Fringe S1E3: "Am I required to keep him alive?"

“The Ghost Network”

I don’t know if I was just in a bad mood after the painful hour I spent watching 90210, or if it was the fact that my mother called ½ way through and I missed some stuff, but the central story didn’t do much for me tonight. Basically, some guy named Roy is drawing tragedies that he sees in his head, and then they happen. Walter figures out that he is tapping into the “ghost network,” which is of course one of his old projects, and Roy was a test subject. Walter explains something about how spectral waves transmit information, and Roy’s brain is picking it up. Blah blah blah, they stop a bad guy.

And now, some thoughts on the characters and their relationships:

Although it’s corny, I can’t wait for the moment that Peter finally calls Walter “dad.”

Walter, who we learn is self-medicating with homemade psychotics, tells Peter that “lack of commitment” is his problem. I feel like he said a similar thing in the last episode, so I assume it is significant. Walter continues to be the best character on this show. John Noble is a fantastic actor, and I love Walter’s dichotomy– he is a genius who can perform brain surgery, but he struggles to answer a cell phone.

When Peter and Walter are in a restaurant, Peter notices a guy following them and confronts him. The guy, who is taking pictures of Peter, tells him that he was supposed to inform them when he got back into town. When Walter asks what happened, Peter says something innocuous about how the guy was harassing the waitress. Walter gives him a knowing look. WTF is Peter’s secret? It better be good.

Peter says his mother is “a story for another time.” My guess is something’s up there.

Olivia goes to Nina at Massive Dynamic for help identifying a chemical compound, and casually comments how strange it is that everything leads her back to MD. Nina’s counter? “I could say the same about you.”

Broyles takes the evidence they find to Nina, who then uses it in her quest to extract information from John Scott’s body. Both Broyles and Nina exist in quite the little gray area. What is their true relationship?

This show really needs to step it up with the character of Olivia. She has all the personality of a blank piece of paper.

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