- The Fringe division investigate the questionable fall of a Massive Dynamic executive analyst. John helps Olivia crack the case. Peter meets up with an old girlfriend.
- An employee of Massive Dynamic covered in mysterious cuts jumps out a window believing himself to be attacked by a swarm of butterflies. Meanwhile, Olivia becomes fed up with her visions of John Scott and decides to go back into the sensory deprivation tank to get rid of them.—J. Rieper
- In New York, after the lecture of the Massive Dynamic executive Mark Young, he is attacked by a swarm of butterflies with razor wings and he jumps out of the glass window, falling and dying on a car parked on the street. Agent Olivia Dunham is assigned to investigate the crime scene with her team and Dr. Walter Bishop examines the lacerations on the body. Olivia sees John Scott in the crowd watching her. Then she receives an e-mail from John and finds a hidden laboratory with frogs. In Harvard, Dr. Bishop finds a powerful hallucinogen in the frogs and in Mark's blood and concludes that the lacerations were produced his brain. Olivia discloses to Dr. Bishop her visions of John and he tells that she has recollections of John in her brain. She insists to be submitted again to the experiment to visit her memories of John. Will she discover anything new about her case?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- A harried man arrives late for a meeting he's supposed to be leading. Afterwards, he earns raves from the board. Alone later in the conference room, he notices a butterfly flitting around. It lands on the man's finger and he enjoys its delicate beauty - until it starts divebombing him and causing deep cuts. Like a true naturalist, he whacks it with a piece of rolled-up paper. He touches its wings and he's sliced again. Another comes at him, and another, slicing away like something from the movie Hitchcock never made. They fly into a heating vent and, naturally, he goes for closer inspection - which is when the swarm comes at him and, in trying to escape, he dives out a window and falls, delicately, peacefully, to the ground below. From the Massive Dynamic building.
Olivia (Anna Torv) gets ready for a surprise party. Broyles (Lance Reddick) phones, calling her to the airport. She says she quits - but only for a few days. He expects to see her there.
New York Peter (Joshua Jackson) stands next to the flattened body, suspicious. Walter (John Noble) wants to examine the body at the lab. Olivia looks into the crowd and sees John Scott (Mark Valley).
She talks to Nina Sharp (Blair Brown), who calls Mark Young (Ptolemy Slocum) a promising analyst. They're supposing suicide. She tells Nina she expects more than the "polite appearance" of her cooperation. Nina suggests fringe science was too much for Mark to take.
Olivia and Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) check out his apartment. She finds a plane ticket booked to Omaha and sees two frames full of mounted butterflies on his wall. For a moment, she sees them vibrating.
At the lab, Walter examines the man's lacerations and says they went down to the bone and appeared to come from the inside out. There was a synthetic in his blood.
Peter gets a call and excuses himself. A woman knows he's back, she needs to see him. He can't get away. She asks when.
Olivia researches at home. She looks at the man's datebook and the word "Monarch." She turns off her computer and walks to bed. It turns back on. She has an email from John Scott with an address.
She goes there, gun drawn. In the basement with odd noises like a trapped animal echoing around her, she finds a box full of frogs.
She has them transferred to Walter's lab, she tells Charlie the next day. She tells him she's still seeing John and now getting calls and emails from him. She used to think he was trying to help her with cases, but now she's starting to think she's going insane. She wants to take personal leave to clear her head. Astrid (Jasika Nicole) calls, Walter thinks he cracked the case: He thinks the guy jumped out the window because of the frogs.
Peter meets a pretty blonde named Tess (Susan Misner). He kisses her hello on the check. She sits down and immediately tells him if she can find him "they" can find him. He knows. He tells her it was hard to leave and she knows him better than anyone. She tells him to leave Boston and never come back. She starts to cry. He notices marks on her wrist. He knows it's Michael (David Vadim) even though she tells him things have changed. "It'll be worse for you," she says before leaving.
Walter explains psychosomatic effects, things the body does to itself. They watch old 8 mm of Walter with a test subject under hypnosis. He tells him an ice cube is a burning coal and presses it to the man's skin. It blisters.
The substance Walter couldn't ID in Mark Young was a hallucinogen from a bufo toad. Walter thinks it's a clever means of murder because the potency was 30 times the amount anyone would ingest on purpose. Astrid did a records search on the basement where Olivia found the toads but couldn't find an owner.
Olivia tells Walter about learning the address from John Scott. He says Scott's memories are trapped in her head. She wants to know how long it'll last. It could last for many years. She wants to get it out.
He suggests a form of repressed memory therapy but, she guesses, she'd have to go back in the tank. And he'd advise against that. She'll do it.
Peter watches Tess enter an apartment with a man. Astrid calls, telling him to come back.
Walter preps Olivia. He plans to put her in deep hypnosis and give her a lot of drugs. His voice will be her "tether" to reality to avoid becoming lost in memories. She climbs into the tank in her undies.
Walter tells her to look for signs and mentions he'll be praying she doesn't get electrocuted. He guides her through it. She hears music, but sees nothing. Walter fiddles with the charges and she sees a door. She walks through it and ends up in a restaurant vaguely familiar. It's where she and John had their first date. She sees herself and John.
Peter arrives and Walter asks for his help adjusting the drugs. Walter tells Olivia it's just a memory and they can't see her, but she sits down opposite John anyway when memory her gets up. She tells him she loved him and asks if he ever had any feelings for her. He doesn't see her. She tells him Mark Young killed himself yesterday and John looks right at her as Walter says that's impossible. She leaps into John's car, alone. She gets out and sees John with three men, a black man, a Latino and one she can't see. The fourth is Mark Young. Young leaves with the Latino. John talks to the black man and Olivia watches in horror as John stabs the man. She flips out, screaming for Walter to get her out of there. Peter throws open the tank's doors.
Out of the tank, Olivia uses facial recognition software to create the Latino guy, the only living one of the four. She wants to get the picture to Charlie for an ID.
Peter offers to go with her to Broyles. But she wants to go alone. "If you need me, I'm here," Peter tells her.
Olivia briefs Broyles about the black market hallucinogen which, in its potent form, could be used as a chemical weapon. They're going to need Massive Dynamic to disclose every project Mark Young was working on. Broyles will see what he can do.
Peter walks down the street outside Tess's place. When Michael comes out, Peter jumps him, beating him soundly. He sticks a gun in Michael's face and tells him if he touches her again, he'll kill him.
At FBI HQ, they try to ID the Latino from Olivia's sketch. Broyles gives her a list of Mark Young's projects, courtesy Nina. She looks at his number 877-8-MSSDYN It gives her and idea and she dials the numbers corresponding to MONARCH.
A Latino-sounding man answers. She recognizes his voice and tells Charlie, which he finds odd. They find the number is a land line forwarded to a cell. They track it. The name on the account is George Moralez (Yul Vasquez). He bought a plane ticket to Venezuela that morning. He's a drug trafficker. They're a few hundred yards behind him when he stops. He hit traffic. Olivia and Charlie get out of the car, guns drawn and search the stopped vehicles . A man sneaks out of a taxi. Olivia sees and races after him. He steps into the path of an oncoming car and rolls up the windshield.
At the hospital, George asks Olivia for a deal, but she doesn't know what he has to trade. They have him for trafficking in chemical weapons. He wants protection from Massive Dynamic. Why would he kill Mark? "That guy was a treasure trove of unbelievable things. Massive Dynamic killed him." He thinks it might have been a warning to other employees. Olivia thinks he's just saying what she wants to hear. "Did I invent ZFD, flight 627, the Northwoods group, John Scott, the Pattern? The whole thing is a hoax so Massive Dynamic can do whatever it wants to whoever it wants."
He says MD is hell and its founder William Bell is the devil. He thinks he can trust her because John Scott told him about her.
Olivia visits Nina Sharp at MD.
In his hospital bed, George repeatedly pushes his nurse's call button. Someone answers, but not who he wants.
Olivia tells Nina she thinks her cooperation is an illusion.
George freaks out, seeing a white-washed John Scott standing over him.
Nina guesses George is blaming MD. Olivia asks if Nina is protecting William Bell. Nina seriously doubts her witness will be able to provide any "actionable evidence."
George is beaten by what turns out to be an imagined John Scott: a nurse enters in time to see George's throat slitting itself.
Broyles calls Olivia and gives her the bad news. She accuses Nina and he tells her to keep her unfounded accusations in check.
Olivia pays a late night visit to Walter's hotel. She wants to go back into the tank. She has too many questions. He gives her a great speech saying there's little he likes more than taking drugs and giving them to others, but going in would be a bad idea. She insists John Scott saw her, but Walter says impossible. He asks for time to develop a safer technique and says good night.
Michael visits an older, bearded man (Tom Riss Farrell) and tells him Peter Bishop is back in town. The man is very interested to hear the news.
Olivia lays awake at night. Her computer turns itself on. She has a message from John: "I saw you in the restaurant."
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