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- Introduction
Subject 9 is the fourth episode of the fourth season of FRINGE. It first aired on 14 October, 2011. Olivia is confronted by a dangerous apparition and a fellow Cortexiphan test subject appears to be the cause. Walter leaves the lab for the first time in years to show he is not insane and to avoid being reinstitutionalized. The powerful apparition is neutralized and surfaces in Reiden Lake.
Synopsis
- Prologue
In her apartment, Olivia sleeps comfortably just after sunrise and about a minute before her alarm is set to wake her. The drapes next to her bed rustle in front of the open window. Olivia is unaware she has a threatening intruder in her bedroom. An ominous blue energy mass begins to form at the foot of her bed. The metallic objects on her nightstand rustle as the entity approaches. Her alarm sounds on time, as expected, and she finds herself face-to-face with the powerful apparition. The startled Federal Agent grabs her pistol and rolls out of bed to defend herself. The entity dissipates as it fades away from her. Her alarm sounds again... as originally scheduled, and Olivia looks around the room to see what else has happened. All of the metallic objects that were on her nightstand have been gathered at one spot on the floor. Time to get to the lab and to work.
←
Walter and
Astrid are
already hard at work in the
lab when Olivia arrives with news of her home invasion. Walter has recently been inspired to capture an image of the apparition that is haunting his lab. He has twenty-eight cameras arranged at multiple angles in case the entity is out of phase with this reality and is only visible from one specific angle. Olivia shares the details of her early morning encounter at home. The entity seemed to be collecting metallic objects in a pile on the floor... and it touched her too – blistering her forearm. Olivia is worried that she may somehow be causing what has happened recently... like when she was a child and set fire to a room. Walter is more focused on the task at hand and asks Astrid to get a DNA scraping from the burn on Olivia’s arm – maybe that will help them determine what form of energy they are dealing with. While the ladies get the sample that Walter needs, Walter takes Olivia’s coat aside and notices a letter from
Saint Claire's in the pocket. Saying nothing to his colleagues, Walter sneaks a peek at the contents. His latest psychological evaluation recommends that he be remanded back to the mental institution for care. Overwhelmed with concern, Walter’s heart is in his throat. He chokes back his disappointment when he sees that Olivia has not yet filled-out the section of the form that would keep him in the lab - or send him to back to the
funny-farm. Walter quickly stuffs the letter back into Olivia’s coat pocket when Astrid approaches him with the DNA sample he asked for. Fresh tasking – Walter needs the two of them to gather an atmospheric sample from Olivia’s apartment as soon as possible.
Back in Olivia’s apartment, Walter guides the investigation
using the videophone that Astrid has mounted on her ear. The Geiger counter is active and gets higher readings the closer Astrid holds the sensing wand to the metallic objects that were collected on the floor by the entity. Walter wants Olivia to gather metallic objects from the bathroom to see if they have become magnetized. As Walter watches Astrid’s video feed on the monitor in his lab, the audio starts to feedback, and the picture begins to break up, but - Astrid isn’t having a problem with the videophone. When Walter’s feed clears up, Astrid is calling to Olivia and the camera shows her racing to the bathroom to help. Olivia is face-to-face with the entity as the bathroom door is forced closed. Walter asks Astrid about the confrontation with the entity he just saw... Astrid has no idea what Walter just witnessed – she is still calmly performing her science duties in the bedroom. Suddenly, Olivia calls Astrid for help and the events Walter witnessed on his monitor seconds earlier occur in realtime for those in the apartment. After the bathroom door slams shut, all of the metal objects fly out of the storage cabinet, over the head of a cowering Olivia and toward the manifested blue energy field. The apparition dissolves and the door is released.
Back in Walter's Lab, the science team gathers around the monitor and reviews the footage recorded at Olivia's apartment. Astrid wants to know how Walter's equipment recorded the event before it even happened.
Is that possible? Walter remembers something like this happened before - but not the same way. Twenty-five years earlier when he and
William Bell were conducting the Cortexiphan trials, one of the test subjects displayed the capacity for
astral projection and the ability to physically
travel outside of his own body. The radiation levels in Olivia's apartment were similar to those generated during the testing. Everytime the test subject projected himself, he distorted his own magnetic field and metal objects were drawn to him. Olivia wants to know what that has to do with her - twenty-five years later. Walter thinks the deep emotional bond she had with the other children and their shared experience is causing the test subject to reach out to her now - and no deliberate harm is intended. Olivia wants to know again - why her? Walter surmises that since she was the strongest in the group, a favorite of many, she is being sought now by someone who wasn't as emotionally stable. Walter doesn't remember the name of the young man who demonstrated the ability to project himself physically, just that he was identified during testing as
Subject Nine.
Inside of
Massive Dynamic Headquarters in New York City, Nina Sharp lectures a room full of employees and colleagues on the potential applications of
nanotechnology. The oration takes a questionable path as far as corporate ethics are concerned...
Massive Dynamic creates technology and owns patents - how the technology they create is used is not the concern of the corporation. After
Nina finishes, she escorts Olivia and Astrid to a secure room where the files they are looking for should be stored. Walter listens and watches over the videophone Astrid is wearing and takes strong exception to the lies that he is certain Nina is spreading. Astrid gets an earful from Walter when Nina suggests that the Cortexiphan trial documentation may be missing. He and Bell
never destroyed files! Astrid politely moderates Walter's acid comments, and even threatens to shut-off the videophone. Nina realizes that Astrid is tempering the comments coming out of the lab in Boston when Astrid says Walter said
thank you - in all of the years she has known Walter...
thank you is one thing that he has never said to her. The trio reaches the storage room and Nina swipes her access card so the hunt for the Cortexiphan files can begin. Nina and Olivia step aside for a quick word while Astrid enters the room. Nina has noticed the fear in Olivia's face and suspects the Fringe event Olivia is investigating happened to her personally. It did.... How can Nina help? Olivia tells her she already
has by getting them access to the
Cortexiphan files. Inside the storage area, Astrid and Olivia start their search and Astrid is curious to learn more about these trials that Walter conducted when Olivia was young. Olivia shares what little she knows: Bishop and Bell thought that children had untapped extrasensory capabilities -- capabilities that diminish as they mature... telekinesis, pyrokinesis, the ability to cross to another universe, to name a few. Olivia doesn't know much more than that, she ran away a few years before the testing was concluded. In his lab, Walter has been listening silently to the conversation, then turns off the feed from Astrid when the subject of
testing on children strikes a somber note in him. Olivia locates
the file they are hunting for -
Subject Nine is
Cameron James.
Olivia and Astrid return to the lab carrying boxes of files from the Cortexiphan trials, only to find Walter packed and ready to leave. Walter insists he must go with Olivia as she attempts to locate Cameron James. Walter knows the test subject and the capabilities he once displayed. Olivia does not... she could be killed if Walter does not go with her. Walter is ready to leave the lab for the first time in three years - and he made sandwiches to take with them.
← On the busy streets of
New York City, Olivia keeps close tabs on Walter as he adapts to the sea of humanity and excessive visual and aural inputs of urban city life. After three years in the lab, preceded by years in a mental health care facility, Walter is not handling his current situation too well. A rude pedestrian takes exception to Walter's glance and blows cigarette smoke in his face as they pass on the street. Seething with
anxiety and anger, Walter musters some false bravado for Olivia's sake - he had forgotten how much he loved environments like this... he should have gotten out of his lab years ago.
Olivia and Walter make their way to a large apartment complex that allegedly houses Cameron James. Olivia knocks on the door and receives no response. She picks the lock on the door and the duo enters and looks around. Olivia finds mail addressed to a Mark LIttle, not Cameron James. They must have the wrong place. Walter thinks otherwise. The apartment appears to have been modified to remove most, if not all, of the metal - there's no metal anywhere, not even in the light fixtures. The inspection is interrupted when the Landlady finds them snooping about. Olivia identifies herself - they just need to talk to her tenant, he isn't in trouble, yet. The woman is hesitant to say too much, but Walter introduces himself, turns on the charm, and the information starts to flow.
Mark Little is a long haul driver who travels overnight to Maine and back for a furniture company. Little is pretty consistent - he is usually back in his apartment by Ten in the morning.
That's good enough for Olivia. She and Walter will return tomorrow morning.
Olivia and Walter find a local hotel for the night and Olivia struggles a bit to get Walter settled in the unfamiliar surroundings. Walter is not feeling the comfort and confidence he wanted to demonstrate to Olivia after leaving his life as a hermit in the lab. His mysophobia is starting to get the better of him - the room he is in must be a veritable petri dish of germs, pathogens, human waste and other unacceptable nastiness. Olivia simply wants to get him settled down before she heads to her room for a night of rest. She excuses herself, gets to her room and, in less than a minute, has to rush back into Walter's room. He is trashing the place and ranting insanely at the unseen filth that he has fixated on. Walter's hands are bleeding from all of the physical damage he caused. Olivia gets him to calm down and bandages his hands. Walter's pride seems to have suffered the most damage - he hasn't had an anxiety attack like that in years. Olivia settles him with a little humor.. of all the crazy science things that don't bother him at all, harmless germs are the thing that get him going. Walter takes her point. He has always been a man of contradictions. That is what his wife Elizabeth liked about him... but he is glad that she never saw him like he was tonight. Olivia has a novel idea - let's make things better with a root beer float. Delightful.
Seated and served in a pleasant street-level restaurant, Walter is feeling better about himself and takes the time to instruct Olivia on optimal
Root Beer Float consumption strategies... you stab the ice cream with your straw, push the straw down to the root beer, then suck up the ice cream and the soda simultaneously from the bottom -
yummmm.
Olivia is happy to see Walter positive and upbeat. Walter's mood quickly switches - again. He needs to tell her that he saw the letter from Saint Claire's. He knew the day would come when his eccentric nature might outweigh any value he could add to her investigative team - no delusions there: If he ceases to be useful, he is out. Olivia
now realizes why he came along on her field investigation... to prove his worth. She tempers his assessment though - whatever decision she makes
about the recommendation to return him to Saint Claire's - she'll only try to do what is best. Walter starts to raise the question,
best for whom?, but never finishes the thought when Olivia's blue visitor returns. The metal spoons on the table start to move around, the table shakes and in the center of the cafe, the large blue energy cloud that was in Olivia's apartment starts to form. The other patrons in the restaurant panic and run out of the building. Olivia and Walter are cut-off from the exit, so Olivia makes her own exit by shooting the large front window next to their table. The entity follows them outside after they climb out over the broken glass. The anomaly, focused on Olivia,
backs her into the street where an automobile nearly clips her. Walter's warning from the sidewalk gives her enough time to dive out of the way. The car swerves around her, missing her, but collides with the blue entity. The mid-sized auto stops as if it struck a solid object. The large energy cloud evaporates into the night.
Outside of Marquard's Cafe at the scene of the latest Fringe Event, emergency responders and investigators comb over the wrecked vehicle and damaged restaurant in the early morning light. The
scrape on Olivia's forehead is minor and doesn't require much first-aid. Olivia finds the local officer-in-charge and requests that he turn over all of the evidence his people have collected. Lieutenant Daniels isn't impressed with her "FBI" authority in the matter and is reticent with his cooperation. She has been pulling rank on his officers. She has been shooting up his streets. Eyewitnesses are reporting the unexplainable, a car crashed into a
wall of light - and she wants his cooperation? Polite as can be, Olivia shares that she does not know what is going-on
and could the Lieutenant kindly read her orders... she has
blanket authority in this investigation - she can seize whatever evidence she wants, regardless of his jurisdictional posturing. He promptly hands her the documentation she asked for. Walter is nearby, resting on the back step of the ambulance. Olivia joins him and gets him ready to go - she wants to get back to Cameron James' apartment before he returns from work. Olivia can tell Walter isn't well - he turned down
firefighter soup. Walter is seriously lamenting the attack - he is certain he is responsible for all of this because of the Cortexiphan testing he conducted decades earlier.
← Olivia parks
in front of Cameron James building then asks Walter to stay by the front stoop to wait for her: She is going to conduct the interview alone. Walter has been reflecting on the Cortexiphan trials... he never followed-up on a single child, not even Olivia. She remembers being told that the doses they took during the trial were so low, any ability a child demonstrated never lasted longer than a day. Walter concurs, and that suggests that Cameron may not be aware that he is manifesting his astral projection talents. Olivia is certain that her contact with the energy field is deliberate - not inadvertant. If Walter is going to stay downstairs and wait, he will need her cell phone... he wants to call Astrid and check on his camera project. Olivia hands over her phone and starts upstairs to the apartment they inspected the day before. When she gets there, she introduces herself and asks for Mark Little. Cameron James maintains his alias as Little and seems willing to help. He lets Olivia into his residence, but as soon as she mentions his real name, he bolts out the door and down the stairwell to get away from her. Olivia races after him, ordering him to stop.
James makes it to the lobby of his building well ahead of Olivia, but runs over Walter as he rounds the last corner. Both men crash to floor. Walter immediately recognizes the person he experimented on two and a half decades earlier. James recognizes the scientist that ruined his adult life. Upset with Walter's presence, Cameron's ability activates
and the elevator doors and chandelier begin moving swiftly back and forth. Olivia explodes into Cameron and pins him against the wall. Why is he targeting her? Cameron doesn't recognize her and has no idea what she is talking about. Walter asks her to back-off and James realizes who she is - Olive. Still fired-up, Olivia is certain he is the culprit in this case, but he insists that has not even thought about her in years. He
is not responsible for what is happening to her. James returns his focus to
Doctor Freak - the man that shoved needles into him as a child and ruined his life. He can't Astral Project like he did during the drug testing... but the side effects of Bishops' test sure did give him the ability to send metal flying when he gets upset. As things settle down a bit, Cameron shares the details of the sub-standard life he endured following the Cortexiphan trials. Walter didn't make him
special, he didn't even return him to
normal - Walter just made him a
freak. Walter's sincere apology somehow seems less than adequate. Suddenly, all of the metal objects in the lobby start moving around. James swears it isn't him - which becomes even more obvious when the large blue energy field appears directly before the three of them. When it starts moving closer, James feels intimidated and yells - NO! - at the top of his lungs. Somehow the unwanted ability he retained from Walter's experiment was enough to safely disperse the energy field. Olivia realizes she has a much grander problem now - if Cameron James isn't causing the energy field... what is?
The group retreats to Cameron's apartment to try and develop a plan to permanently stop the entity. Walter is drawing a blank, and that worries him. Olivia is still wrapped around the - Why me? - aspect of the case. Cameron is suspicious of Walter... is Walter really out of ideas - or just keeping things to himself? Walter starts thinking aloud for everone's benefit. Maybe the electromagnetism associated with the phenomena isn't the root cause... but a by-product of field distortions in time. Everyone here exists in linear time, but the energy event they have been witnessing isn't operating in linear time. That is why normal magnetic fields are distorted when it appears... luckily, Cameron's reflexive discharge dispersed the energy. Walter's big concern is that the anomaly will keep returning and continue to grow so large that it will consume everything in its' path. There is only one way to stop that from happening - gather an energy field large enough to neutralize the electromagnetism. The anomaly should shatter... and only Cameron can make that happen - if he can focus his emotions.
← Olivia gives Astrid a call and learns what
she needs to know about the local power grid. Just over on the West Side is a
large electrical relay station that should provide ample power for Cameron to destroy the entity. After they arrive, Olivia pops the lock on the chain link fence and the group enters the grounds. Walter starts to look around. Olivia and Cameron stop in front of a bank of large industrial insulators and capacitors. This is where they need to be if the entity is drawn to Olivia. When it returns, Cameron will need to combine his energy with the energy of the power grid to destroy it. While Walter finds a private spot for bladder relief, Cameron and Olivia talk about the other test subjects from Jacksonville. Has she heard about any of the others? Olivia has not. He is the only other test subject she knows anything about. The same goes for him - no contact with the others. How about side effects? Olivia shakes her head - no. Cameron vocalizes what Olivia has been thinking and feeling for days... that something was specifically coming after him, before he realized he was doing it to himself. Olivia doesn't think that she is unintentionally manifesting this
phenomena. Cameron questions Doctor Bishop's integrity once again - would he tell her if she was the root cause? Walter runs back from his private spot when the entity returns directly in front of Olivia. Olivia insists she is not causing the energy event. Walter coaches Cameron on how to destroy the entity and Cameron focuses his thoughts and emotions on performing that task. Olivia is inches away from the energy field when a familiar face forms within it. Just when Cameron is about to permanently eradicate the energy field, Olivia changes her mind - she doesn't want to destroy it... something inside her is telling her the anomaly is benign. Cameron is so focused that he doesn't hear Olivia when she issues a 'cease and desist' order... however, she does manage
to get his attention when she fires her pistol into the air. That breaks Cameron's concentration long enough to allow the large ball of energy to dissipate without being destroyed.
The bucolic afternoon of upstate New York changes drastically at the very instance the energy field dematerializes at the power relay station. The mystery man with the familiar face violently materializes beneath the surface of Reiden Lake in a flurry of bubbles. Two fishermen in a nearby row boat hurry to assist the man after he bursts to the surface - distressed and out of breath. A bald man wearing a Fedora hat watches the unusual activity from shore.
Still at the electrical relay station, Walter confers with Olivia about what she saw in the entity - it was the face of the man Walter was encountering in the lab and the man she was seeing in her dreams. Well, why didn't she let Cameron destroy it? Olivia can't explain why - she just had a
feeling that the
thing wanted help from her, not to hurt her. Olivia takes a minute to talk privately with
Cameron James. The thing he wants out of this whole ordeal is for her to keep Walter away - to be forgetten by him. Walter can't be sure if the entity was destroyed, or not. When Olivia fired her pistol and interrupted Cameron - the energy may have merely been displaced. Walter speaks his mind about Olivia's action. She behaved irrationally and relied on her intuition and instincts... when he does that he gets labeled as
crazy. Crazy may be a lot more complicated than people think - something for her to think about before she sends him back to a hospital for the mentally ill. Olivia takes a call from
Broyles - a man was just pulled from Reiden Lake in upstate New York - and he knows way too much about the Fringe team and the classified work they do. Walter mentions that he once had a place at the lake.
Broyles, Olivia and Walter make their way to the hospital tending to the mystery
man from Reiden Lake. The doctor caring for this
unique patient greets Broyles in the waiting area. His patient is in good shape and has been talking about someone named Olivia Dunham. Olivia steps forward - that's her - can she visit with his patient? Sure thing.
Walter is left by himself in the waiting area near the duty desk when Broyles steps away to take a call. Olivia has left her overcoat behind and Walter can't resist
sneaking another look at the letter she received about his psychological evaluation. He is more than relieved when he sees that she has made her recommendation - he won't be returning to
Saint Claire's just yet.
Olivia walks into the room of
The Mystery Man From Reiden Lake and is greeted with a genuine "Olivia. Thank God you're here." - - She doesn't have
any clue who
he is.
Quotes
| • "You realize just what you did to me? If you had given me some special power, that'd be one thing. Maybe I'd be special. Or at least I'd be useful. Or if you'd just left me alone, I could have been normal, have a normal life with normal friends. Instead, I'm neither. I'm just a freak. Can you understand what that's like?" - Cameron James (to Walter, revealing the devastating impact of Cortexiphan testing on his life)
|
| • "You acted against all reasonable agreements and expectations. You behaved irrationally with regard to only your intuition and instincts... when I do that, people say I'm crazy. I suppose I've learned that crazy is a lot more complicated than people think." - Walter (to Olivia, giving her some perspective about his mind, and actions, so she won't return him to Saint Claire's)
|
Trivia
- General
- Cultural References
- The Matrix. Inspired by his recent viewing of the popular movie, Walter attempts to capture an image of the apparition that has been invading his lab. The movie frequently used multiple cameras to capture a single action from multiple angles for a special effect called bullet time. Walter only hopes to capture a single image on just one of the multiple cameras that he has set-up.
- Storyline Analysis
- Episode Reference
- A clip from the betamax video of young Olivia running on the threadmill (Subject 13) is playing in the screen while Astrid examines the paper files and Olivia go through the electronic files.
|
| | A book titled Astral Projection and Other Psychic Phenomena (Alone In The World) rests on a shelf in Walter's Lab, foreshadowing the astral projection capacity Cameron James demonstrated as a child
|
• Couldn't Get It Right by Climax Blues Band 
| — Plot Relevant Questions —
| Address theories about questions on Subject 9/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.
|
- Did The Observer play an active role in bringing Peter to Reiden Lake to join this timeline?
- Did Peter leave the alternate universe for this one?
- If not, where was Peter before arriving at Reiden Lake?
- Does the metaphysical apparition of Peter attract metallic objects because of Peter's physical ability (Over There, Part 1) to attract metallic objects?
- Does the metaphysical apparition of Peter affect time because of Peter's physical ability (The Day We Died) to influence time?
- Is the time synchronization anomaly influenced by the fact that time in the alternate universe is rarely sychronized (The Man From The Other Side) with this universe?
