FRINGE - “The Same Old Story”
Season 1 - Episode 2
A young woman of questionable decision-making capability finds herself increasingly and alarmingly pregnant only minutes after hanky-pankying, interrupting the probably-also-bad-for-her plans the father was setting up in the bathroom of their hotel. With his plan ruined, he dumps her at a hospital where the rapid pregnancy kills her. The doctors save the child, and are treated to the new horror of watching it age rapidly and die an old man in just a few hours. Who you gonna call? Fringe-busters!
Apparently Broyles and Massive Dynamic’s Nina Sharp are in a secret club, which I guess surprises no one. Doubts are raised about Broyles’ new team, but whatever, they’re needed for the sinister case of not exactly Benjamin Button.
Walter gets to work on the body and the theories, Olivia gets to work on the crime scene and regret. She’s still pretty bummed about falling for the traitorous (OR IS HE?!) agent Scott, and now the investigation convinces her this is the work of a killer she failed to capture years ago. A killer who’s grabbing another poor girl from another seedy bar. He must have amazing pickup lines. Peter fixes Walter’s car.
Walter remembers that like everything else for the foreseeable future of the show, this is just like a crazy experiment he worked on back in the day, and the agency finds the new victim. Walter’s old partner in the rapid-aging venture, a Dr. Penrose, is still in Boston, but Olivia doesn’t get much from a chat. Walter pokes at the new victim—who wasn’t accidentally impregnated—so they get a better handle on what the killer is after: yanking pituitary glands out of brains, presumably to stop his own rapid aging problem. Which of course, he got from the experiments of his father, Dr. Penrose, who’s most definitely not abandoned all of his work on the aging stuff.
Walter decides they should find out what the dead girl saw, so they borrow a super-duper camera from the always accommodating Massive Dynamic, hook victim two up to a bunch of wires, and take pictures of her optic nerves to see where she died. A landmark and some Google Earthing later, they’re rushing to the scene of the crime as Penrose and son are prepping victim three for a pituitary-ectomy.
Confrontation! Dr. Penrose escapes, Peter saves the life of the victim, and our killer, the younger Penrose, is chased and caught by Olivia just in time for him to age and die in front of her.
Nina is impressed and offers Olivia a job with Massive D, and we get a closing shot of what looks like clones of Penrose’s son in a hospital somewhere, punching holes in his credibility as a possibly well meaning ex-evil-scientist, haunted by the sins of his past, who’s only still killing people to keep his poor son alive.
Ho-hum, whatever. Not bad. Let’s talk about Peter. Walter’s a mad genius, of course. Olivia’s our protagonist, super good at her job and succeeds where others have failed because she’s our protagonist and that’s the way these shows work. So what does Peter bring to the table? Time travel. Or maybe he can fly. Telekinesis, the ability to talk to animals. Okay, I’m guessing. We don’t know yet, but it’s painfully clear the show has Big Plans for him and it won’t surprise me in the least if the weak link in the group turns out to be the super important key to it all, or whatever. Walter’s already hinted to Olivia that something’s up with Peter, and he’s always harping on Peter about his “wasted potential”, which Peter interprets as fatherly disappointment, but it seems obvious he’s just said Peter hasn’t manifested his mutant powers yet.
That works for me though. The unassuming, possibly reluctant hero eventually coming to terms with his destiny and abilities to save the day is a proven gimmick that I have no problem with if they pull it off well. I could certainly be overestimating his importance. Maybe I’m right, but in a minor way with a little arc that plays out over the next handful of episodes, or maybe the whole series builds toward’s Peter’s rise as humanity’s savior against the alien invasion. In any case, it’s obvious the show’s got something planned for him beyond the ability to fix old cars.
Next time, on Arrested Development…
