Boston downtown, a man is getting dressed in his apartment. In the background a news report is playing in which a reporter describes a brutal murder with a hunting knife. The man grabs a hunting knife off the table, his keys, phone and a couple condoms. Turns off the TV and heads out. Bob, with an Irish dialect, makes a phone call to a lady in Portland, she’s worried about not being able to get in touch with him. He lies about having dinner with businessmen, he’s actually at a club. He spies a blond and delivers a line but is c-blocked by her date. He spies another girl with shocking blue eyes, says, “You’re my kind of girl,” and before we know it we’re back at his place and they’re making out. She grabs his head and twists it suddenly, breaking his neck. Lady friend tries his phone again but there’s no answer. Blue eyed lady is wiping blood of her face and her eyes are crazy blue. Back on the bed, playboy Bob has had his throat ripped out.

Opening Credits

Rachel and Olivia are talking to a couple friends. They are relaying their appreciation of a match making service called Two Singles Together. The doorbell rings, Rachel’s husband is filing for a divorce. Olivia gets a call from work. Charlie walks her through Bob Dunn’s murder scene, it matches that of the murder a couple days ago. Peter and Walter banter while looking at the body. Walter sees some bite marks, someone chewed Bob’s spine out. Dunham gives Broyles the skinny and then asks him about his satisfaction with his divorce attorney, she hears him talking to his kids but never his wife. He sends her the number, says he hopes her sister is ok. He pays attention too.

Walter is reciting vertebrae numbers, Astrid tells people to avoid bringing new girls home for as long as possible, then gives Walter some lab results. The killer has taken the victim’s spinal fluid and the killer has syphilis, but a strain that is extinct. Agent Pardue checks on the strain and it was shipped to a residential research lab named Lubov Pharmaceuticals, along with other bacterial strains. It’s likely they’re planning biological attacks, some of the chemical agents have been seen in earlier cases. Broyles and Dunham give a crash course to APardue (who is getting a lot of face time for a new agent, last time that happened, the agent died horrifically) about the ZFT and The Pattern, but couch it as a biological terrorist cell. Broyles orders a strike on Lubov Pharma.

The team hits the house and Olivia investigates a drilling sound. Opening the door they see a wheelchair bound Dr. Nicholas Boone with a power saw and the open back of what appears to be a small dog. Dunham grills Boone about the killings. Charlie asks how long he’s been a ZFT follower. As if to illustrate the last red shirt agent’s death, they show pictures of his growth-closed face. They want to know who’s funding ZFT, who David Robert Jones is, and who’s killing these people. He says he’ll help, but they have his wife. He wants her back first.

Boone said he was trying to get out of what he was doing so They took his wife to punish him. Charlie and Broyles don’t buy it. Dunham says he could be telling the truth. Since she’s been with Fringe, 81 people have died, 147 from the first flight. Before that only 9 had died, this is the first time they have traction. The address Boone gave to where his wife is being held is using a lot of electricity, it’s also a Chinese restaurant. Broyles okays another raid.

Peter and Walter show up at the house to catalog the chemical evidence. Walter has a theory. Olivia is heading to the restaurant and giving last minute orders and she gets a call from Rachel saying Greg wants custody of Ella. She wants to run and Olivia talks her down. She says she has to go to a meeting as the SWAT van pulls up. They raid the restaurant and Olivia speaks a few words of Chinese trying to find Valerie Boone, she’s not there. Broyles tells this to Nicholas and he says he knows and that he needs to talk to Dunham. He tells her to go to a fridge in the back that contains a contagion XT43, he needs it to make an antidote. The person doing the killing was dosed with this. It was his wife.

Peter watches a video camera recording while Walter works. It’s of Valerie and Nicholas. He pauses it on her eyes and sadly closes the viewfinder (almost like he knows something.) A good looking boy sees Valerie coming out of a club. They drive to a dark street and start checking each other’s tonsils. He comments on how warm she is, burning up in fact. She says, “You’re my kinda guy.” Then she says I’m sorry and rears her head back to expose a giant mouth full of fangs and chomps down on the chump’s neck.

Roxbury, Mass. Police find the despined Mustang Man and Charlie runs checks on his background. Broyles and Dunham bring the video camera to Boone, mindful of the date on the recording – it was taken three weeks ago. In it, he’s running around a park with Valerie, not in a wheelchair. He explains that she can’t control her need to feed. At first he fed her his own spinal fluid until he couldn’t. She feeds like a vampire for spinal fluid, recharging each time. ZFT wanted him to make a nightmare, to show off to other scientists. Same reason he made the skin growth toxin. He scoffs at their lack of knowledge and says the only way to survive this is for him to make a cure. She says the lab won’t be a problem.

Olivia brings him to the Fringe lab. Charlie calls and says they found Bob Dunn’s car, completely stripped, no way to track it. Walter and Nicholas say the way to go is with a super penicillin. Peter says he can find who stripped the car and takes Olivia to his man Mako who tells them where they boosted the car. Walter and Nicholas infect a rat and nearly complete the cure. The two scientists exchange pleasantries and begin talking about the soul. Walter mentions William Bell to indicate he too has had quite a fall.

Olivia and Peter find the spot the car was boosted and think about where Valerie would have gone. They search around and find another body.

Walter, Nicholas and Astrid begin filming the trial of the antidote. Dunham, Peter and a few EMTs bring bodies to the lab. Astrid says one of them smells like a brewery. Walter claps his hands and the lights turn off so Astrid can use a blacklight to check club stamps, a place called The Cavern. The rat is dead, Nicholas needs more time.

Valerie is dancing to Nine Inch Nails at the club. Dunham and Peter show up and begin searching, Peter using a thermal imager. A lady stops him and he says she’s hot but he’s looking for someone with syphilis. Another dead rat and Nicholas says the only chance is to take more of his spinal fluid, a safe amount that won’t cause more problems. Dunham and Peter keep searching and Peter sees someone really hot in the scope. Dunham loses her in the crowd. Charlie doesn’t see anyone leaving. Walter taps some fluid from a crying Nicholas, who then calms down when he sees the video camera. Valerie leaves the club and Charlie shoots her with tranquilizers and takes her down. Nicholas starts convulsing, Walter knows they took too much. Peter and Dunham drive back and Peter gets to play with the siren. Valerie wakes up.

Valerie is cuffed as Peter and Olivia talk about the Boones and Rachel’s divorce. Valerie jumps Olivia and tries to bite her, Peter hits her with more tranqs. They bring her to the lab and administer the cure, using her spinal fluid as the catalyst they need. She thrashes around and makes horrible cries that change into regular cries and her eyes change from blue to green and she calms down. Nicholas meanwhile dies watching it all. Walter gives Olivia a video tape, he says it’s from Dr. Boone.

Olivia and Peter watch the tape. He honors the bargain they made and tells her what he knows of the ZFT. He never dealt with anyone of rank in the movement, but he gathered some information, probably people she’s heard of. Olivia goes to a restaurant and meets Broyles and tells him that he didn’t know much, nothing about David Robert Jones, but he knows who was funding the ZFT; one William Bell.

Once again the supporting cast was phenomenal. Jefferson Mays as Nicholas Boone was easily the shimmer in this outing. His portrayal was vulnerable and guilty while still remaining noble and educated. He knew the trouble he was in and it weighed on him heavily. He knew sacrifice was needed and was prepared to give it without hesitation. He admired Dr. Bishop for his genius regardless of his checkered past.

The rest of the episode was exactly like “Bad Dreams” or “Inner Child” in that we’re hunting a monster and either the monster’s creator or the way to find the monster has a direct tie to The Pattern or ZFT. We get bits and pieces of known information along the way and then at the very end a new piece of information is dropped on us to keep us going until next week. But then, next week comes and we start over with another monster.

This isn’t how it worked the first half of the season and I’m wondering if it was planned out like this. Now that the characters have been established, all the story has to do is find Bad Wolf and tie up the loose ends. Are the writers stretching it out till the finale? It feels like it. The first half of the season we jumped from monster to Agent Scott to new twists in the Fringe lab. It was all over the place, but it was variety. Now it’s the same formula for the past four episodes. “The Ability” was the last one purely focused on the main arc, the rest have been ancillary at best.

Rachel’s plight is getting tiresome. For almost a whole season she’s lived with Olivia and just now her husband files for a divorce. She’s on this show for a reason, but if it’s only to make Olivia remember her whole life isn’t about Fringe then so be it. It’s an admirable tool to use, I just wish it wouldn’t drag so much.

Nothing very exciting save for the end but we all knew Massive Dynamic was involved. And what does EIGHT mean? (The glyph code.) Was it the number of people Valerie killed? I rewatched and couldn’t find any significance to this number. Please chime if you do.

Meanwhile, three out of five random glyphs