Boy, it’s been awhile. I haven’t ran this blog in 5 years and I left the rewatch off at “The Transformation” where we ended the John Scott arc. While some believe “Bound” (Episode 11) to be the start of the second half of season 1, since it comes after the winter hiatus, I have always believed The Transformation to be the end of the first half of season 1 and Ability to be the start of the second half, especially with the debut of Cortexiphan. And what a start it is.
I feel Olivia Dunham was heavily inspired by Clarice Starling, being a capable and clever agent who is always doubted, looked down upon, and both with being a woman in a field populated by men. For that reason it made a lot of sense that there was a bit of a Hannibal Lecter vibe with David Robert Jones in his debut (episode 7) Jared Harris is fantastic in the role, though “Ability” does change a bit. He feels like a combination of Hannibal in the way he tests Olivia but also has a little bit of John Doe from Seven as unpredictable and playing mind games with his captors. In fact, the scene of David Robert Jones surrendering himself to the FBI is almost shot for shot from John Doe surrendering in Seven. And this being a a couple months after The Dark Knight, there’s some Heath Ledgar Joker trickery thrown in there as well.
There’s a lot in play with “Ability” we find the ZFT manuscript, DRJ is suffering from his transportation, we get the mention of Liv and cortexiphan, the ending with the lights, and Walter realizing he wrote the ZFT manuscript. There’s...a lot.
The episode starts out a bit weird with a recap of the ending of “Safe” (Episode 10) and possibly the scariest pattern event yet with the skin covering up your eyes and mouth to kill you. That is some scary stuff and I’m glad they eventually bring this back in season 5. Jones goes into a tank to help his body process the transportation effects. While Walter and Astrid work on the case of the human sewing shut skin, Olivia cutely asks Peter if he as a “weird connection” to find the ZFT manuscript. Peter indeed does have a weird connection (he always does) and we get to meet Edward, a bookstore owner who will creepily have Olivia as a coffee table in season 5. Charlie and his partner Tommie, who has an unusal amount of close ups and dialogue for a character we’ve never met before so you just knew he had to be working for ZFT or was going to get killed, find evidence to where DRJ is hiding just as DRJ makes his Seven inspired surrender.
Sanford continues to be a thorn in the side of Olivia and Broyles when it comes to questions DRJ and throws in a “We don’t negotiate with terrorists” line. Maybe one day I’ll talk about the show using very specific terminology like terrorists attacks and negotiating with terrorists, which is a very post-9/11 world (In their defense, they are the FBI) and then using the world trade centers as a visual to represent the alternate universe. Back to this episode, Olivia once again has to find concrete evidence for the bigs in the FBI to let her do her job. A raid on Jones’ safe house leads to Olivia finding a drawing Jones made of her and, you guessed it, the death of poor old Tommie. This death leads to Sanford giving into Jones’ demands and Jones performs an elaborate experiment to get him and Olivia some alone time. He leaves a package for her to complete the, now iconic in my mind, light test.
And this is where the episode gets really interesting. In a rewatch, we of course, know that Olivia was indeed used in the cortexiphan trials and we know why Jones wants to use Olivia’s powers for his own gain, and we know that Olivia does posses the power to turn off the lights. However, back in 2009 (or whenever you first saw this episode) “Ability: is playing mind games with it’s audience the same way Olivia believed Jones was playing her. Does Olivia actually have powers? Could she really use her mind to turn off the lights? Or was this all a game just to mess with her. If it was a game, what was Jones’ goal? Just to put doubt in her? I know Olivia makes the argument that Jones just wanted to get close to Walter and the episode ends with us knowing Walter may have written the ZFT manuscript, so it would make sense why Jones wants to see Walter, but it also wouldn’t really excuse why Jones has been quite obsessed with her. But if Olivia did really turn off the lights, that means she has powers from this cortexiphan, and that opens a lot of doors. Doors that we’ll eventually go through as we continue the rewatch. Again, it seems a bit silly today to think of this episode’s light test and be of course Liv has powers! But only 14 episodes into Fringe’s story, we have seen weird stuff, but Liv with some kind of super power was a pretty big leap for the show. It’s easy to see how audiences would think Jones was just screwing with her.
The light test also allows Olivia to have a heroic moment. We’ve seen Liv be a badass and can take down the baddies, but we haven’t seen a lot of Olivia being a hero. Her decision to stay and try to turn off the lights with her mind, something she doesn’t 100% believe, is a heroic mark. It’s also a bit of her maybe being drawn into this idea that Jones might not be telling all lies. The shots going back and forth between her and the lights before they finally start to go out is probably the most intense scene we’ve had so far. Also, I don’t think enough is said about Peter’s decision to leave and then go back and watch Olivia turn off the lights. If she couldn’t turn them off (and thus going with the idea that Jones didn’t set it up for the lights to always go off with 2 seconds to spare) both Olivia and Peter would have died. You can make the argument that he wouldn’t have been able to get far away enough, so either way he could’ve died, but I feel like this episode is part of Peter embracing the weird, that anything can really happen, and him really caring for Olivia and can’t bare to just leave her alone. A nice touch was him standing behind her, but not giving her vocal encouragement, and still allowing this to be her moment.
Then that finale! Olivia gets word from Nina that there were cortexiphan trials in Jacksonville and we can see from her face, that there’s now a real possibility Jones was telling the truth. Walter has been gazing over the ZFT book with great interest and we notice how the y is indented in the book. Walter uses his typewriter to confirm his suspicions, that he wrote the ZFT manuscript. This is some scary stuff considering ZFT’s terrorism and gives the audience a reason to start to mistrust Walter. For one, he can’t even remember the things he’s done, and we know his experiments have crossed a moral line. I feel like this is a bit downplayed in the next episode (and possibly putting fuel to the fire that some of the fringe episodes seem to be a bit out of order) but it was a great little clue to the larger Fringe story.
And that was “Ability”. One of my absolute favorites from season 1. This really feels like the show finding it’s voice and getting into the meat of the story. Jones continues to be a great villain, Olivia is emerging as a reluctant hero, the relationship between Olivia and Peter grows, and we’re not sure exactly what Walter has done. It’s a solid 10/10 episode, no real complaints from me.
Next week, we’ll continue to “Inner Child” an episode that does feel a bit out of place after this heavy one, although that could be the point, but also an episode that is incredibly important to the Fringe story.
“I'm in love with Peter. I know it sounds absurd, and to you I hardly know him but, it's like I've known him my entire life. And everyone, including him, keeps telling me it's impossible.”
