Welcome to Milton, Mass., where an evening of playing, oh, let's say, Scattergories and watching Looney Tunes has degenerated into a twisted nightmare from a less-gory Saw movie. There's a guy, in this rather nice home, searching through his toolbag until he finds a small pickaxe. The appearance of a pickaxe makes the four people in the living room widen their eyes in fear. They can't say anything, because their mouths have been duct-taped. The man with the pickaxe looks at them for a moment with an expression that's equal parts menacing and scared, and then he flicks on the nearby wallmounted television so we can all enjoy the futile antics of Wile E. Coyote. Now he just seems apologetic, but he doesn't say anything. Still, it doesn't seem as bad as playing Cranium yet again.

Meanwhile, in the basement, two other guys are digging a hole, and they've already made it through the cement floor, so I'm not sure what the point of the pickaxe is. One of the diggers complains to the other about where his "dumb cousin" got off to, but the other guy sticks up for family and says to just keep working. Immediately after that, a shovel makes a thunk sound as it hits something, and the diggers haul up a metal box with grooves and strange symbols on it.

Obviously the guys doing the grunt work are not the ones who are in charge, so there's some arguing about whether or not they should open it, since it's got to be something valuable. "That's exactly the kind of thinking that found us trouble in Texas," says the cousin-defender, but then curiosity gets the better of him and he figures they'll just have a peek.

So they open it, and we're going to go all Pulp Fiction for a while and not see what's in the box, and as soon as it's opened, the basement lightbulb shatters and the two men silently go into a trance, quivering, blood streaming out of their noses.

Then Buddy with the pickaxe -- who, honestly, really did take a long time to get downstairs -- comes strolling down the steps, only to find his cousin and accomplice zombiefied.

But hey, the man's got a job to do, so he grabs the box and runs upstairs. On his way out he sees that the four people are all vegetables now too -- milky-white eyes rolled back in their heads. Well, at least they died the way they lived: watching Looney Tunes.

After the opening credits -- blue, because we're back in our world -- Fauxlivia is meeting with Thomas Newton, who's got a little Earth-prime orientation package for her, so she can get acquainted with her new identity. "Agent Olivia Dunham, joined the Fringe Division Sept. 9th, 2008. And you also got files on both Bishops, Broyles, Bell and Farnsworth."