Fringe: Walter Bishop's Craziest Quotes

Perhaps more than any line in the show, this single quote might set the tone for Fringe. Imagine for a moment that you're an FBI agent.  It's highly unlikely that you would want to release, let alone recruit, a man that has been locked away in a mental institution for the past seventeen years. When your sole lead to solving a gruesome slaughter on an airplane is a crazy man, the last thing you want him to do is accidentally wet himself in the back of your car.  Yet in the end Olivia still thinks he'll be useful in her investigation. It might be safe to say Olivia is crazier than Walter.

In the course of a few minutes not only does poor Walter find out that his partner went on to found one of the most powerful and important companies in the world, but now his trousers will surely be uncomfortably damp.  It's as if the world is just kicking him while he's down.    

Perhaps the craziest part about Walter Bishop is the fact that he seems to forget he's crazy.  Sure he has heart wrenching moments where he realizes he can't function in the normal world or he's only a portion of the man he was before, but most often he seems to be in a state of unstable bliss.  Simply floating around his own little world of candy and autopsies.  Often times this translate into a childlike excitement for the things around him. 

In the season two premiere, we find Walter excitedly asking his own son if he would be allowed to ride in the back of an ambulance.  Is he excited that he's going to have more time with the victim's body or simply due to the fact that he's getting to ride in an ambulance?  Honestly, the money is that it's a little bit of both.  One thing is for sure though, Walter clearly looks irritated when Peter tells him to stay out of the EMT's medication.    

Perhaps the greatest thing about being a helpless, crazy old kook is that people are always off balance and never question your motives.  Sure you might pee your pants or walk around the house naked looking for food while high on your homemade drugs, but after a few months of that people will never suspect you're dangerous.

Astrid fell victim to this ploy very early on in the show.  Not only did Walter knock her out, but she was helpful enough to hand him the very tranquilizer filled syringe he used to do it.  It goes to show that you never really know what a man on the fringe is capable of.  This just goes to show that Walter might be crazy... crazy like a fox.    

Creative people will often tell you that they will find inspiration in the strangest places, and apparently Walter Bishop is no different.  In season four he is being haunted by an apparition that seems to only appear to him in the reflection of items around the lab.  While at first he believes his mental condition to be worsening, he quickly believes the specter is real once Olivia confirms that she has also seen the strange man in her dreams.

Convinced that the ghostly man can only be seen from certain angles, Walter erects a complex camera rig (inspired by the camera system used to film fights in The Matrix series of films) to capture mirrors from every possible angle.  It is just one of many examples of Walter finding insane inspiration in the somewhat mundane.