Season 2, Episode 12:
Johari Window
In upstate New York, a child is picked up on the road by a state trooper. While en route, the child suddenly morphs into a deformed creature. At the station, the troopers try to decide what to do with him, and one takes his picture. Two other deformed people enter the station, kill the troopers and take the boy.
The Fringe team comes on the scene to investigate and find the boy's photograph, along with recorded sightings of deformed people going back 30 years. They arrive in Edina, the city near where these sightings occurred, and Olivia hears a buzz called the "Edina hum". The sheriff explains it is coming from a nearby military base and offers to show them case files of past sightings. While driving, the SUV containing Olivia, Peter and Walter is run off the road by another vehicle, whose driver starts shooting at them before being shot by Peter and leaving. The FBI find the abandoned vehicle and follow a blood trail to the dead shooter. Peter is visibly disturbed after killing his first person, and Olivia tries to comfort him.
Agent Broyles discovers that the army did classified experiments in Edina called "Project Elephant", but most of the records are gone. The team brings the body, along with a butterfly Walter found in the town and thought Astrid would like, back to the lab in Boston, where they both transform into deformed versions of themselves. Peter and Olivia go back to Edina to talk with the sheriff and try to locate the owner of the truck. Meanwhile, back in the lab, Walter tries to remember why the case feels so familiar. Throughout the episode Walter had been humming some strange melody, and he and Astrid realize he might previously have worked on the project with the army. The melody was a memory trick Walter used to remind himself where he stored the experiment files so many years ago. The experiment was done by the army in the late 1970s to test how electromagnetic pulses can camouflage soldiers and was conducted on the townspeople; the army was unaware of the long-term effects of the study until it was too late, and the people were stuck in a deformed state. The "hum" hides their deformities from the human eye through a massive electromagnetic pulse that runs through the town, and once they leave and are out of the pulse's reach, their true deformities show.
Walter and Astrid find the source of the electromagnetic pulse, and begin investigating the house the pulse was built on. At the same time, Peter and Olivia go to a rural meeting place where the sheriff said they would find the truck's owner, only to be shot at by the sheriff and his deputy, who are intent on keeping the town's secret. Walter manages to turn off the pulse, and all of the townsfolk revert to their deformed appearance. The daughter of one of the army scientists saves Olivia and Peter from getting shot, and explains that her father stayed in Edina to perfect the pulse. After Walter pleads to Broyles to let the townspeople keep their secret, the Fringe team decides to not report the case so that the remaining residents can live a normal life.
Tropes in this episodes include:
- Butterfly of Transformation: Walter catches a butterfly in Edina and brings it back to the lab for Astrid. Away from the city it turns into a ragged moth which freaks Astrid out.
- Clarke's Third Law: Walter implies he was a friend of Arthur C. Clarke who famously said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Fatal Family Photo: Trooper Pekarski has a picture of his wife and child in his car when he picks up Teddy. He doesn't make it past the teaser.
- Glamour Failure: Any residents who leave or are taken outside of the city limits appear in their true form. There's a reason nobody ever moves away from Edina.
- The Ketchup Test
- Shapeshifting
- Shout-Out:
- Walter says the cowardly lion has a point, and Peter tells him there are no flying monkeys, referencing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
- Walter also references the dueling banjos scene in Deliverance.
- Walter hums the Prelude to Carmen with made up lyrics.
- Project Elephant may be a reference to The Elephant Man.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Protected with shotguns.
