“Immortality” is episode thirteen of season three of Fringe.
Fauxlivia is waiting in the Empire State Building of the alternate universe for an airship to dock. Her boyfriend, Frank, is on it, returning home. In the bar of the lounge, a man speaks to another, and distracts him long enough to swap their drinks.
Fauxlivia and Frank return home. He asks if she’s okay; she hasn’t spoken and when he called from Texas she seemed like a different person. Probably because she was for part of the time. Fauxlivia talks about how it’s been difficult since AltBroyles went missing; they found his car on the edge of the no-go zone but no leads. Lee has taken over in his absence. It seems that most don’t know that AltBroyles was killed in “Entrada”.
The second man at the Empire State Building has headed to the bathroom and the first follows, watching as the second is bent over the toilet. He collects a bug in a jar as many more scuttle out of the cubicle.
Fauxlivia is getting dressed and Frank suggests going away for the weekend. She’s agreeing as she gets a call.
At the scene, Lee tells her there was a spontaneous bug eruption. Bugs ae their way out of the man. AltCharlie has one of them; they haven’t been able to identify the bugs. A live one crawls from the dead man’s nose and they put it in a jar.
AltBrandon has called for Walternate. Not because of the machine piece Fauxlivia stole, which will be integrated with the machine by the end of the week. It’s about the experiments with the chemicals synthesised from Olivia’s brain. He shows Walternate a video of a man gaining powers to levitate things after being injected, before suffering a seizure. Walternate says that nine died in 30 minutes; this one developed an ability. What’s the difference? AltBrandon will know more when he dissects the brain, but he has a theory. Age. This was the youngest subject. Perhaps if they used children. Walternate, who has more morals than Walter when it comes to experimenting on children and more than AltBrandon when it comes to almost anything, says using children is not an option.
Fauxlivia and AltCharlie have arrived at a bug laboratory. The woman they speak to treated AltCharlie for his arachnid infestation and seems to have taken a shine to him. She doesn’t recognise the bug and her response to hearing it ate its way out of a person is to say ‘Interesting.’ She goes to get something and Fauxlivia ribs AltCharlie about her crushing on him. The woman returns. It’s a skelter beetle, but how is it here? Parasitic and lives exclusively in sheep. And all the sheep died out ten years ago.
The man is now working on his beetle in a lab. He’s checking for the presence of an enzyme. It isn’t there.
Frank, AltAstrid and Lee are going through the passengers on the same airship as the dead man at Fringe Division. AltAstrid explains why it’s not an epidemic as Fauxlivia and AltCharlie return. Frank was called in as Lee asked for CDC help. He goes to look at the beetle. The relationship between it and sheep is symbiotic, but now it’s attacking the host. What changed? AltAstrid suggests asking. When you don’t know the answer, find someone who does. Put out a Fringe Alert to the public; someone who recognises it will call in.
The bug man is now in a diner and someone sits next to him. The second speaks to him; the first says he’s a scientist. The second recognises some names of famous scientists but doesn’t recognise the last, Dr Armand Silva. Which is likely the first man, as he says the second will know him. And Silva orders the same dish.
Frank speaks to Lee in what’s now his office. He wants a favour. For Fauxlivia to have some time off at the weekend. Can Lee keep a secret? Lee says yes. Then promptly heads to tell Fauxlivia, who with the others ids dealing with a lot of useless tips, afterwards that Frank is going to propose. Then AltCharlie says he’s got something. A guy used to work in a biology annex next door to someone who used to work with skelter beetles. They head there and are told that Armand Silva was the man. The bugs were his whole life and when the sheep died out, he was a mess.
Lee is having doubts about whether he can fill in for AltBroyles. Fauxlivia’s personal life is probably a bit of a mess, thanks to Peter. And Silva is trying to bring back extinct beetles and killing people to try and do it.