By Stacey Harrison
Fringe is known for its twists and turns, but one I didn’t see coming was the premiere of a new episode last Thursday. Perhaps I was fooled by all those FOX ads claiming that the show would be back with new episodes Nov. 12. But thanks to the Yankees taking care of business in the World Series a game early (yawn), the network decided to get back in the Pattern (see what I did there?) a week early.
Long story short, I missed a week, and haven’t bothered to Hulu it yet. From what I hear, it was pretty much a stand-alone episode that didn’t add much to the mythology. And the opening “previously on Fringe” bump didn’t seem to reference it, so what the hey.
I love the episodes that jump right in on the action and don’t necessarily have a long setup in a far-flung location. We start with a pair of police cars racing to apprehend another car parked atop a high parking structure. It’s an apparent kidnapping, with a pair of mustachioed goons holding a pimply-faced teen. The cops order the goons out of the car, get the typical “you don’t know what you’re dealing with” threat, only to learn that it was good advice. One by one, the police are given the Village of the Damned treatment, offing themselves and others in ways that seem bewildering even to them. One cop walks off the parking ramp, another shoots her partners before putting the gun to her own head.
The Fringe Division learns the kid, Tyler Carson, is the son of a Massive Dynamic aerospace engineer. This leads to a scene I’ve been waiting for, Walter heading into Massive Dynamic, his old lab partner’s multinational conglomerate. He’s duly impressed, especially with the facility’s 73 labs. They don’t learn much, other than the apparent kidnappers are used-car salesmen with no apparent history of crime (other than being car salesmen — ba-dum-bum!), but the thought is they’re trying to steal industry secrets from Massive Dynamic.
There clearly is something going on with the kid, though, as he seems to be the one behind the odd events. During a robbery at a gas station that goes deadly very quickly, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that Twilight Zone episode (and segment in the movie) where everyone is afraid of the kid who can wish anything into reality. (“It’s good that you made that man pour scalding coffee on his bald head … very good.”)
The kidnappers eventually call in and demand a $2 million ransom, but Broyles and Dunham are instantly suspicious, concluding that it’s only a diversion. Before the exchange, all the agents are fitted with earphones through which white noise simulating the sounds one would hear in utero are emitted … through Peter’s childhood teddy bear, of course. This is Walter’s method for blocking the sound-driven mind control he believes is at work.
The mission is an abject failure, however, as the kidnappers still go crazy (one succeeds in killing himself, the other tries but has no bullets), and Peter finds out the hard way that the headphones don’t work. Tyler, who is — ugh! — holding a Homer Simpson Pez dispenser (see item below for further annoyance), takes control of his mind and orders him to take him away in his car.
The kid reveals himself to be a total douchebag who makes Peter speed up the car, and sneers as he tells him he can control his entire body and make him do whatever he wants. Peter rightly responds that the kid is a total sonofabitch. Meanwhile, Olivia learns that Carson’s dad was also involved in a program with the pharmaceutical division to allow a pilot to control a plane through telepathy (like in that Clint Eastwood movie Firefox). Turns out the doc had a few spare pills lying around at home that could give people the mind-control power. Turns out if you mix it with ADD medication, it’s darn effective.
This little revelation leads to Walter showing some fatherly love/anger at Dr. Carson for being so careless, and such a bad parent (a bit holier than thou for a guy who kidnapped his son’s doppelganger from a parallel dimension and spent 17 years in a mental institution leaving said fake son to raise himself and become a criminal, don’t you think?).
Peter tries to talk some sense into the kid, succeeding enough to stop him from causing Peter to kill an unlucky state trooper who pulls them over, instead just cold-cocking him with the trooper’s gun. He and Peter then stop off at a strip club, where Tyler reveals that he’s on his way to find his mother, whom his father told him had died years ago. Turns out she was a drug addict way back when and abandoned the family, and the dad thought it better to pretend she was dead. Man, this is a messed-up family.
When Tyler and Peter find the mom, she’s predictably surprised, and as she’s about to tell him that it was she who left and broke up their family, her new husband walks in, angering the petulant teen. He has Peter point a gun at the man, unaware that Broyles and Dunham are preparing to storm the house. Broyles tasers Tyler, but the kid kinda just shakes it off and makes Peter shoot Broyles (don’t worry, he’s OK). They then take off, leaving Olivia, Walter and Astrid in pursuit. Luckily, Walter has an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) handy to interrupt Tyler’s brainwaves, in order to give Peter a chance to break free. Peter notices Tyler becoming momentarily disoriented and crashes the car.
This week’s coda twist is a doozy. In an inter-dimensional missive to William Bell, Nina Sharp explains that “one of the Tylers” did exhibit quite an ability for mind control, but before they could tap into it, he embarked on a misguided attempt to find his surrogate mother. We hear this while we see this Tyler’s dad thumbing through files of several other Tylers, all the same age, with different families. Whoa.
Odds and ends:
— Walter genuinely asking Peter: “I used to share a lab with William Bell. Did I ever tell you that?” Another great question he asks: “You think the FBI would ever give me a gun?”
— We learn that William introduced Walter to Peter’s mother.
— Normally, I’m very happy anytime Homer Simpson pops up on my TV. Throw in aliens Kang and Kodos, and I’m a giddy man. But I wasn’t really expecting to see them while Peter and Olivia were discussing theories of mind control and Stockholm Syndrome. Good luck to all of you participating in this Simpsons scavenger hunt thingie.
— It had to happen sometime. In order to stave off the freaky vibes he gets from being in Massive Dynamic’s labs, Walter puts on a tin-foil hat, recruiting Astrid to do the same.
— Not that I’m too concerned about Tyler’s health, but Walter says the crash probably gave the kid a concussion and that he gave him a sedative to make sure he stayed unconscious. Are you supposed to make someone with a serious head injury go to sleep?
— Walter’s best line (to Peter, after he tries to cook for him after his experience with Tyler): “You were abducted. Of course you need crepes.”
