“Inner Child” is episode fifteen of season one of Fringe.
It looks like someone is building a bomb, but he’s actually wiring up a demolition charge. A building is being demolished and once the charges are set and the building is confirmed empty, the workers leave. Two are chatting when one pauses. He has a weird feeling. He tells the other to radio to pause the countdown; he wants to do another sweep. Inside, the man thinks they missed something. He finds a floor which sounds hollow. Stamping on it causes the floor to collapse, revealing a shaft. At the bottom are underground chambers, not in the blueprints. And a small boy with pale skin and eyes and no hair.
Charlie gets a call and checks the fax in the Federal Building. One fax is an invitation to a showing of a brand-new work today in Boston. It looks creepy.
Olivia is chatting to her sister when she gets a call from Charlie. The Artist is back. She’ll be there in 15. However, Broyles calls her; he wants her and the Bishops to come to the children’s hospital. The old case can wait.
At the hospital, Broyles explains that the tunnels have been sealed shut for at least 70 years. Only rats, insects and the boy were in them. The boy’s eyes now have colour. Walter needs something. A turntable to play records. The boy’s doctor, Winick, is introduced. The boy is having difficulty breathing and she’s going to administer oxygen. Walter tells her no. The tunnels were sealed and the boy has adapted to a low oxygen environment. He needs less, not more.
In a laundrette in Somerville a man is talking to a woman with tattoos. She’s a bit short with him. When she sees he’s in a wheelchair she feels bad and, when she sees him struggling to put his laundry into a van outside, she offers to help. He stands up behind her with a syringe when she does. Inside the van, he’s doing something to the hopefully dead woman that involves saws and power tools.
Walter’s suggestion regarding the boy worked. When asked what the child ate, Walter has suggestions. Millipedes are tasty apparently. But all lack certain minerals, hence the baldness. Which makes the child look not dissimilar to the Observer. Walter overshares to Winick about his time as a mental patient; Peter brushes it off as a joke. Olivia is talking to the boy when Charlie rings. They have one in Coolidge Park. Olivia is writing this down and the boy grabs her arm. He wants to write too. He writes ‘Sam Gilmore’ but upside down.
At the park, the woman from the laundrette has been posed with hair and a dress and modifications to her body. Her name is Samantha Gilmore.
Charlie is briefing everyone on the Artist. He kidnaps, sedates and kills his victims, after which, using surgical tools and chemicals, he enhances their appearance. In this case, bleaching the skin, removing multiple piercings and dying her hair. Olivia was on the phone to the hospital during the briefing.
Walter and Peter arrive; Walter is fairly certain the child grew up in the tunnels. The place had been sealed off for decades and the boy looks no more than ten. Walter suggests he could be significantly older, thanks to the conditions down there slowing growth. They then get a fax that the Artist has announced another show. He’s currently chatting to a woman with a dog.
Olivia returns to see the boy. She has brought him M&Ms and is demonstrating how to eat them when an Eliot Michaels from Social Services shows up. He wants to have a word outside. The boy is going to be moved to a facility to treat his needs tomorrow. The boy can’t hear them, but he can see them and is getting worried. After speaking to Olivia, Michaels makes a call and tells someone he thinks they’ve found another one. Which is kind of disturbing. In the room, the boy takes Olivia’s pad and writes ‘Marlborough Street’ on it. She and Charlie head there, but the Artist is in his van with his latest victim and they don’t see him.
Somehow, the boy has an ability to connect to the Artist, and possibly others. Which may help them catch the serial killer.