Trama

A man undergoes a painful and ultimately fatal transformation aboard a plane. Meanwhile, Nina Sharp and Broyles reveal more information about John Scott to Olivia.

A plane goes down after a man transforms into a creature similar to a hedgehog. Using John's memories, Olivia IDs the man behind the creature, that also has a data storage device inserted into his hand. To find out more information, Olivia goes into the tank again, to get more access to John's mind. She finally learns John wasn't really a traitor.—Andreea D

When the nose of a passenger starts to bleed in a flight, he calls the flight attendant and asks for tranquilizers. He runs to the toilet and asks the crew to keep him locked inside. Out of the blue, he transforms into a spiny beast and the plane crashes. Broyles summons Olivia, Peter and Dr. Bishop to the site and Olivia identifies the beast in the passenger manifest using John's memory. Later she identifies another man, Daniel Hicks, and she confesses to Charlie that she is using John's memory. Meanwhile Dr. Bishop finds that the transformation was caused by a deadly virus; further, he also finds a disc in the beast's hand during the autopsy. While interrogating Hicks, Olivia asks who would sell the deadly virus to him and he does not answer. But when his noses starts to bleed, he gives the name Conrad to her. Olivia and Broyles unsuccessfully investigates who might be Conrad. Running against time, Olivia concludes that the only chance to find Conrad is accessing John's memories with the guidance of Walter. She contacts John and learns the truth about him. Will Olivia find Conrad and avoid the distribution of the deadly virus?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

On a plane midair. Headsets cost $4. A man writes notes to himself, including one to avoid capture. He gets a bloody nose and goes to the bathroom. He checks his eyes, tugs to make sure his teeth are intact. Then he does a mouth swab and tests. The liquid changes color. This does not appear to be good.

He demands to speak to a flight attendant. He doesn't have the time or permission to explain what's happening. He needs tranquilizers, fast. He asks what weapons they have. They have a Tazer. He says it won't work, it'll just piss him off. He tells the flight attendant he's going to lock himself in the bathroom and if he opens it and it's not him anymore, don't let him out. He locks himself in, checking his eyes again. His teeth start to fall out. There's a loud banging from in the bathroom. He sprouts spikes on his spin and continues general growling. Then, he's quiet. The flight attendants talk about what to do. Then a half-man, half-hedgehog spiky Sasquatch busts out of the bathroom and goes on an in-flight rampage.

Scarsdale, NY At a kids soccer practice. There's a loud noise overhead and the plane crashes down.

At Olivia's house, she comes home to find her niece Ella (Lily Pilblad) playing dress up. Her sister Rachel (Ari Graynor)finds an engagement ring and asks what it is. Olivia (Anna Torv) tells her he never actually proposed and it was a mistake. He was a traitor. Whatever was between them was a lie.

Liv gets a call and heads to the wreckage of flight 718.

They got a distress call from the pilot. They find something forensics thought was animal at first. They were mistaken. It's the charred spiky Sasquatch.

There were 147 passengers. Liv flips through the flight manifest. She recognizes Marshall Bowman from John's memories. The fried dog- man, as Charlie (Kirk Acevedo) calls him.

Back at the lab, Walter (John Noble) has fun dissecting. The man grew four extra nipples, which allows Walter to explain the half-nipple rule (number of off-spring is usually equal to half number of nipples).

Walter finds evidence of the nose bleed and something hard in the man/dog's paw/hand. It's a glass disk the size of a nickel.

At the FBI, Charlie turns over everything on Bowman. Liv recognizes another guy from John's memory among his associates.

They get the last 60 seconds of the flight recorder. They play it and hear the pilot saying "something" is on board and is killing passengers. There's loud banging and then it goes silent.

Olivia wants to bring in Daniel Hicks, an importer-exporter. She thinks it's who Bowman was going to meet. Charlie wants to know how she knows. She tells him to file it under "crazy things happen in Walter Bishop's lab," and explains how she has some of John's memories. She thinks they were all working together on a weapons sale of some kind. Charlie goes with it.

Peter (Joshua Jackson) calls with DNA proving the man/dog was Bowman. Walter thinks he was dosed with a designer virus. It rewrote Bowman's DNA. He sends her a video of the glass disk. Liv says they found a similar disk on a DEA agent a few months ago.

Charlie and Liv talk to Hicks. Bowman was his banker. Liv shows him the picture of the fried dog-man remains. She thinks he knows how that happened. Hicks' nose starts bleeding.

Watching from the observation room, Walter knows they need sedatives right away. Hicks starts to bleed and twitch. Before Walter can inject him, Liv wants to know who dosed them. Conrad. The man conks out.

At the lab, Astrid (Jasika Nicole) reports finding no hits on Conrad. Liv finds nothing on him in John's files. Walter has Hicks strapped to a table, in a medically-induced coma. He's still transforming, but slowly. Walter isn't optimistic that he'll figure out how to reverse it in time. Olivia tells Walter to cut open Hicks' hand. They find a glass disk.

Liv brings the disk to Broyles (Lance Reddick), wanting to dig up John Scott's body to see if he had one. She also wants the other disk they found earlier. Broyles tells her they're data storage devices and they don't have either.

Cut to Massive Dynamic. Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) greets Liv and Broyles, telling Liv it was not her decision to keep "this" from her. She leads her into a room where she sees what "this" is. John Scott (Mark Valley), dead, but in suspended animation. They suspect the disk self-destructs when the host dies, so they kept his body pumping so they could get info off it. It looks like John was part of a bio-terrorist cell. They also found references to a Conrad, who they believe is a scientist selling weapons on the black market.

It gets worse. An informant says a major weapons sale is about to go down in Chicago. He didn't know anything about it, except that a man named Conrad is behind it.

Olivia calls Peter to catch him up. She thinks John knows who's behind the pending attack. Which means it's in her memory. Tell Walter to prep the tank.

Liv climbs in. Walter starts his machines and talks to Olivia, telling her to listen to his voice. He's going to try to guide her into John's memory to where he met Hicks.

She's in a hotel room. Where she and John used to meet. She sees them come in, making out. Walter reminds her John can't see her now, she's observing a memory. Making-out Liv goes to the bathroom. John says hi to Observer Olivia, the one he's not supposed to see. She picks up his gun and points it at him. She asks him about Conrad. She catches him up on his partners. She panics and shoots him. The machines spike. Walter can't get Olivia to respond.

In Memory Land, Olivia walks down an alley. She calls for Walter but he doesn't answer. She comes up to John. She wants answers. He turns and walks away. She follows. John shows her Conrad, a monster, John says, as a car drives by. He shows her himself, atop a nearby building with a sniper rifle. He let Conrad get away, but he didn't know it was him. He failed his mission. What mission? Bowman and Hicks are part of an NSA secret task force, and so was he. She doesn't believe him. He can't prove it, it's black ops. He doesn't know about the sale, but Hicks would know. He tells her to trust Hicks, he can help her.

They pull her out of the tank. She's OK. She calls NSA, but they can't confirm the mission, just like John said. They don't know if the antidote is working on Hicks yet. Olivia wants to wake Hicks up and trust him because John says she can.

Peter raises the possibility John is lying to her again. Astrid offers that her mother always says she sticks her nose where it doesn't belong. And she does, telling Liv she's a good judge of character, and what does her gut say?

Olivia tells them to prep Hicks. They're going to wake him up. He pops up and doesn't immediately turn into a man-dog. They need his help.

Broyles briefs his folks. They caught the prospective buyer this morning, but he isn't talking. Hicks is.

Olivia is going to pose as the buyer, taking com tips from Hicks. They're not to move until Olivia gives the signal: "Christmas."

Chicago The seller arrives. He makes a phone call.

Olivia tells someone they didn't have to come with her. It's Peter. He points out that "shady deals with shady guys in shady hotels" is his MO.

Walter monitors Hicks, who tells her to say she used to work with Anderson and Ernesto flew in but got called back to the basement and couldn't come.

They approach the seller in the lobby of a big hotel room. She uses the basement line.

They go up to a room, where they scan her and find nothing. She gives them the money. The man asks where he might recognize Peter from and Hicks feeds Olivia and Peter lines about Oxford. When he blanks on the name of a place, Peter pulls the name of a Thai place out of thin air.

A man comes in with a case and shows them two objects shaped like big light bulbs. The seller gets a call. Conrad would like to see them. Olivia doesn't give the sign. Charlie tells his men to wait. The seller mentions he's throwing in an antidote because it would take them years to design one on their own.

Hicks, who until now OK, hears this and becomes nervous. The seller tests Olivia again, asking why Ernesto wouldn't return his calls. They need a name from Hicks to placate him, but Hicks develops a nose bleed. Walter becomes worried. Hicks starts to change. Olivia and Peter sit calmly in a the hotel room listening to the grisly transformation and shouts through their earpieces, but not getting any information they can use. The seller takes out a gun and repeats his question.

Peter jumps to his feet as the men grab guns and starts yelling at Liv to just tell them already, he's not dying over Ernesto's dirty little secret. Liv catches on and says it's true, he's sick.

Conrad walks in, asking who Olivia and Peter are. Olivia says he found out the day before Christmas. Ernesto's fine, Conrad says, he spoke to him this morning. Uh oh. He tells the men to kill them both.

Just then Charlie and Co. bust in the door. Peter lays a good right on one gunman and Liv gets another. They take all the bad guys into custody. Liv leans in to Conrad: "John Scott says hi."

Later, Broyles tells Liv that Conrad is wanted in at least half a dozen other attacks. He's been wanted for years. Liv should at least crack a smile.

Broyles tells her despite the outcome of the case, John Scott's status with the bureau remains the same. There's no way to confirm he was telling the truth. She says it's OK. She knows the truth, and that's enough.

She goes to the Bishop's lab. It's empty. Walter comes in, saying Hicks is improving now that they administered the proper antidote.

Olivia tells him she wanted to ask him for a favor. He tells her she probably wouldn't be able to find John, her brain waves are returning to normal. She's purging him. She'd probably only have seconds. Then they need to do it now, she says.

She gets in the tank. She walks down a dock on a perfect fall lake. John appears beside her. She tells him they caught Conrad. She apologizes for not trusting him. He says it wasn't her fault. He meant to tell her, but ran out of time. There was one other thing. He takes out the ring and slips it on her finger. He knows they can't be together, not really, but maybe he won't know the difference. They kiss the kiss of the last good-bye. He says he loves her, and then disappears. In the tank, she says "I love you, too."