Stowaway (S03E17)
Airdate: 18 March 2011
Written by: Danielle Dispaltro Directed by: Charles Beeson
Running Time: 44 minutes
As the third season of Fringe neared its conclusion, one couldn't shake the growing suspicion that the show's creators were increasingly beginning to rely on cheap plot gimmicks and soap opera techniques rather than delivering something truly original to their audience. The series had always walked a fine line between procedural crime drama and serialized science fiction, but by this stage in its run, the balance was tipping noticeably toward the former at the expense of the latter. Stowaway, the seventeenth episode of the season, serves as a prime example of this trend: a technically competent but ultimately unremarkable instalment that doesn't actually move the general plot forward in any meaningful way. It exists, much like the preceding Os, because the broadcast schedule demands a certain number of episodes per season, not because the overarching narrative desperately requires telling.
The episode opens with the cliffhanger from the previous instalment: the spirit of William Bell has possessed Olivia Dunham's body. Bell, speaking through Olivia, promises Peter and the rest of the Fringe Division that no harm will come to Olivia, but he also makes clear that he needs an adequate new body to serve as his host in order to release his grip on her. Broyles, who needs his top agent back in working order, demands that Bell vacate Olivia within forty-eight hours—a deadline that lends the episode a nominal sense of urgency that it never quite manages to capitalise upon.
Yet, the work of Fringe Division continues regardless of whether it is Olivia or Bell inhabiting Olivia's body. A case presents itself involving a woman (Paula Malcolmson), who jumped from a high building alongside another man. The man died on impact, but the woman simply walked away from the scene as though nothing had happened. The incident was witnessed and duly recorded by video cameras. Bell, occupying Olivia's consciousness, is concerned that this might be caused by another anomaly of the sort that has been systematically wrecking the Redverse—the very reality-warping degradations that threaten to bleed into the Prime universe.
The Fringe Division is contacted by Lincoln Lee, who in the Prime universe happens to be an FBI agent stationed in Hartford, Connecticut. He recognises the woman as Dana Gray and informs the team that she had apparently been killed alongside her entire family during a robbery, only for her body to subsequently disappear from the morgue. Dana was later involved in two similar incidents, apparently with people who were committing suicide. Walter examines a biological sample from Dana and discovers that her molecular structure was altered following a series of lightning strikes, thus rendering her incapable of dying.
Peter and Lincoln, who has effectively joined the Fringe Division for the duration of the investigation, discover that Dana worked as a suicide hotline operator and was deeply religious. Lincoln concludes that she wants to "stow away" towards the afterlife with people who are going to die, and that she herself is willing to commit suicide, thereby sharing the desire of those she accompanies.
Dana visits one of her clients, who is revealed to be a deeply disturbed young man. He shoots himself, but not before informing her that he has prepared a bomb to detonate on a commuter train. The Fringe team arrives at his residence, finds the body, discovers bomb-making equipment, and concludes that Dana has boarded the train hoping to increase her chances of dying through a mass casualty event. Peter, using her late husband's mobile phone, manages to keep her talking long enough for her train to be identified and stopped. Dana leaves the train carrying the bomb, and it goes off. Her body is later found, with the power of the explosion apparently having altered her electromagnetic structure and finally allowing her to die.
Peter returns home, where Walter has invited Bell—still occupying Olivia's body—to stay. Bell suggests that Dana died not because of physics, but because of fate; in death, he argues, she was serving a purpose by saving the lives of innocent people. The episode ends with Olivia briefly reappearing in her own body, only for Bell to claim that his possession will be much more complicated than he had initially anticipated—a transparent setup for further episodes that resolves nothing.
Stowaway is technically competent but ultimately transitional. As expected, it doesn't resolve the cliffhanger of the previous episode, and Bell remains trapped in Olivia's body. This, as one might anticipate, provides some opportunity for Anna Torv to demonstrate her broadening acting range, specifically her ability to convincingly mimic Leonard Nimoy's mannerisms and speech patterns. Torv's performance is genuinely impressive—she captures Bell's measured cadence and philosophical gravitas with remarkable fidelity. Yet, some attempts at humour—Bell in Olivia's body apparently flirting with Astrid, or contemplating the silly idea of using Gene the cow as a possible host—don't liven up the plot as scriptwriter Danielle Dispaltro clearly hoped they might. The tonal dissonance between these comedic beats and the episode's heavier themes of death and spiritual longing is jarring rather than endearing.
The most interesting aspect of the episode is the introduction of the Prime universe's version of Lincoln Lee, played by Seth Gable with a markedly different energy than his Redverse counterpart. Where the Redverse Lincoln is confident, composed, and battle-hardened, the Prime version is nerdy, awkward, and endearingly earnest—a contrast that Gable handles with considerable skill. His presence hints at richer narrative possibilities than the episode itself is willing to explore.
The actual procedural "mystery of the week" storyline is the weakest aspect of the episode. Not only does it distract from the more immediate problem of resolving the Bell-Olivia situation, but it also gives away sloppy writing. The whole premise of a woman who wants to die but can't is explained by rather unconvincing pseudoscientific babble, and serves as an excuse for Fringe to dabble into mysticism and religion in a way that was uncharacteristic for the series by this point. In many ways, it looks very much like the path taken by Lost in its last and controversial season—a descent into spiritual hand-waving that substitutes vague philosophical musings for genuine narrative substance. The comparison is not flattering.
Paula Malcolmson, the Irish actress who has made a career of playing long-suffering women in some of the most celebrated television shows of the early twenty-first century, is good in her role. She brings a quiet, haunted dignity to Dana Gray that the script scarcely deserves. But she can't compensate for poor writing, and her performance ultimately feels wasted on material that reduces her character to a metaphysical plot device rather than a fully realised human being.
RATING: 5/10 (+)
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