Season 1, Episode 14:
Ability
A newspaper vendor dies by suffocation after receiving a two-dollar bill coated in a chemical substance that causes all his orifices to close up. Walter analyzes the chemical agent as a catalyst that speeds up the protein production in scar tissue and accelerates cell growth. Meanwhile, Olivia postulates that the initials "ZFT" may refer to a terrorist organization, but to a book, and discovers the German name, "Zerstörung durch Fortschritte der Technologie", roughly translates to "Destruction by Advancement of Technology". Peter takes Olivia to a rare book storekeeper, Edward Markam who gets a copy of the ZFT from another collector. Peter returns with it to Walter's lab, learning that it is a typewritten manifesto preparing "soldiers" for an upcoming war between two universes.
Meanwhile, David Robert Jones turns himself in at the FBI headquarters. Suffering the effects of being teleported out of his German prison cell, he insists on only speaking to Olivia, claiming that she is the only one who can stop a bomb from going off in 36 hours. Sanford Harris instead orders Olivia to join other agents in raiding a warehouse which they believe Jones and his men used. Evidence confirms Jones had been there, but an agent dies from suffocation after finding another two-dollar bill.
Olivia convinces Harris to let her see Jones alone, attributing the agent's death to his misfire. In the interrogation room, Olivia discovers that Jones believes she is one of the soldiers in his war, having been a test subject of a Massive Dynamic nootropic drug known as "Cortexiphan" when she was a child. Jones claims that she is special, and instructs her to a remote site with a key in his possession to retrieve a package. Olivia follows his instructions, finding a package full of strange puzzles. The first puzzle is a light box containing a number of lights which Jones' instructions require her to disable with her thoughts only. Olivia, having learned from Nina Sharp that the only Cortexiphan trials were done in Ohio, far from her childhood home of Jacksonville, Florida, is confident Jones is lying or mistaken.
As Jones' condition worsens and he is brought to Walter's lab, Peter rigs the light box to make the lights go off automatically. Olivia performs the test in front of Jones, and he supplies her with the address of the bomb. When Olivia and the FBI arrive, they find that the bomb is set to release the deadly agent across the city but can only be defused if Olivia turns off a similar array of lights as were on the puzzle. Despite faking the earlier test, Olivia is successful at disabling the lights and the bomb with her thoughts.
Afterwards, Jones, having been transferred to secured hospital, is rescued by his men, leaving a message on the wall telling Olivia she passed. Walter, who has also started reading the ZFT, recognizes a unique offset letter, and finds that his own lab typewriter produces the same offset. Olivia receives a call from Nina who had further looked into the Cortexiphan trials and discovered a smaller case study that occurred at Jacksonville.
Tropes:
- Affably Evil: Jones is, as always, completely polite, especially towards Olivia, whom he seems to hold in high regard, except when his condition gets worse and he gets desperate as Olivia disbelieves him.
- Artistic License – Medicine
- 50 cc's of fluid (10 teaspoons) is considered replenishing Mr. Jone's fluids? Typically at least a liter (1000 cc's) would be given to someone who is dehydrated.
- "If there's a cardiac arrest, we'll need Nitroglycerin..." Nitroglycerine should not be given during a cardiac arrest as it lowers blood pressure and a cardiac arrest is when the heart is not pumping blood, so maintaining perfusion usually through CPR is the goal. Nitroglycerine is used when someone has angina caused by lack of blood flow to the heart as it dilates blood vessels.
- The Blank: What the Skin Growth Toxin makes people into. The old man in particular looks like he just came from Silent Hill.
- Body Horror: A toxin passed by touch that forces your body to grow skin over your orifices, making you blind, deaf, mouthless and ultimately suffocating you. And if someone tries making an airway incision, the skin will grow up to and try blocking the tube. It's unknown if it also acts inside the body. Walter does ask if the medics checked the first victim's genitals but doesn't get an answer.
- Convenient Coma: Walter is able to revive Mr. Jones from his coma with an unidentified injection to the neck when the plot demands it.
- Destructive Teleportation: It causes Teleportation Sickness. Not really explained beyond "his molecules disintegrating and reintegrating". We see cough, shortness of breath, pain, bradycardia, and unconsciousness. It was evidently being treated with weeks in a decompression chamber. It seems like it might be the bends, but a very severe case, refractory to recompression, which we later find out makes you Immune to Bullets because ... you know quantum physics.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: "Only one world will survive. It will either be us - or them". Mind you, this is being read from the manifesto of a Cult of Mad Scientists.
- Foreshadowing: Sanford willingly giving his watch to Jones. He wouldn't have done that unless he was Jones' subordinate.
- Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: The FBI team try to save one victim of the toxin this way, but the skin instantly regrows over the trache tube.
- Knight Templar: It's revealed ZFT is actually preparing for a war against an Alternate Universe. Aside from making weapons and other things to fight them (Apparently because they're more technologically advanced in time), they also want to recruit people with special abilities, given by a Massive Dynamic drug called Cortexiphan. They seem to be under the belief that every living thing in this Alternate Universe is an enemy, hence why they experiment on every day people: they're probably planning on using it in mass-scale against the Alternate Universe (And the Skin-Growth Toxin, at least, can be used on city-wide scale).
- MacGyvering: David Jones creates a jamming signal with a walkie-talkie, metallic ballpoint pen, eye glass repair kit, and an analog wrist watch.
- Meaningful Echo: Jones repeats the quote to Olivia from the ZFT about unwilling recruits when she is faced with the lightbox bomb, revealing that he expected her to be skeptical and that the lightbox was never the true test.
- Mutant Draft Board: "Many warriors of the inevitable confrontation are among us now - but before they can be considered soldiers, they must be regarded as recruits. And the expectation must be that they shall be unwilling."
- Race Against the Clock: 16 hours until the device spreads the toxin for the faceless plague.
- Shout-Out:
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Jones seems to view himself as this to Olivia. Having initially presented the lightbox as Olivia's test, when she and Peter rig it to get him to reveal where the bomb is they discover he has set up the bomb so that it requires her to use the exact same psychic powers required to pass the lightbox, making it the real test.
- Villain Respect: Jones really admires Walter for his teleportator, possibly his other experiments, and declares it's an honor to meet him.
- And he seems to have almost a Villainous Crush on Olivia.
- Wham Shot: Walter, reading the ZFT, notices an odd error with how the letter 'y' is typed out in the manuscript. He locates an old typewriter in his lab, types out the word "ability"... and the typewriter produces the same error, implying he is the one who wrote the manuscript.
