Broyles recaps ZFT as being behind The Pattern to the rest of the Federal Agency in Boston. He says William Bell is implicated and the feds need to find a link. Meanwhile we watch a panicky woman get on a bus asking if it goes by a hospital. She’s sweating and her breath is fogging up the window. She sees a newspaper in front of her being singed. She freaks and has the bus stop. She gets off, asking for help saying she can’t breath, catches fire and explodes.

Opening credits.

Walter sifts through the ZFT copy again. He shows Peter the typewriter and the odd “y” offset. He says the typewriter is William Bell’s, “Bellie’s.” Even though it would seem Bellie wrote the manifesto and likely is funding experiments surrounding it, Walter denies it saying he wasn’t a madman. There’s references to a chapter in the ZFT on Ethics, but that chapter is missing. Walter thinks there may be another copy, maybe even in the lab.

Charlie and Olivia arrive on the scene of the human combustion. There are two charred bodies. Walter says he’ll take the body back to the lab, Olivia says she’ll prep the bodies for transport and Walter asks if there’s another one somewhere. She looks back at the citizen briquettes, the view warps and shifts and now there’s only one body. They ask if she’s ok and she’s momentarily at a loss. Nina Sharp visits Broyles about the investigation into Massive Dynamic. They fence about information, Nina says they can’t talk to William Bell, he’s…traveling. She says he’s not the enemy, then leaves.

Walter and Astrid are performing an autopsy on the charred body. They talk about how a body could spontaneously combust, given matter is energy in a potential state just needing a spark, maybe a particle named pyroton. Asks Peter for the electron microscope but Peter says he’s taken it apart for a project. Dunham goes to Broyles office and comments on how he’s changed his office, moved his desk. Broyles looks confused. She pushes on giving facts about the victim, he asks about the second and now Olivia looks confused. He hands her a file with the photo of two bodies. She hears the door open and looks around to see Broyles enter. Her view shifts again and the office changes. She’s a bit confused, but collects herself and recaps the victims information. Sanford Harris shows up wanting to know why Broyle’s division is investigating Bell. Broyles and Dunham say they have testimony. Harris fires back that MD is the biggest Defense contractor and they need to drop it. He leaves, Broyles says they aren’t, tells Olivia to get more evidence.

Astrid and Walter continue their autopsy. Astrid mentioning dental records on file reminds Walter he may have a copy of the manifesto in his unique filing system, which Astrid pokes fun. The Geiger counter is also gone, Peter cannibalized it. They get a hit on the dental records, Susan Pratt. Olivia and Charlie go investigate her apartment. She lives alone, not very social. Olivia checks her book shelf. Upon pausing and checking the books out, most are either fictional tales or conspiracy accounts of aliens, the government or the power of humanity and its ability to change. She then checks the armoire and finds black and gray clothing (just like Olivia and Nick Lane.) She finds an envelope with a $30,000 check from an Isaac Winters. Charlie finds a bathroom that’s burnt and charred beyond recognition.

Peter returns the lab with cereal, but no Frankenberry to help him think. When Olivia says there were other fires, Walter says it changes everything. It’s now not spontaneous human combustion, but pyrokinesis. He explains atomic vibration, energy and heat until the energy has to be released, by shaking and throwing cereal everywhere. He then posits that she blew up because she couldn’t focus her ability anywhere but internally. Charlie calls about Isaac Winters so they visit his office. Olivia breaks in and they don’t find much but a answering machine plays back Susan Pratt asking for help, she’s scared and confused. Odd things happened after she took “the tests.” Olivia goes outside, sees an ambulance drive by to a skyline of Boston on fire, half the buildings are gone. Charlie comes up to her and it all shifts back to a calm, fully intact skyline.

Walter asks Olivia if she was on any drugs or had any head trauma. She recounts the shifting incidents. He says there’s another possibility, déjà vu. She disagrees, but he says a long protracted sense and explains space time pliability. On a chalkboard, he draws branching lines, each branch of choice creates a new reality. Déjà vu is nothing more than a glimpse of the other choices, the road not taken. He doesn’t know why Olivia and why now. She asks about cortexifan, it works on perception. He says he doesn’t know why, but there must be a reason. Astrid interrupts with a past report of a guy who died the same way as Susan Pratt. Olivia and Peter pay a visit to the man who’s clearly a conspiracy nut. After unlocking 7 or 8 locks, they talk to Mr. Grayson about his website. Peter stops Olivia’s Fed questioning and plays the conspiracy and truth seeker role. Grayson says William Bell’s company is a cover to continue his continued experiments, including secret drug trials. The combustion victims were part of those trials. Grayson says Bell is trying to active his subjects to act as soldiers in the coming war. Subjects like…Kahn Noonien Sing. (Go ahead and look that one up.) Yes, Mr. Grayson thinks the war is going to be against the Romulans, here from the future to disrupt the time line. He knows this because he is the son of Sarek, which makes him Spock.

* * * Trivia Interlude * * *

Wait, doesn’t J.J. Abrams make this show? Yes he does. Isn’t he also the director for the new Star Trek movie? Yes he is. But moving past that, a couple interesting bits of writing and trivia concerning Mr. Grayson’s appearance. First of all, the actor playing him is Clint Howard. He’s one of those crazy eyed, who’s that guy? actors no one remembers the names of. He’s been a ton of movies and TV shows, but Trek fans will likely remember him as the creepy Balok from Star Trek, the episode was “The Corbomite Maneuver.

The second bit is that the character name is Emanuel Grayson. Whether he changed it or not, Spock’s human mother was Amanda Grayson. So, Abrams must be trying to show off for his Trek fans by doing some net sleuthing or maybe he is just a big Trekkie after all.

* * * End Trivia * * *

Nina is talking to a “Mr. Prime Minister” when she gets a call that makes her say not to do anything till she gets there. She orders her driver to get her to the helicopter, fast.

Olivia wonders if part of what Grayson said was right. She thinks maybe her visions are a clue. She sees two bodies in the other universe, but only one in this one. Maybe she’s meant to find who the second body is to help the investigation. She’s interrupted by Sanford Harris who gives her an order to get a psych evaluation. She confronts him and they fight but he reminds her he’s her superior and the psych eval is a direct order. She crumples it up, goes to answer a phone and everything shifts. The Fed HQ is a chaotic scene, people are wearing bullet proof vests. She finds Charlie and asks about the Pratt case again. He says, “You have half of Boston in quarantine lock-down and you’re worried about a pair of charred twins?” He gives her the file and she’s a photo of two women, then she shifts back.

Olivia and Charlie get some help on misper records and find a Nancy Lewis who reported a twin sister missing 11 years ago and Nancy is local. Nancy answers the door and it’s Isaac Winters.

Peter and Olivia show up at Nancy Lewis’ place but she’s not there. There’s a sign of a struggle and charred window with melted glass. He says he has an idea. The crime scene gives Peter guff about touching things, but he takes a glass cutter and cuts out a circle. Astrid and Walter show up with a few bags. Peter assembles the “project” he’s been working on: It’s a way to digitize Walter’s old water damaged records. Walter is touched. The principle is you take a high res image of the record and interpret the grooves digitally and then translate them to sound. With the glass, if there was anything happening while the glass was melting, the sound waves would have created grooves in it, which they can play back the same way as a record. They scan, play back and it’s so loud the feedback breaks the glass but they have the scan and adjust the sound. Soon enough they hear a woman screaming, things breaking, a phone dialing and a man speaking. Peter cleans up the sound of the dialing and Olivia uses her phone app to recognize the dialed tones and call the same number. (Amazing, we’ll get to that one later.) The phone dials and guess who Mr. Winters called?

Sanford Harris.

Harris tells Charlie he’s going out. Olivia and Charlie tail him to a warehouse. They super-ice and break the lock and bust into the abandoned building. Harris goes into a room with computers and a window into another room where Winters has Nancy Lewis in a chair and is giving her a shot. Winters says her temperature is only slightly elevated, Harris says, “He’s loosing patience and we need her active.” Olivia finds a room with photos of Susan, Nancy, Nick Lane and herself. Shots are fired and a security guard takes down an agent. She takes the guard down and works her way further into the warehouse. She returns fire from Isaac Winters, but Harris closes the door behind her. She shoots at the glass but it’s bullet proof. Suddenly Nancy becomes activated and her temperature shoots up. Harris calls “him” and says they have an active, but she’s a loss; highly unstable. Olivia is trying to calm her down. As she’s talking her down, the shaky camera shows a wooden box with a grid of small bulbs all lit up. Olivia says she can control it, just control the heat away. Suddenly Harris’s speech becomes slurred, he starts sweating, catches fire and explodes.

Peter and Walter are at a diner. Peter goes to the bathroom and Olivia shows up with a folder of photos asking what Walter and Bell did to them. Susan and Nancy were also from Jacksonville, FL. Walter says it wasn’t him, it was Bell, but Olivia fires back that he knew what was going on. Walter says they were trying to prepare them for what was coming, something terrible, but he can’t remember what it is. He cries at his lack of memory, and she leaves, disgusted. Peter comes back and wonders what the problem is, Walter holds Peter’s hand.

Nina Sharp visits Broyles, showing him photos of The Observer, reminding him what happened the last time he showed up with this frequency. Walter is in the lab listening to old records, he sifts through a box of vinyl and finds an envelope with the other ZFT manifesto. He hears the door open and thinks it’s Astrid so begins reading the lost chapter on ethics, specifically on how to protect children. He looks over at the door and it’s not Astrid, it’s the Observer. He says hello and that it’s time to go. Walter calmly says ok and that he’ll get his coat.

Nina arrives at (what I assume is) her building and takes the elevator up. The doors open and two men, one very tall one very short, in ski masks step in front of her with a gun and silencer and shoot her in the chest.

My first thought was that there’s no way Nina Sharp is dead. She has a cyborg arm, I’m sure Bellie will figure out a way to either bring her back to life, if she was alive to start. I have a feeling the robot arm was a show to keep people from looking to closely. It’s possible she’s more machine than human. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, Olivia hates Walter. No matter how much good he’s doing now, she’s moving further away from trusting him with each new case. He may have lost his mind, but that doesn’t erase the fact that she was his experiment as a child. The way Walter held Peter’s hand at the end, and considering all the insinuations that somehow Peter is special, I also think Peter was part of that group. He’s about the same age as Olivia and Walter always seems worried about him and talks about his childhood in vague ways. I think that’s something we should keep an eye out for.

Notice there was no Rachel in this episode.

Notice also there was a Sanford Harris getting all explody. I don’t think his character served much of a purpose, even with the idea that he was a government link to what might likely be William Bell, hence his wanting Olivia & Co. to drop the investigation. But now he’s a smoldering crimson stain and they have lost another link. I don’t know that the plan was to introduce him as a foil to Olivia only to have him killed ten episodes later, but it felt like fanboy wish fulfillment. No one truly cared for the character, not the actor and his portrayal, just the need for what felt like an ancillary and unnecessary character.

Plus and finally, The Observer has taken Walter. Chris suggests the Observer is part of a race from another dimension, one that we will be fighting and that the ZFT warns about. I don’t know if that’s the case and we likely won’t. With what appears to be only two episodes left (IMDB) we’ll have to find out quickly.

A couple Fringe Science points:

1) pyroton – There is no evidence of this particle’s existence. It was theorized in a book by researcher Larry Arnold. It’s so unsubstantiated that Wikipedia articles on Arnold and pyroton have been deleted citing no proof. (Surely there’s proof of the author’s existence, but whatever.)

2) I can’t find anything quickly about sound waves recorded in molten solids. Technically if you pump sound waves, say low frequency vibrations, into a molten sheet of glass as the glass is solidifying, you can capture those waves. Whether you can play them back is something else. The voices on the play back went on for a good 20 seconds, that seems like a long time to have the glass be molten and receptive to waves that travel at over 1,100 feet per second.

3) There is an iPhone app called iBeep. You can use it to dial to land-line phones. The application of it would be useful for international calls where it’s a long string of numbers and you could likely get it wrong. The phone will send tones from the cell phone to the land line phone and the land line phone knows how to use those tones to dial the number. Reverse engineered and coupled with the app that recognizes music, this application is not only likely, but probably already being used.

Glyphs spell VISION, not really a clue, but neat to think about.

Four and a half randomly chosen glyphs. If you can’t tell by how much I wrote, I liked how “The Road Not Taken” played out.