Season 3, Episode 7:
The Abducted
Olivia, having broken her conditioning that made her believe she was Fauxlivia, maintains the pretense that she is still conditioned. She meets with Henry, the taxi driver who helped her out before, and asks him to help her return to Liberty Island to use the sensory deprivation tank to return herself to her universe.
A child, Max, is kidnapped from his home. The Fringe team investigates and Broyles immediately recognizes this as the work of "The Candyman"; every two years, the Candyman abducts a child and returns him some days later, but whatever the Candyman has done leaves the child physically deprived. Broyles' own son, Christopher, was one of the most recent victims, having become blind as a result of the ordeal. Christopher tells Olivia that he believes there were two people involved with his abduction, one old and one young. Combined with other information, Olivia suspects that the Candyman is draining the children of hormones from the pituitary gland, helping the Candyman stay young.
The interview leads Olivia and Broyles to Reverend Marcus, who gave up a career as a physician in order to establish a local church. Working through the congregation list, Olivia talks to one member, Wyatt Toomy, a garbageman. When Olivia spots a child's toy within his apartment, Wyatt realizes he is caught and attempts to escape, but Olivia captures him. She soon finds Max in a hidden room with a not-yet-activated device on the back of his head near the pituitary gland. She frees the boy, telling him she is an FBI agent.
Believing the case completed, Olivia goes to meet with Henry, where he has gotten use of his cousin's boat. As he talks about having been trained to use it, Olivia contemplates how Wyatt knew about the chemistry to make the serum, and realizes he had a teacher as well - their true culprit, and immediately suspects Reverend Marcus. Broyles and Olivia hurry to his house to protect Christopher from Marcus; Broyles kills Marcus. Olivia accompanies Broyles and his family to the same hospital that Max is being treated. There, Max thanks Olivia personally and asks her about what the "FBI" is. Broyles, having listened to Olivia's conversation, knows that she has broken her conditioning, as the FBI had ceased to exist years earlier in the alternate universe. Because of her efforts to save Christopher, he lets her go.
Olivia rejoins Henry and then leaves him to swim the rest of the way in and make her way to the isolation tank. After injecting herself with the same drugs Walternate had used on her, she enters the tank and soon finds herself back in her own universe. She encounters a cleaning lady, and as Olivia feels herself being dragged back, she gives the cleaning lady a message to pass along to Peter. Back in the isolation tank, Walternate has had Olivia extracted from the tank and directs his agents to lock her up and sedate her.
Back in the prime universe, Peter and Fauxlivia are in bed together when Peter receives a call from the cleaning lady, who relays the message: that Olivia is trapped in the alternate universe.
Tropes:
- Alternate History:
- The FBI has not existed for 10 years, having been substituted by the Fringe Division. Olivia shouting "FBI!" is what clues Alternate-Broyles that she's regained her memories.
- There are 3 major political parties.
- A law is proposed to limit American families to only having two children.
- There was an Avian Influenza Epidemic.
- Artistic License – Medicine:
- I don't know of any neurosurgeon who would access the pituitary gland through the back of the neck. You would have to go through the brainstem. Typically the pituitary gland is approached through the nose (transphenoidal).
- The body does not produce sucrose (table sugar), so how would someone secrete it?
- It's likely a side-effect from the "cure".
- Continuity Nod: Olivia notices the book 'Burlap Bear Goes To The Woods' in Max's room. The same book she read to Ella in Unleashed.
- Cult: The Astoria Church. According to Lincoln, there has been an increase in small cults because of the Fringe Events.
- Different World, Different Movies: Evidently Casablanca in the Alternate Universe was not as popular and starred Ronald Reagan.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Candyman kidnaps children and attempts to placate them with sweets, leaving them utterly traumatized physically and mentally by the time he's done with him. Add onto the fact that he's not the main Big Bad, but The Dragon to a priest, and the whole thing wreaks of parallels to child-molestation and the Catholic Church condoning such acts.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Olivia has one when Henry claims that his cousin taught him to sail. She realises that someone had to teach Toomy to extract the hormones from his victims and that there's a second suspect to find.
- Pet the Dog: Walternate offers his sympathy to Alt-Broyles over Christopher being kidnapped, and says it's no shame to let another take the lead if it is too personal for Broyles.
- Pituitary Weirdness:LINCOLN LEE: In theory, concentrated pituitary hormones could be processed in some way to accelerate healing, maybe even reverse aging, but - if that's true, it would also cause some serious side effects.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: A cure for diseases and rejuvenation... that is taken from small children's pituitary glands. That by itself is horrible, but said children suffer some Overnight Age-Up, getting diseases and conditions from elderly people, even cancer. Christopher Broyles was lucky enough to just go blind.
- Product Placement:
- Android phone
- Ford Flex
- Red Vines licorice sticks which is also a Continuity Nod
- Would Hurt a Child: The Candyman and the cult. Not only he drains young children for youth serum and make them sick, he's willing to kill them if they spill the beans.
