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After what has seemed like forever, Fringe is finally back with new episodes. It’s too bad that the show was off the air so long especially since the show was really starting to pick up before the break. Well Fringe is back and yesterday’s episode picked right off where things were left off. While the episode wasn’t highly original, it did open up some interesting ideas of what could be happening next on Fringe.
We’ll begin with Olivia’s escape (like anyone honestly thought she wouldn’t escape). In the last episode Olivia was kidnapped by who we were left to believe as those responsible for the Pattern. While we still don’t know if they are part of the pattern, we do know they inject something into Olivia’s back. Olivia ends up making her escape (I want to know why kidnapper can never get good enough guards in order to stop their captives from escaping). After Olivia escapes she calls for backup and while she is waiting she buries some samples that she stole from the labratory.
The police eventually show up and instead of helping out Olivia, they arrest her. It turns out a homeland security agent named Sanford is investigating the Fringe division and needed to bring Olivia in for questioning. It also seems like he has a grudge out against Olivia since she was responsible for him being arrested for sexual assault (the charges ended up being dropped).
After being released Olivia gives the samples she stole to Walter. Meanwhile at a local university, a professor is killed when a giant bug (a giant common cold bug) tears up his insides. The gang catches the creature and Walter starts tests on it. It turns out that the bug was created from the samples that Olivia stole from the lab. Olivia investigates the professor and finds out that he was going to take a job at the CDC soon. Olivia tracks down another scientist that was also hired by the CDC. Olivia puts the scientist into protective custody since she thinks whoever killed the other scientist is after him as well. Her prediction is right but she can’t save him since one of the FBI agents (Mitch) slips the virus into the scientist’s drink and he ends up dying like the other scientist.
Olivia gets suspicious of who the mole could be. When she notices Mitch’s shoes she realizes that he was the person who kidnapped her. Olivia ends up going to Mitch’s house to investigate. She runs into his wife though and ends up getting into a fight (she was in on the conspiracy as well). The fight ends when Olivia kills Mitch’s wife. Mitch is arrested and Olivia interrogates him. While being interrogated Mitch tells Olivia that he kidnapped her in order to save her. He says that there will be an impending fight between two factions and he was trying to get her on the right side.
This week’s storyline wasn’t highly original. I don’t know what Fringe’s obsession with bugs is but there have already been way too many cases involving bugs/viruses this season. Can’t the Fringe writers come up with something new. Due to this fact I didn’t think this week’s case was that great. While it was original to assassinate scientists with the common cold, the storyline was pretty predictable. Who couldn’t have guessed that there would be a mole in the FBI. I think it must be a rule in the world of television that every government agency must hire a mole (or multiple moles in the case of a little show named 24).
While I thought the case could have been better, I do like that the show appears to be opening up even more mythology. The best part of Fringe in my opinion is the mythology and it appears that the show is finally going to consistently address the mythology unlike the first couple of episodes of Fringe. After this episode I was left thinking about what Mitch told Olivia. While I am guessing that he was just lying, what if he wasn’t? While I can’t imagine the people behind the Pattern events to actually be the good guys, I do think it would be interesting if there truly was two sides to the fight. It’s too bad that we probably won’t get many answers anytime soon.
Quotes:
Peter: “My dad is giving drugs to bugs.”
Olivia: “Bring your father.”
Peter: “Do I have to?”
Walter: “Your like a question machine.”
Walter (about a giant cold virus running around a lecture hall): “Things like this always used to happen in my lab.”
Peter: “You are right about me being right to break the law.”
Photo Credit: ©2008 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Craig Blankenhorn/FOX
