FRINGE Recap: ‘Alone in the World’

Walter Bishop, how you break my heart.

Fresh off Peter begging for Walter’s help, we begin “Alone in the World” with Walter getting a visit from Dr. Sumner. Apparently in this timeline, Dr. Sumner visits Walter every month as one of the conditions for Walter being allowed to live away from St. Claire’s. However, thanks to Peter’s recent “visits,” the good doc is suspicious of Walter’s recent behavior. Apparently, the other agents are contributing to “observational reports,” so Dr. Sumner confronts Walter about thinking the lab is “haunted” due to the strange man appearing in the lab. Walter tries to talk his way out of it and claims he’s better. Unfortunately for him, what he’s not telling his doctor, is that he sees Peter’s face reflecting off his clipboard.

Elsewhere, a kid is chased by two bullies into a tunnel. Right when they’re about to beat him up, something organic-like grabs a hold of them, and the kid is able to run away.

Meanwhile, Olivia is busy running a facial recognition computer program when Lincoln comes to talk to her. She wanted to check in with him and when Olivia tells him that she knows his catching up on case files might be tough and she’s “here,” they have this weird moment of awkward electricity between them. It’s almost as if you can pinpoint this as the moment as yep, our Lincoln has fallen under our Olivia’s spell, just like Linc fell for Fauxlivia.

Lincoln, buddy, we adore you. Really, we do. But Olivia is only single in the sense that her boyfriend was erased from existence because he stopped the universes from basically collapsing upon themselves. A hardship on any relationship, for sure, but still…a technicality. Yes, Olivia is awesome, but maybe you should back away from that almost-guaranteed heartbreak?

Thankfully, they get interrupted by Broyles who has called them to a crime scene. The bodies of the two bullies have been discovered, and they are extremely decomposed — much more than they should be for not even being dead a day. The Fringe team finds a third pair of footprints and realize they either have a victim or a witness out there.

Astrid and Broyles take one of the bodies back to Walter’s lab, and Broyles tells Walter that Dr. Sumner voiced some concerns about Bishop’s well-being and felt he was hiding something. Walter denies it, but when he hears Peter’s voice again, getting louder and louder (and unless I completely misheard Peter through Walter’s freakout, it sounded like Peter ended with, “Walter, I’m scared. I want to come home.”) until a clearly anguished Walter cries out, “I’m losing my mind!” Poor, broken Walter. Astrid and Broyles appear baffled and deeply concerned about the state of Walter’s sanity.

But their concern is put on hold when Olivia calls to tell them they’ve found the third boy, Aaron. He says he didn’t see anything, but Walter needs to check him out. While Walter runs tests in his lab, Aaron fiddles around with various toys — much to Walter’s horror when the boy picks up one of Peter’s old action figures. Walter explains that his son died. (Has anyone wondered why Peter might not straight up say, “Hey, Walter, it’s me, Peter! It’s your son!” during those creepy drop-ins? However, given Walter’s mindset, that might push him even further over the edge.)

Astrid gets Walter to come look at the body and he realizes it needs to be placed in the isolation tank immediately. Luckily for them, they get it in before it explodes. Unfortunately for the people at the morgue, the team couldn’t get a warning to them in time and when the body blows up, the workers are quickly killed.

Olivia, Lincoln and Broyles investigate the new crime scene, where the body’s exploding goo has produced more of the fungus they encountered at the original crime scene. Walter tells them the best way to kill them would be UV light or intense heat. Olivia suggests for the tunnel, they should use flamethrowers. (Which is kind of a badass suggestion.)

Walter tells Aaron he doesn’t have a fungal infection and now he can go home. When Aaron tells him he has no one to go home to, Walter offers to let the boy stay with him, but warns Aaron he still has work to do. But given this is Walter Bishop, the next thing we see is the two guys drinking milkshakes with tinfoil hats on their head. Perhaps Aaron thinks the sugar will soften the blow, so he asks how his son died. Walter explains:

“Peter was very sick. I tried for a long time to find a cure, but I found it too late and he died. Then I discovered the alternate universe where another version of my son was dying from the same malady. So I crossed over to the other side with the intention of bringing him back to cure him. But the frozen lake where I created a portal between universes was unsound and when we crossed back, the ice broke. Peter — the other version of him — drowned. I lost him all over again.”

Aaron’s reply of “…and you don’t think you belong in a mental institution?” was adorable. If they weren’t dealing with crazy-dangerous stuff on a weekly basis, I’d ask if we could keep him. But as it is, it’s a miracle nothing has happened to Gene yet. Let’s not push our luck.

As it is, when Olivia and Lincoln went to explore the tunnel, Aaron starts freaking out in the lab. He said it was too bright and then develops a high fever. Walter realizes the connection and calls Olivia to stop what they’re doing because they’re killing the boy. Aaron explains he went to the tunnel in the past to get away and then began to feel better — like he wasn’t alone. He admits he brought the bullies back to the tunnel because whatever was in there told him to, but he swears he had no idea what would happen.

Lincoln and Olivia head back to Walter’s lab, and he explains the fungi — which he has nicknamed Gus…oh Walter, why so awesome? — is a big network, a brain of sorts. The reason Aaron wasn’t impacted when they destroyed the fungi in the morgue was because it hadn’t been connected to the original network that lives in the tunnel. Walter stresses that until they can unlink Aaron and Gus, anything done to the fungus will hurt the boy.

Unfortunately for them, the organism has spread and killed someone else. Broyles is a little less sympathetic to Aaron’s problem, due to the fact that innocent civilians are now at risk. “He’ll die!” Walter explodes. “You hear me? You’re going to kill Peter!” Oh, Walter. Olivia corrects him that the boy’s name is actually Aaron (good thing Aaron didn’t hear that slip-up), and Broyles tells them they have two hours to figure things out.

Nina Sharp (!!) and Massive Dynamic (!!) have sent over a toxin to kill Gus, and Walter calls Olivia to explain he’s found where the link is in Aaron’s brain, but hasn’t found a way to disconnect them. The only option left? Lobotomy. Not a great option, Walter, and thankfully Olivia tells him that. However, the fungus has spread even more and Broyles is ready to kill Gus now, despite the two hours not being up. “I’m sorry, but you know as well as I do, we can’t sacrifice countless other lives to save one boy,” he explains. Yes, Broyles is talking about Aaron, but we feel the Peter subtext, don’t we? Olivia informs Walter of the change of plans.

The toxin is administered and some sort of vine-y arm (the technical term, naturally) grabs the person. Lincoln doesn’t have it much better and the fungus roots him in his spot.

Astrid is at Walter’s lab and tries to get through to Walter to get him to do something to save Aaron from certain death. As she’s yelling at him, Walter realizes what he needs to do —  Walter needs to get Aaron to willingly let the organism go. Walter tries to reason with him, telling him it’s not real and it’s hurting him. Aaron says no one else cares, so Walter tears up and tells him he doesn’t want to lose him. “I won’t leave you, Aaron,” he says. “I’m begging you not to leave me. Let it go.”

And it works. Aaron is safe and Gus is gone. Olivia drags Lincoln away, and he clearly hasn’t lost his sense of humor: “You look a little freaked out. Wanna talk about it?”

Walter says goodbye to Aaron and gives him Peter’s toy, but tells him he can’t go with him to the hospital because he has things to do. And yep, there’s a reflection of Peter. When they’re gone, Walter methodically takes a book from the shelf, and we see he plans to give himself a lobotomy. Thankfully, Olivia gets there in time and stops him.

Walter tells Olivia he can’t go back there, he can’t be recommitted — but he admits he’s going insane. “I’ve been having hallucinations and no matter what I do, they won’t stop,” he says. Olivia asks him what he’s seeing, and he tells her he’s been seeing a young man, whose voice is in his head saying “peculiar” things.

Olivia pulls something out of her pocket and produces a drawing of Peter. (My original reaction to seeing that can’t be printed, but let’s just say I essentially said, “WTF?”)

“Does he look like this?” she asks. Walter wants to know where she got the picture. “I drew it from memory. I’ve been seeing him in my dreams for the past three weeks.” (Anyone else want to rewatch the first few episodes of the season now that we have this new knowledge?)

“And all this time, I thought I was losing my mind,” Walter says. “That he was a figment of my psychosis. I’m perfectly sane.” Um, well, maybe we shouldn’t push it THAT far, Walter.

Walter questions who the man in the drawing is and Olivia says she has no idea. She shares that she’s been running facial recognition through inter-agency databases (which is what she was doing when she saw Lincoln in the beginning of the episode), but nothing has shown up.

“A shared vision like this?” Walter says. “He must be real. And if he’s real, we have to find him!”

(insert FRINGE fans’ brains exploding everywhere.)

So, um, we have a week to go. That crazy promo didn’t help matters. There appear to be vortexes, tons of drama and oh yeah, Nina Sharp is back!

And on a completely self-promoting note, in case you missed it, I was up in Vancouver this past week visiting the FRINGE set, so there are a ton of interviews with the cast for you to watch here and more will be coming in the next few weeks!

What did you think of “Alone in the World”? Are you counting down the hours until to “Subject 9”?

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