Season 3, Episode 9:
Marionette
The Fringe team investigate when the recipient of an organ transplant is found in his home, still alive despite the organ — a heart — having been removed. They discover that more organs have been stolen from recipients, and that all the organs came from the same donor, a clinically depressed young woman who committed suicide. Walter theorises that the thief is experimenting with techniques that he and William Bell worked on in the field of reanimation, and eventually Olivia and Peter figure out that the thief was part of the donor's support group and that he is attempting to bring her back to life. Fringe Division tracks him down and arrests him only moments after the thief succeeds in reviving the donor, but he's distraught when he realises that despite having brought her body back to life, she's just an empty shell and not the woman he fell in love with.
Meanwhile, Olivia is adjusting to life after her return to the prime universe. At first she's overjoyed to be back with Peter and Walter, and to have some of the little things that aren't in abundance in the alternate universe (like coffee). However, Peter soon reveals the truth to Olivia about his relationship with Fauxlivia.
- Peter: I noticed... changes. Small changes, but they were definitely there. She's much quicker with a smile and less... I don't know. Less intense, maybe. She said that when she was over there, what she saw of her other life, it made her want to change, to be happier. And I believed her, because that made sense... And so I came back for you. For us. And we started seeing each other. And I explained away the differences because our relationship was different. I thought she was you, Olivia.
Olivia claims that she understands, but later she has a Freak Out in her apartment when she tries to wash all the clothes Fauxlivia wore and the sheets she slept in, and realises just how thoroughly Fauxlivia infiltrated her life. At the end of the episode, after arresting the organ thief, Olivia tells Peter that even though she can logically comprehend how Fauxlivia took her identity, she can't understand or forgive Peter for not seeing through the deception.
- Olivia: She wasn't me. How could you not see that? Now she's everywhere. She's in my house, my job, my bed, and I don't want to wear my clothes anymore, and I don't want to live in my apartment, and I don't want to be with you. She's taken everything.
Later, Walter and Peter go to get a milkshake together while September the Observer watches. He calls someone and informs them that "he is still alive".
TROPES:
- Artistic License – Biology:
- Milk goes bad because bacteria consume the sugar in it, making it sour, not because of cell decay.
- Artistic License – Medicine:
- How would an injected medicine circulate and have any effect, if it is injected after the heart is removed? You would imagine the chemical would just sit at the injection site.
- Walter describes the removal of the heart as skilled, but not many surgeons:
- Splatter blood all over the room, including all the hanging sheets of plastic.
- Cut a suture without tying it off.
- Make sloppy uneven stitches.
- Use bandage scissors to cut sutures.
- Walter taps on the dorsal surface of the wrist causing the wrist to extend. In order to elicit the wrist extensor reflex, you actually want to tap a few inches proximal to the wrist.
- Anyone with any medical expertise, which we are supposed to believe Walter has, would have thought it extremely likely that a person with previous heart surgery who was on steroids, immunosuppressants, antifungals, and antibiotics, was a transplant patient, so why are they surprised.
- Eye banks usually do not receive the whole cadaver. They get the cornea graft, which is removed by the surgeon in the hospital.
- Typically only one cornea is transplanted at a time, so it would be very unusual for one person to receive two grafts from the same donor.
- Came Back Wrong
- Eye Scream
- Other Me Annoys Me: Olivia seems to have a major case of this, or is she just mad that her friends did not Spot the Imposter.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Type C, Construct.
- Parasol of Pain: Spreading poison with an Umbrella, as in Georgi Markov's
murder. - People Puppet
- Perfect Poison: It was convenient that the poison did not take effect until the guy was in his home.
- Playing with Syringes: Complete with injections in the neck.
- Product Placement: Sprint
- Shout-Out:
- Another Wizard of Oz reference, which may also be a Continuity Nod to Peter's condition in Brown Betty.
WALTER: Oh, great. Perhaps there I'll be able to discover what made this Tin Man tick.- Walter mentions Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein.
- Sniff Sniff Nom: Walter with the ashes.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: by what appears to be packaging tape and saran wrap.
- Too Much Information:WALTER: Bathroom. I'd forgotten that a couple of nights ago, I used my cauterizer to remove an uncomfortable growth between my...
