Season 1, Episode 11:
Bound
Following Olivia's kidnapping in the previous episode, "Safe", the Fringe team works to find her. Unbeknownst to her, one of Olivia's captors is Agent Mitchell Loeb. He gives her a spinal tap and returns to help with the investigation. Olivia fights off the remaining men and escapes, taking several medical samples with her. She hides the samples right before being arrested by Sanford Harris, who was hired to audit Fringe Division. Years before, Olivia exposed and prosecuted Harris for sexually assaulting three female Marine privates, and he now wants revenge. Now recovering in Boston Hospital, Olivia's judgment is questioned by Harris for working with the mentally unstable scientist Walter Bishop and his law-breaking son Peter Bishop. Harris tells her she cannot investigate her own abduction.
Once released from the hospital, Olivia learns that the building where she was kept is empty and contains no traces of her captors. Olivia, along with Walter and Peter, recovers the hidden samples. They soon hear of the murder of epidemiologist Miles Kinberg, who was killed by a chemical which created a giant, slug-like single cell of acute viral nasopharyngitis in his stomach. Olivia learns that Kinberg was about to start a job at the Center for Disease Control, and that another scientist, Dr. Russell Simon, is also set to begin working there. She connects Kinberg's killers with her own captors based on the similarities of her stolen samples. Fringe Division brings Simon in for protection but he is killed soon after when Loeb gives him the same chemical agent.
Meanwhile, Olivia's sister Rachel and niece Ella come to visit. Olivia succeeds in connecting the murder to Loeb by recognizing his shoes from when she was a captive. She goes to search his house but accidentally runs into his wife and accomplice, Samantha. Loeb tells his wife to kill Olivia, and after a struggle, Olivia fatally shoots Samantha. Olivia obtains the necessary evidence to capture Loeb and questions him about her abduction. She gets little information until she shows him pictures of his dead wife, as he was unaware she was killed. Loeb angrily rants to Olivia about "two sides" and claims he was trying to save her.
Tropes present in this episode include:
- Artistic License – Biology:
- The parasitic slug is identifed as the common cold virus but:
- Most of the viruses that cause the common cold are picnoviruses with icosahedral capsids, but the macroviruses look like slugs.
- Walter says that the macrovirus is a single cell, but viruses are NOT cells. A defining characteristic of a virus is that it can only replicate inside a cell of a living organism.
- The debate Walter and Peter have about killing the virus does not take into account that considering viruses alive at all is controversial.
- Viruses are metabolically inert and lack the organelles to grow like a living organisms. So how did a virus become supersized inside a person?
- The test tubes stolen by Olivia supposedly contain eggs for the viruses that are activated by stomach acid, but viruses DO NOT have eggs. They must replicate inside another organism's cells.
- The "Walter's Lab Notes" web page for this episode, written in-universe by Walter, state that the creature was actually a "gigantic human cell from Dr. Kinberg's own intestinal wall, overtaken and supersized by the giant virus that infected her."
- Miles Kinberg is initially identified as an immunologist (someone who studies the immune system), but through the rest of the episode the characters talk about killing off epidemiologists (people who look at patterns of disease and public health). It is possible he had expertise in both areas.
- The parasitic slug is identifed as the common cold virus but:
- Artistic License – Medicine: Walter is dripping a decongestant on the macrovirus. Decongestants cause vasoconstriction in the nose and throat to reduce symptoms from a cold, but have no effect on the virus itself.
- Badass in Distress: Olivia while being held captive at the beginning of the episode. Quickly proves her Action Girl status by beating up her captors and escaping.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Olivia escapes with only one scrape on her forehead
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: subverted
- Death by Irony: "Killing epidemiologist with the common cold."
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Loeb flips out when Olivia reveals she killed his wife.
- Knight Templar: Loeb believes he's in the right, killing people with a Synthetic Plague and blaming Olivia for killing his wife, despite the fact he told his wife to try and kill Olivia, and breaks down to mocking Olivia for not "knowing the sides, what is coming", but offers no useful information. As Walter points out, he's clearly unhinged.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Ladies and gentlemen, I present you Sandford Harris! Bonus points for being a convicted rapist and Jerk with a Heart of Jerk! Later revealed to be The Mole for ZFT!
- Synthetic Plague
- Vagueness Is Coming: It's the first time a ZFT agent claims they're fighting for something other than killing people with Mad Science For the Evulz. This being Fringe, however, he offers no clear explanation.
- The Worm That Walks: The super-sized cold virus. You ingest it, minutes later, ta da!
A giant, spiky worm crawls out of your throat, choking and suffocating you to death while doing so!
