The episode, written by co-executive producer Josh Singer and directed by filmmaker Joe Chappelle, is set in a fictional upstate New York town and begins with the discovery of a seemingly deformed child by a state trooper.

The Fringe team comes on the scene to investigate and find the boy's photograph, along with recorded sightings of deformed people going back 30 years.

While driving, the SUV containing Olivia, Peter (Joshua Jackson), and Walter (John Noble) is run off the road by another vehicle, whose driver then starts shooting at them before getting shot and leaving.

The daughter of one of the army scientists saves Olivia and Peter from getting shot, and explains that her father stayed in Edina to perfect the pulse.

After Walter pleads to Broyles to let the townspeople keep their secret, the Fringe team decides to not report the case so that the remaining residents can live a normal life.

It was originally titled "Edina City Limits" in press and promotional items, until Fox changed it to "Johari Window" without explanation on January 5, a week before it broadcast.

[2][3] A johari window is a cognitive psychological tool used to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships, and may have been chosen as the episode's title because it corresponded to the transformative nature of the plot.

[3] The sound mixing department's inspiration for the "Edina hum" (the frequency hiding the deformities of the townsfolk) came from executive producer Jeff Pinkner.

Peter completes the tune and explains it is from the movie Deliverance (1972), which depicts murderous, inbred, and deformed people living in rural Georgia.

[8] When Walter shows Astrid how the moth changes back to the butterfly when they enter the town, he says "a friend once said 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'"

It rose thirteen percent from the previous week's episode, and was the highest rated night of Fringe since the season premiere.

[2] John McCracken of TV Guide also compared it to The X-Files, and thought the episode was "tedious" and "largely felt like a by-the-numbers B-movie affair".

Club gave the episode a C, explaining that "despite some good makeup effects and a few emotional moments, "Johari Window" [was] distressingly average".

[7] Andrew Hanson of the LA Times enjoyed how the "Edina hum" remained in the background of every town scene, but missed the "investigation exposition"-supplying presence of Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo).