“Wallflower” is episode seven of season four of Fringe.
Olivia goes to take some pills from her medicine cabinet, but she’s out and heads to get some more. She walks past a diner, then heads inside, as Lincoln is there. She explains she had a migraine. He hasn’t slept since he got there; he’s been having a hard time adjusting. A few months ago, Lincoln thought he understood the world he lived in. No more. Olivia says it becomes your life. To his question, that’s sort of what happened to her.
In Beacon Hill, a man is heading down an alley. He looks nervous and gets a call; he thinks he’s being followed. His wife will call the police. The man passes a puddle, which then ripples. He arrives at their building as his wife calls to say the police are on their way. He opens the door, then something mostly invisible tackles him. When the police arrive, he’s dead, and now looks to be suffering from albinism. One of the cops shoots at something unseen.
In the previous episode, “And Those We’ve Left Behind”, Peter decided he was in the wrong universe. He’s now out shopping with a guard, Tim, who says he has a $200 a week allowance. And stops him from interacting with people.
Broyles fills Astrid, Lincoln and Olivia in on the body; the broken glass is because one of the officers opened fire. The officer doesn’t want to say anything about Lincoln reassures him that this won’t cause problems. He admits he didn’t see something; he felt something. Lincoln suggests a ghost. The officer says that’s Lincoln’s word, not his. Astrid is examining the body. Walter suggests he was scared to death.
Olivia asks Astrid if the things she sees ever get to her. Astrid says if she wasn’t seeing the agency shrink, her head would have exploded long ago. Who does Olivia talk to? No-one. And she’s starting to think that’s not normal. Lincoln says they can rule out ghosts; ghosts don’t bleed.
In a makeshift lab, a visible man emerges from a tub of liquid. He’s then waiting for a lift in an apartment building. He doesn’t get in the first, but waits for a second that has a woman in it. Another man enters, then the second man and the woman get out. The first man starts to fade.
At the lab, Astrid reports that three similar bodies were found. The albinism was thought to be natural until medical records were run. She’s running DNA. Walter has found a residue on the body; chromatophore cells that allows some creatures to blend into their backgrounds. Astrid has a result on the DNA. A baby boy, born in 1989, died four days later.
The hospital records list him as having an unclassified genetic variant, and he died from complications resulting from it. They speak to the nurse who was at the birth; the boy burned if exposed to lights. When he died, she was relieved that he wouldn’t suffer any more. Except, when the body was taken away, she thought she heard him cry. It was a private insurance company. Olivia knows them. She tells Lincoln they paid her mother’s medical bills. A subsidiary of the company that later became Massive Dynamic.
Nina Sharp says their suspicions are true. The boy would have died in days, but the genetic anomaly made him suitable for genetic experimentation. Cells implanted into his system allowed the child to blend with his surroundings. And allowed him to survive. It was done at a satellite research facility and neither Nina nor William Bell knew until there was a fire at that lab five years ago. It was assumed that the boy, called Eugene – after unknown genetic disorder – was assumed to have died.
Peter isn’t involved in the case at all. Eugene is just trying to be seen, which results in people dying. And there’s something odd going on related to Olivia.