“Bound”

“Bound” is simply a case of trying to do too much and not really care how it gets there. It is a tall order as it tries to fill new viewers in on the complex mythology, while trying to answer and ask new questions as well.

The first problem is with Dunham’s abduction. Two problems.

1. While the Bishops are twiddling away in Walter’s lab, Astrid comes in asking if they’ve heard from Olivia since she didn’t report to work. It made it seem like the agency didn’t know that Dunham was kidnapped even though she was talking to agents while it happened.

2. Her escape. It was so poorly conceived that it was laughable. The guard would let her have a drink of water and untie her and let her sit up…well whatever. She needed to escape some way I guess.

The only important part of the captivity period is that in a out of character COMPLETELY unsubtle shot we see Dunham notice a spot of white paint on her masked captor’s shoes.

Post escape isn’t much better. We are introduced to Sanford Harris, who is given carte blanche to review Fringe Division. It is the same Sanford Harris who Dunham helped prosecute for sexual harrassment. So he holds quite a grudge against Agent Dunham.

It’s melodrama. It’s supposed to make things more difficult for our team and gives us someone to root against. But at first glance it was more annoying than anything else.

Especially as he gives the order to tranq Dunham and take her in rather than assist her in raiding the warehouse. Luckily she had the foresight to steal some of the drug samples from her place of captivity.

But why did she dig a hole and hide them if she knew the good guys were coming to meet her? I guess you could say she was concerned the bad guys would find her first, but it seemed a bit strange to me.

Meanwhile we learn that the Fringe event of the week occurs when a professor suddnely gets all choked up at a lecture…literally as a freaky superslug suddenly comes out of his mouth, having suffocated him on the way up.

After finding the creature Walter is quick to discover that it really is just a giant form of the common cold.

We meet some other new characters in the meantime, as Dunham’s sister, Rachel and Rachel’s daughter Ella have arrived in town after a rough separation from Rachel’s husband.

After some more detective work, the team decides that it is the professor’s new job at the CDC that was the reason behind the killing and theorize that there was another professor who was offered the same job.

After putting him into protective custody, the professor is killed by Loeb as Walter describes just how this “cold” is spread.

And the main question is why? We learn that the two are major epidermiologists and the theory is if you want to start an epidemic, kill the epidermiologist first. But then why kill in a fashion that’s going to attract a lot of attention when there are a million and one ways to kill someone. Dunham posits that very question and there is no real answer.

Well there is. Because we needed a Fringe event this week.

The best part of the episode comes as Olivia notices Loeb’s shoes and realizes that Loeb is the double agent. After going to Loeb’s house she confronts Loeb’s wife who tries to kill her. Dunham kills her first and upon capturing Loeb, interrogates him and “tortures” him with the pictures of his dead wife.

This breaks Loeb as he lashes out saying that they abducted her to save her. That they knew nothing and was only hurting themselves.

More mystery and this time it is well done. If only the rest of the episode were as up to par.

C-

OBSERVER MOMENT: The Observer can be seen in the background when Olivia exits her car at Harvard.

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