Ability: Olivia Turns the Lights Out on "Fringe"

Last night's episode of Fringe ("Ability") reminded me what I originally liked about the pilot episode but also made me think that we would have gotten to this point a hell of a lot sooner had the series been more overtly serialized.

"Ability" was a game-changer for the series for the way in which it quietly injected a more out-there sci-fi element to the mix, introducing a storyline that seemed to involve the multiverse, alternate dimensions, non-human beings, and seemingly psychic abilities derived from a medical trial of children two decades earlier.

And, oh, a zealot-like manifesto from fringe science terrorist group ZFT that hit a lot closer to home.

I did love the reveal that it was actually poor Walter who had written that unpublished manuscript that ZFT (Zerstorung durch Fortschritte der Technologie or "Destruction by Advancement of Technology") espoused as their own ideology. It was so utterly tragic to see Walter, who had earlier been reading the manuscript as a stranger might, take out the typewriter and type the word "ability," as he clearly did not remember writing the manifesto in the first place.

And yet it is entirely fitting that this Pattern-related cell should be the one to follow the teachings that Walter had inscribed in the manscript: they stole his technology in order to teleport David Robert Jones out of a German prison, kidnapped Olivia in order to innoculate her against the coming plague (and engaged in a spinal tap to see if she did have Cortexiphan in her system). And it adds additional importance and relevance to Walter as well.

Olivia was in the right place at the right time (an army base in Florida in the early 80s) in order to participate in the Cortexiphan clinical trials and the fact that she was able to manifest some sort of telekinesis to turn out the lightbulbs on David Robert Jones' bomb proves that she does have an Cortexiphan-related ability, successfully passing the first of ten tests for ZFT recruits.

Hmmm, something tells me that Peter too was part of this clinical trial as well... and we'll learn that Walter and Massive Dynamics' William Bell were involved in testing the Cortexiphan in Ohio at that time, which was after all more than 17 years earlier. Could it be why The Observer intervened when Walter and Peter's car skidded off the road all of those years ago? In order to save Peter, whom he knew was Cortexiphan-positive? Curious.

And if we believe Walter's manifesto that states that beings from near-future alternate universes have crossed over into ours and have begun a science-based war that will see the very fabric of space and time ripped and only one world survive, does that explain the existence of The Observer? Is he such a person sent from another world to watch over the development of the Pattern?

Unfortunately, we'll have quite a lot of time to mull over these questions, as Fringe goes on a roughly month and a half-long hiatus. But I am curious to know what you all thought of this installment: did it trigger a new fondness for the series? Just what do you think that Cortexiphan does? What does it mean that Olivia is tied up in the Pattern itself? Just what did the teleportation device do to David Robert Jones? And how will these revelations alter the rest of the season? Discuss.

Fringe returns with seven new episodes beginning in April.