Fringe 1x10: "Safe"

I hope you've been paying attention, readers, because this episode requires a lot of continuity.

Remember the Kitty Pride machine from "The Equation" episode where the little boy's song-equation powered a machine that allowed Mitchell Loeb (the traitor from "In Which We Meet Mister Jones") to phase his hand through a box?

Well, he and a bunch of bank robber pals have been using that machine (which increases the vibrations of solid objects at an atomic level) to phase into a number of banks to steal safety deposit boxes. When the machine fails while one of their number is still in the midst of phasing through, Loeb is forced to shoot him while the others flee, leaving his corpse embedded in a bank wall. The other robbers aren't too pleased with Loeb's itchy trigger finger, but Loeb doesn't work for them. No, as it turns out, he works for David Robert Jones, the Mad Science Terrorist imprisoned in Germany from the "Mister Jones" episode.

The Fringe Buddies show up at the bank to investigate, hoping to find a pattern in all the places that have been mysteriously robbed. Olivia, to her surprise, recognizes the corpse as Raul Lugo, only belatedly realizing the recognition is Dead Boyfriend John's, not hers. Awkward.

As Olivia and Peter flirt at a bar (adorbs!), they inadvertently discover a pattern in the numbers on the safety deposit boxes that have been stolen - they follow a mathematical equation that Walter frequently uses. Walter realizes that the safety deposit boxes that have been stolen might be his. When Peter was a little boy, it seems, he came down with an extremely rare and deadly form of bird flu. The only person who had successfully cured it died in 1936 - so Walter, you know, did a bit of fiddling around in his lab and created a TIME MACHINE TELEPORTER to grab this guy from the past to save his son.

AS ONE DOES.

However, before it could be used, Peter miraculously recovered, so Walter dismantled his MOTHERFUCKING HOMEMADE TIME MACHINE and stored the separate pieces in a random series of safety deposit boxes throughout the state. And guess which boxes have gone missing?

THE TIME MACHINE BOXES.

Using the pattern, Peter and Olivia manage to catch the robbers in the act, capturing one while the others escape with the final piece. The captured robber keeps his trap shut during interrogation - until Peter correctly diagnoses the man's tremors and sudden fits as symptoms of radiation poisoning, an unfortunate side-effect of the Kitty Pride machine. In return for medical aid, he gives what fragmented information he can - his boss apparently kept a map of Germany, but was planning to take the machine to a field in Westford.

Olivia realizes there's a place in Westford called "Little Hill" - the code word Mr. Jones used in "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones." Putting two and two together, she and Charlie head out to Little Hill.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Jones kills his put-upon lawyer just as a bright beam of light arrives in his cell and teleports him successfully to Little Hill, where Loeb set up the machine. Unfortunately, Olivia never reaches Little Hill - she's drugged and kidnapped en-route by mysterious men in black SUVs.

Mad Science:

• The ability to phase through solid matter
• An honest-to-God motherfucking TIME MACHINE TELEPORTER 

Best Death Scene: I suppose it'd have to be the guy in the wall - even though his death by bullet is pretty pedestrian.

Mad Science Questions:

• So let me get this straight, Walter randomly created a Time Machine on a whim and this is somehow not a huge freakin' deal?! What gives?! 
• Who kidnapped Olivia? Was it Jones' people, because he gave his lawyer a picture of her? Or was it Nina Sharp of Massive Dynamic, in order to harvest her remaining memories of Dead Boyfriend John?
• Peter seems to have had a lot of near-death experiences as a kid - bird flu, a car accident. What gives?