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- Introduction
Novation is the fifth episode of the fourth season of FRINGE. It first aired on 4 November, 2011. The body count builds as a new human-hybrid shapeshifter seeks to perfect the technology that makes her possible. Former Massive Dynamic scientist, Doctor Malcolm Truss, unwittingly contributes to the cause. Nina Sharp makes amends with Walter and encourages his effort to connect with Peter.
Synopsis
- Prologue
In the parking basement of the Boston Federal Building, a large security detail in several vehicles arrives at a secure elevator entrance. The detail dismounts and the man claiming to be Walter Bishop's son is met by SAIC Broyles, then escorted to his new quarters. The man from Reiden Lake, the one who knows so much about the sensitive, classified work the Fringe Task Force performs, gets world-class accommodations - a holding cell, with an observation room - upstairs with the multi-agency law enforcement detail.
Olivia Dunham stops by Walter's laboratory with some news
Doctor Bishop might want to here. No one answers her when she enters, so she has a look around and finds Walter in what appears to be a catatonic state. The electronic device he is attached to makes it sound like Walter is having health difficulties. Olivia rushes to help him, but only wakes him up... he was sleeping. The medical apparatus around him suggests otherwise... sodium barbituate to sleep... adrenaline to get him going again. It all sounds dangerous to Olivia. Walter admits that all of the haunting visions of late have him on edge. How can a man sleep now that his vision has manifested itself, but nobody will grant Walter access to him. Walter dislikes being kept in the dark - knowing nothing. Olivia feeds Walter the news she came to share. The man from Reiden Lake stopped cooperating at the hospital,
so they moved him to 'holding' in the Federal Building. The man will cooperate, but only with Walter - he claims that he is Walter's son, Peter.
← In the quiet suburbs of Hillsdale, New York, Don Kellen parks in front of his girlfriend's house, then goes inside to clean-up after work. Karen Truss has been separated from her husband for some time, but still lives in the modest two-story home they had shared. Don gets in the door and sees that the interior is nearly in shambles... cabinets open, paperwork everywhere. Karen is extremely tense and can't find what she is looking for - the electric bill. After noticing the key chain on Don's belt, she senses that she might be coming across a little odd... time to start dinner while Don gets cleaned-up. Once she hears the shower running, Karen heads straight for Don's key chain and the locked safe in the bedroom wall. Don hasn't hopped into the shower yet and steps into the bedroom. What is she do..? ...suddenly his girlfriend has translucent skin - and a really bad attitude. The confrontation begins in earnest and Don is knocked to the floor. He freaks-out when he sees the real Karen Truss is dead and hidden under the bed. The shapeshifter that now has him cornered, and over-powered, wants to know where he keeps his research files. Don doesn't have a clue. The shapeshifter reverts to a preferred persona, that of Nadine Park. Not knowing the location of the files costs Don his life when the angered bio-mechanical human hybrid sticks her thumb into his skull.
Astrid escorts Walter out of the elelvator and into the Situation Room at Fringe Central. Broyles fills the Doctor in on what they learned at the hospital...
the DNA from the man from Reiden Lake indicates that a 99.7% chance exists that he and Walter are related. Walter postulates one possible cause - another version of Peter has arrived from a third universe, a version that didn't die as a child. Olivia chimes-in - maybe so, but people from other universes don't just show up in your dreams. Broyles has a list of questions for Walter to ask when he is alone with the detainee - specifically, how did he learn so much about the classified operations of the task force. Walter isn't sure he is up for the interview. Astrid assures him he will be fine... everyone will be listening from the observation room. Walter joins Peter in confinement and truly doesn't recognize anything about the man sitting across the table from him. Peter, who knows everything about the two universes, and the bridge between them, needs Walter's help - why does nobody remember him? Walter follows along okay until Peter suggests that Walter was the one that built the machine on Liberty Island - Walter did no such thing! His son died as a child, and when he tried to save the Peter Bishop from the parallel reality, that boy drowned when he brought him back through the portal at Reiden Lake. Peter begins to understand -
The Observer never intervened at the lake. Peter
was supposed to die that night. Something must be wrong... if he was supposed to die, why is he back now? Something new has happened. Walter has heard enough - he won't talk to this man anymore and wants to return to his lab! Walter storms out while Peter begs the question - help me figure-out
what has changed? The Fringe team seems a little stumped - what's an
Observer? Olivia takes a call from
Agent Lee - he's at the Truss crime scene and needs to see her.
Olivia joins Agent Lee in Hillsdale at the scene of the murders in Karen Truss' residence. She enters the
taped-off area and finds Lee waiting for her on the front porch. Inside, Lee explains why he dragged her to a robbery-homicide scene... it's the translucent skin of the victims, something he has been keeping an eye out for since he lost his
previous partner. Olivia had just assumed that the two of them killed the last of the shapeshifters at the train yard
(Neither Here Nor There) a few weeks prior. The home they are standing in is in the name of Doctor Malcolm Truss, a former Massive Dynamic biotech research scientist who left the corporation a decade earlier. The dead woman is his wife, but, the dead male is not Truss, it is her boyfriend. Truss separated from his wife a few years
ago and became reclusive - and they are having trouble trying to locate him. The torturous nature of the injuries to the male victim suggests that the shapeshifter is after something specific from Truss. Lucky for him that he has been
off-the-grid for awhile.
← In Eden, Vermont, Doctor Malcolm Truss spends the sunny morning tending to his vibrant flower garden. His quiet rendition of a popular Violet Sedan Chair song attracts the attention of Sebastian, the dog. Sebastian gets nervous, barks, then runs away when the shapshifter, in Nadine Park mode, approaches Truss to verify who he is. Park mentions Massive Dynamic and Truss asks her to leave - he isn't sharing any private information with this trespassing solicitor. Park thinks otherwise... and the pistol pointed at Truss guarantees his cooperation. She needs his help.
In Nina Sharp's office at Massive Dynamic
Headquarters in New York, Agents Dunham and Lee wait to ask
Nina a few questions that might help their current case. Lee looks around the room at some of the memorabilia and thinks he recognizes Olivia in a picture, as a child. Olivia confirms the sighting... that is her after she had won a ribbon for a riding competition. Lee is curious, why does Nina Sharp have Olivia's photo in her office? Olivia tells him that Nina kept her and her sister out of foster homes after their mother died. Nina had to pull some strings, but the Dunham girls grew-up under the tutelage of the now Acting-CEO of one of the world's largest corporations. Nina joins them and greets Agent Lee - Broyles has said good things about him. Nina is curious about Walter - how is he handling the incident with the man claiming to be his son. Not well, but Olivia is visiting for a different reason, one of Nina's former employees is missing. Nina can't immediately recall Malcolm Truss, but once she sees his personnel file, she knows exactly what he did and the circumstances surrounding his departure. Truss ran a biotech project for
Bell until Bell closed it down for ethical reasons.
Cellular replication was the goal - to help the diseased and injured, but Bell took issue with the fact that they were
copying human tissue. Sort of like
shape-shifting technology.
On a secluded two-lane road in the Vermont countryside, Malcolm Truss drives while his abductor sits next to him and makes a case for his cooperation. Nadine Park claims that the cancer she once had was cured by the research that Truss had conducted during his time at Massive Dynamic. She needs his help now because she, and others that were treated, need him to perfect his cellular replication work. The treatment they received is starting to fail and she, and those she represents, are going to die. They can even pay Truss for his efforts. Truss hesitates to commit, but agrees to help once he sees through her translucent skin. One thing though... the files she was looking for do not exist - that data is all in his head. Plus, Truss does much better work when a pistol isn't pointed at him.
In his holding cell at the Federal Building, Peter grows tired of being kept under-informed on the matters-at-hand. To remedy that, he pops the face off of the intercom panel next to his locked cell door, then rewires it so he can catch any conversation near Lincoln Lee's desk. Olivia and Broyles walk to Lee's desk and she tells him what she suspects about the Truss case. According to Walter, the shifters they disabled at the train yard were flawed and couldn't readily change identities. Truss' expertise in cellular replication may be able to eliminate that flaw... so he was probably kidnapped. Lee adds that a local search for Truss' missing car has been initiated. The technology that Walter removed from the two shapeshifter's from the train yard may be what is malfunctioning, although nobody from the task force can figure-out what the devices are, or what purpose they serve. Peter knows what they are - memory disks, so he jumps into what the Fringe investigators thought was a private conversation and shares his knowledge. The trio of investigators join Peter in his cell for the extended explanation of what he knows. Broyles, unhappy with the fact that Peter was eavesdropping, is even less happy
when his new agent starts to steer the interview with Peter. One thing Peter did not know was that the old, Mercury-dependent, shapeshifters are out and that the new breed they face are a prototype human-hybrid shapeshifter. Peter shares that, at least in the previous shifters, the memory disks were partitioned to store; cognitive functions, biochemical functions, and mission objective. He says that with certainty because he did much of the decryption work himself. Lee asks Peter if he thinks he can decrypt the new technology. Broyles is still wary of Peter, the claims he has made and the extent of his knowledge of Fringe Division affairs... Broyles will decide how he enlists Peter's talents and skills,
not his new agent, Lincoln Lee. But sir, what is the harm in letting Peter try? They have had the hardware for weeks and haven't been able to crack the encryption. Peter agrees - what is the harm in letting me try to crack the new technology? Olivia is wary of Peter's motives too. What is it that Peter is after? Peter's needs are few. All he wants is to talk with Walter some more. He knows their last session resulted in Walter storming-out, but obviously Walter is not of the same mind as the Walter Peter once knew. Oh, and Olivia seems different too. The consensus is that Peter's offer of help is acceptable to everyone in the room, even though Broyles wasn't really looking to establish a consensus.
Olivia will get started on convincing Walter to return.
In his lab, Walter takes a stroll down Memory Lane and finds the old, metal lunch pail that his son carried to school before becoming bed-ridden. Inside the pail are a few of the trinkets and mementos from Peter's short childhood. Walter finds and examines the silver coin that Peter was so fond of, and, as he fumbles through the manual dexterity exercise that both he and Peter were so keen to master... the memories bring a pained smile of elation to his face.
On the outskirts of Rutland, Vermont, Malcolm Truss pulls his SUV into the local gas station to top-off with fuel for the long drive ahead. The shapeshifter, still maintaining the image of Nadine Park, is having a minor malfunction... a slight nosebleed. Truss reaffirms that he is committed to helping Park, and her cause. Just give him some money for gas, he will fill the car and pay the clerk, and not run-off while she cleans the blood from her face. The shapeshifter senses Truss’ sincerity and goes into Nadine’s wallet to find the cash they need. Malcolm notices a photo in the wallet of a young lady – is that your daughter? Park continues to foster her sympathetic image with Truss. Yeah. My daughter. Hayley. Comfortable with his new companion, and apparently needing to talk about his life... Malcolm has an aperient moment – his wife, Karen, always wanted children, but he was always too busy with his work. When his work ended, he was just too angry to think about what she wanted. He still hopes that one day Karen will let him back into her life. Park relinquishes the funds required to pay for the fuel, then heads to the restroom. Truss goes inside to grab a snack and pay the tab. The Vermont State Police have been looking for Truss’ vehicle since the Fringe task force determined Truss was missing, and possibly kidnapped. Unit S-24 finds the vehicle unoccupied at the fuel pump and calls Dispatch with the discovery. Confirmation comes back to the Trooper that he has found the vehicle, and the warning that the suspect is armed and dangerous - wait for backup. S-24 acknowledges the directive – he will wait for reinforcements to arrive. Almost before he finishes his transmission, S-24 turns and finds the shapeshifter ready to do him bodily harm. Inside the gas station, Malcolm finishes his business there and pays the bill. He steps outside to return to his car and notices the Trooper’s parked vehicle fifty feet behind his. Unaware of the attention that his kidnapping commanded, Truss gets back into his SUV. Former cancer sufferer Nadine Park has stopped her nosebleed, and is ready to show BioTech pioneer, Malcolm Truss, where he can finish the life-saving research he started years earlier. The Vermont State Trooper that located Malcom Truss isn’t fairing so well. Park left him stuffed under the rear end of his vehicle so Malcolm would not see her latest victim.
← Peter, still under confinement, gets the equipment he needs to decrypt the new shapeshifter hardware and begins working on the task he has been trusted with. Lee has only known Olivia for a short time, but he senses that she is off her game lately... it seems this guy claiming to be Peter Bishop has gotten to her. Olivia doesn't deny his impact on her. She can understand how Walter might be targeted by a grown version of his son arriving from out of the blue, but why her? Why was this stranger in her dreams? Agent Warrick finds the duo and relays the news about the gas station in Vermont. Security footage shows that Truss was there just before noon. The odd thing is that he doesn't seem to be under duress like someone who was just abducted might be. He seems more like an accomplice - or - he has no clue that he is with a shapeshifter.
After a long drive to the coast from Vermont, the shapeshifter directs Truss to a secured warehouse in the maritime district. Inside the warehouse, Malcolm finds that the people Nadine Park represents have assembled a research and development facility that matches the very standards he recommended before his project was terminated by William Bell. After he gets situated, Truss examines Parks's artificial skin. The tissue is remarkably well-adapted, she is lucky her body didn't reject it, following the extensive grafting that she must have had. Truss is amazed at how far his work has been advanced in his absence. It seems miraculous that she is even alive. Truss thinks back to his days at Massive Dynamic, William Bell should see this - the man who stopped his research because 'certain things are not for mortal man to tamper with'. After Park's tissue sample finishes processing, Truss studies the testing results... good news - the cellular degeneration she is experiencing is a genome propagation issue. And that is something he can fix.
Nina Sharp makes the pilgrimage from
her New York headquarters to Walter's laboratory in Boston. Nina suspects that she is probably the last person in the world Walter wants to visit him, but now seems like a good time to make amends - following the arrival of someone claiming to be his son... the child whose death Walter holds Nina responsible for. Walter has hated Nina ever since the drowning in Reiden Lake. It was her intervention there that forced him to return with the alternate version of his own son. What hurts Walter the most is that Nina was right for intervening... he crossed an ethical line, and that transgression has led two worlds down a path to destruction. Walter feels he deserves to be punished - to suffer. Now, when he looks into the face of the man claiming to be Peter Bishop, Walter sees the child he once loved, and that brings him joy. But that joy seems almost like a reward, not punishment. Nina puts a positive spin on Walter's self-immolating spiral of guilt... maybe Walter has suffered enough in the two and a half decades since he lost both Peter Bishop's... maybe he is being given a second chance.
Broyles joins Peter in his holding cell to learn what Peter has determined so far. The news isn't good. The memory hardware he examined from the new model shapeshifter contained six distinct DNA profiles, and it seems they are able to switch between any single identity they have ever taken. They can
replicate their victims down to the molecular level, including DNA. These improved shapeshifters will be completely indistinguishable from whoever they are impersonating. Short of surgical means to find their memory disks - there is no way of knowing who is a shapeshifter.
← At the warehouse lab, Malcolm Truss continues his efforts to help a former cancer sufferer with the cellular degeneration problem her cancer cure caused. Park is seated in the examination chair and Truss asks her to lie back for his next procedure... there is a potential for nausea. He turns away for a few seconds and Park lurches forward as her real problem kicks-in. Her genetic memory resets her to 'Karen Truss' mode. Malcolm is shocked - what the... why does Nadine Park look like his wife? Unable to flee, Doctor Truss learns what he is really up against when he gets the shapeshifter's ultimatum - you said you were going to help - and you will.
Peter's work continues
in his holding cell until he makes an important new discovery. Broyles learns what that is, the shapeshifter's broadcast a signal, then moves Peter into the Situation Room so he can utilize more powerful computers to figure-out the specifics. Once Peter gets set-up, the high-grade encryption on the broadcast signal is quickly unlocked. The shapeshifters are broadcasting coordinates of their position. Essentially, they have tracking devices, and right now, there are two tracks on the screen. One is the unit Peter has been testing, so the other has to be the shapeshifter that abducted Malcolm Truss. Peter suspects that whoever is tracking the shapeshifters will know that he has breached their network encryption, so the Fringe team may loose that access at anytime. Agent Lee recognizes
the coordinates on the screen... Nadine Park is at the nearby Port. Olivia leads a handful of agents to the exit - they need to move.
In the warehouse lab, Doctor Truss is still traumatized by what he just witnessed. Why do you look like Karen? How did you change your appearance? Who are the people you work for? The shapeshifter assures Truss that her offer to allow him to continue his research is sincere. Whatever resources he needs to complete his work will be provided to him. In fact, it was his research that allows her to do what he just witnessed. Truss thinks about her offer - working for a greater purpose, and reclaiming the legacy he was denied by William Bell. The shapeshifter needs Malcolm's treatment to induce a state of permanent hyper-replication. Truss begins to tweak the serum he was working on to accommodate multiple genomes. Park looks over his shoulder as he works, then grabs his hand when she senses Truss is betraying her. The bonding agent he is adding to the serum will fragment her DNA and trigger massive hemorrhaging. After she breaks the hand she has been holding, Truss gets the directive - finish what you started, she won't ask again. Malcolm continues his science with a bum hand... just five more minutes in the centrifuge and they'll know if the serum is complete. What Truss doesn't know is that four Fringe task force agents have assembled outside the warehouse and are about to initiate a tactical entry to recover him.
In position, Dunham and Lee make their entry move while Warrick and his man make entry around the side of the warehouse. Park immediately moves to engage the agents and pins Dunham and Lee down in a gun battle. Truss seizes the chance to grab the serum and get out. Park returns to the lab, takes the serum from Truss, then heaves him half way across the room onto a table. Lee and Dunham find the damaged scientist on the floor, so Lee stays to assist him while Olivia pursues Park to the upper levels. Agent Warrick and his partner intercept the shapeshifter first, and have to take cover from the relentless hail of bullets headed their way. When they get the opportunity to return fire, the shapeshifter
bounds off of two walls to get to the roof exit above the agents. Olivia gets the radio update from her second team that the target is headed for the roof. When Olivia reaches the warehouse roof, she finds her team down. One agent is motionless, the other, Warrick, is wounded and sitting-up against an air-conditioning unit. Olivia calls for medical support, then gets a tidbit from Warrick. He looks at the side of the building facing Boston's Inner Harbor and reports -
she jumped. Olivia hurries over in time to see a large cloud of air bubbles surfacing from the deep, dark water in the boat slip next to the warehouse.
Once law enforcement and
first responders have arrived at the warehouse lab. The dust begins to settle and the investigation moves on. Warrick is loaded into an Emergency Medical Services ambulance and starts the road trip to the hospital. Lee wanders over to the docks to see what the dive team has recovered. Olivia stops to chat with Malcolm Truss and get him settled. She knows it has been a long day, all she needs is to get his statement and she will arrange for his ride home. Olivia does confirm
the worst for Truss, Hillsdale Police found his wife dead that morning. Malcolm reflects on
William Bell's prophetic comment more than a decade earlier.
Some things are not ours to tamper with. Truss feels he has only himself to blame for his estranged wife's death. Olivia joins her partner as they watch the dive team
remove a body from the harbor. It's not the shapeshifter - it's Agent Warrick. Then who is in the ambulance? Olivia calls in the deception... they need all available units on that ambulance - now.
On a remote, tree-lined back road, a patrol officer finds the ambulance that was transporting the injured 'Agent Warrick'. With his pistol drawn, the officer approaches the EMS vehicle, finds the driver dead in his seat, then finds the back of the vehicle abandoned.
Back in the Situation Room at the Federal Building, Agent Jill Ruiz delivers the reports
Olivia was expecting. Olivia assures Lee that they will find the shapeshifter that has eluded them to this point.
Agent Lee isn't in the mood to grab a meal with Olivia, his only plans are to return to his hotel room. Jill Ruiz approaches Olivia with the reports she was expecting. Olivia is befuddled. She thought that Ruiz just gave her the reports. Olivia
looks around to find the reports she put down and... well, maybe not, she must just be tired.
← Languishing in his holding cell, Peter receives the visitor he was hoping to see, Walter Bishop. Peter knows how strange this all must seem to Walter, and difficult for him to deal with, but Peter needs his help - nobody remembers him, not even Olivia. Walter steps close to Peter and holds his face in his hands. Walter sees that he is Peter, but feels that Peter's return is his punishment for the problem he has caused two universes. Peter's presence is a temptation - a lure to see if Walter will repeat the mistakes he has made in the past. Walter wants no part of it. Wherever Peter came from, however he got here - Walter will not help him now. This man sitting before him was never his son.
In a stylish
Boston transportation hub, the shapeshifter
struggles to maintain the image of
Nadine Park. Still wearing the uniform of the paramedic she killed while evading capture as Agent Warrick, she finds an isolated spot to inject the serum that
Malcolm Truss developed. Almost immediately, her DNA propagation problem
repairs itself. She finds a large storage locker in the terminal and removes a hefty container from inside.
The typewriter it contains is her communications link to her superiors. When she is alone, she puts a piece of paper through the roller head and types -
Status Report: Doctor Truss located. Serum synthesized successfully. After only a few seconds she receives a reply when the typeset in the machine activates by itself...
Understood. Begin preparations. We're sending the others.
Quotes
| • "I saw him, Nina. The man. I saw my boy in that man's eyes. The way he looked that night in the ice... floating away from me. God help me, I... saw the eyes of my boy in a man's face. That filled me with... indescribable joy. But I don't deserve joy. For anyone else, this would be received as a miracle... to get a glimpse of their dead son. Why should I be rewarded for what I've done?" - Walter (to Nina, overwhelmed with the gift that is Peter, but remorseful and unworthy of having received that gift)
|
| • "They're the perfect infiltrators. By transforming their DNA, they can become anyone. They perfect this technology, and they can get close to us. They could replace any one of us. And short of performing surgery to find those memory disks, you would have absolutely no way of knowing." - Peter (a serious warning to Broyles, his take on the ominous danger the new threat poses)
|
| • "Great progress requires great sacrifice. Your work created me. Malcolm, you need to step back and see things objectively as a scientist. You let go of Karen long ago for a greater purpose. Don't let that all be for nothing. I'm offering you something precious... an opportunity to take back what William Bell took from you... your legacy." - Nadine Park (to Doctor Truss, pandering to his professional pride to get him to complete the serum she needs to perfect the new shapeshifting technology)
|
Trivia
- General
- The Observer stands behind the crime scene tape, as Olivia approaches Karen's house.
- A Novation is normally recognized as a mutually agreeable substitute. The origin of the term, from innovation, means something new.
- The Hermes 3000 was the well-known typewriter of iconic author Jack Keroauc during the 1960's 'Hippie Movement' and recently auctioned for $22,500 (USD). In Greek mythology, Hermes was the Great Messenger of the Gods and the patron of boundaries, and the travelers who cross them.
| — Plot Relevant Questions —
| Address theories about questions on Novation/Theories Ask minor questions on the Talk Page
|
|
1) Do not answer the questions here.
2) Keep the questions open-ended and neutral: do not suggest an answer.
|
- Who is the shapeshifter reporting to via the Hermes 3000 typewriter?
- Is the typewriter quantum entangled (Entrada) with the alternate universe?
- If not, is contact being made within this universe?
- If not, is contact being made with a third (alternate) universe?
- Is Olivia re-experiencing the same asynchronus time anomaly she encountered in her apartment (Subject 9) when Jill re-delivers the same reports she delivered 42 seconds earlier?
- Is Olivia re-experiencing déjà vu (The Road Not Taken) when she has nearly overlapping encounters with Jill(s) delivering reports?
- If not, is one of the Jills genuine, and the other a shapeshifter?
- Are both Jills shapeshifters?
- Is The Observer's failure to utilize his homemade device (Neither Here Nor There) outside of Walter's lab the reason Peter is certain that "Something is wrong. Something happened." to the timeline?
- Contrary to Peter's hypothesis that shapeshifters are not detectable, short of surgery, are dogs capable of detecting them?
