When the Fringe team arrives, Olivia (Anna Torv) identifies that all the victims were from the groom's side, whose grandmother was a Holocaust survivor - and Walter (John Noble) surmises that they were all killed via their shared genetic traits.
Later, a similar mass death occurs at a coffee shop, in which Walter recognizes the victims all had brown eyes, another common genetic trait.
From fingerprints found at the scene, they discover the culprit is Alfred Hoffman (Craig Robert Young), a Nazi scientist apparently somehow over 100 years old.
But fundamentally, no, I don't think we're a show that will be doing a lot of jumping back in time despite the single horde of calls for the 'Walter's Grandfather Nazi Hunting' series.
"[5] Guest stars for the episode included Craig Robert Young, Max Train, Sierra Pitkin, Brendon Zub, Barbara Kottmeier, John Macintyre, Lauren Attadia, Al Miro,[6] Aaron Brooks, Magda Harout, Leonard Tenisci, Alberta Mayne, Nancy Linari, and Dan Joffre.
[7] Clark Middleton, who was last seen in the first-season episode "Ability", made his second guest appearance in "The Bishop Revival" as rare bookseller Edward Markham.
[9] Also in the episode, someone is seen holding a Dharma Initiative tea bag, a reference to the mysterious organization on the science fiction series Lost.
In a Thursday night filled mostly with repeats, Fox's airing of new episodes Bones and Fringe finished #1 among adults aged 18–49, with an estimated 9.153 million viewers tuning in.
Jane Boursaw of TV Squad wasn't sure what to think about "The Bishop Revival", but loved the plotline about Walter's dad being a German spy working for the US government.
Obviously, this info about Peter's grandfather was supposed to be 'shocking,' showing how the Bishop family's scientific work can so easily be perverted for evil, but by this point it just seems like a very artificial, unnecessary ploy to keep us engaged.
[18] Jennifer Walker from TV Fanatic called the episode "amazing" and a "heart stopper",[19] while Andrew Hanson of the Los Angeles Times enjoyed the father-son dynamic.
[21] MTV's Josh Wigler believed the episode was "terrific," but wished there was more of a balance between the show's three leads, and that Olivia was featured on a regular basis.
[22] He, Hanson, and other critics agreed that this and the previous week's episode gave Fringe some strong momentum heading into the winter finale.