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- TV Series: Fringe
- Episode: Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver.
- Starring: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Blair Brown
- Written By: Matthew Pitts
- Directed By: Brad Anderson
- Network: Fox
- Series: Fringe
Fringe: Olivia. In the lab. With the Revolver Review
The Truth is Out There By Kurt Anthony Krug
April 08, 2010
Fringe Review
© Fox/Bob Trate
FBI Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is having trouble sleeping. She is troubled by the promise she made Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble) not to tell his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson) that he is actually from an alternate reality as revealed in the last episode. This reality’s Peter died when he was a little boy and Walter brought over the Peter everyone knows and loves from that other universe.
Walter forbids Olivia to reveal the truth to Peter because father and son have never had a healthy relationship until recently. Even Peter likes “the odd little family unit (the three of them) got going” and doesn’t want to screw it up. Olivia has several chances to tell Peter the truth, but waffles. Nina (Blair Brown) tells Olivia that she won’t do it because she doesn’t want to lose him. In the end, Olivia decides she won’t tell Peter anything and informs Walter his secret’s safe with him. However, Walter changes his mind and says he will tell Peter the truth.
Meanwhile, a very sick man named James Heath (Omar Metwally, Munich), who is dying of cancer, is spreading contagion by mere touch. His victims develop nasty malignant sarcomas on the outside of their skin that are ready to burst at any moment and they die within moments – a very disgusting and painful way to go. It’s explained that James is transferring his illness to his victims, although it only temporarily takes away his disease.
The cool twist is that he can only give his illness to people involved in the Jacksonville Experiments, where test subjects were given Cortexiphan, the nootropic drug developed by Walter and William Bell (Leonard Nimoy), which is part of the TV series’ ongoing mythology. Olivia was just one of those test subjects and Heath is targeting her next. In the end, Olivia defeats Heath before he can make any skin-to-skin contact. Heath is then placed in a medically-induced coma.
The scenes where Olivia is working late on the case with a glass of booze in hand is reminiscent of Joseph Fiennes’ FBI Agent Mark Benford on ABC’s FlashForward. Benford is seen in his flash-forward to be working on the mystery that caused the blackout while under the influence. Don’t know if the creators intentionally meant to do this (probably not), but it was worth mentioning.
All in all, a straight-ahead done-in-one episode with some links to the ongoing mythology of Fringe. First-time viewers should not have been confused by Heath’s connection to the Jacksonville Experiments. If anything, it should make them curious to troll the Internet in order to find out more.
Well, not "troll" the internet. We have enough of those. Man - now that I am typing this I realize I fell asleep during this and haven't watched it all. Not because it was bad - I was up for 48 hours straight with no sleep. Damn. I don't know what I was thinking - guess I'm going to Hulu now and watching it. Did I think I watched all of it? Eh.