What Lies Below - Recap

A bike courier, Mike, makes a delivery to Vitrus Petrol. A she takes the elevator, a balding Dutch man is going up to the same floor. They make casual conversation and Mike notices the man is sweating and has the beginning of a nosebleed. The Dutchman walks past the receptionist's desk and keeps on going, ignoring the woman. He collapses to the floor and Mike tries CPR. The Dutchman dies despite his best efforts, but his veins suddenly swell and the man spews out blood from his mouth.

Astrid has lost Walter at the Boston Children's Science Center and finally finds him giving a lecture to a group of children about the voyage of the Victoria, Magellan's vessel. Only eighteen men survived and Walter explains to the children that investigation has some risks, but at least if you die, your family may be safe. The teacher has Walter's membership to the science center revoked as Astrid leads him away. Walter complains about the treatment but is interrupted when Olivia calls to summon them to Vitrus Petrol.

Olivia and Peter arrive at the scene first and talk with Detective Kassel. He informs them that the dead man is Radjan Vandenkemp, but they have no idea why he's there. Olivia talks to the receptionist, Linda, who confirms that Vandenkemp wasn't scheduled to meet with anyone. Broyles arrives outside and calls to notify them, while Olivia talks with Vincent Ames, the VP of Geotechnical Engineering. Ames wants to know if they'll be allowed to leave, but Olivia says they'll have to confirm it's safe to go. Olivia asks Linda to see Mark, but they discover that he's gone to the rest room. As he washes his face, he discovers that he's bleeding from the nose.

Walter and Astrid arrive and meet with Broyles. As they prepare to go inside, Walter suggest various theories that could account for Vandenkemp's blood explosion. As they come to the front door, Mike approaches the. Walter sees the courier's veins starting to bulge and slams the front door shut as Mike tries to get out. The courier stares at them from a moment, then spews blood from his mouth and collapses. Peter arrives and Walter stares at him, and then tells Broyles they have to quarantine the building.

Once the building is sealed, Walter calls Peter and tells his son that he needs to know why Vandenkemp was there. As men from the Central for Disease Control arrive, Walter tells Peter to be careful, and then insists on going to work, ignoring Astrid's reassurances.

Olivia and Peter tell the Vitrus employees about the quarantine and the courier's death. The people panic, each one wondering if they've been infected. The CDC shuts down the air conditioning to inhibit the spread of the virus, while Olivia splits up the employees into two groups: those closest to Vandenkemp and the others who are apparently uninfected.

The CDC field director, Arnold McFadden, arrives and has his people evacuate everyone in a two-block radius. He starts to talk with Broyles, but Astrid tells them that the CDC men have arrested Walter for crossing the security line. Broyles and McFadden go to investigate and Walter explains that he's trying to find a cure. He snaps at McFadden and then hastily apologizes after some prodding from Broyles. When Walter explains that he needs to take the samples back to his lab for analysis, Broyles convinces McFadden to assign an agent, Hubert, to accompany Walter to Harvard.

Inside, Olivia goes over the appointment records without success. Peter asks if she wants to call her sister Rachel, but Olivia simply ignores him. Checking the records, she discovers that Ames cancelled two appointments that morning, but Ames is still in the building. An employee tells them that Linda is bleeding from the nose. Peter isolates her from the others and has her lie down in an office. When they confirm that Linda wasn't near Vandenkemp when he exploded, they theorize that the courier infected her.

Olivia talks to Ames privately and tells him what she knows. He finally admits that he had a meeting scheduled with Vandenkemp: the man had stolen information from a competitor and was bringing them something from an oil reserve. However, Ames admits that Vandenkemp didn't tell him what he was going to sell or who he stole it from. Olivia passes the information on to Broyles, who confirms that the Dutchman was an oil consultant out of the Middle East. None of the passengers on his flight or at the hotel he stayed at showed any signs of infection.

At the lab, Walter is trying to isolate the virus strain while discussing the "personalities" of viruses. He notes that viruses use humans to survive and replicate, and may be higher on the food chain. Hubert reports that the virus strain didn't survive separation, and Walter realizes that the virus isn't spread through the air. However, he tells Hubert that they need to get a better sample.

Olivia finally explains to Peter that she didn't call her sister because Rachel has had enough to deal with over Olivia's recent hospitalization. She's confident that they'll survive, but Peter observes that she's always more interested in protecting others from harm than sharing her own feelings. Before Olivia can respond, Linda leaves the room and walks down a hallway. Pete rand Olivia separate to find her and Peter finds her near Vandenkemp's body. Linda jumps out at him, and he slips and falls into Vandenkemp's blood. Before he can get up, Linda throws herself through the window and she falls several stories onto a car. Blood spews from her mouth as the CDC workers spray down her corpse with anti-contamination fluid.

Up above, Olivia finds Peter and realizes that he's been contaminated. He goes to the bathroom and tries to clean himself off while Olivia calls Broyles to update him. Peter tries to clean himself off but realizes that he's covered with blood. Realizing he has nothing to lose he searches Vandenkemp's body over Olivia's objections and finds the keys to a rental car. He figures that Vandenkemp left his stolen material at a neutral site inside his rental car.

The CDC agents find the rental car in a nearby underground parking lot. Inside the trunk is a case holding a drill sample. Walter arrives and tells Broyles that the virus used Vandenkemp to spread itself. It drove Vandenkemp to come to Vitrus, then killed him and caused him to spray blood, spreading the virus to others. However, then it realized that it as trapped, and rove Linda and Mike to try and get out of the building.

The CDC analyze the sample from the oil drill and confirm that it contains the virus. They determine that Vandenkemp stole the core sample from Solum Oil, but failed to take appropriate safety precautions. Walter examines the sample report and realizes that it came from 10 miles beneath the surface. That would mean it's 75,000 years, during the period when most mammals were wiped out. He believes he can produce a cure, but tells Broyles and McFadden that they need to ensure the safety of people inside the building... including Peter.

Walter, Astrid, and Hubert enter the building wearing protective suits. They start taking blood samples from the employee to test for the presence of the virus. As he watches them, Peter realizes that his nose is bleeding. Outside, McFadden contacts the State Department and asks for approval to perform a Level Six eradication. The procedure will kill any infected persons to prevent spread of the virus.

Walter checks the samples, starting with Ames. He's uninfected, and Walter and Astrid check Olivia. She's also uncontaminated. When they have Peter take a swab sample, he secretly switches swabs to make sure that his test proves negative as well. Walter has Peter take out the first group of uncontaminated employees, but the CDC workers notice that Peter's nose is bleeding and force him back inside. He tries to run past them, driven to escape, but they manage to confine him inside.

Olivia gets outside and watches as Peter pounds on the door and begs with her to let him go. Walter and Astrid, still in the building, get word that Peter is contaminated. Meanwhile, McFadden tells Broyles that complete eradication is the only solutions. When Olivia tells them that Peter and 11 employees are infected and confined within the building, McFadden says they have no choice but to order the Army to kill the victims. When Olivia questions whether it's necessary, McFadden shows her a computer model demonstrating that if even a single contaminated victim escapes, the virus could spread in a matter of days and cover the globe.

Walter finishes his testing and removes his suit, assuring Astrid that the virus isn't airborne. Hubert gets the rest of the uncontaminated employees out of the building but Walter refuses to leave and Astrid stays with him. Olivia warns them what will happen but Astrid says that they'll be fine. Walter then begins dissecting Vandenkemp's body in an attempt to create a cure. As he works, he insists that must be a cure because homo sapiens survive the spread of the virus 100,000 years ago. He begins to lose control and insists that Peter can't die again, but realizes he can't find a cure.

Astrid helps clam him, noting that on Magellan's voyage, 18 men managed to survive despite the harsh conditions, and against incredible odds. Walter notes that the others died painfully of scurvy. However, he concludes that something must have killed off the virus. Looking at Astrid, he says "Ash," but explains that he's referring to sulfuric ash. Some 75,000 years ago, Mount Toba erupted in the largest explosion in Earth's history. It spread sulfuric ash across the world, and the sulfur content must have killed off the virus. Walter tells Astrid to go through the refrigerator and check the contents. She finds some horseradish and Walter realizes that it has a high sulfuric content. He extracts the sulfur from it and injects it into the virus sample, and they confirm that it destroys the virus.

Astrid calls Olivia to tell her about the cure. She passes the word on to McFadden, but they watch as the infected captives try to smash the windows open. They don't have enough time to synthesize the cure before they shatter the glass and escape. Broyles suggests they pump anesthetic gas into the building, but McFadden notes that they shut down the air conditioning earlier and there's no way to spread it throughout the building. Olivia volunteers to go inside and Broyles reluctant okays her request.

Olivia enters the building through an emergency exit but Peter spots her on the security monitors and goes after her. She goes to the air conditioning controls but Peter arrives and attacks her. Driven into a rage by the virus, Peter disarms her and tells her to stay down, and then goes to the elevator.

Outside, McFadden overrides Broyles and orders the soldiers inside to kill the victims. Meanwhile, Olivia turns on the air conditioning and they begin pumping the anesthetic gas into the building. The Army soldiers gets to the elevator and prepare to shoot Peter... and discover he's been rendered unconscious by the gas.

Later, Walter gives the cure to the victims. Peter wakes up and thanks the others for their help in seeing him through the emergency. He apologizes to Olivia for attacking her but she says that he wasn't himself. Peter admits that it's a good thing that she was or he wouldn't have survived.

Outside, Astrid approaches Walter as he prepares to leave. She asks him what he meant when he said that he couldn't stand to see Peter die "again." Walter tells her that some things are meant to be left alone and leaves.

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