Immortality - Recap

On the Other Side, Fauxlivia meets her boyfriend Frank Stratton at an airship docking station. As they leave, Dr. Armand Silva approaches a lone traveler drinking at the station’s bar. Silva makes small talk and then asks the traveler for the salt. When the traveler faces away from him, Silva switches his untouched glass for the traveler.

At their apartment, Fauxlivia gets Frank a drink, and he comments that she seems distant. Fauxlivia says that she’s worried about the disappearance of Colonel Broyles, and explains that Lincoln Lee is filling in for the colonel. When she realizes that she’s left out a file on Peter Bishop, Fauxlivia hastily covers it over. Frank apologizes for having to leave the city on CDC business, and Fauxlivia assures him that she’s glad he’s there now.

The traveler runs into the bathroom and starts vomiting. Silva comes in and takes jar out of his pocket. A minute later, he walks out while bugs scurry out from under the stall.

The next morning, Fauxlivia gets ready for work and Frank asks her if she wants to go to Annapolis for the weekend. Fauxlivia agrees but then gets a call from Lincoln summoning her to the docking station. When she arrives, Charlie and Lincoln show her the dead traveler, who is covered in dead bugs. The insects ate their way out of his body, and the team can’t identify what species they are. Charlie finds one live bug and collects it as a specimen.

At the Department of Defense headquarters on Liberty Island, Brandon reports to Secretary Bishop, who is examining the missing Machine piece that Fauxlivia recovered during her mission. Brandon says that they’ll be able to incorporate it into the Machine by the end of the week, and then tells the Secretary that they’ve had limited success duplicating the chemical they found in Olivia’s brain. He plays a tape showing one young man developing telekinetic abilities before dying. The Secretary is impressed, but Brandon warns that their other nine subjects died without manifesting any abilities. The one who did was the youngest of the test group, and Brandon suggests that they use children. The Secretary refuses,

At the Department of Defense, Brandon meets with Secretary Bishop, who is examining the Machine part that Bolivia recover from This Side. Brandon assures him they can integrate it into the Machine by the end of the week. He then explains that they’ve achieved a breakthrough with their experiments on the Cortexiphan that they obtained from Olivia’s brain. One subject manifested telekinetic abilities in less than an hour, but then died in agony. Nine previous test subjects died without manifesting any abilities. Brandon notes that the subject with powers was the youngest of the group, and suggests they use children. Secretary Bishop immediately refuses and tells Brandon to come up with another plan.

Fauxlivia and Charlie go to see an expert, entomologist Mona Foster. She treated Charlie for his arachnid infestation, and flirts with him briefly. She then examines the bug and explains that it’s a skelter beetle, which lives inside of sheep. However, the beetles died out ten years ago when the dimensional intrusions wiped out all of the sheep on the Other Side.

Silva is in his laboratory dissecting one of the samples he took from the dead traveler. He tests it for a particular enzyme without success.

Fauxlivia and Charlie return to Fringe headquarters and find Lincoln and Astrid checking the list of passengers. Astrid notes that statistically, the lack of infection among them so far means that they’re not deal with an outbreak. Frank is there, coordinating with Fringe in his role as CDC liaison. Upon learning that the insects are skelter beetles, Frank explains that the original insects lived in a symbiotic relationship with the sheep. However, someone or something has changed them since now they feed on the host bodies. Astrid suggests that they put out a Fringe alert to see if anyone knows anything about the beetles.

Silva goes to a diner and a man, Jerry Bissell, sits down next to him. Bissell takes an interest in the calculations that Silva is working on. Silva asks if Bissell has heard of several famous scientists, and then asks if he’s heard of Silva. When Bissell professes ignorance, Silva tells him that he’ll soon know the name. As the diner television displays the Fringe alert and a photo of the skelter beetle, Silva asks the waitress for the same thing that Bissell is having.

Lincoln is trying to make himself comfortable at Broyles’ desk when Frank comes in and asks him to give Fauxlivia the weekend off. When Lincoln agrees, Frank asks him if he can keep a secret.

Charlie and Fauxlivia man the phones and deal with the nutjobs and crazies who are calling in about the Fringe alert. Lincoln comes out and talks to Fauxlivia, and immediately tells her that Frank plans to propose to her the coming weekend. Stunned, Fauxlivia doesn’t know what to say, and is interrupted when Charlie tells them that he has a call from a scientist at a biology annex who worked next to a man who researched skelter beetles. Fauxlivia goes, ignoring Lincoln asking if she’s going to accept Frank’s proposal.

At the annex, the scientist tells Fauxlivia and Charlie that his neighbor was Dr. Armand Silva, who was working with skelter beetles. Since the beetles only survive in sheep, Silva’s work was ended when the sheep died out, and Silva tried to kill himself.

Bissell dies while pulling his car out of the parking garage, and crashes into the railing. On the level beneath, Silva uses a jar to catch the bugs falling out of the car.

Later, Fauxlivia and Charlie are called to the parking garage. While they work, Charlie confirms that Silva has been missing since 2004. The partners realize that the bugs are larger than the previous batch. As Charlie takes the new specimens to the lab, Lincoln worries that he’s missing that Broyles would easily notice. Fauxlivia assures him that he’s doing fine.

Secretary Bishop is in bed with his lover, Reiko, but she realizes that something is wrong. The Secretary explains that he’s learned there’s a line he won’t cross, even to save their world, and he wonders if that makes him weak. Reiko assures him that he’s the strongest man she knows, but the Secretary worries that he underestimated Peter and his attachments to the Other Side. Reiko assures him that the fact he can beat himself up about his mistakes means that he’s strong enough to do what has to be done, and tells him that he’ll find the answers.

Fauxlivia returns home to supper, and Frank tells her that he’s checked with the CDC. Silva was working on a cure to avian flu in 1997, using an enzyme found in the skelter beetle. However, when she sheep died out, the skelter beetled died with them. Frank figures that Silva is cloning skelter beetles and reengineering them to live in human hosts, since human and sheep DNA are over 90% identical. Fauxlivia has Frank make a list of the equipment that Silva would need and then sends it to headquarters. As she starts to go, Frank proposes to her and says that he can’t live without her. Fauxlivia accepts, but gets a call from Lincoln, who tells her to meet him at the warehouse in Brooklyn where they’ve tracked the equipment.


At the warehouse, Fauxlivia and Lincoln break in and Fauxlivia tells her new boss that she said yes to Frank’s proposal. They split up to search and Lincoln checks out a walk-in freezer. Silva locks him in, and Lincoln discovers that the walls are too thick for him to call out.

Fauxlivia explores her half of the warehouse and finds specimen cages holding apes. When she jerks back, startled, the rotting floorboards give way beneath her, dumping her into Silva’s basement laboratory and knocking her unconscious among the debris and the crawling beetles. When she wakes up, Fauxlivia discovers that Silva has tied her to a chair. He gives her a glass of water but refuses to answer her questions.

While searching the freezer for a way to escape, Lincoln finds a tank of liquid nitrogen.

Fauxlivia tries to bluff her way out, but Silva doesn’t believe her claim that Fringe agents are on their way. As he sets up a camera, Silva tells Fauxlivia that the world will thank him for creating the avian flu vaccine, and that the sacrifice of a few humans was worth it to save millions. He can’t stop now that he’s so close to a breakthrough, and that he wanted immortality as a savior of mankind, but the world changing deprived him of the honor.

Lincoln sprays the door handle with liquid nitrogen and then kicks the brittle metal, shattering it. As he searches for Fauxlivia, he calls in reinforcements.

Silva tells Fauxlivia that he realized that he needed to produce a single queen beetle so that it could reproduce on its own, and the gestation has already begun. As Fauxlivia starts to vomit, Lincoln arrives and orders Silva to surrender. She warns her teammate that they need Silva to provide the cure for her before it’s too late. As Charlie and Frank arrive with the reinforcements, Silva refuses to show them the cure. The team takes Fauxlivia to the hospital and Lincoln aims his gun at Silva’s head and tells him to talk. Silva agrees to help but says Lincoln must do exactly what he says. He asks the Fringe agent to hand him several nearby panels.

In the ambulance, Frank prepares to give Fauxlivia an antiparasitic to kill the beetles, but warns that the treatment could be fatal. Fauxlivia tells him to do it, while the EMT performs an ultrasound to confirm the presence of the beetles inside her.

Silva has Lincoln assemble the panels into a small containment chamber. He checks his watch and tells Lincoln and Charlie that he never infected Fauxlivia with the skelter beetles.

Frank prepares to inject the antiparasitic, but the EMT stops him and explains that Fauxlivia is clean of infestation. However, she is pregnant.

Silva convulses as the queen beetle eats its way out of his skull. With his dying breath, he puts it in the containment chamber and tells Lincoln to make sure they spell his name right in the history books.

Later, Frank comes to see Fauxlivia at the hospital. The doctors have confirmed that she and the baby are both fine. However, Frank realizes that something is wrong and Fauxlivia finally admits that she’s six weeks pregnant, and Frank has been out of town considerably longer than that. Frank asks her if she’s in love with the father, and Fauxlivia remains silent. Angry, Frank says he knows everything he needs to and leaves.

Brandon calls Secretary Bishop and tells him that there’s been a new development, and they have a way to bring Peter back to the Other Side.

Fauxlivia returns home and discovers that Frank has already packed his belongings. There’s a knock at the door: it’s Secretary Bishop, who tells her that he knows about the pregnancy. Smiling, Bishop tells her that as the mother of his grandchild, she’ll have every resource available to make sure the baby is born alive and healthy.

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