FRINGE 1.06 "The Cure"

THE FRINGEY SCIENCE

At the end of this episode, when Olivia confronts Broyles, she brings up the fact that he called her emotional and implied that it was her character flaw. This seemed to be the theme of tonight’s episode, focusing more on personal drama, as opposed to Fringe Science.

We are, however, introduced to an extremely rare disease, possibly spelled Bulinis Euphasimia. Based on my search results, I would say it is a disease made up for the sake of the show. Please correct me if I am wrong. Bulinis (or however the hell you spell it. I am really sorry if this is a real disease and your Mom or someone has it) makes a person’s body deconstruct itself.

The two women who suffer from this disease were given drugs that contained radioactive isotopes. These isotopes were actually helpful in helping the Bulinis go into remission for both women. After David Esterbrook and his assistant kidnap both Claire and Emily, they inject the women with the compound, Methaluginol. The combination of the Methaluginol and the isotopes is what turns both women, into what Peter refers to as “Human Microwaves”. Walter is able to come up with an injection that prevents Claire from making her own head explode.

THE MYTHOS

The main reveal of this episode focuses on Olivia. When she was a child, she would constantly witness her stepfather beating her mother. One day, he broke her mother’s nose. He left the house, and sped away in his car. Olivia heard his car pull back into the driveway. Before her stepfather could set foot in the door, she took his gun out from where he hid it in his room, and shot him twice. The abusive stepfather was able to recover in the hospital and eventually disappeared. On a creepy note, we now know that every year, on Olivia’s birthday, her stepfather leaves her a birthday card, just so that she knows he is out there. Tonight’s episode ended with her finding the card he left in the door to her apartment.

Besides that, Peter threw out the suggestion that the events that are connected by “The Pattern” might not just be evil experiments, but could be steps in preparation for a conflict. When thinking about Eric’s review of the episode entitled “The arrival”, and the idea that aliens might be involved with “The Pattern”, I got giddy. What if the mad scientists who are developing all of these nasty weapons are actually working out ways to prevent an alien invasion? That would certainly make the show 800 times more compelling.

Last but not least, during Peter’s conversation with Anita Sharpe, she mentioned that she and his father were “quite close” at one point. You could just imagine Walter and Anita getting it on- Walter a young crazy hippie scientist at the time, and Anita a cold, one armed bitch. Wait, better yet, don’t picture that.

MY THOUGHTS

All it took was Emily’s exploding head to make me realize that “Fringe” is not as cliché as I might have pegged it to be. There have been quite a few shows with similar concepts since the X-files, but tonight’s episode proved that “Fringe” can be more graphic and cruel. It seemed like Claire wasn’t going to make it at the end of the episode, and if that had been the case, then we would have seen two women, suffering from a horrible disease, die a twisted death. That is a bit brutal, even for Fox. Claire survived in the end, though, just as the other innocent victim (remember the elctro guy?) from last week’s episode did. I hope this show, which focuses on a recurring “Pattern” doesn’t in itself become completely formulaic. I don’t think this will be the case, however. This is a J.J. Abrams show after all, and if his other show, “Lost” is any indicator, tremendous changes in the story structure of “Fringe” will most likely occur before the season finale.