‘Fringe’ 1.05 Review: Blast from the Past
Episode: Power Hungry
Original Air Date: October 14, 2008
The main plot of the “Power Hungry” episode of Fringe concerns a dorky guy with the power to control electricity. As fantastic as that sounds, the episode belongs to FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, or more precisely, her presumed-dead former partner and lover John Scott. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me since we’re talking major, major Mark Valley fan here; I was struck with grief when his character died in the pilot, and nothing thrills me more than having him back, hallucination or not.
I also love the way the episode begins, with one of those seemingly ordinary slices of a stranger’s life that quickly turns into a nightmare. The current Pattern Freak of the Week, if you will, is unassuming Joseph Meegar (Ebon Moss Bachrach), a regular yet somewhat wimpy man you’d never notice walking down the street … until he starts making electrical stuff spazz out around you.
Predictably, that happens whenever he gets agitated, which is why he pitches a major electrical fit when the object of his disturbing desire, secretary Bethany (Diane Davis), flirts with a coworker in front of him. How dare she do that when he’s clearly trying to make a love connection with her through his stuttering, awkward, and extremely weird comments about Boy Scout badges or whatever. As a result of her audacity, Joseph somehow makes her computer go on the fritz.
Bethany doesn’t realize she’s Joseph’s crush, however, until she realizes he’s her stalker when he drops his cell phone in the elevator as she heads to the tech department. She politely retrieves the open phone from the floor, thereby discovering image after image of herself on the display.
This, in turn, leads to Joseph crashing the elevator 26 floors down in response to her shocked and disgusted expression. Eight people die in the disaster, all of the passengers save Joseph, who, both electrical source and conductor, avoids the impact due to spontaneous electrodynamic levitation (yeah, I took honors organic chemistry eons ago; these big scientific words don’t scare me!), or so clever Walter Bishop says later.
Team Olivia arrives on the scene in Worcester, and Walter quickly determines a massive power surge drove the elevator to the ground. In other words, the elevator didn’t fall but rather powered itself up, with the safety mechanism still functioning. Moreover, the passengers died from electrocution by energy so great, its residue is strong enough to make Olivia’s 24-karat gold necklace, complete with charm, float in midair. Yowza! Cool trick!
Back at his lab, Walter fits more pieces of the puzzle together, thanks to previous research he conducted on electromagnetic energy. It turns out we all have a unique, albeit weak, electromagnetic signature or footprint, similar to a fingerprint, and he was once tasked with increasing its strength to make it measurable and traceable, sort of like a built-in GPS system for powered-up humans (I could use a couple of those). This knowledge comes in super handy when it’s time to track down Joseph.
And Joseph is a busy boy while Team Olivia figures out that they’re actually looking for a human being capable of controlling electricity and not an electrical device gone haywire. Soon responsible for mangling his irate boss (nasty, nasty business — I had to look away) after he gets fired and shorting his irritable mother’s pacemaker (the nagger kind of deserves it) when he tries to explain what’s happening, Joseph is kidnapped by the evil mad scientist Jacob Fischer (Max Baker).
How evil is this Fischer fool? As bossman Phillip Broyles informs Olivia, the sneaky crook is wanted in multiple states for illegal human experimentation at facilities that promise gullible people help with mundane things like losing weight and growing hair. Joseph was lured in by the promise of treatment to boost his self-confidence. Something got boosted all right…
Yet, good for Joseph, in a sense, because his uncommonly strong electromagnetic “force field” (it is kind of superheroic, no?) imprints his signature on an audio cassette tape in his apartment. The information then allows Walter to work some hocus pocus on a couple dozen carrier pigeons that lead Team Olivia right to where the mad scientist is hiding Electro Boy.
Moving on to Olivia: Although the first two visions of John Scott flip her out, Walter provides some typically unique perspective. What if the visions aren’t hallucinations? What if, instead, they’re fragments of John’s consciousness, such as his experiences and thoughts, that crossed over to Olivia’s mind during that tank scene in the premiere? If so, the eerie, realistic waking-dream conversations are her brain working things out and expelling John because it only has room for one person and not two. I wonder how many people Walter’s brain can hold…
Anyway, it’s not so scary when you put it that way, right? Still, Olivia seems conflicted about whether she wants John to go or stay, which probably explains why she follows him when she’s driving home one night and spots him. Lucky her because he leads her to a cellar where he was hiding files for independent investigations he was conducting, including one focused on madman Fischer. This gives the FBI enough information to make mouths start talking, and Olivia also gets the engagement ring John was holding for her in a box.
The ring is inscribed “always” on the inside, and the episode closes with John promising again that he’ll prove he loves Olivia and didn’t try to kill her. Since his earlier message warning that Fischer was looking for Joseph, too, proved true, I’m going to take a leap of faith and believe there’s more to John Scott than just an underhanded double agent … at least until Fringe presents airtight evidence to the contrary.
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