Fringe – Season 2

So, when we last left Olivia Dunham, she had just realized that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore — if by “Kansas”, you mean “the universe she was born in”. But just to ramp up the tension, that’s not where we open in season two. Instead, we open with a guy waking up after a car accident. Instead of waiting for the police like a dutiful citizen, he gets out of the car and stumbles away as fast as he can.

Hey look! It’s Scully and Mulder, in an episode about body-swapping!

He gains entrance to a nearby apartment building, and then forces his way into a guy’s apartment. Once the other guy has been killed, we briefly see the TV, which is showing a scene from a certain other FOX show about FBI agents investigating the paranormal. And if you’re as big of an X-Phile as I am, you’ll immediately recognize that episode. It’s an appropriate choice for this show to use here.

Moving on. The guy from the accident begins to break the bones of his own face with his hands, complete with disturbing cracking sounds. Then he takes out a weird little device, a box small enough to fit in his hand, and pulls out an attachment from it that has two prongs on the end. He shoves those prongs into the roof of the dead guy’s mouth, shoves another set into his own, presses a switch, and has a sort of a seizure — at the end of which he has transformed and look exactly like the dead guy.

Ouch.

Peter gets a phone call, which leads to both Bishops rushing to the accident scene. FBI Junior Agent Amy Jessup is in charge of the case. Spoilers, though — she’ll be disappearing never to be mentioned again a la Mandy on The West Wing after a couple of episodes, so you don’t need to worry too much about getting to know her. Peter ignores Jessup’s greeting, just wanting to know how badly Olivia was hurt (aww). Jessup informs him that there’s no sign of her at the site, despite the fact that her SUV is one of the vehicles involved in the crash. Walter quietly breaks into Olivia’s car and fiddles with it for a while, until something strange starts happening to it, mechanical-wise. He backs away and then everyone stares as the engine revs all by itself, the siren goes off, and then Olivia Dunham is ejected through the windshield. She flies quite a distance and then lands horribly, unconscious and covered in blood. Credits.

At New York General Hospital, the Bishops are devastated to hear that Olivia’s injuries are just too severe to expect any recovery (although she is still currently on life support). Later, Peter visits Olivia at the hospital again, running into her sister Rachel and niece Ella. He goes in to say goodbye, because they’re going to take her off life support. As he takes Olivia’s hand, however, she shouts a phrase in Greek (“Na einai kalitero anthropo apo ton Patera tou”), sits up, and then screams wildly.

Olivia continues to freak out when we come back from commercial. She won’t listen to the doctors or Rachel — she needs to tell Peter something. She met with “him” and “he” told her something important, but she can’t remember what it was. She insists everyone is in danger, and tells him she needs her gun. Peter goes to do his best to pursue the case with Jessup’s help.