So: we're fifteen years in the future -- the future of Earth-1, as Earth-2 was destroyed by successful (?) deployment of our doomsday machine. Fringe is a major department, because our universe has been disintegrating ever since the destruction of the other universe, which was intrinsically linked with ours, a scenario that Nina Sharp's admittedly rudimentary snowglobe demonstration failed to anticipate. Part of the problem is that there's a terrorist organization wreaking havoc, and they're called End of Days possibly because they're big Schwarzenegger fans. Astrid's a full-on Fringe agent (and does not show any evidence of decay herself over fifteen years, she looks great) as is formerly little Ella, Olivia's niece. Walter's back in jail, looking like the Most Interesting Man in the World who lost his razor, because he's blamed for the horrors of what's going on. Peter's married to Olivia, who wields her telekinesis as effortlessly as instinct.
And who's backing End of Days? A white-haired Walternate, who vowed to destroy Earth-1 when his entreaties for mercy for his universe during a visit to our universe were ignored. Peter confronts him, pleads with him, is ignored by him, and Walternate shoots Olivia in the forehead.
Amidst all this, Peter has enlisted the help of his hated (not by Peter) father. Due to some time-travelling paradoxical mumbo-jumbo, Walter says he can't undo what he did (including sending the pieces of the doomsday machine back in time in the first place) but Peter can go fix things, which is why Walter managed to pull Peter's 2011 consciousness into Peter's 2026 body. When Peter's consciousness returns to 2011, he uses the machine to create a bridge between two universes, bringing Earth-2's Fringey folks face to face with the gang over here. But as he's explaining what he's done, Peter disappears and, inexplicably, no one notices.
The explanation comes from the Observers, a group of whom have gathered on Liberty Island to stand around looking creepy together. We learn that Peter served his purpose -- to fix things -- and now he is gone as if he never existed.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He plans to spend the summer test-driving Ford Focuses, talking on Sprint phones, and eating Red Vines. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Peter -- that would be the 47-year-old Peter Bishop, not the 32-year-old Peter Bishop last seen strapping himself into a doomsday machine in 2011 -- is being wheeled down a hospital hallway while the controlled chaos of a hospital emergency room attends to the shrapnel wound in his abdomen.
Groggily, he asks where he is, and hey! It's Astrid! She hasn't aged in the past fifteen years, but has apparently spent all that time flattening her hair to within an inch of its life. She looks great, though. She tells Peter that he was in a Fringe event, but he's in good hands, and then someone uses a "UV cauterizer" on the bloody gash in his torso, which, judging from his yelling, is about as painful as it sounds. I'm going to assume it's not a real thing. It sounds like something Jeremy Irons might have come up with in Dead Ringers.
We're at Fringe Medical, May 20, 2026. My god, that's so far in the future that the Beastie Boys will have released two more albums by then! (Yes, that's also a Futurama reference). Anyway, a very young agent in a Fringe uniform (Fringe appears to be just as big a division in the future here as it was in the present over there) goes up to the reception desk and says she wants to find out how Peter Bishop is doing. She sheepishly says she doesn't have the required badge because she was just promoted last week, but she has a temporary barcode. It's on her wrist, so the woman at reception scans it. Plus, it gets her two for one tequila sunrises at Jungle Jim's on Thursdays! Satisfied, the woman at the reception desk tells this... Agent Dunham! that Peter has been in recovery for an hour now, and will be out soon.
Turns out this is little Ella, all grown up, with a nice job casting someone who could plausibly be a grownup version of the sweet little moppet we all know and love. We know it's Ella because that's how she's addressed by Olivia, now striding up the hallway, and Ella has inexplicably gone from calling her "Ahnt Liv" to "Ant Liv" and then she awkwardly tries on "Agent Dunham" but Olivia says Ella can call her "boss" like everyone else. Olivia looks exactly the same, but with her hair swept back and worn down, and she's now dressed more like a university communications director than an ass-kicking federal agent.
But Olivia also wants to know how Ella's doing, and Ella says she remembers being in her SUV and the thing she knew she was on the ground and there was vortex shrapnel everywhere. "People are saying that it's the End of Dayers," she says, and Olivia agrees with that, adding that they think it's "Moreau."
That's when Peter creaks up, saying he feels like new, and he and Olivia hug and we get matching shots of the wedding bands they each have on. Peter lies and says the doctor said he's fine, and Astrid totally rats him out and says he's been ordered to stay off his feet for a few days. Olivia's concerned about Peter pushing himself, but he points out that Moreau's out there, but she's not having it and says this is going to be one of the times when he says, "You were right," but he categorically refuses to do that anyway because he's got "state-of-the-art science" on his side.
Ella asks him if he remembers what he said in the field about the machine and being from the past, and Peter just admits to getting his bell rung but he's doing better now.
Olivia's still suspicious, so he rattles off what he made for her for breakfast on Sunday. She doesn't look convinced, but everyone's attention is distracted by news reports about all the shit that went down last night, at One World Trade Center, which Olivia quietly tells them is a Stage 3 tear and they've initiated amber protocol. The screen lets us know that the terrorist "Moreau" has claimed responsibility, and there's a file picture of him up. It's Brad Dourif, who used to look psychotic and now looks old and psychotic. He is at that moment striding up to the doors of a lovely theatre hosting a performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He listens at the door, and closes his eyes and listens to the soprano.
But he's not here to appreciate the opera; it's business time. Dourif and his men plant some sort of gadgety canister on the ground, and some tuxedo-wearing symphony-lover is coming back from the bathroom or whatever. He sees it, looks confused, and when he hears "Psst!" he turns and sees Dourif and his two henchmen waiting off to the side. That's what you get for not waiting for a break in the performance before going back in! The End of Dayers leave the corpse lying on the floor and stroll out, while the canister's beeping grows quicker and the flashing lights turn from red to a solid green, and there's a blinding flash, and then the theatre -- well, it doesn't look so much destroyed as disused. Derelict. Dust (or debris) floating through the air. Que?
And the opening credits are black. From what I understand, Fringe is not going to be able to go back. All new Fringe science! Brain porting! Cryptozoology! Temporal plasticity! Dual maternity! Biosuspension! Water! Hope! Jesus, water and hope? Sounds like a pretty bleak future.
Anyway, after the sleek opening credits, which look better in the shade, the Fringe division arrives on scene, and from the outside, things look a lot more straightforwardly destroyed. The theatre marquee is ripped in half, there are parts of the building on fire.
The Fringe team strolls through the wreckage, looking queasy as a man, whose torso has been separated from his legs, is carried out. Astrid shows everyone a video emailed by the security company that suggests the terrorists gained entrance from the side fire door. The alarm was disabled.
But there's good news, Astrid tells them, and she leads them to where they think they've found an "electralight." It must have been a dud, she says, and Peter holds it up. "We finally get to see one," he says.
Back at Fringe HQ, Peter works on the electralight while Astrid prattles on about how the "End of Days" was one of her father's favorite sermons: "When the world dies and a saviour arrives to end the suffering and usher all the worthy into heaven." Peter ignores her and asks for the alligator clips, and Astrid jokes that if her father ever met one of the kooks who's actually attempting to end the world, he'd probably kill them himself, and Peter continues to ignore her, so Astrid excuses herself with a stack of eyewitness statements and she'll tell Peter if she finds anything worthwhile. Olivia strolls over to see if Peter's figured anything out, but he hasn't. "Not only can I not tell you how the thing works, according to all the readings, it shouldn't be working at all," he says. Yeah, but... isn't it supposed to be a dud?
Anyway, Peter figures there's only one person on Earth who can tell them how the thing works. "Walter," says Olivia. Peter asks if she's got any markers she can call in, because he thinks it's past time.
thing we know, Peter's walking down a corridor flanked by a couple of guards in a high-security prison, and gets ready to meet... Walter, who shuffles into the meeting room in shackles and huge bushy beard and hair. It's very reminiscent of the first time we laid eyes on Walter Bishop, way back in the pilot.
After the commercial break, Walter puts his hand on the glass partition and Peter does likewise, and they smile sadly at each other. Walter jokes that it must be bad if they're letting Peter see him, and Peter says it is. "I heard a rumour that the sun was burning out. They don't tell me much in here," says Walter.
Fortunately, Peter is able to dispel the rumour that the sun is burning out, but the rumour Walter heard about the increase in Kappa radiation is unfortunately true. Fortunately, Koopa radiation remains stable. Peter tells him that a wormhole opened in Central Park and it took them months to amber it over. Walter says a wormhole shouldn't emit that much radiation, unless it's a "wormhole through time," and Peter says he's exactly right: the carbon levels w
ere consistent with those of the Paleozoic era, 250 million years ago. I'll tell you something: Walter croaking out "Sauropods?" is one of the creepier aspects of the episode, but I'll be disappointed if we don't see some dinosaurs tromping around this episode.But enough about wormholes and radiation and sauropods; Walter asks how Olivia's doing, and Peter says she's fine, and it's back to business: he needs Walter's help, so he hauls out the electralight and explains to his father that the End of Dayers use them in soft spots to rip holes in the fabric of the universe (you'd think they'd have a term for it by this point so they wouldn't have to keep awkwardly saying "the fabric of the universe") to hasten the disintegration of the universe. Peter's hoping to figure out how the thing works and maybe trace its parts.
Walter looks at the electralight through the glass but then slumps back and says he'd like to help but he can't do it without his tools and special instruments, but they both know that's not going to happen.
Or is it? Peter's now in Washington, watching a television that shows a huge vortex having been opened up in the Thames near Tower Bridge. He's in the office of one Philip Broyles, who appears to have lost an eye that's been replaced with glass. And why would anyone get a glass eye that matches your working eye? It's much better to unsettle anyone you're looking at with your unmatching eyes. Like Broyles wasn't intimidating enough already. Anyway, Broyles is up to speed on what's going on with End of Days, so Peter shows him the electralight and tells him Science Division isn't having any luck figuring out. "What do you need," says Broyles, in a voice that suggests he has some idea what Peter's going to ask for, and sure enough Peter asks for a temporary furlough for Walter, which Broyles says is out of the question. "Consult with him in prison if you need to. That's all I can offer," he says. Peter then angrily asks if Broyles is concerned about his re-election prospects, which isn't going to get Walter out of prison any faster. Besides, I find it hard to imagine Broyles having any trouble getting reelected President of Badassery. Broyles indicates the vortex on the television and says that's what he's worried about, and he rants about the world disintegrating and how Walter's responsible. After a moment, while Peter just looks at him, Broyles settles down and says he knows Walter's intentions weren't this. Well, maybe he really hates the English?
Anyway, Peter says that while he's running around right now putting Band-Aids on everything (Broyles' term), if they can figure out this machine, Peter guarantees they'll be able to prevent future casualties. "Philip, if what we lost in Detroit still means anything to you, just give me one chance. That's all I'm asking," he says. Oh no! What of Governor Marshall Mathers? Is he still alive?
And that does it -- we're back to Walter's lab in Harvard, because no one in Harvard is ever looking for any more lab space or anything, I guess. At least the lab is empty, but that's much to Walter's chagrin. Peter tells him that his stuff is all still in evidence, but Olivia's working on getting it out. That should take all of another twenty minutes, I imagine.
But all of Walter's things don't include Astrid, Peter says, after Walter asks about her. Astrid's a Fringe agent now and needed in the field. Walter, still shackled but at least shaven, sadly says that since she's not needed to look after him anymore that she was free to spread her wings. Yes, Walter, that is the tragedy you seem to be thinking it is. Then Walter asks if he can check out his old office, and Peter nods, so Walter shuffles off.
He's happily swiveling in his old chair -- hey, the world is falling apart and you're responsible and your son probably owes a big favour for springing you, so maybe you could get to work? -- when Peter comes in to say there's someone here to see him. He heads out into the main lab, where his boxes are being wheeled in, and he sees Olivia standing there. She smiles warmly when she sees him, and he yells her name and runs to hug her, which she happily reciprocates. Then, blinking back tears, he offers belated congratulations for the wedding, which she says happened a while ago now. Well, yeah, but since at the time he was in prison for DESTROYING THE UNIVERSE, maybe she could just accept the congratulations?
Anyway, Walter's not too giddy from the excitement of welcoming her to the family that he can't yell at a delivery guy for rattling fragile equipment too carelessly, and then a box slides off a counter but instead of hitting the ground, it floats a few inches above it, much to the surprise of the delivery guy.
The box is then set down gently. "Was that you?" Walter asks Olivia, and she says she learned to control it a few years ago. "I'm impressed," says Walter. I should think so!
Elsewhere, in a park clearly chosen for the fact none of the path lights seem to work at all, Moreau meets up with Walternate, who tells him the target is the wormhole in Central Park. "Considering your world was destroyed by a wormhole, I suppose it's fitting," says Moreau. Actually, we're not seeing Walternate's face yet because for some reason this scene is doing a "Who's he talking to?" reveal, even though we can a) hear his voice and b) who ELSE is it going to be? Moreau's got a much bigger electralite, which he tells Walternate followed his specifications to the letter, and will yield more than twice what the device did last night. "It won't be long ... 'til this world joins mine," says Walternate. We finally see him. His hair has been painted white. Because he's older now, and there's only so much craggier the makeup artist can make John Noble look.
After the commercial break, Peter strolls into the Harvard lab, where Walter is hard at work (under guard), and slaps down a bag of Red Vines for his dad, who is having no luck making any sense of the electralight. "I'll continue to run diagnostics on the canister, but even if I am successful, our world is still ending," he says, and then fills in the backstory for us (not for Peter, who would know all this), that their destiny was set the day they triggered the machine. "I didn't understand until it was too late that our two worlds were inextricably linked. Without one, the other simply cannot exist. When their world was destroyed, that was the day we sealed our fate. For all intents and purposes, that was the day we died," he says. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a title!
Peter looks a little bummed by Walter's pessimism, so all he can manage is a "We don't know that for sure." He starts to leave, but then Walter asks if he's seen Walternate. "No. Nobody has. He's become a recluse," says Peter. Which makes sense, given that he came over here to save his world, only to be stuck here when his world was destroyed, says Walter: "Not to mention having the same face as the most reviled man in the universe," he adds, and now there is some more discussion between Walter and Peter about Walter's trial, and how Peter spoke in Walter's defence -- Peter points out that he's the one who got in the machine and destroyed the other universe, and Walter counters by saying the courts perceived that he did it to defend their universe. "This all began with me and my hubris," says Walter. Wait, so what did they think Walter was doing such that he's a dangerous criminal locked away for life while Peter walks the streets all stubbly and widow's-peaked? Walter wants to thank Peter for speaking in his defence, even though Peter clearly did such a shitty job that Walter got thrown away in prison to rot for the rest of eternity and was probably lucky not to be sentenced to death. Touchingly, Peter says, "No matter who's at fault, you're my dad." And he walks off, leaving his father to look like he's about to burst into tears any moment. He pulls a Red Vine from the book, and chews, cries and smiles all at once.
Meanwhile, in a tasteful apartment of beige and chrome, Olivia pours a coup
le of glasses of wine from a nondescript black box labeled "Table Wine," and tells Peter that the steaks he's frying up -- which appear to have come from a couple of cans simply labeled "steak," swear to god -- smell "insanely good." He says that after the day they had, they deserve better than takeout, and without having eaten them, I'd like to put my vote for "takeout" ahead of canned steak.Olivia wonders how Peter's holding up, because Walter always used to cook when he was worried about Peter, and Peter says that of all the bad habits he could have picked up from Walter, that's the least of them.
Then he notices, tacked to the fridge, a picture of a woman, man and child, with a rainbow over top, which apparently came from Amanda across the street: "That's you and me and the little baby that we're gonna have that she is planning on babysitting," says Olivia, and Peter wants to get cracking on starting that, and Olivia calls him out on how gross he is to use a drawing from a little girl to get lucky.
And now Olivia looks sad, I'm assuming because she thinks she's married to a pervert, and Peter talks about how she could reconsider, and Olivia admits to thinking about it, and that she wishes things were different. "Honey, people still have families. Look at Amanda; she was born into this world, and she's still happy. And the world could get better," says Peter, adding that he thinks they're going to have a child. Olivia forces herself to cheer up and says she hopes he's right, and then Peter starts babbling about how they're going to have two or three, a little tribe of Bishops, and then they are hugging and are now all set to enjoy their disgusting canned steak. And can I just ask why they're bothering to save this world of canned steak? I think the survivors will envy the dead.
The morning, they're snuggled in bed when Peter's phone rings on his nightstand. It's an excited Walter, explaining that he understands now: "They're splitting atoms -- not as an outcome goal but as a means to an end," he says.
He's discovered that they were made with Strontium-90, which will leave a trail of "radioactive bread crumbs" to whoever's doing that, so they can use Fringe Division's "radiation tracking maps."
And very quickly we're in a wooded campground, where Peter sees terrorists making s'mores, not weapons of mass destruction, but that's where they're detecting the radioactive signal. Olivia seems to think it's a bust, but asks the team to notify her if they find anything out of the ordinary. She's no sooner walked back off to an SUV when an agent brings a little plastic hide-a-key thing to him, saying she found it on a rock. Peter looks at it and frowns, and then quickly tucks it away when Olivia comes back, musing aloud about Walter being wrong. Peter says he's going to head back to check on Fringe's radiation sensors, and he promises to let her know if he finds anything. He gets back in his vehicle, and slides open the Hide-A-Key, revealing an old key inside. He doesn't look happy.
There's a nice overhead shot of Central Park. I'd love to visit some day. So much to see, like Amber Mountain over there. I don't remember seeing that in any tourist brochures... hold on. There are a couple of nefarious-looking dudes approaching the mountain, one of whom is Moreau. At the edge of it, they open the case they're carrying, which holds two of the extra-special souped-up electralites.
Back at Fringe, Astrid arrives back at her desk to find it littered with a coffee cup and other bits of assorted detritus, and she wearily asks why no one respects her desk, and the moron in front of her cheerfully says, "You're too nice!" which should have made him the instant recipient of all the garbage. But there might not be any time for that, because there's suddenly an alarm going off indicating there's some shit going down in Central Park.
Back at Harvard, Walter, with Ella looking on, is marveling at the electralite device, and wishes he'd invented it (for peaceful purposes, like mining, or perhaps taking out convenience stores that don't sell his favorite cereals). Olivia asks about the component parts, but Walter hasn't had any luck tracing them.
Olivia's phone rings, and she says she's on her way. She hangs up and tells Walter and Ella that there was a security breach on the wormhole in Central Park, and Moreau was spotted. A security breach? Two guys walking along an unguarded path, from what we saw.
Peter's at Reiden Lake, where the trees are as colourful as a bowl of Froot Loops, despite the fact this is May and not the fall. That's OK, though. He's cautiously approaching the front door of what appears to be an empty cabin, but his skulking is somewhat hampered by the ringing of his cellphone, which he should probably set at least to vibrate if he's attempting to go all ninja. He answers it, but there's no response, and the screen is flashing "Missed Call" at him and he doesn't bother to check to see who it was.
Using the key from the box found at the campsite, Peter unlocks the front door and opens it. Drawing his gun, he goes inside, and eventually finds himself pointing his gun at Walternate, sitting in the dining room. "Hello, Peter," says Walternate, emotionlessly.
Peter lowers his gun -- well, Walternate IS, technically, his father -- and sits in the chair opposite. They do not hug or shake hands, which, as it will turn out, would have been helpful. Peter asks why he left the key at the campsite, and Walternate says he knew Peter would have recognized and, after all, he couldn't just call Peter. Peter says he could have. "Not if we were to have the reunion we both so richly deserve," says Walternate.
At this point I'd like to mention the sweet Hudson's Bay wool blanket folded on the chair behind Walternate. Classic Canadiana. Anyway, after Walternate admits that letting Peter know Moreau worked for him was his way of getting Peter's attention -- among other things -- Peter says he should have known that since Walter was the only one brilliant enough to figure out how it worked that it stands to reason that Walternate were the only one brilliant enough to invent it. Or how about that Walternate has tried to destroy this universe before? Did that enter into the thinking? Peter calls them Yin and Yang, which Walternate calls interesting, and then goes into a diatribe about how one man broke the universe and the other man did nothing but have his son stolen, his life stolen, ruined. "I came over here at the end on a mission of mercy to ask for help for my side. The race was lost, a race I didn't initiate. But still, I came. And you destroyed us, Peter ... my son," he says, spitting out "my son" with bile. He continues in that vein but Peter interrupts Walternate to remind him that he activated the machine on his side. "You were going to use it to destroy this universe. I only acted in self-defence," he says.
Walternate ignores this not-insignificant point to ramble on about whether Peter ever wonders what it's like to wake up and just for a moment think that everything is as it used to be, but then realize that it's not? "Soon everyone here will experience loss the way that all those over there did. Air, water... light, even," says Walternate, who adds that Peter will experience loss the way he did.
Watching it again (I'm still mystified at the way "watching it back" has entered the lexicon) it's notable that Walternate stares straight ahead the whole time and never really seems to be looking directly at Peter. At the time I chalked it up to him being crazy, kinda like Michelle Bachmann. Anyway, Peter wants to know what he means by that; Walternate says, "You destroyed my universe, son, and I'm going to destroy yours. But not all at once."
From there we go to the Fringe team descending on the wormhole in Central Park. Ella tells Olivia that Peter's still not picking up his cellphone -- are you letting it ring more than once? -- and another agent tells her that they spotted a bus near the perimeter breach. Again, "breach" is a pretty strong word when you only see fit to restrict an area just by putting up a "Do Not Enter! We're Totally Serious!" sign. Looks like Ella's moved up pretty quickly for an agent who's barely old enough to drink legally too.
Olivia's in the middle of giving some instructions when there's a bright flash -- and thing we see is everyone lying motionless on the ground like in that Radiohead video. You know the one -- the artsy, slightly pretentious Radiohead video for an amazing song? Yeah, that one. Anyway, Olivia's the first one to come to, and she looks up to see a vortex swirling in the air near Amber Mountain.
Back at Cat's in the Cradle Worst Case Scenario Cabin, Peter tells his biological dad that he came here alone to make a personal plea to him, to tell him that he's sorry for the suffering that he caused Walternate, and for destroying his people. He corrects himself: "Our people. I'm sorry for destroying our world," he says. He adds that he'd take back that choice if he could. But it's still no excuse for what Walternate's doing now, and it has to stop, he adds.
Then he holds up some handcuffs and says he doesn't want to have to use them. He puts them down on the table to his gun. "But you're going to come with me now, father," he says. Jesus, I kind of want to punch Peter at this point. Walternate clearly feels the same way: "You know, Peter, if I was really there, I might not be able to resist killing you," he says, his voice suddenly louder and angrier. Peter looks briefly confused by the "if I was really there," and he gets up and grabs for his dad only to have his hand pass right through him. The Walternate hologram does the brief "bad television signal reception" fuzz out that I think likely wouldn't be an issue at a time when hologram projections are this lifelike, but never mind. Holowalternate snaps that he thinks this is the better way, so Peter can learn about loss: "Let's start by killing someone you love!" Very unsettling, like that old video game where the bad guy said, "Stay awhile! Stay... forEVER!" Peter's already on his way out the door as we see Holowalternate reach forward, corresponding with Actual Walternate in his vehicle reaching forward to turn off the projection device. How this isn
't a product placement for Cisco 2026 I have no idea.In Central Park, everybody seems to be up and about and none the worse for wear, and Olivia's on her walkie-talkie, saying they're going to evacuate the area and try to contain the wormhole. She reaches into her SUV for something, and when she steps back out, Walternate is standing there, holding a gun on her. They say nothing to each other, Olivia too surprised apparently to yell or, say, use her telekinesis to rip the gun out of Walternate's hand or to prevent him from squeezing the trigger. Which he then does, and any possible actions for Olivia are moot. And Walternate stands there, staring at Olivia's lifeless body, in a park swarming with cops and federal agents.
So all I can imagine is that Olivia's will stipulates that her funeral have a "Survivor tribal council feel" because we're on a beach with torches all over the place, and Peter is at a lectern stammering out something about how Olivia Dunham, his wife, was everything to me. To him! To him, I mean! Freudian slip there, what? Anyway, then they cut the audio while Peter talks, so let's just assume Peter cribbed the eulogy from the funeral part of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Once you've dried your eyes after watching that, any other pop culture funeral sounds phoney and trite. We listen to music while the camera shows us all the people who are here for the funeral: Ella, Astrid, Nina Sharp... Broyles is there, looking like he's thinking, "Now I know why you humans cry." Walter's there, guarded. Soldiers fold the flag and give it to Ella with a salute, and she fidgets with it on her lap. Astrid cries.
And then Peter sets fire to the log boat on which the coffin is set. Cremation at sea, apparently. Entirely in keeping with Olivia's Nordic heritage. The flower-bedecked bier is then pushed off into the water, and we watch everyone watch it, lips quivering, tears rolling down their cheeks, etc. Peter more than the others looks really pissed.
Afterwards, the ride home is blocked by heavy traffic. Walter wonders if it's some kind of protest, but Ella tells him it's the wormhole: "They're still trying to steal it up," she says, and she starts to give the driver directions for an alternate route, but Walter interrupts to say he needs to get back to his lab. It sounds urgent.
At home, Peter sits. And drinks. And broods. And looks at the empty bottle of Vodka-brand vodka. He goes over to the fridge, and pulls out another bottle -- which is kept in the same drawer as the canned Steak, like what the fuck -- and then when he closes the fridge door he notices the drawing of the family that he's NOT going to have now, and he leans his head against the door and starts to cry for the first time. He also bangs the bottle against the fridge, and I'd just like to caution him on that, because it's not like wasting the vodka is going to make Olivia any less dead.
It's daylight now, at Harvard, and Walter tells a zombie-like Ella that the diagnostics are almost complete. Then he asks her if she remembers how she used to call him "Uncle Walter." Not the time, Walter! She says simply that she doesn't remember much from before "it got bad." So Walter gives a speech about how he's sorry and that he understands that words can't come close to mitigating her loss. He says -- much like Peter told Walternate -- that if he could go back in time and change things, he would. "I would give anything to be able to go back and make different choices."
Sounding like she herself blames Walter somewhat for what happened, Ella interrupts to tell him that he can't. "There aren't any happy endings nowadays, are there?" she says, and he meekly agrees. Seeing his anguish, she softens and says she remembers the cow that used to be there. "She had kind eyes," she says, and Walter agrees, smiling. "My Gene. I do miss her," says Walter, and because we're at the three-quarter mark it's time for Walter to have that epiphany that gives him a solution. A beep on his computer and a glance at the computer screen, and then Walter says, "That's it!"
Peter is standing looking out a window of his house. He hasn't changed his clothes. I'd really like to know if he made it through the second bottle of vodka. Anyone can make it through one. The doorbell rings, and it's Walter, under armed guard, clutching papers in his hand. He tells Peter that it's not too late, that Peter can save both worlds. Inside, he shows him the diagrams, and tells Peter he simply has to make a different choice, and should something go wrong, then Olivia will be their fail-safe.
"Walter, stop. Olivia is dead," Peter says, and Walter says, "But she won't be. Not then." Peter looks at the diagrams Walter has of the machine and points out that he turned it on fifteen years ago. Walter excitedly says all the time he sat in prison, he couldn't figure out where it came from. "I knew the pieces were buried millions of years ago, but how did they get there, so deep in the past?" he says, before supplying the answer: he sent them there, via the wormhole in Central Park. "Peter, you can stop the destruction before it occurs!"
Peter, perhaps not unreasonably, says Walter should just not send the machine back -- that way they'll never discover it, and he'll never destroy the other universe. And here's where things truly get murky, and I don't understand the logic (even the science-fiction logic) of Walter's argument when he says he's already done it, there he has no choice but to do it again. I mean I get that because the pieces were buried millions of years ago, that means that, for whatever reason, Walter is going to send them back. But what I don't understand is how what Walter suggests Peter do is any different from what Walter says he himself can't do. But that's what he's saying: "I can't change what happens because it's already happened. But you can make a different choice within what happened," says Walter, which makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. Walter says he simply needs to find a way to bring his consciousness forward to now so that he can witness what will happen if he makes the same choice, which, for all he knows, is happening already. OK -- wait, am I starting to get this? May god have mercy on us all. So at some point after what's happening right now, in 2026 or beyond, Walter figures out a way to pull 2011 Peter's consciousness in 2026 Peter, which explains Peter's initial confusion, although not why he doesn't seem to feel his old consciousness anymore. But even accepting all that, doesn't the "it already happened" rule apply here too? Doesn't the fact that it happened suggest that no matter what they will do to try to prevent it in the past, the fact that it happened proves they failed?
Still, Peter's moved on from "that's ridiculous" to "imagine the repercussions," and Walter acknowledges that there's no way of telling what the cost might be, which is a line of thinking that it seems to me has gotten Walter in a lot of trouble already, not to mention directly caused the destruction of one universe and, indirectly, another. "But it can't be worse than this. It can't be worse than this," says Walter, stroking his son's face. Peter, after a moment, asks what he'd need to do.
And then, just like that, we're back in the present day, Peter still strapped into the doomsday device, and seemingly having a rough go of it. Walter shouts that his heart rate's going up, at 156 and climbing. Broyles glances at the clock and says Peter's been there for sixty seconds -- how much longer are they going to let him stay in there? Walter, distraught, says Peter has "interfaced" with the machine at a biological level: "If we take him out prematurely, I'm afraid we'll harm him," he yells, and then the music ramps up and Walter at Olivia gasp at something we can't see.
When we come back from commercial, we're on Liberty Island in the other universe, and Brandonate is showing Walternate that the machine started going goofy sixty seconds ago. Brandonate shows Walternate that the soft spots aren't closing, but getting
worse. Walternate stares at the vibrating machine, and the faint swirl in the centre where Peter would go, and then he tells Brandonate to get him Fauxlivia.Hope he feels like being spoken too with smugness and disdain, because that's what he gets from Fauxlivia when he points out that the drawing suggests she has a connection with the machine, that she can stop it. "They outsmarted you, didn't they?" she says. "They know you turned the machine on. So they put Peter in theirs, and now we're the ones that are gonna get destroyed." They both turn to look at the machine, where the centre swirl is starting to look a lot more human-shaped.
Back over here, Walter has decided that something is wrong, and the crew scrambles to get Olivia up to Peter, who is still shaking slightly. The machine then powers down, and Peter opens his eyes, delighting Olivia. Peter's equally happy to see that she's alive.
Then Peter concentrates and the machine's humming again -- "Are you doing that?" asks Olivia -- and then shimmering and popping into the hangar are the rows of desks and computers, not to mention Brandonate, Walternate and Fauxlivia, suddenly appear. Olivia and Walter take a good hard look at their doppelgangers, who stare them down right back, especially Walternate. It's a testament to the acting -- especially, unsurprisingly, John Noble -- that having the different characters face to face never felt like just one actor in two roles, but two different people playing different parts.
Peter steps down out of the machine. He looks positively giddy about what's going on, while everyone else seems gobsmacked. Walter and Walternate look almost like bighorn sheep sizing each other up just before they start smacking each other's head. "I understand now," Peter says to Olivia, and then he starts yelling to his father, who's getting face to face with Walternate.
He tells his dad that he understands now what the machine is capable of and where it came from: The First People are us! says Peter. Specifically you, Walter! And maybe Ella and Astrid, he's not sure exactly who sent the machine back. Addressing Walternate, Peter says he's seen doomsday, and it's worse than anybody can possibly imagine. Tell them about the canned steak! TELL THEM ABOUT THE CANNED STEAK! "This isn't a war that can be won. Our two worlds are inextricable," says Peter. No one else seems to be saying anything or even really reacting. If one side dies, they both die, he continues, so he's torn holes in both universes, leading here to this room: "A bridge, so that we can begin to work together to fix--" and here Peter shimmers and suddenly vanishes.
Walter and Walternate turn to face each other. "You shattered my universe. Do you have any idea how many deaths you've caused?" sneers Walternate, and an angry Walter points out that what he did was an accident but what Walternate's doing he's doing on purpose. Olivia interrupts to say that whatever happened has happened, and now they should start working to fix it. Fauxlivia and her sassy straight bangs seem to agree.
By this point, is there anyone watching who ISN'T yelling "DID YOU GUYS NOT SEE PETER DISAPPEAR? IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THAT?"
And then we cut to a shot of a flock of Observers on Liberty Island, standing around, and it's enough to chill your blood with the knowledge that we're likely to get an answer -- and it's not going to be a good one.
The old one turns to August and says he was right, they don't remember Peter. "How could they? He never existed. He served his purpose," says August, and the Observers continue to stand there while the audience readies its usual post-episode tweets of "What the WHAT?" So I'll just leave you with this: starting season, Joshua Jackson has been replaced by Robert Patrick. There's no WAY that won't be great!
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. It's the end of the world as he knows it, and he feels fine. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.