Episode Report Card Daniel: B+ | 3 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT About a Boy
By Daniel | Season 5 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.11.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Michael's touch has brought Walter back to his normal self, more or less, and this lead up to the series finale starts to feel like a bit of a farewell tour with its nods to the past -- Walter receiving the white tulip that convinced him of the existence of god, not to mention the good ol' sensory deprivation tank. Not just a way to get Anna Torv to show a little skin in the first season, but a chance for Walter to skinny-dip and delve deeper into the flashes of memory revealed at Michael's touch.
The team then locates Donald, a.k.a. September, who has hair and stubble (thanks to being stripped of Observerness due to his meddling ways) and puts the finishing touches on the Defeat Observers Now plan, and fills in some of the backstory: a hundred and fifty or so years from now, a Norwegian scientist will figure out, essentially, how to sacrifice human emotion for intelligence, an almost eye-rolling premise that eventually leads to the Observers as we know them: Emotionless walking brains. But Michael -- September's son, or the genetic-material that passes for progeny in the year 2609 -- is a hybrid, and the plan was to bring Michael to the Norwegian scientist to show him intelligence and emotion can co-exist, and thus, they hope, preventing Observers from ever evolving. Peter and Olivia are intrigued by the plan, since it means that if the Observers never come about, then Etta won't be killed, and there is no discussion of any kind of timetable paradox, so I'm not confident this is going to work too well. I mean, obviously whatever happens is going to work, it being the series finale and all; I'm just not prepared to jump on board with what promises to be an “All You Need is Love” finale.
Anyway, interestingly, we learn that Windmark is the Observer equivalent of a loose-cannon cop who plays by his own rules, since his own superior is not at all interested in Windmark's bloodyminded pursuit of the fugitives. Maybe Windmark will have to surrender his badge and Observer guns! Before that happens, though, Peter and Olivia and Walter need to figure out how to rescue Michael from the Observers and Loyalists, since he just gave himself up to them. It'll probably turn out to be some part of an important plan, but in the meantime, I can't imagine September will be pleased that everyone showed up just in time to lose his son.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Can we flash back to four and a half years ago? Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Peter's hard at work burrowing in the amber when he's startled by something behind him. It turns out to be nothing, at least not at first, but now he's enough on edge that when Walter actually does show up behind, he's lucky Peter didn't put a bullet in his forehead. "You need your rest, son," says Walter, who seems to be in the kind of good mood that usually means he has recently ingested recreational drugs. Peter explains that he's going after another tape, and wonders what's Walter's excuse is for being up so late. "I believe I have an idea about how we can find our friend September," says Walter. The memories that Michael showed him are in Walter's subconscious, so it's time to get in the sensory deprivation tank!
Cut to the team turning knobs and plugging in whatsits, with Walter already in the tank. Olivia opens the doors to check on him, only to be startled when she spots Walter's trunks floating by his head. Walter, as you might imagine, is completely unapologetic, saying his body needs to be as free as his mind if this is going to work, and he hands a discombobulated Olivia his sodden trunks. Come on, Olivia! By this point I'm pretty sure she's seen him naked a few times, so she must be desensitized to his old-man penis already.
Walter relaxes, starts flashing through the memories, while the team does the thrilling work of monitoring his vital signs. Oops, his blood pressure is up! In his mind, Walter's in a sunlit room that includes a Victrola. "Incredible. I'm here," he whispers. It's the same apartment from the flashes Michael showed him.
Peter asks him if he can see anything that might identify where the apartment is. Walter moves toward a motionless September -- remarking that he looks nothing like his usual self. It's true; I wouldn't have been able to identify this guy as September. Hair and eyebrows do wonders for a person!
Peter asks if there are any windows. There are, and Walter goes to them, looking out and describing the water and skyscrapers. The sky is almost blindingly bright, so the skyline is indistinct. Peter asks if it's New York, and with much squinting, Walter can see the Empire State building literally materialize. More comes into view; he appears to be under a bridge.
With Walter out (and thankfully wearing a robe), Astrid's looking at a map and theorizing that, from the view Walter described, he was in a building in Brooklyn near where the Williamsburg Bridge used to be (damn Observers!). So if September's still alive, that's likely where they're going to find him. Walter confidently says September is still alive, based on nothing more than his own optimism.