A clever reference with a not-so-clever treatment in this week's episode...

"Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver."

It seems that Joshua Jackson pulled some strings to get his girlfriend a role in this week's episode. Playing the victim in the opening teaser is some up-and-comer named Diane Kruger who had a minor role in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds last year. Kruger just barely gets the chance to make a Basterds in-joke by dropping the name "Gorlami" before turning into a tumor-covered nightmare. Such is the fate of Fringe cannon fodder.

The "monster of the week" is James Heath, a cancer patient and former day care test subject of William Bell and Walter Bishop. Heath can exchange energies with other Cortexiphan subjects and in doing so, exchange his cancer for their health. This seems to be a fairly pointless exercise as the "cure" is only temporary and soon he has to go in search of yet another former test subject in order to stay alive. The Fringe team investigate in their usual manner. Walter and Astrid stay in the lab cooking up cancerous skin samples while also trying to make the perfect salt water taffy. Olivia and Peter pound the pavement to catch Heath.

While this is going on, we get some more elements from "The Pattern" mytharc. Olivia visits Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan) at that old bowling alley again and after admitting he's got nothing more to teach her (uh, what did he ever teach her?) he then proceeds to give some more vague Yoda-esque advice. Weiss pinpoints just why Olivia has been losing so much sleep: she's holding onto a secret she cannot keep. Hell, we all knew that. Last week Olivia saw that Peter was really from the alternate universe but promised Walter that she would not tell him. A promise she feels she cannot keep any longer.

"The narrative itself has nothing to do with these 'Clue' references and is easily one of the season's dullest"

The episode has a witty title that suggests a twist on the old fashioned 'locked room' mystery. But this isn't developed into anything significant. Instead, it just seems to have been some quirk of the writers to make some not-so-subtle references to the boardgame "Clue" and Conan Doyle. Walter says things like "Excellent deduction, Peter!" and "When you open up your mind to the impossible sometimes you find the truth".

Sam Weiss actually brings over the "Clue" boardgame to help Olivia. But the narrative itself has nothing to do with these references and is easily one of the season's dullest. All the tension lies in the question of whether Olivia is going to tell Peter what she knows and let everyone live with the consequences. There is very little tension involving the cancerous Typhoid Mary and even dependable director Brad Anderson (Session 9, Transsiberian) fails to produce much excitement in the climactic moments when Olivia becomes the inevitable target.

The best moments are between Olivia and Peter. Jackson gets a very strong scene in which he tells Olivia how much their "little family" means to him and is particularly pleased that he's on Olivia's speed dial.

The good news is that next week's episode looks amazing: Time travel with RoboCop himself.

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