By Daniel
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.