Bad Dreams
Season 1, Episode 17
Aired: April 21st, 2009
Written By: Akiva Goldsman
Directed By: Akiva Goldsman
Recaps: Fandom Wiki | Fringepedia | AV Club
Resources: IMDb | Wikipedia | Transcript
Listen: The Fringe Podcast | TFP Rewatch
In this episode, Olivia dreams she is causing people to either kill others or themselves, which leads her to meet Nick Lane, a man from her past that leads Olivia to discover their shared history as test subjects in a series of childhood drug trials.
Synopsis provided by the Fandom Wiki, Fringepedia, and Wikipedia.
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This episode ends with Walter watching a tape of him and William Bell consoling a young, frightened Olivia during the drug trials, the first time Bell has been seen or heard in the series.
The Observer can be seen crossing the street near the building where the mass suicide is about to happen.
A keg outside the frat house in 'Unleashed' is labelled "Red Balloon Lager," a reference to the the red balloon found at the first crime scene in 'Bad Dreams'
Nick Lane walked by a street vendor sign in 'Bad Dreams' that said "Night Stalker Energy Drink", foreshadowing the blue-eyed killer in 'Midnight' who hunted for victims at night and drank their spinal fluid.
"Bad Dreams"
by Walter Bishop
Once upon a midnight dreary, Agent Dunham weak and weary,
Seeking some small bit of respite from her taxing daily chore,
As she lay upon her bedstead, tossing, turning, hardly rested,
Dreams her peaceful sleep molested, bringing news of grievous gore.
Homicidal thoughts that shook her to her body's very core -
Just a nightmare, nothing more?
Waking in the dawn of morrow, Dunham learned to her great sorrow
Someone killed herself; the horror's manner she could scarce ignore.
Hurled herself before the train, and family ne'er to see again, and
Nothing in the woman's brain suggested suicide before.
What about the haunted fellow watching from the subway floor?
Passerby and nothing more?
With another nightmare stricken, Dunham's fear began to quicken,
As the plot began to thicken, coffee spilt upon the floor -
Someone Dunham dreamt the spilling, held the knife and did the killing;
Forced a woman most unwilling to an act she'd most abhor.
In the chair where Dunham watched, the haunted man she'd seen before -
Happenstance, or something more?
To a mental institution, Dunham went for absolution -
Searching for a man she thought that she had never met before.
But as children they were taken, given drugs to keep awakened
Powers that adults forsake and prepping them for something more.
Kept together, never knowing what Cortexiphan was for -
Linking them forevermore.
Errant thoughts from him were seeping, into strangers' heads were creeping;
Dunham watched while she was sleeping, slipping through the mental door.
Violent thoughts of pure self-loathing into others' minds imposing,
Seeking for his life a closing, wondering what his life was for.
So we placed him in a coma, put his thoughts into a drawer -
Nightmares haunting... nevermore?
Olivia did the same, subconsciously, as another Cortexiphan subject herself.
Olivia didn't remember being in the trials as a child in 'Subject 13'.
Walter watched a video of the aftermath of Olivia's explosive childhood incident in "Bad Dreams". (Image 1)
