
Blair Brown ________ Nina Sharp

Guest cast:

Peter Weller _________ Alistair Peck
Laara Sadiq _________ Carol Bryce
Marie Avgeropoulos __ Waitress
Zoltan Buday ________ Worker
Robert Gauvin _______ Uniform Cop
Richard Harmon ______ Teenager
Jennifer Kitchen ______ Female CSI
Tariq Leslie __________ Assistant M.E.
Andrew McIlroy ______ Professor Lime
C. Douglas Quan ______ M.E. Tech
Kristen Ross _________ Arlette Turling
Duncan Spencer ______ NID Tactical Agent/Sniper
Jackson Berlin _______ NID Agent/Agent #2
Michael Vairo ________ Commuter