“Lysergic Acid Diethylamide” is episode nineteen of season three of Fringe.
They are attempting to transfer William Bell’s consciousness from Olivia to a new body in the lab. Walter says it’s perfectly safe. Take a few steps back. It doesn’t work. Peter asks BellLiv what they do now. Find another braindead host. Peter says this one fit all the parameters and they were lucky to find him. He wants Olivia back and he’s losing patience. Then Olivia takes over her own body, asks for help and starts seizing. Olivia is taken to the hospital, still seizing. The doctor is about to shock her when Olivia grabs his arm and BellLiv tells him that if he’s jolted again today, the doctor will kill Bell and the young woman he’s living inside.
Broyles is not happy; Bell told him Olivia would be safe for two weeks. William Bell’s first experiments with soul magnets were on rats and they lasted nearly two weeks before the host consciousness was lost. Bell never anticipated it would happen so quickly in humans. The brain can’t have two consciousnesses; one goes away and can’t be retrieved. Worse, Bell says he can no longer simply leave. Walter realises that Bell is the only thing keeping Olivia alive. Bell thinks they have no more than a day until they lose Olivia.
Back at the lab, and Walter and BellLiv think they have come up with a solution. They need to go inside Olivia’s mind and find her to bring her back and remove William, putting him in a computer. Whilst they enter Olivia’s mind, Astrid can work on that. Peter points out to Walter that the last time they did this, Walter had to stick a probe in Olivia’s brain and dose her with hallucinogenics. Walter says that’s brilliant. They’ll use LSD. Walter wants Peter to help guide them in Olivia’s mind and asks Astrid for some drugs.
Walter hands out LSD-dosed sugar cubes to Peter and BellLiv, and takes one himself. Walter has improved it to make it work faster. Broyles enters and Peter starts to trip; Broyles is bald. He must be an Observer. Astrid tells Walter they’re ready.
Walter, BellLiv and Peter are sedated and linked up. Peter arrives in Olivia’s mind on a street; Walter arrives on top of a bus. Once Walter is got down, Peter wants to know what the next step of the plan is. Walter does have a plan, doesn’t he? Of course he does. Find Olivia and guide her out. That’s not really a plan. They start looking for Olivia and Peter comments that everyone is dressed as if they raided Olivia’s closet. They see flashing coming from the top of the World Trade Centre. Morse code. SOS. Walter signals back and says it’s Olivia.
Astrid and Broyles are in the lab talking when Broyles starts fixating on a piece of liquorice. Astrid asks Broyles if he cleaned up the tray with the LSD. He did. Did he touch the tray with the sugar cubes on it. Sure. Why? Has Broyles ever taken LSD?
Peter and Walter aren’t getting closer to the towers when Walter spies Olivia’s stepfather staring at them. Then everyone stops and stares at them. Peter is getting a bad feeling. He asks Walter for suggestions. Walter suggests they run and everyone chases after them. They manage to drive off in a cab and throw off two cars pursuing them and get to the towers, where everyone looks normal again.
Nina Sharp is inside and Walter says they’re looking for Olivia. She might be in William Bell’s office. Nina takes them to a lift and Peter realises something is up before Nina is able to dump Walter down the shaft, sending her down instead. Walter asks why everyone is trying to kill them.
They arrive at William Bell’s office. Walter says to be ready for anything when they open the door. Anything turns out to be a cartoon William Bell in a cartoon office. And they become cartoons as well on entering. With thought bubbles.
William Bell says that with his consciousness inside Olivia’s, her sense of self has become confused. The darkest parts of her subconscious and her deepest fears are running rampant. Peter says if that’s the case, Olivia isn’t lost. She’s hiding. And Bell says that’s a problem.
The three of them need to find a hiding Olivia in her own mind where just about everyone, and everything, wants to kill them. Meanwhile, Astrid is coping with a Broyles who is tripping on LSD.