Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (Fringe)

Plot

With Olivia’s body still under William Bell’s control, previous efforts to move his mind into recently dead bodies have all failed. Walter and William calculate they have less than a day before Olivia’s own mind vanishes for good. They conclude Olivia does not even know Bell has taken over; instead, she has likely hidden her ego away, making standard contact impossible. Walter devises a plan: he and Peter will take LSD and journey into Olivia’s mind to find her ego and help it reclaim control, while Walter simultaneously tries to transfer Bell’s mind into a computer.

Inside Olivia’s mental landscape, Walter and Peter appear as obvious intruders. The inhabitants of her mind, including a version of her stepfather, try to stop them. Walter spots someone flashing Morse code from Bell’s office inside one of the World Trade Center towers.

After dodging a crowd and a trap laid by a fake Nina Sharp, they reach the office, where Bell greets them as a cartoon figure. The three find no trace of Olivia’s ego, which Bell had expected to be visible if she wanted to be found. Peter remembers that when Olivia gets frightened, she hides in a safe place, so he suggests searching her mind’s version of Jacksonville, where she grew up.

They travel by zeppelin, and Bell tries to convince Walter he no longer needs his guidance. A man wearing a shirt with an X on it attacks, ripping open the airship’s side. The rushing air pulls Walter out, and he falls to his apparent death—which wakes him up back in reality. Bell and Peter land safely in Jacksonville.

Peter leads them to a military housing unit Olivia lived in as a child, identifiable by a red door her birth father painted. Inside, an adult Olivia greets Peter, but he sees from her eyes that she is not the real one. A younger Olivia then appears, revealing herself as the true ego. Once she confirms Peter’s identity, she agrees to go with him and Bell.

But her stepfather and several military personnel attack. Peter sacrifices himself to protect her, waking up in the real world. Olivia stands firm against her past fears, halting their advance. Bell explains that she can now reclaim her body, while Walter, back in the lab, works to extract Bell’s mind.

Production

The teleplay for this episode was a joint effort between co-showrunners Jeff Pinkner and J. H. Wyman, who also worked with consulting producer Akiva Goldsman on the story. Joe Chappelle, an executive producer, directed. Leonard Nimoy returned to television for this installment, despite having previously announced his retirement from acting. When the writers reached out, Nimoy joked about his familiarity with characters coming back from the dead, referencing Spock’s demise in the Star Trek films, but he agreed to the role because he admired the show and its writing.

He added that he would be happy to appear in future episodes if the writers wanted him. The cast only learned a couple of weeks before filming that parts of the episode would be animated. Zoic Studios handled the animation, spending eight weeks transforming the main Fringe characters into animated versions. They used live-action footage of the actors and fight choreography to guide the characters’ movements.

Since Nimoy did not need to travel from Los Angeles to Vancouver, a stand-in was used for his scenes. The studio aimed for a blend of stylized and authentic visuals to emphasize the characters’ emotions. They also recreated existing sets from the show, like Bell’s office. Some parts of Olivia’s dreamscape were hand-painted scenes projected onto 3D plates within the animation software.

Zoic’s creative director, Andrew Orloff, described the project as one of the most intensive and rewarding in the studio’s history. The final cut contained sixteen minutes of animation, and executive producer Jeff Pinkner noted that the man-hours required were by far the most the series had ever needed. The writers cited Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Waltz with Bashir as influences.

Reception

The initial broadcast of "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" drew 3.6 million viewers and a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49, matching the series' lowest point for that season. The episode also shed 100,000 viewers from its first half to its second. Sarah Stegall of SFScope found the numbers unsurprising given the show's return from a three-week hiatus. However, time-shifted viewing boosted the 18-49 rating by 69 percent to a 2.2 share, the largest weekly percentage increase in that demographic.

Andrew Hanson of the Los Angeles Times joked that the writers might have been using drugs due to a recent string of drug-themed episodes. While he loved it, he called it a love-it-or-hate-it installment, noting that using Olivia's mind as a setting was "a little crazy" but that the episode remained grounded through its emotional undercurrent. He praised the show for taking a risky, bold move. Stegall described the episode as "brilliant, risky, fascinating, and dangerous," adding that while it's not a tack the show can take often, she enjoys it when it does.

Noel Murray of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A-minus, admitting its faults but saying he "enjoyed the hell out of" it. He cited Anna Torv's "Bellivia" performance and storyline, the drug plot, its Inception-like qualities, the animation, and Bell's final goodbye as highlights.

Ramsey Isler of IGN rated it 8.0 out of 10, calling it one of the most memorable Fringe episodes. He also noted similarities to Inception, the film Yellow Submarine, and the novel A Scanner Darkly. However, Isler felt the episode ended a string of pointless installments and, while beautiful and a blast to watch, did little for the series' mythology.