User Reviews

While driving home in a rainy night with his son Ben, Andrew Stockton stops his car to help a woman to call the tow truck. He decides to inspect the engine and when he opens the hood, he sees red and green lights blinking on the engine. He enters in a hypnotic trance and awakes with the tow truck driver, finding that Ben was kidnapped. Agent Dunham learns that a couple of talented men have been abducted in the past and returned completely insane and the boy is a musical genius. Dr. Walter Bishop recalls that the inmate Dashiell Kim in Saint Claire had had the same bad experience and killed his beloved wife later. Olivia tries to visit Dashell, but Dr. Sumner does not allow her to go since she is a stranger to him. But he accepts that Dr. Bishop meets Dashiell. Will the scientist accept to return to Saint Claire to save the boy?

"The Equation" is one of the best and most mysterious episodes of "Fringe". Unfortunately it is not disclosed the big picture of the scheme. Indeed the conclusion is deceptive. John Noble has another excellent performance. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "The Equation"

What is most interesting about this episode is how it gets under your skin and even more remarkable is that this was done deliberately.

TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL this ain't (although an argument could be easily be made that Anna Torv's character is deliberately given angelic aspects -- her looks, her actions, her constant desire to help - as counterpoint to the fact that this series is dark, and dark things happen).

Viewers are hooked early on when a small boy is abducted and tortured.

As if this is not enough of a hook, the viewer connection with John Noble's character (which has had only had 7 episodes to build) is tested to the max, when Walter is subjected to the one thing he fears most in the world, a trip back to the Looney Bin, replete with a warden who comes across as more menacing than all the inmates combined.

Powerful episode, pretty much defines the direction the series is headed in.

The Equation has a great opening in a very stormy and rainy night where we are brought into the car of a father and his son, the young composer. The father stops in front of a woman who needs help with her car, the father inspects the car and suddenly a green and red light flickers before him, when he turns around to see the woman, she's gone. When she turns back to her car, it's gone. And when he goes to check up on his son in the back of the car, he's gone. After the Fringe team checks out the scene of the crime and Oliviai has completed her sketch of what the woman was described to be Agent John Scott informs her that the woman she int he sketch is Joanne Ostler, who died ten years ago, but for some reasons she is behind the disappearances of many people within the last few years, all have connection somehow. Things become supernatural now as the boy wakes up in a dark room, rather similar to the room seen in the first Saw film where he he is greeted by Joanne and taken to his dead mother, who makes a fuss about him having top finish his musical note, if not, she may not go with him. So he thinks( could go far with this spoiler, but I won't). Dr. Bishop is familiar with stories of this woman and her methods, through an old friend of his back at the mental institution where he was held at for years. Olivia thinks it would be bets if he paid a visit to the old mental house, but Peter has nothing but criticism for the sheer thought. But can Dr. Bishop get the job done despite his symptoms and can his friend come through and tell him what he knows before it's too late? Only you can find out, and yes, there is a huge twist at the end that you won't see coming, but I'll never tell...

I really liked this episode, it's such a good mystery/thriller. Not only does it have an excellent story arc to it but it take son the supernatural and mixes with with Fringe science. It also shows more of Dr. Bishop's character and shows his determination and his rebellion against his son's attitude towards him and that he has a bit of a split personality at times( as if we didn't already know...).

One thing that's ironic about this episode is that there is a small clip of Superman on TV( I believe footage taken from The Batman), series co-creator J.J. Abrams wrote two drafts of Superman before it got handed to Bryan Singer and it was changed into a Returns story. I know, not so much of a review, but I like to point out irony. I'm such a geek.

Overall, a great episode. Next weeks looks even better and even more thrilling than this one!

9/10.

Several interesting Arcs are generated in this 'sode - The Mitchell Leob arc continues, along with a story regarding a gifted child — who is obsessed with one particular piece of Music-A beaten Mathematician, a woman with hypnotic powers able to cause "Missing Time" Phenomena: A Woman who is Dead...

The Child is writing a piece of Music: a Piece of Music which is linked relationally to a mathematical formula which Walter knew about from one of his former inmates at "St Claire's Mental Institution - Where I spent 17 years of my life" as Walter is always reminding us, lest we forget. This former inmates' name is "Dashiell Kim" played by Randall Duk Kim, and it is up to Walter to brave his former abode and Doctor (Played by the great William Sadler) to get more information from Dashiell. But the problem with that, is how does one mentally unbound man dredge any usable information from another unhinged individual? In a great performance by John Noble, Walter does just that - He Succeeds Honourably, impressing not just us as viewers, but his own son Peter.

This is a great Episode, and has a lot going on - The interesting thing, is that it is all connected. I was amused to discover that Peter is a gifted Piano Player, able to translate mathematical Formulas to Music, which is the connection between the Child and the Mathematician-They were both working on the same thing: The woman Joanne Ostler is the agent sent by ZFT to get the solution to the music and the formula, her reward for doing just that was too severe. But these people, Ostler, Leob, in the long run they both believed they were doing a greater work. I cannot judge these individuals, because the circumstances are not exactly black on white: Not even with David Robert Jones.

And this episode reveals more about the fact that "The Pattern" is wholly related to Walter. We are being fed bits and pieces of the whole, it is a joy to revisit all of these season 1 eps, just to see how the pieces are laid out.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes of all these up front situations of these episodes, the John Scott and Olivia story, which began in the Pilot episode, is continuing - He is appearing to her, is telling her something. He even begins directing her to solutions of the cases she is being handed by Broyles. Is he really there?

...The bad guy just walks away at the end. If they get him later I'll raise the rating to a 9.

I agree with other reviewers. Because I trust the writers at this point, I am assuming we will be let into the logic involved with the young boy later. At this moment, there is a rescue and a series of clues abounding, but at the end we really have no idea what has transpired. Only that the young woman who has aided the bad guys all along is simply killed in cold blood. There are still forces at work in the background that have just begun. Is the head of the asylum a part of something? His obstructionism is a major factor in keeping the child from being saved. We can see his ego at work. And what did the result of solution mean? On we go.