Fringe, S4 Ep5 – Novation

Peter’s House of Electronic Genius. Broyles comes in to ask what Peter’s got. He turns around his enormous MacBook Pro to show Broyles a DNA sequence — there are six different DNA profiles on this one memory disk. Peter elaborates that this means that these new shape-shifters can shift between all of the identities they’ve ever taken. Broyles comments that this is going to make it hard to find them, and Peter corrects him — it’s going to make it impossible. These shape-shifters don’t just look like the person they’re replacing, they replicate them, right down to their DNA. They’re the perfect infiltrator. If this technology is perfected, Peter continues, they could replace any one of them. Without doing surgery to find the memory disk, there would be no way of knowing. (But if the memory disk is metal, it would show up in an X-ray, wouldn’t it?) And for a minute I wondered if Broyles was thinking Peter was a shape-shifter, and then I remembered that as far as Broyles knows there would be no way for anyone to get a hold of Peter’s DNA to use to shift.

In the warehouse lab, Truss gives “Nadine” an injection. He tells her it may cause a little nausea, but it seems to be doing much more: she gasps, turns translucent again, and then as Truss watches she shifts back to looking like his wife. He freaks out and tries to run, but “Karen” hops up and smashes his face into a table. “You said you were going to help me, Malcolm,” says the thing who looks like his wife, “and you will.”

Aw, come on, guys, look how awesome he is! That doesn't bring back memories?

Peter’s still working on stuff, and he evidently makes an important discovery, since he goes to the (reassembled) intercom to ask urgently for Broyles. When Broyles comes in, Peter informs him that the memory disk is broadcasting a signal — however, he won’t be able to track it without a bigger computer. Next scene is him outside in the bullpen, hooking up to a computer out there. “Just like old times… sort of,” Peter mutters. He mirrors his screen to the big display, and Olivia recognizes it as coordinates. Once a map of the city is overlaid, Peter grandiosely demonstrates that the shape-shifters have tracking devices in them. The one that’s not the one he’s working on right now is at the port. Olivia and Lincoln vamoose to catch up to the other one.

Warehouse. The shape-shifter looks like Nadine again, and she’s not doing so well. Looks like she’s coughing up blood. Truss is furious, still demanding to know why she looked like his wife. “Nadine” side-steps the question, telling him that the people she works for really will pay him to keep up his research. Truss still needs an answer, but she still won’t give it to him, and I think he starts to realize, then, that Karen is dead. When “Nadine” goes on to say that sacrifice is necessary for the greater cause of science, that pretty much confirms it. She tells him she’s giving him the chance to take back his legacy from William Bell. Stunned, Truss turns back to his equipment and slowly says that he may be able to alter the compound to accommodate multiple genomes. Just before he puts some stuff into the larger vial of stuff, though (what?), “Nadine” grabs his hand. She crushes it and the vial he’s holding — she can tell he was trying to add something that would kill her. She orders him to quit messing around and finish what he started.

No need to worry about shape-shifters infiltrating our team, or anything!

Olivia, Lincoln, and some other nameless redshirts — I mean, agents — pull up outside the warehouse. They head in, in teams of two. Meanwhile, poor Truss is still working, his left hand in a makeshift splint and obviously still causing him lots of pain. The serum just has to go through the centrifuge before they’ll know if it’s ready. “Nadine” hears Olivia and Lincoln bust in, so she goes to head them off. Shots fired, running and chasing. Truss gets the vial out of the centrifuge and takes it to Nadine, who grabs it from him and throws him through a table. There’s gratitude for you. Lincoln tends to the fallen doctor and Olivia chases after “Nadine”. The other team is in closer position and chases her to the roof of the building. When Olivia gets there, she’s greeted by the sight of two fallen FBI agents. One is dead, but the other is still alive. She calls it in as her colleague tells her the shape-shifter jumped off the roof into the water. If you haven’t guessed the “twist” here, I’m just as surprised by you as I am by neither Olivia nor Lincoln thinking of it before it’s too late.