“Northwest Passage” is episode twenty of season two of Fringe.
Peter is in a diner in Noyo County, Washington. He flirts with the waitress, Krista, and she promises to burn him a CD and drop it off at his motel. After she finishes her shift and locks up, she makes the CD and heads to her car. Someone approaches. She disappears. Krista is next seen restrained as someone cuts into her head and removes part of her brain.
Peter has fallen asleep in the lobby of his motel. The receptionist tells him his room does have a bed. It’s 6AM and no, a pretty girl didn’t drop by. Peter heads to his room and is about to fall asleep when his phone rings. There are only strange noises at the other end.
Peter is now leaving town when he passes the driver and sees a crowd and police cars. He pulls over and another waitress points Peter out. Sheriff Mathis and Deputy Ferguson come over and ask him about Krista and his ID. Krista told a co-worker she was planning to meet Peter. Peter says yes, but she never showed and he fell asleep in the lobby. Mathis briefly leaves and Peter looks around, seeing Thomas Jerome Newton in the crowd, not even trying to hide, but he does disappear. Mathis returns; Krista is missing. As Peter talked to her, they’d like to talk to him at the station.
In the sheriff’s car, a call comes in; they have a body of a young woman. The sheriff heads there instead. It’s Krista. Peter is still in the car when he hears something on the sheriff’s radio about a piece of her skull being cut away. When Mathis returns, he asks her if Krista is missing part of her brain. He knows it’s a weird question, but is she missing a piece of her temporal lobe? It seems she is.
At the sheriff’s station, Peter is explaining that he’s a civilian consultant for the FBI. People with certain expertises offer it to the bureau. His area is the weird. The strange and inexplicable. This is like a case he worked on before. They never caught the person responsible. Mathis asks if he’s here tracking them down. Peter says no, but they may be tracking him. He thought he saw one at the crime scene and there was the call at the motel. He thinks they killed Krista to find him. Peter can’t tell them; it’s classified. But he can show them what he means. Mathis wants to make a few calls and Peter calls Broyles first to give him the heads up.
In the morgue with the sheriff and Krista’s body, Peter explains that Newton is able to get information from the brain. The sheriff accidentally drops her pen in one of the trays. It’s got a slogan, ‘Find the Crack’, on it. Ferguson gave Mathis it on their first case; no-one else thought she could hack it.
Back at the station, Peter signs his statement and tells them he’s staying at the Northwest Passage. He may have been found, but that means he’s found Newton too. After he leaves, Ferguson says he isn’t so sure of Peter, even though he knows Mathis wants to believe. She tells him she’s a good judge of character. She’s the only one that likes Ferguson, after all.
Before going to his motel, Peter goes to a gun shop. He’s working on the guns when he gets another strange call. The second time it’s Mathis; Peter is having a go as only she and Ferguson know where he’s staying. That’s why she’s calling. Ferguson has disappeared.
Ferguson headed to where Krista’s body was found. Mathis wants to call the FBI but Peter manages to convince her not to. Newton will disappear. The phone records also don’t show any calls. Peter says even he can do that. They were doing it in the 70s. Mathis thinks her partner might still be alive. If Newton is after Peter, what game is he playing?
Back in Boston, Walter isn’t coping so well without Peter. After having an episode in a shop, he’s worried he’ll be sent back to St Claire’s.