Bad Dreams

"Bad Dreams" is the 17th episode of the first season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe. It was written and directed by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, his first writing credit for a television show. In the 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. The episode first aired on April 21, 2009, in the United States on Fox to more than 9.89 million viewers. It received generally positive reviews, with many critics praising the beginning dream sequence, the climax atop the building, and the final scene with Walter and the old footage of Olivia. Critics also enjoyed the further revelations about Olivia's background; the subject would later have an entire episode devoted to it in the third season. Plot Olivia (Anna Torv) dreams that she pushes a woman in front of a subway train at Grand Central Terminal, but assumes it was just in her head. In the morning however, the news reports that the woman killed herself with the train. Walter (John Noble) puts forth various theories, such as astral projection, while Peter (Joshua Jackson) thinks it was still just a dream. Olivia is unconvinced, and goes with the Fringe team to investigate. An NYPD officer (April Grace) escorts them to the crime scene, and Peter sees a red balloon floating and begins to believe her, as Olivia had described the balloon to him previously. Olivia worries it will happen again, and though she attempts to ward off sleep, she next dreams that she helps a woman murder her husband at a restaurant. They interview the wife, who tells them she became so convinced her husband was going to leave her that she became angry and stabbed him. The team posits that while no one is actually causing the incidents, they are happening as Olivia has seen them. At the restaurant, the owner tells them a blond man with a scar named Nick Lane (David Call) was sitting in the same place as Olivia was in her dream, and was also seen in the video surveillance from the first crime scene. Walter posits that because she never sees him in her dreams, it was Lane, not Olivia, causing the people's deaths. Olivia and Peter interview doctors at St. Jude's Mental Hospital, who tell them Lane was a voluntary resident, but left after the visit of a mysterious man.