It’s fitting that this show will premiere on Fox, since this was the network of the X-Files. Fringe has got much in common with the X-Files, yet it is different. Fringe is the latest show of wunderkind J.J. Abrams. Like most new shows, the pilot was leaked on the internet a few weeks ago.
Just like a few other shows, like True Blood, I’m happily surprised by Fringe. The production values are great and I’m enjoying it a lot. A lot of money has been pumped into this show, and it just looks fabulous. The protagonists are also an interesting bunch. There isn’t much more that we learn of the Pattern, but Massive Dynamics is most definitely deeply connected with those events, even though they aren’t sharing their information with Agent Dunham.
I think that this show takes a few common elements from Alias, especially for all the things that concerned the mystic scholar Milo Rambaldi. The same kind of esoteric science is involved in this show. It’s done very well. I’d actually like to see this type of mystic science have more of an impact on the show. It would suit the show very well. A bit of the supernatural wouldn’t be bad either.
Warning: spoilers ahead
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The code for this week is BETRAY. People are dying from acute exhaustion. Walter finds out that they all have brain implants in the thalamus. Someone is stealing their dreams and using it as a drug. People are dying all over the place. We also see that Walter did something to Peter when he was young.
Fringe is one of the best shows on TV right now. It’s getting better and better, and I like it maybe a bit more than X-Files. Why? There are less filler episodes. Most episode deal with the mythology of the show.
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Dunham comes by to see Weiss to drop off some bowling shoes. Weiss knows that someone died. Fake Francis is dead. His death is affecting Dunham.
In Seattle, a man named Greg is hallucinating some strange stuff. He sees the faces of people with the faces of demons. His eyes are rolling all over the place after he smashes his boss’ face to pulp.
Walter and Peter are moving into their house. He wants to live in the living room. Astrid drops by. Astrid drops by with their new case. They are going to Seattle. When they arrive, Walter looks antsy. He hasn’t been awake long. He’s been sleeping ever since. He doesn’t remember anything from yesterday. He tells her about the demons in his office. While he is talking about it, he starts to seize. His eyes roll around and he prematurely ages right in front of them, his hair turns white and he flatlines
BETRAY
Walter has been acting weird, but doesn’t have time to tell Peter about it because the ME walks in. Walter thinks that the man died from acute exhaustion.
Walter tells Peter that Seattle reminds him of Ste-Claire’s, the mental institution. He wants to go home. An agent is flying Walter home. For some reason, Dunham is collecting business cards. They interview the wife. She tells them that he used to sleepwalk. There are a bunch of books in his library about it. He had been cured by his doctors and hadn’t had an episode in 6 months. Peter gets his sleep journal. He was also using it as a dream diary. His nightmares were about demons, at least once a week. There has been another incident. A woman killed a guy on a motorcycle. Her hair also turned white.
Walter is back in Boston with Astrid. They find some stitches in the back of his neck. Walter finds some kind of implant and filaments in his brain. A computer chip has been implanted in his hypothalamus.
Broyles goes to Massive Dynamic. She says that it’s a bio-chip that can remotely connect to a network. It stimulates the thalamus if there is a problem in the sleep cycle. There is a researcher in Seattle who works on this.
Dunham and Peter visit Dr. Nayak. He says that they are both patients. He says that 82 people have the biochip. It’s part of a large scale study. Nayak brings them to his Sleep Clinic. It’s been vandalized. The patient files are gone. They were stored on a server. The chip technology was valuable. It cured all REM related sleep disorders. Nayak has the patient files backup up on a remote server. Dunham asks him for his business card. Peter says that the biochip could be related to mind control.
Walter thinks that someone is trying to perfect mind control one patient at a time. There are 50 patients unaccounted for.
Zack, Nayak’s RA, is playing with someone else’s biochip. He’s under the orders of someone else. That person is feeding off the patients in some fashion. He’s wearing some sort of interface on his head. We don’t see his face. The woman kills a chef.
Walter plans on experimenting on the agent who brought him back. Nayak is removing the biochips. Dunham got 8 business cards. She asked everyone who was wearing red. It was because Weiss asked her to. She has to circle the first and last letters of their names. He says that it’s an anagram.
Broyles says that Nayak’s files were wiped. It was someone in the clinic. Nayak says that Zack has been skipping out on work. He hasn’t been answering his phone. Peter and Dunham go check it out. They are going to have to make an announcement on the local news. Nayak gets a threatening note. It tells him to stop talking with the feds or wind up like Zack. Dunham and Peter find Zack dead.
Walter drugged the agent. He attached the chip to a net that will reach the brain. He’s attached something to his brain as well. He feels like he’s on drugs.
Nayak shows Dunham the note. He knows the person who is doing this. Walter says that Nayak’s chips are transmitting massive amounts of data. They are accessing all of the sensory information passing through the thalamus. The chips are stealing dreams. No dreams. This means that the patients aren’t getting any REM sleep. The chips are the source. They are dealing with someone who has been enslaved by the rush from the dreams. Dunham thinks that Nayak wrote the note. Any addict develops schisms in their personality.
Meanwhile, Nayak selects another patient and siphons his dreams. That patient is a pilot about to take off on a plane. He sees faces that are blank. He is about to go on a collision course. Dunham and Peter arrive at Nayak’s place. They disable the servers. Nayak is dead. Dunham pays a visit to Francis’ grave. The anagram says “You’re gonna be fine”.
Peter dreams something about his father. It’s like a memory about when he was a child. He dreamt that his dad came to get him in his room. Walter is sitting next to him. It looks like Walter did something to Peter in his youth.
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