Olivia Dunham
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| Olivia Dunham | |
| Portrayed by Anna Torv
| |
| |
| First appears in | "Pilot" |
| Name | Olivia Dunham |
| Status | Alive |
| Profession | FBI Special Agent |
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Childhood
Olivia's stepfather, an abusive alcoholic, would beat Olivia's mother while accusing her of adultery. Olivia's mother remained silent about this to everyone else. On one occasion, Olivia's stepfather broke her mother's nose before leaving the house and driving away. Upon his return, Olivia shot him twice with a handgun. The wounds were not fatal, a fact that Olivia regretted for the rest of her life. After recovering from his wounds, her father left for an unknown location. Since that day, Olivia's father has sent her a greeting card every year on her birthday, to taunt her and remind her that he is still alive. ("The Cure")
In the early 1980's, Olivia was subjected to several experiments conducted by Walter Bishop and William Bell, and was given the drug Cortexiphan. She was often partnered with Nick Lane, in order to keep the children from becoming afraid. She was later released from the treatment, and had no memory of what had occurred..("Bad Dreams") The purpose of experimenting on the children was to unlock hidden abilities to prepare them to fight in an oncoming "war" against people from a different reality as outlined in the ZFT Manuscript.
[edit] College and FBI
Dunham graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a B.S. in Psychology and Criminology, and served as a United States Marine Corps special investigator, prosecuting Sanford Harris, who was charged with sexually assaulting three Marine Corps Privates. Dunham was successful and Harris was jailed, though this case caused bad blood to form between FBI agent Phillip Broyles and Dunham. ("Pilot") Dunham soon became an agent for the FBI, a career she had been set upon since age nine.
While working for the FBI, Dunham became romantically involved with fellow agent and partner John Scott. Due to the fact that relationships between agents were not allowed, the affair was kept quiet, though Dunham hated the secrecy.
[edit] Season 1
Dunham and Scott would often rendezvous at a motel room for intimate time together. During one such time, their tryst was interrupted with a phone call instructing her to go to Logan Airport to help manage the Flight 627 incident. Upon her arrival, Charlie Francis, her close friend and fellow agent, debriefed Dunham. Broyles, the managing agent of the case, chose Francis and Scott to examine the plane, and eventually submitted to Dunham's requests and let her join the search team as well, despite his dislike of her. Upon entering the plane, Dunham and her colleages were shocked at the carnage inside the cabin, where every occupant's flesh had melted. Returning to the Federal Building in Boston, Dunham was assigned to investigate a lead at a storage facility along with Scott. The two split up to search the storage facility, and Scott found and pursued a man who was hiding in one of the containers. The man then detonated a bomb within the containers. Dunham was clear of the blast, but Scott had been directly in the middle of the explosion, and was put into a coma to slow skin degeneration similar to the degeneration seen on the passengers of Flight 627.
Desperate to solve the case and save her lover, Dunham searched the FBI database for anything that could help cure Scott's ailment, eventually discovering a Dr. Walter Bishop, a scientist who conducted research on a similar matter. Bishop, incarcerated in a mental institution, was only allowed to be visited by immediate family members, however, so Dunham located Peter Bishop, Walter's son, whom she would use to visit Walter. After using bluffing and blackmail, Dunham enlisted the younger Bishop's help, and together they went to see the elder Bishop in the institution. When Walter proved to be knowledgeable about the subject, Dunham had him released from the institution, and had his old lab reopened. Walter is initially unsuccessful at treating Scott, but after entering a water tank for a synaptic transfer with Scott, Dunham is able to identify the man who tried to kill Scott: Richard Steig, twin brother of Flight 627 passenger Morgan Steig, and former Massive Dynamic employee. Dunham questions Steig's employer, Nina Sharp, who offers Dunham a job but no useful information other than the words "the Pattern," which Sharp enigmatically does not elaborate upon. Dunham raids Steig's house, eventually capturing him with the help of Peter. Broyles reveals to Dunham what the pattern is, though she does not wish to participate in any similar investigations. Upon interrogating Steig, Dunham discovers that John Scott had been speaking to Steig before the 627 incident, and had even been threatening him. Dunham returned to the hospital soon after Scott killed Steig, and engaged in a high-speed car chase that ended with Scott's death, though with his dying breaths, Scott told her to question why she was sent to the storage facility. Dunham, emotionally shaken by the entire case, met with Walter and Peter soon afterward, who decided to stay and help with future cases. ("Pilot")
Their next case was that of Loraine Alcott, a woman who died after giving birth to a rapidly aging baby. During the case, Dunham discovered that her affair with Scott was not as secret as she had once thought, and she begins to question her entire relationship with Scott. The case is solved and finished with the death of killer Christopher Penrose and the arrest of his father Claus Penrose. ("The Same Old Story")
After solving cases involving a bus accident ("The Ghost Network") and a mysterious bald man ("The Arrival"), Olivia finally became somewhat used to her job, and was on good terms with Broyles and the rest of her co-workers. While solving the case of a man who can control electricity, Olivia began to see visions of Scott, which eventually led her to one of Scott's hideouts, where she found several useful items, along with an engagement ring intended for her. Walter attributed this to a piece of Scott's consciousness being transferred over to Dunham's mind. ("Power Hungry")
On her birthday, Dunham investigated a case concerning a virus that caused people to explode. While working on the case, Dunham recalled memories of her stepfather's abuse. After solving the case, Dunham received a letter that only said "thinking of you." ("The Cure")
While investigating a parasite on the heart of fellow agent Mitchell Loeb, Dunham first met David Robert Jones, a prisoner in a German prison and a known bioterrorist. Jones was intrigued by Dunham. Also while in Germany, Dunham was reunited with Lucas Vogel, an old flame. While Dunham and Vogel kissed, nothing further developed between them, and Dunham returned to the United States after the information from Jones had been taken. ("In Which We Meet Mr. Jones")
After solving the case of a kidnapped boy ("The Equation"), Dunham was forced to go back into the tank to search the memories that had entered her head with Scott's consciousness, which she used to solve the case of a Massive Dynamic employee. After receiving a cryptic email, Dunham realized that she could communicate with Scott through his memories. ("The Dreamscape")
While solving the case of a bank robber stuck in a wall, Dunham was kidnapped by Mitchell Loeb. ("Safe") Loeb took her back to a laboratory, injecting her with a mysterious substance. When Dunham escaped and calls for backup, she was instead tasered and brought in for questioning by Sanford Harris, a man she had earlier prosecuted for sexual misconduct. Harris, working with Internal Affairs, intended to get revenge on Dunham for her prosecution of him. Meanwhile, Olivia's sister Rachel and Rachel's daughter Ella arrive to stay with Olivia. While working on the case, Dunham began to suspect that Mitchell Loeb was involved, and immediately went to search his house, eventually getting into a standoff and killing Samantha Loeb. Loeb was captured and interrogated by the FBI, and Dunham revealed that Samantha was dead, driving Loeb into a rage. ("Bound")
A case concerning a deadly computer virus became personal when Ella almost fell victim to the virus, though Ella was saved by Dunham. ("The No-Brainer") Dunham later went undercover with Peter to solve the case of a bioweapon that mutated its victims. ("The Transformation")
When David Robert Jones appeared at the Federal Building in surrender, he demanded to speak to Dunham only. Harris, however, considered that doing so would be negotiating with a terrorist. Harris instead instructed Dunham to raid a warehouse along with Charlie Francis and several others. Only upon finding evidence linking her current case (a virus that caused orifices to seal over) to Jones would she be able to speak with Jones. During the raid, a man was infected with the toxin, linking Jones to the case and therefore giving Dunham a right to talk to Jones. Jones then instructed Dunham to find a box which contained ten games, which were designed for a "recruit" of the Z.F.T. bible. Upon discovery, Dunham was to attempt the first test, and the first test only. Dunham was at first reluctant to do the test, believing Jones to be performing a psychological trick on her. He revealed that she had been injected with a drug called Cortexiphan that was created by Massive Dynamic, however, that would give her the ability to complete the test, which involved telekinetically extinguishing a board of electric lights. Dunham, still skeptical of whether the drug existed, confronted Nina Sharp about the drug, who told her that William Bell had only tested it in Ohio to unsuccessful results in the early 1980's, during which Dunham was a three-year-old living at a military base in Jacksonville, Florida with her father. Returning to the lab, Dunham faked passing the test in order to gain the location of a bomb from Jones. Upon reaching the bomb, however, Dunham discovered that disabling the bomb required the skill that she had previously imitated on the first test. However, through concentration, Dunham appeared to extinguish the lights and disable the bomb, though she attributed it to a simple timer that caused the lights to cut off, and not to any personal ability, though Peter disagreed with her. When Dunham returned to the hospital where Jones was being held, however, she found a gaping hole in the wall of his hospital room, with the message "You passed" scrawled on an adjacent wall. Later that night, Dunham received a call from Sharp, who told her that testing had also occurred at a military base in Jacksonville, Florida, leaving Dunham to believe that she had been a test subject for the drug herself. ("Ability")
Dunham returned to work soon afterward, and was called in to a case where a small boy had been found in a sealed underground tunnel. The pale and scrawny boy did not speak to Olivia, but she began spending time with him, and a connection grew. The boy, who was extremely sensitive to human emotion, helped Dunham solve the case of the Artist, a serial killer whom Dunham had previously chased. Dunham subsequently found and killed the Artist, and also placed the boy into custody of a loving family. ("Inner Child")
Soon afterward, Olivia helped to track down a mysterious beast after it attacked her friend Charlie, finding it just in time to save Charlie from the monster's larvae which were growing inside him. ("Unleashed")
Olivia soon began having trouble sleeping, eventually beginning to believe that she was killing people in her dreams after seeing people from her dreams cross over into her real life. With the help of Walter and Peter, she discovered that her dreams were actually caused by her connection to Nick Lane, with whom she had been partnered with during their experimentation in Jacksonville, Florida. Lane, she discovered, was a reverse emotional empath--every emotion he felt was spread to those around him, causing the suicides of many due to his dark mood. When she was finally able to locate Lane, however, he threatened to commit suicide by jumping off a building (with the many people who had followed him) unless she shot him dead. However, she merely shot him in the knees, saving the people around Lane and incapacitating him. He was then placed into an indefinite coma by the FBI. ("Bad Dreams")
Olivia later helped to solve the case of Valerie Boone, the wife of Z.F.T. scientist Nicholas Boone who had been going on a killing spree as a result of her deliberate infection with an extremely acute brand of syphilis. ("Midnight")
While investigating the case of a spontaneous combustion, Olivia learned that she was capable of experiencing an extended deja vu, apparently, a glimpse of the alternative reality. She suspected that this capability was due to her cortexiphan treatment when she was young. In the episode, she was confronted by Harris again, telling her that her behaviour is erratic and her job is compromised by her emotions. Harris primary reason for driving Olivia out of the case was due to his involvement in the ZFT. Olivia was locked with Nancy Lewis; of whom Olivia was able to calm her and channeled the pyrokinesis to Harris. ("The Road Not Taken")
Olivia was curious about the whereabouts of William Bell and had been wanting to question him of his involvement with the ZFT. In the season finale, she faced William Bell on an alternate universe. ("There's More Than One of Everything")
[edit] Trivia
- The actress playing Olivia is married to the actor playing John Scott.
- In the original script of "Pilot", Olivia's surname was "Warren."
- Olivia spoke German fluently in "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones".
- Olivia has previously used the aliases of Amanda Bennet ("The Cure") and Stephenie ("Safe")
