Fringe – Episode 4 (Season 2): “Momentum Deferred”
An exciting episode of Fringe that did a nice job advancing the overall plot. The action and suspense were well done, but the medicine was rather abysmal.
The Plot: A cryogenic storage facility is robbed and a truckload of frozen human heads is stolen. Four security officers are killed in the robbery — well, actually it’s three officers killed and one shape shifter. The Fringe team is called after the last corpse is found bleeding a silver colored liquid. While Walter inspects the corpse, Peter mentions that this is the third cryogenic facility robbed in the last week, and every time, only human heads are stolen.
Back at the lab, Walter has Agent Dunham drink a concoction of ground up flatworms to help restore her memory of her time on the parallel Earth. It seems to work as she begins to have brief flashbacks as the episode progresses.
Walter finishes the autopsy and discovers that the shape shifters’ blood is 47% mercury. He realizes that there was only trace mercury in the previous body they thought had been a shape shifter (the Nurse from the first episode), so that means the shape shifter who tried to kill Olivia is still out there.
Walter and Peter to hunt down Rebecca, the girl from the ESP video (first episode again), to see if she can still detect the shape shifters with her psychic powers. She tells them her powers faded a few years ago, but she agrees to repeat the experiment to see if her powers will return. She returns to the lab and is dosed with a variety of hallucinogens.
Meanwhile, Agent Dunham takes the device found on the dead shape shifter to the lab at Massive Dynamics. They tell her they can use the new device to repair the damaged device from the first shape shifter and will be able to generate an image of who he is disguised as now. They’ll have the results sent to Walter’s lab and Olivia’s phone.
Back at the lab, Dunam collapses and has an extended flashback to her time in the other universe. She remembers William Bell telling here that there is a war coming and he needs her to guard the gate between the two worlds. He tells her the shape shifters are looking for a certain person — a leader who can open the gate — and that’s why they’re after the frozen heads; one of them is the leader. Later, when Dunham is telling Nina Sharp of her recovered memories, Charlie calls to inform her that Nina is the shape shifter. She all but runs out of the building and encounters Charlie outside. Just then, her phone rings and sends her the results from the device that reveal that it is Charlie who is the shape shifter. There is a brutal fight, and at the end, Dunham shoots him, repeatedly. And then she learns that the other shape shifters have found their leader. This is what we call a downer ending.
1. The Worm Turns
Ah, the famed planarian experiments from the 1950s. A “scientist” trained some of the flatworms to run a maze. He then killed them and fed their remains to a second group of flatworms. This second batch of flatworms was found to be able to run the maze faster, suggested that they had gained the memories of the worms they ate. This experiment was actually featured in one of the greatest comic books of all time (Saga of the Swamp Thing #21 — “The Anatomy Lesson”). Trouble is, it’s not true. While the story of the experiment persists as a myth/urban legend, few actual scientists believe the results are valid. Over the intervening fifty years, no one has been able to duplicate the results despite repeated attempts. The current suspicion is that the positive results of the initial experiment were due to either observer bias (the tests weren’t double blinded), or the fact that the worms were following the slime trails left by the initial batch of worms.
Even if the experimental results were valid, why would that apply here? By drinking all the flatworms, shouldn’t Olivia have gained flatworm memories, not her own?
2. The Medicine Cabient
Salvia – a native Mexican plant with hallucinatory and dissociative properties. Currently legal in the U.S., but maybe not for long.
Phenothiazine - medically, it refers to a class of antipsychotic drugs derived from the chemical phenothiazine. The chemical itself isn’t really used in medicine, but is used as a dye, insecticide, and livestock dewormer.
Valium – a benzodiazepine. A relaxant and sedative. Addictive.
3. A Bad Resuscitation
How is turning Olivia’s head to the side going to open her airway?
Nitroglycerin relaxes blood vessels and drops the blood pressure. How’s that going to help Olivia?
30cc is a large amount of medication to give. If oral, that’s a shot-glass full of liquid to get down an unconscious person. If intravenous or intramuscular, that’s a hell of a lot to get in. Most IV or IM medications are 1cc or less.
I know I’ve mentioned this before several times (including a previous episode of Fringe), but despite what you’ve seen on Pulp Fiction, shooting adrenalin into the heart is a bad idea. It’s a blind stick and you could easily miss the heart, or worse, rupture one of the coronary arteries and cause a heart attack. There are other options for giving adrenalin: inject it into a blood vessel, or squirt it down the throat.
The story was good, but the medicine was bad, so it’s a wash and the Doomsday Clock stays at five ’til midnight
UPDATE: Oh look, I’ve made a Fringe landing page. It’s plain now, but I’ll fancy it up soon.
October 9th, 2009 at 4:11 am
Wait, but Scott, injecting adrenaline into a blood vessel, is that not a bad thing? Would that not cause severe vasoconstriction at the injection site, and possibly a bunch of other side-effects?
October 9th, 2009 at 6:36 am
hahahaha Yes! As soon as Walter started talking about flatworms and memory, I knew a) what he was talking about, because I am a long-time Swamp Thing fan and have the comic you referenced, b) that it has since been debunked, and c) that I could therefore count on you to cover it. :D
That said, this was an episode that gave us Leonard Nimoy saying, “Physics is a bitch,” which I thought was great, even though on the other hand, it was also the episode that put the final nail in the coffin for Charlie.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Official Comment
Anonymous,
That’s why you use a mid-size vessel, basically anything you can get an IV or art line in, and follow up the injection with a saline flush to push it along into the general circulation. SOP for any resuscitation injection.
Slarti,
I’m sorry to see Charlie go. I thought he’s hang around for at least a few more episodes sowing hidden dissent.
I thought the actor playing Charlie did a very good job playing Charlie and not-quite-Charlie in this episode.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:50 am
A good episode, but Olivia isn’t the sharpest tack in the junk drawer.
More comments here:
http://blog.cordialdeconstruction.com/2009/10/09/minor-comments-on-fringe-episode-4-season-2-momentum-deferred/
October 9th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I enjoyed the episode (despite eye-roll injuries incurred over the planaria) due to the Bishops. I do hate when writers drag out plotlines instead of letting them develop naturally. The two near misses with Rebecca (when she spoke of Peter’s childhood and then saw an “aura”, I suppose) seemed like lazy writing. Is Walter still married or not?
Also sorry to see Charlie’s story line finish, and in such a way, and yet grateful because there’s no way he could have kept up the pretense, the way the writers have suggested. And his mercury slushy, likely full of shards of glass? I wonder if those were rectal or oral thermometers.
October 9th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Withgakay? Damn typos!
You have just found out there is a dangerous doppelganger still alive out there that can look like anyone. You have a means of determining if someone is a doppelganger with a simple close visual inspection.
Do you:
A. Recall your entire team to headquarters and immediately perform the inspections and institute daily inspections of the team going forward?
B. Have the person last known to be in the presence of a doppelganger immediately inspected?
C. Take the word of the person last in the presence of the doppelganger that the person helping you (that you were told to trust by the only person who has any clue what is going on) is the doppelganger and then eagerly reveal to the person last in the presence of the doppelganger a vital piece of intelligence without hesitation?
Guess which choice Olivia made?
October 9th, 2009 at 11:53 am
What’s listed as Season 1 of “Fringe” on the “Fringe” page appears to be the fifth season of “House”, at the moment.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Official Comment
Oops, uploaded the wrong filed. Fixed.
October 9th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Haven’t had a chance to watch the episode yet as I have to watch online now. But with regards to the medicine cabinet:
Salvia divinorum (italicized) is the species name of a hallucinatory Mexican Salvia species. Salvia is the name of the Genus that contains common garden sage that one uses in Thanksgiving turkey stuffing. Salvia is used colloquially for any number of Salvia species (not just Salvia divinorum) that are used in native plantings (especially in warmer areas of the US) and include many species native to the US, such as prairie sage, red sage and hummingbird sage (all common names). Sound confusing? There’s a reason for using full scientific names for species.
So Wikipedia is, shall we say, not all right on this one. What I am trying to get across is that with plants especially, using the common or colloquial name leads to many mistakes. So if someone on the show used the term salvia then that was a mistake, but in correcting the mistake, the full scientific name should have been used, as in the following:
Salvia: A common name for Salvia divinorum, a native Mexican plant with hallucinatory and dissociative properties. Currently legal in the U.S., but maybe not for long. Also the genus name for members of the sage family of plants.
Using the genus name was misleading. Another point against whomever did this on the show (could it have been by any chance, Walter Bishop?).
If Fringe used the full scientific name, then shame on you (although somehow I doubt that was the case).
This also makes me wonder how many other Salvias have hallucinatory and dissociative properties. . .
October 10th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Say: why doesn’t Bell just write out a big long explanation and give it to Olivia before she leaves. Especially since he knows she’s about to be in an automobile accident. He doesn’t seem so smart.
October 10th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Yes! A Fringe page! I love your Fringe reviews so any sign that you’re going to keep doing them is a good thing because the Doomsday clock makes me nervous. LOL
October 10th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I may be mistaken, but shouldn’t the clock be at 12:54?
It looks like you moved it down to 12:55 for season one’s finale, but then moved it back to 12:55 AGAIN (somehow) for season two’s premiere.
October 10th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Official Comment
The clock started season two where it ended at season one (11:55)
This season:
Episode one — so-so — no change — still at 11:55
Episode two — bad — up to 11:56
Episode three — good — back to 11:55
Episode four — so-so — no change — still at 11:55
October 11th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Actually, I found the Flat Worms to be a deliberate red-herring (a chance to toss in an urban myth to fans of the show). There’s no reason to believe the worms caused her to start remembering. cum hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words correlation does not imply causation. Notice that they never talk about the worms again in the rest of the episode, nor does Walter ever claim that this is what actually allowed Dunham to remember.
It’s easy to believe that she’s finally starting to remember on her own. Heck the worms might even have been a good old fashioned Placebo.
October 12th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Hold on, I see the problem. The links on Fringe’s landing page keep going to the wrong episodes. 2×01 goes to 2×03, while 2×03 goes to an episode of House!
October 12th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Official Comment
Double oops.
Accidentally transposed some numbers. The Fringe landing page is fixed for good now. Really.
October 12th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
the experiment with the worms, involved transferring memories via ingestion. so it seems to me that the liquid dunham drank was liquified brain, maybe from the dead shape shifter.
October 12th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Official Comment
But as the scene started, we saw Astrid dicing and julienne-ing flatworms.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I thought it was interesting that she didn’t start moving toward the light. . .
Also, oops! I finally saw the show and Walter did mention the Salvia very casually, as an instruction for Astrid. So I guess it was okay (and the label might have had the sci. name (just trying to give Fringe the benefit of the doubt as I really like the show).
PS: Really love these reviews and comments both on Fringe and on House. Thank you so much Scott for providing this.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:25 am
I’m just catching up with this on Hulu, and you missed another aspect of the Planaria discussion. He claims that he trained them to “respond to light”, but Planaria do that anyway. They have pigment cup eyes which they use to determine the direction light is coming from and move away from it because to them light=heat=dessication.
This is why undergrads in zoology get the fun experience of trying to sketch the little bastards while constantly trying to keep them in the field of view. Not that I was ever frustrated by that or anything….
October 15th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Imagine what would happened if we would go and starting to recreate things we see on TV-shows. Like mixing Walters cocktail – or eating these worms. I think it’s the horror XD
This was an excellent episode. I really enjoyed it.
That thermometer scene – was awesome.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:26 am
[...] episode is debunked at Popular Mechanics and Polite Dissent, and you can read more about it at Fox, IMDb and the A.V. [...]
November 5th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
I love this show but it is a bit hinky with science and medical stuff, especially basic safety practice. I wonder how much leeway to give Dr Bishop because he’s basically a “mad scientist”. So the eating in the lab, I guess that’s just him, but heating things in test tubes that point at him? Explosive reactions completely out in the open? Don’t you have a fume hood or something??
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