A heist is in progress as a group of men storm a bank.  The security guard has been shot and a tech has disabled the security system.  Four men put a black cloth over a wall and fire up a resonance grid.  It’s the same mechanism we saw a few episodes ago with the guy reaching into the safe with an apple.  They fire a grappling line through the wall, don gas masks and enter the vault.  A charge is placed on a safety deposit box and they remove a large heavy metal container.  Two of the men make it out but the grapple doesn’t release causing one of the men to delay getting out.  The last man makes it half way out but the grid shuts off and he gets trapped inside the wall.  The lead guy tells the get everything together and he shoots the stuck man in the head.

Opening credits.

Olivia Dunham, Peter and Walter Bishop show up at the bank.  Peter and Olivia banter about her not having a best friend outside of her sister.  Broyles recaps the event including other robberies where the only thing taken was a single box.  Dunham says she knows the guy in the wall.  His name is Raul Lugo, he was in Olivia’s first unit in the Marines.  She rattles off some facts about Lugo.  The robbers talk about the box, their dead partner and that they have one more box to go.  In Germany, a lawyer (Mr. Cole) visits Robert Jones, the German of the “LITTLE HILL” incident.

The Bishops are in a big box hardware store and Peter gets in Walter’s face about his passive aggressive remarks towards Peter’s life.  An employee asks if they need help, Walter asks for a saw for cutting human tissue and bone.  Peter says no need to call the police.  Mr. Cole tells Mr. Jones about filing an appeal.  He also relays news from Jones’ “people” to which Jones says to wire money and give the location of the next item.  Jones flips over the appeal agreement and starts writing down items he needs on Mr. Cole’s next visit.  Then he tells Mr. Cole to visit his tailor and get a nice suit.

Olivia visits Susan Lugo in New Jersey to tell her about Raul’s death.  She gets some information about Raul’s last couple years.  Olivia says she and Susan have met, Susan doesn’t think so.  Olivia goes over some past events, diners, where the couch was, etc.  After a specific recap, Susan says Olivia wasn’t there, it was just Susan, Raul and John Scott.  (Ruh roh.)

Walter and Peter cut off Raul’s hand.  Walter apologizes about the earlier remarks in the hardware store.  Walter talks about passing through solid matter, requiring lots of money and knowledge of quantum physics.  Dunham lies about being okay then says she didn’t recognize Lugo, John Scott did.  The burglars are opening the box, the main guy kicks them out and opens it.  We don’t see it, but he’s fairly happy with whatever is inside.  At a Massive Dynamic facility, Nina Sharp is talking to a lab tech about John Scott’s memory dump and how it’s not going well.  Back in the lab, Walter sets up a demonstration.  He puts an action figure in a beaker of rice on a vibrating football table.  He turns on the table and the action figure sinks into the rice.  High frequency vibrations disrupted the atomic structure of the wall.  Use of this technology however renders the users radioactive.  Dunham shows up and says the safety deposit boxes were all purchased with cash twenty three years under bogus names.

A lead on Lugo takes Peter and Olivia to a bar in Cambridge.  She chats up the barkeep who was a friend of Raul, saying she knows him from Susan and Raul’s wedding.  Barkeep Drew says Raul had PTSD from the Gulf War and hung out at the VA a lot.  Dunham calls Broyles for help tracking Raul’s VA records.  Burglars are talking about what they’re leader is up while playing chess.  Head man tells them they’re going to Providence, one of the men can’t light a smoke because his hands are shaking.  Peter and Dunham exchange card tricks at the bar.  Olivia counts cards, she’s good with numbers and she rattles off the numbers of the safety deposit boxes, 233, 377 and 610.  Peter and Olivia wake Walter up and ask what numbers he recites every night including 987, 1597.  It’s the Fibonacci Sequence.  Walter says it’s a coincidence but then realizes that the safety deposit boxes are his.

They recap what boxes and cities he’s rented but Walter can’t remember why or where the other ones are or what’s in the boxes.  Olivia asks if he told anyone else, he didn’t because he was paranoid.  Charlie Francis has photos of of places Walter has been seeing if it jogs his memory.  Charlie asks if he’s stoned.  Broyles brings Dunham information about a VA hospital.  The MD tech gives Nina Sharp an update about John Scott.  When they try to access the hippocampus, the brain waves become inconsistent.  When they access the last image he saw they get another set of brain waves, Agent Dunham.  So the memories MD needs are in Agent Dunham’s mind.

Dunham shows up at the VA hospital and talks to a Dr. Miller.  He won’t release any records about Raul Lugo.  However, an orderly stops her and says he knows them, calls them The Chess Club and gives names.  The burglars get in their van and Shaky Hands is shaky.  Charlie Francis and some agents offer some data about the names Dunham got from the hospital.  One of them purchased a ticket to Providence.  Dunham calls Peter to ask Walter about any bank boxes in Providence, he says he can’t remember and is very disappointed in himself.  Peter tricks him by asking if he were to buy a box in Providence, what bank would he use.  Walter rattles off a bank name and then congratulates Peter for being smart.  The feds hit the bank and check things out and the bank manager touts his security system.  They open the vault to see a box that’s been opened, box 987.  The layout of the vault means they’d have to come in through the sewer underneath.  The feds find the van near a sewer line and give chase.  One of them men is left behind and Olivia shoots him in the leg and the van gets away.

The burglars won’t do any more work until the head guy shows them the boxes.  Inside is what looks like an old camera or plotting tool.  Head robber calls and says they’re done and that he’s coming tonight.  Mr. Cole brings Robert Jones a case of the stuff he wanted, including Dramamine, sunscreen, eye drops, a watch and some money.  Mr. Cole didn’t get a new suit, the one he has is lucky.  Jones tells him to come back at 6:30am sharp and he’ll sign any paper work.  He also says to tell his people to find Olivia Dunham.

Someone spies on Olivia in a parking garage.  She goes into an interrogation room and talks to Shaky Hands, Eastwick.  Peter notices his hands and asks for a shot at talking to Eastwick.  Charlie let’s him in.  Peter comes in and asks him to show him his hands.  He then talks about radiation poisoning.  “You violated the laws of physics, Mr. Eastwick.  And Mother Nature’s a bitch.”  Eastwick offers some info but asks for medical help.  The guy who hired him has everything he needs but doesn’t know what it’s all for.  One of the pieces of info is a field in Westford.  Charlie, Olivia and Peter pull up a map and Olivia says she knows where they’re going.  There’s an abandoned airfield called Little Hill.  They marshal the troops and head out.

Walter and Peter go over Walter’s records but can’t find what he hid in the boxes.  Peter does some nervous tick slight of hand and the thought sparks a memory in Walter.  Peter was very sick as a child with what was thought a rare form of bird flu, or “hepea.”  He was incurable and Walter in desperation built a machine that could go back in time and pluck someone from the past, the only man to have successfully treated hepea, Dr. Alfred Gross.  The device is what is hidden in the boxes.  Peter recovered before the device could be tested, but the theory was that it could retrieve anyone from anywhere.

Dunham and the feds make their way to Little Hill in a flanking maneuver.  The burglars begin setting up the devices, it’s 12:30 EST.  Mr. Cole shows up on time with the appeal request.  Mr. Jones breaks his neck and takes his suit, swallows some Dramamine.  A black SUV starts tailing Dunham and another runs her off the road.  She gets out of the car and runs, but is tasered or tranquillized.  The men setting up the equipment turn on a small glowing ring held up by what look like tuning forks.  Jones puts eye drops in, lathers on some sunscreen and stands in the corner.  The device glows bright blue and a light appears about Jones’ head.  Everything shakes and hums (I honestly thought I heard a TARDIS) and Robert Jones appears.

Broyles calls Nina Sharp saying Dunham has been abducted.  Nina says she’d want no harm done to her so asks who would take her and why.  Jones says he has to get to the decompression chamber and then says about Dunham, “Let’s not keep her waiting.”

Fringe goes on winter break now and will pick up in January along with a host of other shows.  What we’re left with is Dunham unconscious and kidnapped by a brilliant German who may or may not be part of The Pattern.  Massive Dynamic claims no involvement.  Walter was able to build a teleporter more than thirty years ago.

A lot of these threads have been building since early on.  In the last episode, George Morales says it was Massive Dynamic that had their hands all over these Pattern incidents, but Nina’s denial would lead one to believe that’s not the case.  Robert Jones was originally seen as a one off character like Dashiell Kim; another crazed and imprisoned scientist, but he’s turning out to be part of something larger.  That something also apparently centers around Agent Dunham.  I have a feeling she’s going to be shown as something special, something possibly tailored or groomed unconsciously to arrive at this point to perform a task or be a tool.  There’s no reason given why Robert Jones wants Dunham otherwise.  She’s just a DHS agent who asked him some questions.  Surely her abbreviated knowledge of The Pattern isn’t enough to want her quiet or dead.  She has a roll to play in something and she doesn’t know it.  The small nods to her being a loner child and not having many friends may allude to this.  She may not have a past, she may have had a different past.

“Safe” was plot heavy and as always with plot heavy shows, things tend to suffer.  It all seemed to come together too cleanly yet it was staggered and heavy handed.  Criminals talked too easily, lawyers brought items to prisoners that they shouldn’t be allowed to have, federal agents travel alone to a possible confrontation with armed men.  It was convenience personified, a problem from which I think this entire show suffers.

Even the science bordered on retrieving God from the machine.  To recap what was seen in “Safe”:  Massive Dynamic can’t pull the memories they need from Agent Scott because the memories are in Agent Dunham.  They find this by recapturing Agent Scott’s last sight and assuming the echo in his brain must be Olivia’s.  Walter has made a teleporter that he says theoretically would work but never tested it.  However someone knew about it and how to get it and work it, and guess what – it worked!  The henchmen were also able to use The Grid to enter a bank vault and retrieve the Teleporter components.

I have more than a few problems with these.  We’ll start with The Grid.  First of all, these guys spend a lot of time casing the banks, finding their weak spots, killing guards and disabling security systems.  By the time they actually GOT to the vault, was there anything else they needed to do that actually REQUIRED this technology?  Wouldn’t some C4 done the same thing?  Other than being a flashy piece of technology, was there any reason it was needed?  Not to mention that they lost a man that linked back to them.  Sloppy use.

Olivia suddenly having Agent Scott’s memories is good, but it’s another device more than a development.  What I mean by that is she didn’t have to deal with it, it showed up conveniently in a situation where it was useful.  She should be more tormented and it should be a detriment not an asset.

And really, a transporter?  So some time back in the 1970′s Dr. Bishop built a transporter out of nothing but a drier tube, big tuning forks and a couple of geo-plotters?  And what was the theory that made this work?  That’s what I was interested in.  Fringe has thus far been very clever with its theories, but they didn’t even try with this one.  There was no talk of quantum shift in a time flow or particle reversal or anything.  I’m not even sure how they’re able to find a single person and not grab the whole prison wall with him.  Of all the unanswered questions on this show, I like the fantastical science ones the least.  Give me a nugget of truth and I’d be happy, but this was nearly comical.

And as far as I can tell, there’s no rare bird flu called “hepea.”  I’m not sure I spelled it right either.  The closest I can find is an influenza strain H5N1 and the bird adapted form is HPAI (when said might sound like “hepea”) but it’s not rare.  So, like the Belini’s Lymphocemia, this is possibly a made up disease.  And again I’m not happy about it.

There were high points of the show, mostly dialog bits and Walter being kooky, but not enough to over shadow what seemed to be either a lack of attention to detail or just a rush to tie a long of things together.  And I’ve gone on long enough, but we have a month and a half until another episode hits.  Should give you plenty of time to read this.

Three randomly chosen glyphs.