Fringe

Episode Report Card
Daniel: B+ | 449 USERS: B
YOU GRADE IT
What Child is This
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

The show opens with someone rigging some dynamite. It's shot all closeup on his hands, so I'm suckered into thinking it's some malcontent about to blow a hole in the Boston infrastructure. Instead it turns out to be some legitimate construction worker getting spurred on by his boss, who tells him if they blow their schedule, they lose their permit. Demolition Man, meanwhile, says he's too old for this, because he went to Danny Glover Demolition School.

Meanwhile, other guys from the crew are sweeping the abandoned building they're in for squatters, and once the building's clear, they head outside at T-minus three minutes. Outside, Demolition Man talks dinner plans with his buddy, who suggests steak and eggs at Cora's, while Demolition Man wants to head up Route 9 to Parkview, making his buddy chuckle and tease him about the waitress there. Demolition Man protests that he was just thinking about the lean corned beef. "The lean corned beef named Marcie," needles his friend.

Buddy then stops, looking thoughtful. "Dennis?" says Demolition Man. Dennis doesn't answer for a moment, then looks back at the building. "You swept it, right?" Dennis says he did, but... and trails off. "All of a sudden I got a weird feeling," he says. Demolition Man says he does too: "Mine's called, 'I don't want to die looking at Dennis.'" Dennis runs back towards the building, telling Demolition Man to radio Mike to let him know he wants to do another sweep.

Inside, Dennis has the blueprints out, and says the plans show there's another room here (so why wasn't it already checked out?). But he can't find anything, and Mike is impatient on the radio with Phil (Demolition Man) over the holdup. While Dennis walks around, looking for what they missed, one of his footsteps rings hollow. Phil tells him it's solid foundation, and the concrete's cracked due to frost damage. Dennis stomps on the floor, which gives way, and Phil has to keep Dennis from falling down what appears to be a deep well. "Mike, I think you'd better come down here," says Phil on the radio. We finally get to meet Mike!

The well opens into some kind of underground tunnel system, the kind that may contain huge rivers of pink slime when there's an increase in paranormal activity, if I recall my Ghostbusters 2 correctly. There's all kinds of debris and garbage scattered about, and apparently a god awful smell, and the trio find what seems to be some kind of cage. There's some rustling movement in the foreground, unnoticed by the three of them as they discuss the cage in the closed captioning (but not in the audio). They shine their flashlights around the room, until they spot something that, had this happened to me, would have caused me to ... how do you say? Soil myself. In the corner, panting, is a mostly naked feral-looking human... oid, maybe. Completely bald. Iridescent pale blue eyes. No telltale Joy Division music playing to indicate this is just some suburban kid playing weekend goth.

Fringe