By Daniel
At the start of the episode, Peter's still got his hair, at least. If the Observer tech in his neck is going to make his hair fall out, that will be at least a little more concerning to Olivia than the little wound she finds on the back of his neck.
But he still hasn't come back to Olivia, not emotionally. He's brooding alone and watching Etta videos. Walter also starts working alone, retrieving tape No. 7 on his own, and the instructions lead him to an apartment building that I think we've seen before on this show. He goes on his own, and the piece of the Observer-overthrow is in an ingenious hiding spot -- a "pocket universe" that he disappears into, almost a dream-like place where things literally get turned upside down, and a man named Cecil who has been wandering around for what he thinks is five days but turns out to have been twenty years.
The rest of the Fringe team find the tape, and, taking the tape with them, manage to follow the funky dance steps on the floor that Walter used to explain how to get into the pocket. Interestingly, a blank spot on the tape becomes viewable once they're on the other side. There's more there than Walter remembers, and they discover that he led someone and stashed him inside -- the little bald-headed kid adopted by the Observers back when they weren't all that evil -- and that he was helped by this mysterious Donald character. Lil' Baldy's no longer in the room where Walter left him, but they find a radio that doesn't work in the pocket universe but is apparently meant to be taken back to our universe to receive some sort of mysterious transmission.
Not a ton of action in the episode, but what is there is effective. Peter discovers he can slug it out with the Observers now in hand-to-hand combat -- and the Observers know it too. “You have made a grave mistake. You do not know what is happening to you,” says the one that Peter pounds on, right before Peter teleports right behind him and snaps his neck. He's becoming colder and more ruthless, and that doesn't seem to worry him as much as Walter's increasing callousness bothers him; Walter feels anguished for considering Cecil "collateral damage" when Cecil is killed by the Observers.
But it does bother him that he's getting a little Observo-vision. Although I'd be pleased to say goodbye to contact lenses forever.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Monoraaaailll… monoraaaailll… monoraaaailll! Mono- d'oh! Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.