TV Recap: Fringe - Bad Dreams

Another fine episode from the whacked out minds over at Fringe give us a worthwhile storyline that concludes and actually gives us hints as to what’s going on. I can only hope that all those extra storylines are lost forever because a “Lostie” I am not.

Dunham is killing people with her mind, or so she thinks. She dreams she pushes a young mom in front of an oncoming subway car and the next day, guess what’s leading the news stories. You got it. Everything is the same right down to the red balloon floating on the ceiling. Of course, Peter chalks it up to just a bad dream but Olivia has a bad feeling and those aren’t often wrong on her. Must be all that pro..blah blah blah that she was fed as a child. You know, the stuff that is supposed to heighten certain abilities. They check out the surveillance video, though, and sure enough, it looks like a suicide.

Olivia decides not to sleep in case she is causing some strange occurrence but, really, No Doze can only help so much. The second she closes her eyes she sees a woman and a man having a nice dinner. Suddenly, the woman starts screaming at the man about being unfaithful and before she can stop herself, Olivia is driving a knife into the man’s stomach. And like clockwork, the next day a woman is arrested for her husband’s murder.

Two times is definitely more than a coincidence and Peter and Olivia visit the restaurant to see if they can scrounge up any kind of clues. Good thing the guy is a talker because he tells Olivia, after a forceful interrogation, that there was a blonde guy sitting where Olivia was in her dream. A blonde guy with a big scar. Ding. Rings a bell, naturally, and Olivia remembers seeing him on the tape of the suicidal mother. And there he is, passing by the mother seconds before she jumped.

Using FBI technology, Dunham is able to track down a name for the guy, Nick. Guess where the last known address is for Nick? Give up? A mental institution. The poor kid thought he was a warrior in some upcoming war that will pit people against people. Sound familiar a little. Oh yeah, he was basically quoting the ZFT handbook, which Peter and Olivia still don’t know Walter wrote. They also find out that Nick had a very infectious personality. Basically, what he felt was caught by those around him and they had the same feelings. Meaning that Nick isn’t necessarily a bad guy. He might not be meaning to kill all these people. Of course all this does is freak out Peter and Dunham, especially about the connection between Nick and Olivia.

And, even more to add, Nick is the same age as Olivia and is also from Jacksonville. Turns out he was treated with the same drug as Olivia and, according to Walter, there were times when the children were paired up to keep them from being frightened. Don’t fret, Walter says he wasn’t involved of any of the experiments. He claims it was all Massive Dynamic’s leader. Whatever. Either way, Olivia was obviously paired with Nick and therefore can see what he’s seeing and feel what he’s feeling.

Walter rigs up Olivia and puts her into a hypnotic state to become more attached to Nick. This way, she’s able to drop in on him and not wake up when he kills again. And he does. He picks up a stripper, sleeps with her, and then his self-pity consumes her and she offs herself. A tad embarrassing for Olivia who is unconscious and just made sex noises in front of Peter, Walter, and Astrid. Luckily, or not depending on how you see it, she’s fairly tame. Either way, she’s able to stay under after the murder, with some help from Peter, who was able to calm her down just by touching her hand (wink) and find out Nick’s address.

And, you know what’s happening next…They go to storm his apartment but he’s already gone. He knows some one’s coming and he takes about 10 people up to the roof of a very tall building with him. A cop went up but he’s now standing on the ledge, too. Walter thinks Olivia might be able to withstand Nick’s influence, though, so up she goes. When she gets up there, Nick recognizes her immediately. He calls her Olive but she has absolutely no recollection of anything.

He tells her to kill him because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. He just can’t forget what happened to him. He remembers all the words and everything and then when a guy showed up at the institution claiming to be his lawyer, he said it was time for him to step up and be a warrior. Nick couldn’t stop and he needed some one else to do it for him so he called out to Olivia telepathically. Kind of creepy but at least we know why she has perfect intuition. She doesn’t kill Nick but shoots him in the knees so he falls back, as do the other people on the roof. The FBI decides to keep in a sealed room in a drug induced coma. Why everyone’s okay with that is beyond me. I would put him out of his obvious misery.

Meanwhile, Walter is looking frantically through tapes he has at the lab. He finds one and pops it in. I’ll only give you one guess at who is on the tape. Oh yeah, it’s a tiny little Olive cowering in the corner of a torn up room. William is asking what’s wrong with her and a very compassionate sounding Walter is saying she’s afraid. Hmm. Did Walter remember all along whom Olivia was? Were there any tests done on Peter? What the poop is going on and what exactly does this have to do with the pattern? Is the ZFT idea that they create chaos and kill people? Okay, so maybe I lied earlier about answers but don’t you feel better at least knowing that Olivia dresses in all grey and black because she’s programmed to? Warriors are supposed to blend in.