- Olivia and Peter look into some patients of mental institutions that regain their mental state after having gone through a brain intervention performed by a shape-shifter named Newton. This is directly related to Walter and his brain.
- When a patient of a mental institution is submitted to an intriguing brain surgery and is left behind with his brain exposed, he surprisingly regains sanity. The Fringe Division is assigned to investigate the case and while Olivia and Peter check the surveillance footage, Olivia recognizes one of the men. She check the FBI file and finds his name as Thomas Jerome Newton, the leader of the shapeshifters that have stolen the frozen heads. They discover that the patient's doctor is Dr. Paris and there are two other patients sent to other mental institutions by the physician fourteen years ago. Soon they learn that the two patients have mysteriously recovered and the Fringe Division discovers they have been also submitted to brain surgeries. When Walter is submitted to a CT-scan, they find that three pieces of his brain were removed and implanted in the three patients. What is the intention of Thomas?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- A Fringe investigation is triggered when a patient at a mental institution undergoes an impromptu brain surgery that unexpectedly leaves his brain exposed. Despite the unthinkable circumstances, the patient's condition and sanity miraculously improves before the Fringe team arrives. While Agent Dunham and Peter scan surveillance tapes (and Walter enjoys his pudding), Olivia recognizes a familiar face as Thomas Jerome Newton, the leader of the "shape-shifters." As similar cases stack up, the Fringe team heads back to the lab to determine exactly how patients are being cured. Walter's brains are put to the test and William Bell resurfaces.—FOX Publicity
- Hennington Mental Health Institute, Boston, Mass.
It's the middle of the night and our mystery leader is asking a man questions as he digs into his skull. He removes a chunk of his brain and starts to close the man up.
A security guard wanders by and they have to leave early -- leaving the man's brains open and him in some sort of catatonic state.
A nurse finds him, Mr. Slater. Suddenly he realizes what's happened to him. "Help me," he says.
The next day Olivia (Anna Torv) and the Bishops check things out. Joseph Slater has been a patient for 14 years and is a paranoid schizophrenic. A doctor tells them that after whatever they did to him he's completely sane, and his brain shows no sign of trauma.
They watch a video of Slater from when he was crazy. He's talking about a girl in a red dress who lived across the street, but the doctor tells him she was never there. Walter (John Noble) is weirded out by the whole setting.
They talk to Slater, who says all he remembers is turning to see the nurse. He feels "unburdened," like his mind had a spring cleaning. He thinks whoever did it to him was polite.
Walter doesn't have any ideas yet, but he finds the notion of a remedy for insanity alluring.
They watch the surveillance video. Peter's impressed by the super fancy technology they used to work the lock. Olivia recognizes the leader.
She's been looking through the files of the cryogenic facility that was burglarized a few months ago. She pulls up the files. He's Thomas Jerome Newton (Sebastian Roché), once a frozen head, now a midnight brain surgeon.
Newton was an alias. Later Olivia tells Broyles (Lance Reddick) what William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) told her about them trying to use Newton to open the doors between worlds.
At the lab, Walter sets Astrid (Jasika Nicole) on looking up Slater's medical files. She can't find Simon Paris, the doctor who sent Slater to the facility.
He set up an indefinite prescription for Slater when he committed him. He wrote the same ones for two other patients.
Cut to Dunwich Mental Hospital, where a woman describes waking up after 14 years of severe OCD, an obsession with the number 28. Her doctors have no explanation, but she's perfectly fine now.
Olivia asks if she can look at her head. Peter (Joshua Jackson) parts her hair and finds a fresh scar from a surgical laser.
She says Paris sent here there for post-partum depression and she developed the number obsession there.
A guy (Roger Cross) tells Newton they took too long getting to Slater, the first specimen is dying. There are two. They hurry off.
Peter and Olivia drive to see the third patient Paris committed, Stuart Gordon. He went in with, as Peter puts it, "the psychiatric equivalent of a cough" 14 years ago and developed full blown schizophrenia. Two days ago he miraculously recovered. He thought he was the actor Sydney Greenstreet.
Astrid tells Walter that Gordon is like the others, with the same scar. Walter has found Gordon was on a drug given to people with organ transplants.
He's baffled, but then has an epiphany.
He tells the rest of the Fringers about the difficulties of keeping a human brain alive outside of the body. He thinks Paris stored brain tissue inside of their brains. So Newton was removing pieces of brain. That explains why they'd be batty then better.
A doctor from one of the mental hospital calls Astrid back after checking into Paris.
As Olivia and the Bishops are wondering whose brain it could be, Astrid gets off the phone and looks ashen.
Turns out Dr. Paris visited Walter at St. Clair's on six separate occasions. Peter asks to look at his dad's head.
He finds the scar.
At Hennington, Walter waits for his MRI. He decides 50 milligrams of Valium will help. Peter remains calm as Walter worries about what Paris could have done to him.
Olivia checks on Peter after the scan. Astrid takes Walter home. Peter feels guilty for not visiting his dad at St. Clair's. Olivia says he's making up for that now.
The doctor shows them the scan results. He had brain removed in three places in his hippocampus. The doctor gets the scans from the other patients and Peter lays them over Walter's. They're a perfect fit.
At home, Walter is tripping out on Valium. He tells Astrid he needs music from his lab to calm him down. Astrid goes to get it.
Peter thinks Walter can't remember how to open the door to the other side because he literally had the memories removed. They wonder how Newton would interpret the memories and realize they'd need a brain that could read them: Walter's.
Peter calls Astrid and tells her to get back to Walter.
In his house still tweaking on Valium, Walter goes to answer a knock at the door. It's Newton.
Peter and Olivia get home to find Astrid, but no Walter.
Peter flips on the transponder.
Newton and his gang work on Walter. He's strapped to a chair with something on his head to read his brain. They give him even more sedative as Peter and Olivia race to the beeping transponder signal.
They bust into a men's public restroom where Peter finds the chip in the sink.
Newton uses associations to map Walter's brain functions. Walter asks if they're trying to fix him. "I am afraid not," Newton says.
Every picture reminds him of Peter. It's not working. Newton says they need something more powerful to stimulate his memories.
In the lab, Peter realizes he patient's delusions were tied to Walter's memories. A girl in a red dress named Sydney lived across the street from him at 2828 Green Street.
He thinks they might take Walter to the place where he figured out how to open the door to the other side to jog his memory.
Cambridge, Mass. Newton has moved Walter to a house. He's connected from a device on his head to bits of his brain in nearby jars with wires in them. They stimulate him and Walter remembers he's in his house. His demeanor changes and he's alert and defiant.
Newton asks Walter how he built the door. He says he knows why Walter did it, what he lost. He asks if he's willing to lose it (Peter) again. He asks again about the door.
After commercial, they pack up. Walter is unhooked from the machine and they inject him with something else.
Peter and Olivia race to the house and Peter breaks down the door. His dad is out cold on the floor, but he wakes up OK.
Olivia finds the house's current owners tied up nearby. They tell her the men just left. She runs out to see a van pulling away. She races after it and fires a shot through the driver's side door, killing him. He bleeds mercury.
The back doors open and she shoots the other man, dead. She tells Newton to get out of the van. She cuffs him.
In the house, Walter watches with sadness as the pieces of his brain tissue die. Then he collapses gasping on the floor.
Outside, Newton tells Olivia that Walter was injected with something and will die if he doesn't get the antidote in four minutes.
Olivia calls Peter to confirm it. Newton tells her to give to give him the phone and run back to the house. He'll tell her how to cure Walter when he hears her enter the house. Over the phone, Peter tells Olivia he thinks his dad is dying.
She tells Newton she won't let him go, but then she breaks into a dead sprint.
She gets to the house and follows his instructions, injecting something Newton left behind. "Now I know how weak you are," Newton tells her over the phone.
Peter watches his dad, hoping for signs of life. After a few tense seconds, Walter takes a breath. He wakes up with a terrible headache and a sudden craving for chicken wings.
Later, Olivia tells Broyles that Newton was right about her. She thinks they have nothing and tons of questions. Nothing on Paris, why they let Newton live and what Walter told them. Broyles tells her putting a name and face on the enemy is important. He says she did the right thing, there's only one Walter Bishop. "And we're going to need him before this is over," he says. "Don't be so hard on yourself, we're going to be needing you, too."
Back at the hospital, Walter waits for another MRI, just to check. Peter tells him he should have visited him. Walter says it's OK, if he had, he probably wouldn't have remembered anyway.
Walter fades off in the MRI and has a memory.
We see William Bell leaning over Walter as he's prepped for a procedure. Bell tells him he wishes there was another way, but what he's accomplished is too dangerous. Bell promises Walter he'll put his memory in a place only he can find. Bell tells him to listen as he tells Walter to think about the door he designed. They begin the procedure.
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