Fringe S1E8: The Equation

“What’s up, Chachi?”

A woman who uses flashing lights to hypnotize her victims kidnaps a musical child prodigy. Several other geniuses have been abducted and then returned, only to go insane. One of them, Dashiell Kim, is a patient in the asylum from which Walter was recently sprung. So, Walt goes back in to glean information from Kim. The warden (who I think is the sheriff from Roswell) is mean and threatens to force Walter’s permanent return to the institution. Peter makes vague threats. Olivia doesn’t end up catching the bad guy, who does something weird with an apple.



* There is much discussion online about the apple. The prevailing thought seems to be that the equation rearranged the molecules of the safe so our mystery man could reach through its wall to retrieve the apple. Hmmmm.

* What was going on with Walter’s hallucinations of himself, quite sharply dressed, when he went back into the institution?

* Peter is now so protective of his dad, I love it! One of the best moments of the night was Walter expressing frustration at his failure to get info from Kim, and asking Peter “is that what it’s like to talk to me?” Peter’s sweet smile could have melted an iceberg.

* Ben was supposed to have woken up from a coma and suddenly have the ability to play the piano. All of the people who were kidnapped, including Ben, were trying to solve the same equation (each musical note corresponds to a number, etc). So…did someone do something to Ben while he was in the coma? Also, the focus on Peter’s piano playing thus far has been a little weird. Is this why they’ve been doing that?

* The fact that they kept switching between calling the kid “Ben” and “Bean” was really distracting.

* Peter tells Olivia to keep an eye out for a red castle and she looks up and sees a red castle? Seriously?

* I’m getting kind of irritated with the number of plot points introduced and then abandoned. I know they’ll come back eventually, but still. Where is Nina? What happened to Massive Dynamic’s supposed involvement with the Pattern? What’s with the mole couple from the last episode? Who is this Joanne Ostler woman, why was she presumed dead, and who in hell is the apple man? Is the next episode going to move along as though none of this has happened?

* Why do I not care as much as everyone else about trying to spot the Observer in each episode?

* Olivia fought dirty when she was kicking the crap out of Joanne, which somehow makes me like her more.

Next week: something crazy happens.