I posted before my intial thoughts of the episode “Grey Matters”, but it will never be complete without an in-depth look at the episode, try to find some easter eggs and clues that could help us answer some of the questions.  I will also try to convey my own theories in this post.

1. Who is Thomas Jerome Newton?

His name seems to be taken from a sci-fi film called The Man Who Fell to Earth.  Thomas Newton, in the film, is a humanoid alien who came to Earth to bring water back to his home planet, which is experiencing a drought.  Could the drought be The Blight in the Fringe world?  I wonder if Fringe’s Netwon would be needing to get something from our planet to send over to the other world.  But it seems to me that is not the case, as the shapeshifters could just easily get what they needed and request an extraction from the alterworld through the typewriter used in the earlier episodes.  The only reason left is that Newton wants to open the portal in order to allow the rest of the aliens come in and invade the Earth.

Now, the question is… how did Newton and his gang came here?  Did their leader send them over a long time ago?  Or did Walter’s opening of the door to the alterworld allow them to travel to our world?

2. William Bell as Dr. Simon Paris

The name Dr. Simon Paris seems to come from Leonard Nimoy’s second name, which is Simon, and his role in Mission Impossible as “The Great Paris“.  In Mission Impossible, Nimoy’s character is a magician and dubbed as “master of disguise”.  It makes me wonder if this tells something about Dr. Simon Paris.  Is Dr. Paris disguising as William Bell or William Bell disguising as Dr. Paris?  Until now, it doesn’t make sense to me as to why William Bell is using a different name.  What is Bell hiding?  Or are we being tricked by the writers?  Or Simon Paris is different from the Bell we know?

3.  William Bell and Newton connection

The first time I watched the episode, I find a resemblance between Newton and Bell.  I find them both dressed the same way and even thought at the end, Newton will shapeshift into Bell.  Of course, that is not the case.  It makes me wonder how did Newton find out where Bell hide the brain tissues… and even more surprising is that how did Newton found out the old house of Walter? It seems that this episode suggest memory transfer, this made me think that Newton could have got Bell’s memory…

It is also odd that Newton and Bell seems to have a “watch switch”.  Newton is wearing a Massive Dynamic watch while Bell seems to be wearing an AU watch.   It may only indicate that Newton could be staying in our world while Bell is in the other world.  Or Newton is connected to Massive Dynamic?  Is that how he got the info about Bishop?

4.  The Blight

There are some clues to indicate the Blight.  First is the logo of Hennington Mental Health Institute… and the painting in the mental institute.

5. The HP Lovecraft connection

I got to say that I love how the writers play around with the characters name.

- Dunwich Hospital: Dunwich is a fictional town of Massachussetts, which is used in Dunwich Horror written by Lovecraft.

- Joseph Slater: the first patient. This seems to be a nod to Joe Slater, who is the main character of Lovecraft’s Beyond the Wall of Sleep.

- Stuart Gordon: the third patient. He is a director and a big fan of Lovecraft. He made several stories of Lovecraft into film.

- Deborah Crampton: the second patient. This could be a nod to Barbara Crampton who stars in HP Lovecraft’s Re-animator, which is directed by Stuart Gordon.

- Dr. West: Herbert West, a character in Lovecraft’s Re-animator.

6. The observer

He is found across the street as the Olivia and Peter entered the men’s restroom in attempt to save Walter.

7. Red Yellow Blue

For the first time, we saw the 3 basic color together.  The Red, Blue and Yellow seems to play a big role in the show.  Each color could be a sign of something… although, I am not yet quite sure what.

8. Walt’s Brain

The implantation of brain tissues to the patients provided them information which has an embedded memory of Walter.  The three of them pointed Peter in the right direction where he can find Walter.  I find it odd though that the three victims processed the same information.  Why did at least one of them processed the information on the door?  I’m not expecting them to get the door information, but at least part of it.  Anyway, it may be just use for the plot device.

But the bigger question is… how much more vital information are kept in those three brain tissues?

9.  Bell’s visitation

It was mentioned that Simon Paris visited Walter in six separate occasions.  And yet the operation suggested that it is one-off, since Paris cannot store Walter’s brain for very long time and he gave a prescription to three patients almost in the same time.  This made me wonder, what’s the other 5 visits for?

It also begs the question on when did Bell go to other side.  Did he go after the sixth visit?  And if so, how did he accomplished the opening of the portal without Walter’s memory?  Did he go back and forth from one reality to another in between six visits?  Could that contribute to Bell’s health degradation?  Or is The Blight the reason why Bell is sniffing oxygen?

10. Observer connection?

This is just my little theory.  The observers were there to make one reality intact as possible, every crucial event should happened as it was planned.  Having said that, they are trying to prevent the creation of a new route, which could be a new alternate reality.

It is possible that Walter could have opened the portal to the alternate world, as such, could have created the alterworld.  I would say, this is the relative existentialism thought.  So, without opening the portal, the alterworld is inexistent.  Walter’s opening of the door was triggered because of the death of Peter.  Peter’s death could be due to an accident caused by the observer.  Because of that, they allowed Walter to keep Alter Peter.  In exchange, Walter needs to prevent himself from using the “door opener” again.

However, because the door between two realities had been severed.  And because the other reality could also had found this door… fringe sciences happened.  Walter and Bell discovered this and made the ZFT manifesto and did the cortexiphan trials to get ready for a possible war.  Perhaps, there are some people who are interested with Walter’s knowledge… and this could have prompted Bell to operate Bishop.

Bell could be on the other side, as a spy of our world.