Best line ever:

Walter: "You're like a question machine!"

We have probably watched our last ep of Fringe. The wayout science is fun. But watching inept agents run around in contrived circles is just too annoying. Way to much Olivia in this episode and not enough Walter and son. And the clunky way we introduce this annoying Harris character. Lousy lousy writing, and such a pitiful fight with Samantha Loeb, who's the trained FBI agent?

With all the pseudo-science on this show, the hardest thing for me to believe is that Harris would:
(1) Get his job back after the allegations made about him. IIRC, he got off on a technicality of some sort. If so, that would only prevent him from being prosecuted. OTOH, he'd be done at the DOD or FBI.
(2) Let's assume he overcame the last hurdle, never in a million years would he be allowed to investigate the "Fringe" unit, and in particular, Olivia. It wouldn't happen. (3) But if it did happen, nobody would give a shit about what he said about Olivia. Or it would come under incredibly scrutiny if it was considered at all.

The whole scenario was ludicrous, but, worse, it was wholly unnecessary to create this backstory. The writers could have simply made him an asshole. There are plenty of shows that feature some hard-nosed supervisor out to get the protagonist.

The only way I can believe this scenario is if it is later revealed that there's a big conspiracy among higher-ups to shut down the department and Harris is the guy they figured would be the most aggressive.

The writers also constantly rely on the lousy TV plot device of having the main character simply not tell people relevant information. It heightens the tension, but makes Olivia look like an idiot. As someone mentioned above, why didn't she mention the evidence piled in the dirt? Why didn't she just say to her "partner" at the FBI how she was going to prove Loeb was a bad guy? Did she tell him during the commercial?

There are certain things I'm willing to overlook for the sake of sci-fi, but they need to get the stuff grounded in reality correct.

Clearly the sister is going to bail leaving Olivia with the kid.

Last night they pretty much copied off, Slither. Next episode they are copying off a mix between Pulse and The Ring. This isn't about fringe science anymore, it's about taking horror movies and throwing a scientific spin on it by adding in scenes with Walter Bishop.

What's with giving Liv a family and home setting now. I really feel like they are trying to make her into Sydney Bristow, but without the emotional payoff since they just threw her family in now and already the episode - surprise surprise, her nieces is in danger.

The show is mildly entertaining at best, but it's not as great as everyone makes it out to be. This isn't Lost, it isn't Alias, there is no master plan that's going to put all these little details into focus. This series is going to be an average jumble of things into one convoluted ending.

I feel Loeb is akin to Ben from Lost--he means well and he doesn't mean well. His view of good and evil is much different than the black and white version most of us accept as good and evil.

This first part of this eppy was like a horror movie for me: I am usually okay with dead bodies and monsters, but nothing terrifies me in the way a slimy, spikey (fast, ugly) slug-virus can.
I really like the show, it's titillating and funny, but it had frustrating faults. The something that really frustrated me: the "confession" was not really a confession, it was more like a vague outlet to more questions: Who is "they?" How did they try to "save" Olivia? If he was really confessing, he would put us (the audience and the Fringe characters) out of our misery/mystery. The other interesting question - why kill a couple of epidemiologists? I am thinking, maybe they wanted to experiment on an epidemic, and maybe they were not taking CSF out of Olivia, but injecting something in, which once the epidemic starts, would protect her against the slug. Maybe by Loeb asking Samantha to kill Olivia, he was going to plan to then revive her, or something, as they almost seem to be able to do.

Yes, this was an engaging episode. When Sanford Harris read down Olivia it really became obvious that to a 3rd party observer she really is running with a strange and not so credible crowd. The gross slug thing that comes from peoples' mouths is just so X-Files-ish, whatever. Also a little over the plausibility line is when Olivia gets a spinal tap and within a short time is overpowering four menacing guys - um, yeh, girlpower go. But when she gets the drop on Samantha later it turns into huge wrestling match. Fine, moving on, would've liked to have seen Mr Jones and Nina enter the storyline here, too.

I love this show too. I don't know what's going on, but I like it. I liked this part at the end from walter (i'm paraphrasing)

I missed you when you were missing too...but not as much as him.

Really? People like this show?

Everything is so dumbed down.
1. "He got a job with the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control"

Seriously do you think an FBI agent doesn't know what the CDC is? Only reason to state the obvious is because you think your audience are made up of a bunch of retards.

2. When she tells the head guy that Walter is looking at evidence that she hid after she escaped abduction he didn't seem to care one bit that she had EVIDENCE FROM HER ABDUCTION! No instead he wanted to talk about other things. Uhhh hello, isn't that rather important that there is evidence and wouldn't he want to know what the evidence was???

3. Oversight guy who has the ability to call in the feds to tranq their own agent who is just standing there in the dirt waiting for them and then handcuff her to a hospital bed? Seriously? How stupid. I'm amazed this show made it past mid-season.