Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Fringe: The Dreamscape 1.9

Best Walter line: A shame I don't have a lab. I'd like to examine him.
Oh but Walter, you do have a lab, famously so in the cellar at Harvard, with a cow and a piano.
So, we open with Mark Young, a big shot at Massive Dynamic about to give a presentation. Skip the presentation. Afterwards when mark is alone in the conference room gathering up his stuff, he spies a beautiful butterfly flitting about. It lands on his finger and he studies it, but then it cuts him. It flies around and slashes him some more. The butterfly effect teetering on a razor's edge. The butterfly lands on the table and Mark rolls up a magazine. Funny, isn't it, how we feel compelled to sneak up on insects before we overkill them. I once shot a garden spider with a BB gun. Mark smashes the butterfly, but more appear, and more, all slashing at him relentlessly until he takes a header out the window and falls to his death.
Agent Dunham is getting ready for a party when the call comes about the case. Even as she resists attending to her duty, she wipes off her lipstick and that reveals everything. Dunham, the Bishops, and Astrid all go to the scene. Later, Dunham ends up at Young's apartment. He had a flight out on Oceanic Air, a not so subtle nod to the lost flight on LOST, but more interestingly, he was a lepidopterist, a collector of butterflies. The mounted, and presumably dead specimens flutter before Dunham's eyes, and she sees the word 'MONARCH' written in Young's day planner.
The b-story in the episode was that Peter Bishop's past is catching up with him, but honestly, who cares about Peter?
That night, at home, Dunham gets an email from Agent Scott, directing her a basement somewhere, where she discovers crates of frogs that turn out to be toads with psychoactive venom. The world is a wonderous and glorious place, is it not?
Dunham decides to go back into the isolation chamber to retrieve more of Agent Scott's memories. By reconnecting with his dead, nondead, mostly dead consciousness she's supposed to merely be a viewer of his memories, not an active participant. But, at some point during the 'dreamscape' he looks directly at her, leading me to believe that he's not all dead. Also, while in the dreamscape, Dunham sees Agent Scott, a black man, a latino, and a man who turns out to be Mark Young all in cahoots concocting some scheme. When the latino and Young depart, Agent Scott viciously knifes the black man and Dunham freaks and yells for Walter to end the session.
So, the toad poison is being used as a weapon to manifest your fears in such a psychosomatic (a term out of favor I discovered and a condition now referred to as psychophysiologic, which just trips off the tongue) manner that you die. Apparently Young carried quite a bit of guilt about his butterfly collection, since that's what lead to his death.
Anyway, Dunham figures out that the MONARCH in the day planner corresponds to a telephone number. Hmmmm, who is still alive? That's right, she dials it and gets the latino. Of course he flees, but they capture him when he gets hit by a car. At the hospital he begs Dunham for protection and to be moved, and says that he can give her all the information she'll ever need to bring down massive Dynamic and it's founder, Something Bell, or Belly, as Walter refers to him. That Dunham believes him is obvious, but not eager. Still, dude, you are sooo dead. In fact, the very first injection that went into his IV, before Dunham even entered the room, was nothing but uncut toad spit. His fear? That Agent Scott will slit his throat, which is exactly what happens as the attending nurse watches (and screams) in horror.
Next Up: Looks like Agent Scott is still on ice over at Massive Dynamic. God I hope they make him a zombie!

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