Recap – Fringe 2.07 – Of Human Action

NYPD arrives at the top of a parking structure where they find two kidnappers and see a teenaged boy (Tyler Carson) in the backseat.  Squinty-Eyed kidnapper tells them that they have no idea what they're dealing with.  As everyone watches the cops, one officer walks off the top of the parking structure and another takes out her gun and shoots the remaining officers and herself.

Team Fringe arrives.  Walter is bored; there is no food onsite.  When he's asked if he needs the bodies sent to the lab, Walter says no- he already knows what happened.  The cops were hypnotized.  Peter objects, reminding Walter that you can't be hypnotized to do something you don't want to do.  Walter's not convinced that he is wrong.  The FBI search has revealed that the kidnap victim's father works for Massive Dynamic.

They all trot down to Nina Sharp's office.  Walter thinks he's died and gone to heaven when their escort confirms that there are 73 labs in the Massive Dynamic Building.  Tyler's father Dr. Carson is waiting in Nina's office.  He hadn't realized his son was missing until he got a call from the kidnappers.  He didn't talk to his son a lot; teenagers, you know.  The kidnappers told him to wait for instructions.  Nina informs them that the kidnappers have been identified and that they have no tie to Massive Dynamic.  They are car salesmen.  Olivia thinks, and Nina agrees, that this must be some kind of extortion attempt. Dr. Carson works on highly sensitive secret military projects. 

As they leave, Walter whispers to Peter that Massive Dynamic was just a name until now.  He and William Bell shared lab space.  At a conference in Berlin (just before Walter's incarceration), he and Bell had discussed forming a company.  "I guess he couldn't wait."

Tyler tells his kidnappers that he's hungry.  They pull into a convenience story.  Squinty Eye tells the clerk to give him all the money.  The clerk and his burly friend pretty much laugh at them.  Squinty Eye stares at Burly as he picks up a pot of hot coffee and pours it over his bald head.  Then he cracks the pot on top of his own skull too.  They try to leave, snacks in hand, but the owner pulls out a gun.  They all watch as he puts down the gun and sticks his keys into an electrical socket.

Peter and Olivia watch the store's surveillance footage.  "These guys are no pros," Peter says.  And he'd probably know.  Broyles lets them know that the car salesmen were good guys.  They made a sale, took out a loaner for lunch and never came back.

"Chicken? Really?" Astrid asks in surprise.  "Why not?" Walter asks.  "I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what a human brain would taste like," Astrid admits.  They are autopsying the dead cops.  Walter thinks the extreme nature of the hypnotic suggestion would leave lesions on the brain.  As Peter and Olivia arrive, Walter changes his hypothesis from hypnosis to mind control.  People would be most sensitive to auditory commands, but Walter knows how to stop it.

As Dr. Carson gets a ransom demand, Peter and Olivia are sure that it's a distraction.   Considering what is at stake, the amount is much too low.  Nina says that MD will cover any ransom demands.  If it's a distraction, what do we do?  "Set a trap," says Olivia.

Walter is running around the house singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep".  He eventually finds what he is looking for - a white noise generator in a teddy bear.