I’m not entirely sure what I think about the latest episode of Fringe. In one way, it was exciting to see Olivia (Anna Torv) beginning to remember everything of her other life, but at the same time the plot for this week’s episode was simply dumb.

The episode centers around a young boy (Harrison Thomas) in a mental institution, who suddenly seems to hear voices from people who are committing crimes. The Fringe team is on the case and they realize that it all comes from a doctor who did in-vitro fertilization and changed the embyro’s to make them … well, better, for want of a better term. Turns out they’re all psychically linked with each other and are killing people to protect that secret – eventually killing their creator and losing the psychic bond. It’s all very dumb and doesn’t really work all that well. Luckily, this part of the episode was – in terms of time – pretty short.

Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham

The important part of the episode, and the one that took longer in terms of time, comes from Walter (John Noble) and Lincoln (Seth Gabel) discovering that Olivia – now that they’re running tests on her – has been exposed to Cortexiphan for a long time. They go to visit Nina (Blair Brown) and see if she’s involved. It turns out she’s got the Cortexiphan hidden away in a very secure lab somewhere, and when they go there to look at it, it’s been replaced by food coloring. I’m not sure if Nina is surprised for real or feigning it, because we quickly turn to another scene.

Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Olivia are stopping for gas as they’re returning from their completed case, when Olivia gives us a very out-of-character “I’ve really got to go pee”-line that tells us that something important is about to happen. People don’t just go pee on TV unless it’s a plot device of some sort. Lo and behold! – it is; Olivia disappears and the next time we see her she’s tied to a chair in a room with Nina.

I really liked this episode, it went closer to the character-centric episodes of Fringe that I’ve loved in the past. The relationships between the main characters are becoming far more interesting and promise to deliver a whole lot of excitement in the near future. I’ve got a couple of thoughts and ideas about what might be going on, and I’ll be revising this as we see more episodes in the future. So here’s what I think we’ve got going on:

• Nina Sharp in the labs is ‘alternate’ Nina Sharp, and she’s crossed over to help David Robert Jones (Jared Harris) with whatever his endgame is. She might also be a shapeshifter, actually, but either way – she’s not a good person.
• Nina Sharp in the dungeon with Olivia is ‘our’ Nina Sharp, and she’s a genuinely good person.
• The Cortexiphan has something to do with the memories being changed, but this is going to start spreading outside of Olivia at some point. Maybe. Possibly.

Next week’s episode of Fringe is called The End of All Things, and, I’m stoked for what’s coming. It’s promised to tie together everything we’ve seen in the past four years, which is a very tall order for a show. I’m looking forward to it and will keep you all updated.

How did you like Fringe: Season 4, Episode 13?