1x05: Power Hungry

Okay, of all the promotional images I've used, this one might be the funniest. Like, in what possible situation would all these people be hanging out together in what appears to be a greasy spoon diner? (The background reflections are pretty neat, though. Hint hint.)

"Power Hungry," the fifth installment of Fringe, first aired on October 14, 2008. And I am hoping against hope that this is a monster-of-the-week episode that has nothing to do with the Pattern. I just need a break. Just one little tiny little teensy weensy little baby break. 

The recap

Well, this one starts off immediately with "previously on Fringe," so basically all my hope that this is a standalone episode has evaporated like a single molecule of water in the Sahara Desert, thanks. We open on a pathetic guy waking up late for work because his watch and alarm clock both malfunctioned, and immediately getting bullied within an inch of his life by his overbearing mom. And for a moment, we see a newspaper with this ad on it:

As someone who has worked reception, the most essential qualities for that job are an absolutely ridiculous amount of patience and the ability to multitask furiously, but I guess being a "sexy pin-up type" wouldn't hurt?

At work, the guy, Joseph, is beleaguered by his boss and by equipment malfunctioning around him. He delivers a parcel to a woman he has a crush on, but her coworker shows up and reveals they're going out for drinks that night, to Joseph's jealousy. Her computer suddenly starts crashing, and Joseph makes a quick exit. And when he's getting on an elevator, we see, for a few brief frames...

*points* YOU!!!

The woman suddenly gets on the elevator with Joseph in her search for an IT guy. Joseph drops his phone, and the woman picks it up for him, but in the process she sees that Joseph has all these clandestine pictures of her on there, and when I tell you I had to actually stop the episode at this point because the secondhand embarrassment was WAY too much for me. Before she can confront him, the elevator suddenly starts malfunctioning, before entering freefall and plummeting to the ground 26 floors below. The only survivor is Joseph. As he flees, every car alarm starts going off around him. Cue theme music.

Elsewhere, Olivia is telling Charlie about her visions of John Scott. Charlie thinks that this is just some sort of manifestation of grief or something, but Olivia isn't convinced. Back at the lab, Walter tells Peter that there was something familiar about Mosley, the man who tortured Peter in "The Arrival," but he can't put his finger on it. Broyles shows up and Peter goes, "Ah, visiting hours. Everybody put on their best straitjacket," which I will admit coaxed a guffaw out of me. Broyles tells them about the elevator incident and reveals that it was caused by a massive power surge, and he sends the team off to investigate.

In examining the bodies, Walter discovers that they all show signs of having been electrocuted. He borrows Olivia's metal necklace and lets go of it in the air, and it just hovers there, leading Walter to conclude that the elevator is charged with a huge amount of electromagnetic energy, and that all the passengers were dead before they even hit the ground. Back at the lab, they autopsy one of the victims. The autopsy leads Walter to theorize that it wasn't a weapon that electrocuted everyone in the elevator - it was a person. Meanwhile, Joseph returns to his workplace, but his boss immediately fires him; Joseph begs for his job, but his boss is unrelenting. Suddenly, a machine malfunctions, with horrific results for the boss, blood everywhere, just nasty stuff. 

Back at FBI headquarters, Olivia is working overtime when Broyles... brings her a coffee?? What the fuck is happening?? Like, I get that "Pilot" was five episodes ago, but this might as well be a completely different character. It's not just that Broyles has warmed to Olivia and is now more kindly disposed or something - after "Pilot," he became an entirely new person. Not that I'm not grateful as hell for this, but the change is really jarring. Anyway, they discuss the case and Broyles reveals that in the course of investigating other Pattern cases, he came across a man named Dr. Jacob Fischer, who is wanted by police for doing horrific, illegal experiments on average people. Broyles theorizes that someone might have done a similar experiment on whoever committed the elevator incident. 

Later, Olivia is in the middle of researching Fischer when the power suddenly goes out. When she investigates, John emerges from an elevator, terrifying her. The vision of John asks her to trust him and tells her she's on the right track with the case, then abruptly leaves. Seeing a weight capacity sign in the elevator gives Olivia an epiphany: the elevator that crashed had weight sensors, and there was a discrepancy between the weight it sensed and the weight of the victims, meaning that someone left the scene alive. 

Joseph returns home and begs his mom for her help, revealing that a few months ago, he saw an ad in the newspaper about "tapping into your hidden potential." He answered the ad, and they did experiments on him that "changed him." His mom suddenly collapses, and because all the electronics are malfunctioning, he's not able to call for help. Instead, he packs a bag and flees (??? I mean, I guess I'd do something similar if I was panicking in that situation), but at the door of his apartment building he's confronted by two INCREDIBLY creepy men who "just want to help him." They tranq and abduct him.

Charlie and Olivia learn of the incident at Joseph's workplace, and figure out that somebody from that workplace was also on the sign-in sheet at the building where the elevator incident took place, and therefore put together that Joseph is behind everything. They head to his apartment and find his mom dead; it turns out hat her pacemaker malfunctioned. Walter figures out that they can track down Joseph by tracing his magnetic signal, using a cassette tape that was exposed to his magnetic signature. It doesn't make much sense to me, either, but I'm sure there's real science behind this or whatever.

Joseph awakens strapped down to a, like, dentist's chair or something? Not sure what to call it. Anyway, he is strapped down very concerningly. They inject him with something, also very concerning. Back at the lab, Walter is using... pigeons? I guess? To track down Joseph's magnetic signal? Using Tesla coils? Listen, I have basically no idea what's going on here, but it's all very entertaining anyway. Olivia has yet another vision of John, who insists that he didn't betray her, but he disappears when Peter shows up.

Not long after, Walter and Astrid are working together to release the pigeons, and I just remembered Walter literally knocked Astrid out with a forcible injection in the very last episode, and, like, are we going to ADDRESS that, or??? Besides seeming a little impatient with him, Astrid doesn't appear to be holding a grudge, which is obviously weird as hell, and if I was her you couldn't pay me to get within 1000 feet of this guy, but whatever. They send the pigeons flying off, and I guess the plan is... to have Olivia and Peter... follow the pigeons in their CAR? Okay. I don't even know how to address that. Moving on.

Okay, actually, never mind, it turns out they had GPS trackers on the birds the whole time and THAT'S what Olivia and Peter are following. Oh my God, I literally thought they were just gonna follow birds in their car by sight. I truly did not know if I could suspend my disbelief that far. Anyway!! Meanwhile, Dr. Fischer, who is the one who captured Joseph, is doing further wacky and torturous experiments on him. Joseph begs to be turned back to a normal person, but Dr. Fischer insists that he's "special." 

The pigeons stop at the building Fischer and Joseph are in, and the FBI agents surround it. Fischer's minions try to spirit Joseph out of there in a car, while Fischer distracts the agents. Joseph manages to escape and runs away with Olivia in pursuit. He's about to get away, but Peter shows up out of fucking nowhere and CLOTHESLINES HIM WITH A CROWBAR?? Sure, I guess. They load Joseph into an ambulance, and he begs to be allowed to go home, but Olivia says they can't let him do that. 

Back at the lab, Walter and Astrid have a cute little moment where she's like "What's my name?" and he goes ".....it starts with an A," and they both have a little laugh about it, and first of all, this scene is the start of a running joke that will last until the final season; second of all, it's kind of cringeworthy in retrospect, with the knowledge of how uncomfortable this joke made the actress; and third of all, HE DRUGGED HER IN THE LAST FREAKING EPISODE WHY IS SHE NOT MAD?!??! 

Walter and Olivia have a talk, and Olivia reveals that she hasn't been sleeping well, but stops just short of telling him about John's visions. But Walter infers it anyway, and theorizes that when Olivia's brain was connected to John's in "Pilot," she gained some of his memories, thoughts and experiences, which still live in her after his death. Later, she sees John walking down the street and pursues him. He leads her into an abandoned cellar where she finds boxes upon boxes, containing files on Pattern-related investigations that John Scott was conducting on his own time. Broyles gives Olivia a box of John's personal effects, which includes, among other things, an engagement ring that was intended for her. And by God, Fringe, you are never going to get me to give a shit about John Scott, but you sure are trying real, real hard.

Impressions 

Good episode! Decent. Perfectly fine. There was an X-Files with a very similar plot, except that its Joseph was actively evil, and also Jack Black was in it. Joseph in "Power Hungry" is a pretty interesting monster-of-the-week: not really a monster at all, but a pathetic loser who only commits atrocities by complete accident and just wants to be left alone. He doesn't get a happy ending, either. Depressing stuff. I could take or leave the John Scott subplot: I'm always a sucker for a "hallucinations as a way of processing grief and trauma" schtick, but I don't care about John at all because he's just such a nothing of a character, so, meh. There's not really that much else to talk about here, honestly. It was fine. 

Most disgusting moment 

Joseph's boss's arm getting pulled into that machine. Stuff of nightmares. 

Nicest moment

Walter and Astrid's "What's my name?" moment is kind of cute, even if it's soured in retrospect. Walter was generally really enjoyable to watch in this episode, playing the most joyful mad scientist you'll ever meet, constantly wearing the biggest smile in absolute delight to be working on this case. 

Shit Walter says

He doesn't really say anything that crazy, but at one point he does shuffle around on the carpet in wool socks for a while and then shock Peter out of nowhere, so there's that.

Foreshadowing!

I didn't catch much foreshadowing in this one, although I could be missing something. The only stuff I could mention is the stuff about the Pattern.

What did the glyphs spell?

"SURGE."

Rating

Another 7/10.