“Bound” is episode eleven of season one of Fringe.
Peter enters the lab and asks Walter what he’s doing. Dosing a caterpillar with a special blend of LSD. This is now normal to Peter. Then Astrid enters wanting to know if they’ve heard from Olivia; she’s missing.
In the previous episode, “Safe”, Olivia was kidnapped on Jones’ instructions. She comes around, strapped to a gurney. One of the men there is wearing a mask and has a voice changer. Which suggests that he’s both known to her and that they’re planning to let her go. The gurney is turned over.
Broyles is briefing everyone on her disappearance as a spinal tap is being inserted into Olivia; she takes note of the masked man’s shoes. When he leaves, he removes the mask, revealing that it’s Loeb. Loeb is heading back to the office. Olivia asks one of her captors for water, and to be allowed to sit up. Stupidly, he gets her a beaker of water and removes some of her restraints. Both men in the room get taken down.
Broyles gets a call from a Sandford Harris; the latter is being sent in to review Fringe Division. Olivia heads out, takes down another, grabbing his gun, car keys and phone, as well as some samples which she puts in a flask. She heads out, finds the car and contacts Broyles, giving an address that she wants agents to meet. She then buries the flask. When the agents arrive, they tell her to put her hands to her head and drop to the floor. Then tranquilise her.
Olivia wakes, handcuffed to a hospital bed, to see Harris there. They know each other. It appears that Olivia had him prosecuted and convicted for sexual assault; the conviction was overturned. And she’s handcuffed to the bed to show the power he now has. Homeland Security has assigned him to review Fringe Division. To question everything about her. The people she associates with – Scott, Peter, Walter – are problematic; a traitor, a criminal, a lunatic. No, she isn’t under arrest, but she’s not to investigate her own abduction.
At the Federal Building, Charlie tells Olivia he had nothing to do with the way she brought in. She knows; Harris molested three women and Olivia put him away. That’s what this is about. Olivia plans to head to where she was held, but Charlie says it had been cleaned out when a team got there. The phone and car are clean. There’s a woman to see Oliva; Rachel. She says Olivia is expecting her. Who is she? Olivia’s sister and niece. Olivia greets them, and says she’ll meet them later.
Olivia calls Peter and tells him she’s heading to pick him and his father up. She arrives at Harvard and they load up the car with stuff as Olivia tells them what was done to her, but wonders why, and says she took samples. They dig up the flask; Walter thinks he can identify the samples At Boston College, a professor is giving a lecture on pathogens when he takes a drink, starts choking and collapses. His teaching assistant, who seems rather more upset than she should be, tries to help him. Then a giant, spiny slug emerges from his mouth.
The room has been sealed and Walter is examining the body. The man was suffocated from within. Peter suggests the giant, slimy, spiny slug was responsible. Walter has a theory. He will share eventually. Peter has fired up a camera and they’re using it to track the slug. Which is fast. Walter, who has been watching the slides on diseases, traps it under a bin. Things like that used to happen all the time in his lab. Makes him nostalgic.
In the lab, Walter is examining the slug and taking a sample. Peter suggests just killing it. Walter says you can always kill, but you can’t always bring back. Astrid suggests Walter probably could. Walter examines the sample; the organism is made from the same material that Olivia took.
Harris is being obstructive; he’s now investigating Fringe Division. Broyles isn’t pleased with how Harris is treating Olivia. It looks like Harris is deliberately being obstructive as a grudge against Olivia for having him convicted. That does appear to be all it is, though; he doesn’t seem to be actively working against them. Olivia is still going to investigate, despite Harris, and things start getting complicated.