By Daniel
Peter risks life and limb and discovery by the Observers and the Loyalists, siphoning gas and bartering in a pawn shop so he can buy a silver chain for Etta. She needs one to put the bullet on so she can wear it again, the bullet she found among her mother's things, the bullet that saved the world more than two decades ago. Etta never finds out it was buried in her mother's brain, but I'm hoping that little connection proves significant in that death on this show isn't necessarily forever. Because let's just skip to the end here: they killed Etta.
In the course of this episode's installment of this season's videogame-like gathering of objects needed for the big boss battle at the end, Windmark shoots Etta, leaving her gunshot in an empty warehouse as bait for the rest of the team. It succeeds, to a degree, and Etta knows that her parents need to get lost before they're captured too. She's bleeding out and knows she'll slow her parents down, so she sets off the counter on an antimatter bomb. I imagine Peter might have been very tempted to stay by Etta's side even as the bomb went off, taking him out of this awful, horrible universe that gave his family a second chance only days before ripping it away again.
Olivia, I suspect, much like two decades ago, will be the driving force to save the world again, although I can say you shouldn't underestimate the rage of a father towards anyone who would harm a single hair on his daughter's head. If Peter doesn't kill Windmark in the season finale, I will be sorely tempted to go into the Television Without Pity site and change every single grade on every episode, retroactively, to an F. That's right, I'll go Bachelor on its ass. I just wonder if Olivia will be more likely to want to still save the world, but Peter will have to be convinced it's still worth saving.
It might even be too early for Peter to realize that it was his venturing into a pawn shop -- where his thoughts were read by an Observer and he drew suspicion -- that touched off the chain of events that ended with his daughter being killed. But that's coming. Oh, is that coming.
Also: the Observers found the Resistance mole who'd been warning them of the Observers' movements, and he unwillingly gives up the Harvard lab. The Fringe team gets out in time but has to reamber the lab to make it appear that no one was been there, or else they'll never get through the rest of the videotapes. I don't know if this was explained, but I guess all of the videotapes are still in the lab as opposed to being scattered around the city. It's just the plans and ingredients -- in this case a huge complicated formula that's too complicated for Walter to read (done by September) stashed in Penn Station
Etta's death felt particularly unsettling because of the reunion with Broyles, who it turns out -- not the biggest surprise -- is a mole for the Resistance, having been recruited by Etta herself, after he met her a few years ago and instantly recognized by him as Olivia's daughter. (He saw her from behind, so let's all hope her recognized her for her hair and posture.) It's a touching reunion, although if I'm Broyles, I'm probably a little bummed that the amber has preserved the Fringers in their youth (Olivia and Peter, anyway) while he now looks at least as old as Walter. He is codenamed "The Dove," which I approve of, probably for Prince-related reasons.
I think Etta's death is going to turn the crusade from a hopeful resistance to an even darker revenge drama, but I'm not ruling out her return; this episode featured Walter revealed yet another secret spot, this one a trove of artifacts from all the Fringe cases they've solved, including the body of porcupine man, and his cracked window into alternative universes. This show's not above a good deus ex machina, and I'll be happy if they use one to save Etta. I know, I know, she was only in for a few episodes. And arguably bringing her back will feel like a cheat that lessens the emotional impact of this episode. But things are already bleak enough -- the Fringe team are desperate enough that for their foray into the heavily guarded Penn Station, they use that gas that seals up people's orifices. Remember that creepy stuff? That stuff isn't incapacitating; it's lethal.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Look, he cries at the end of Monsters, Inc. What do you think this did to him? Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
It's Boston and for just a split-second, I thought we might be back in the present day and not the dystopian wasteland of the future. But then you see the oil drum fire and that always means dystopian wasteland and/or union strike. Peter siphons gas from a car, looking over his shoulders constantly, the sound of a siren in the background.
Then he finds a second-hand shop -- there's one of those wind-up cymbal-playing monkeys in the window and it makes Peter laugh, which is weird because those things usually creep non-insane people out.
The proprietor, seeing Peter's gas can, thinks he's here to barter, but Peter says "Not tonight" and he picks up a pillow with "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans" cross-stitched on it. The store owner says it's been here for a while. "I guess it hits close to home," he says. Or maybe even in humanity's bleakest moments, no one's wasting money on a grungy used pillow in a pawnshop. Gross.
Peter finds one of those old electronic Simon games, the kind people played before there were really good videogames at home. The shopkeep offers to give him a good deal, but that's not what Peter's here for either. Well, given that you're a fugitive hiding from people who can read your mind, maybe you should think about picking up the pace and getting what you ARE here for instead of browsing the gross lice-infested wares? He's about to tell the store owner what he wants but then an Observer is all, "This is what you're looking for," and he's holding out a silver chain. It's not menacing -- at least no more than the Observers' general baseline menace -- but the mood in the room sours, especially as the Observer tells Peter it will look good on the young blonde woman. Peter closes his eyes, and we start to hear his voice, jumbled. "What is baseball?" asks the Observer suddenly, telling Peter he's thinking about the Red Sox. God, typical Bostonian. "It's a sport. It was, anyway," says Peter. The Observer says he's upsetting Peter and that he doesn't like to be read. I'd imagine most people don't, buddy, but Peter obviously knows it wouldn't be wise to appear aggravated. "Who's upset?" he says, as nonchalantly as he can muster, adding for complete non-suspicion that he has nothing to hide. But the Observer keeps probing and Peter keeps concentrating; the Observer asks who the young blonde woman is. Peter overpays for the necklace and gets the hell out of there, only to be followed by the Observer, who tells a couple of Loyalists outside to detain him. Peter cracks the Observer across the face with the gas jug and makes a run for it.
The Loyalists chase him, only to find a manhole cover ajar. Almost hilariously, they assume Peter's down there. Fortunately for them, he is, instead of sneaking away around the corner while they're preoccupied with a manhole cover distraction. Crouched in the sewer below, Peter gets his gun ready, but the Loyalists -- being not quite as dumb as they look -- toss some sort of electronic grenade down first. Peter hightails it down the sewer corridor as the explosion chases him and catches him in a blast of light so bright that I wondered if this were some sort of alternate-universe time-travel grenade or something.
But when he comes to, he's still in the future, the awful, awful future. He's managed to crawl out of a storm drain though, and is now the subject of much curiosity from some grubby kid who wants to know if that's a real gun he's got. Peter's also quite banged up, but the kid loses interest almost immediately and strolls away, blowing on his ol' harmonica. So I guess in the future we haven't solved the attention-deficit disorder problem either.
Over at Formerly Harvard University, Astrid and Walter have freed another videotape from the amber. It looks to be in better shape than the others, because they took a long time to get it out, a fact that has Walter grumbling about how it'll take them another twenty-one years to save the world. He's complaining awfully loudly FOR THE GUY WHO PUT THEM IN AMBER IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Peter shows up and acts like a big sook so he can get sympathy from everyone, and then he tells them about the Observer and admits that the guy was able to pull an image of Etta. He hopes though, that since she's already as much a fugitive as they are, that that won't hurt them and he doesn't think the Observer pulled anything else. "These guys, they outmove us, they outthink us, they're always two steps ahead. More if they focus," says Peter, adding that he doesn't know how they're going to beat the Observers. It's not exactly a "We shall fight on the beaches" speech, is it?
Olivia looks concerned by Peter's pessimism, but Etta's a little brighter, telling her dad they'll beat them one by one, and that he instinctively did the right thing by keeping a bunch of random thoughts in his head to make it difficult to be read. She tells him that he needs to make a labyrinth of planned thoughts to keep them occupied, and she plans to teach them all how to do that. "Plans"? Hey, ANY TIME YOU'D LIKE TO START, ETTA.
Then he gives her the chain, calling it a down payment on the first lesson. She's surprised, but he points out she had to give up her necklace so they could work on the laser and he wanted to make sure she got another one. She hugs him and thanks him and says it was worth every bump and bruise. Yeah, well, we'll see about that. "No good deed goes unpunished," she jokes.
Back over to the pawnshop, where Windmark is displaying complete, disinterested mastery of the Simon game when Broyles walks in and waits until the annoying beeping and flashing colors stop. "You wanted to see me?" he says. Yes, Broyles, we all wanted to see you! Where the hell have you been?
Windmark plays one of those holographic video thingies of Peter's encounter in the thrift shop with the Observer and he holds up a chain, asking Broyles what the purpose of these things are. "Its purpose? You wear it. You put it around your neck," says Broyles, perhaps as incredulous as I am that the Observers don't know what necklaces are for, like COME ON. I mean, they're all dressed like Roger Sterling from Mad Men, so surely they have some idea of the concept of decorative dress, if not style. Windmark seems surprised that a fugitive like Peter would risk himself for something "so unexceptional" but the fugitives' confidence to walk freely is, he thinks, a sign that they're receiving information. "The Resistance is protecting them," says Windmark, who tells Broyles that one of the men in his division failed a security test: "I believe he is with the Resistance. I think you will be able to get information about the fugitives through him."
An angry Broyles asks why Windmark didn't tell him about the security fail, and Windmark counters by saying he could ask Broyles the same question. "I didn't know about it," snaps Broyles. Windmark is all "...my point." Yeah, I hate to say it, Broyles, but, checkmate. Not much Broyles can say to that, other than promising to look into it. He leaves, and Windmark goes back to watching the holographic Peter swing his gas can at the Observer.
Over at the Harvard lab, VHS Walter is welcoming the viewers to Tape 2 of his plan to defeat the Observers, which begins with a warning to accept the reversibility of all phenomena. Even... death? No particular reason I'm asking about that. Anyway, VHS Walter is babbling about particles having their speeds reversed and maybe how without understanding of these scientific concepts, they will "not be fighting in the same field." He's got plans on rolled-up sheets of paper that he says must retrieved. The tape's too glitchy to be comprehended, but they are able to glean that Walter hid the plans as he would his most prized possession. But as he rambles on about the train trips he and his mother would take, the tape stops working. Astrid pulls it out, but it's ripped, caught on a fleck of amber. So I guess this means there's no thrilling "Astrid cleans the tape to decipher more instructions while the rest of the gang get up to shenanigans" this time.
That's OK, because Walter has heard enough to know where the tube with the plans are: "The subway platform beneath Newark-Penn Station in the wall." It's because, as a boy, his most prized possession was his collection of Detective Comics and since he, like everyone else, was "terrified that the pinkos would attack," he hid them in the safest place he could think of: underground.
But, as Etta points out, every major access point to Manhattan has an Observer checkpoint, guarded by both Observers and Loyalists and she doesn't know if they can even get close enough to take them out without being detected. Olivia says they'll need to create a diversion, and Peter thinks they'll need much more than that. Walter says they need to get into a rolling cabinet that's in the amber. "Walter, there's nothing in there except lab equipment and your Easy-Bake Oven," says Astrid. Walter says, a little snippily, it's what under it that he wants.
So let me get this straight -- there's more underground space under this lab? They open a hatch, under which are some stairs down to some sort of subterranean chamber. Walter won't just tell them what's down below, because he's "not sure what's left."
They get down there -- the place has its own still-working electricity that Walter flips on -- and find a cobwebbed room that looks much like Walter's lab only darker and creepier: it's his cold storage of all the Fringe events they have ever encountered, dormant for twenty-one years. If they're going to find a diversion to get into the railway station, they'll find it here. "There was a time when we solved Fringe cases. Now I think it's time we created a few of our own," he says. Now there's a line worthy of an ad break if I ever heard one.
So Fringe has really opened up the prop vault for this scene, with all manner of creepy gadgets and souvenirs on display, although I really doubt A) Astrid having no idea about this place (even though her line "I wouldn't have slept at night if I did") and B) the FBI not wondering why, say, PORCUPINE MAN isn't in some kind of special evidence locker somewhere.
Walter explains he kept all this stuff: No. 1 because they're his and No. 2 because he has a "healthy distrust of the government." Which is fine, but given how many Fringe cases involved some psycho carrying on his work, you'd think he might be a little less cavalier about having so much weaponized creepery in one place. Especially if it's stuff like the hair-trigger amber-device-that-looks-like-a-walkie-talkie is just lying around unsecured for someone like Etta to pick up and almost encase them all.
Walter's flashlight falls upon the (cracked) Alterna-Universe Television Screen and Peter assures us all that's not a plot we're getting into this season, and a disappointed Walter says they'll have to go through everything to see what's still viable. Then Walter grosses everyone by picking up and tasting a two-decade-old doughnut hole that has, like, SHOOTS growing out of it, and declaring it still spongy and good.
Over at Observer HQ, the Loyalist who failed the security test has been brought in for interrogation, with Broyles watching via closed-circuit television. The Observer -- who looks a little like if Ralph Fiennes were an Observer -- plays him the security test, in which he's asked about his graduation from the academy, and what the weather was like on the day of his graduation. He hesitates on the last question and finally says it was sunny.
The Observer interrogator stops the recording and tells him the day of the graduation, it started raining at 10:30 AM and didn't stop until the evening. "You were never at the Academy," he says. Holden, the Loyalist, says he was "Class Tech A," whatever that's supposed to mean, but the Observer says Holden's a member of the Resistance. I do like the dispassionate way the Observers go about their work.
Probing mentally, the Observer learns someone forged the paperwork to get him installed in this position. Holden's face is turning red under the strain of resisting being read and his nose starts to bleed when the interrogator asks where the fugitives are hiding. He also asks about Peter Bishop. The Observer gleans that Holden overheard Anil say something, and asks what it was -- but then something else catches his attention: "'The Dove.' Who is the Dove? What is his real name?"
In his office, Broyles is starting to look quite concerned. Holden -- straining, sweating, blood flowing freely -- finally says he doesn't know... nobody does. The interrogator sits back, a slight smile on his face. But the pressure appears to still be ramping up on Holden -- at least until it stops, abruptly, when the interrogator turns to look directly into the camera. Dude, you're breaking the fourth wall!
Broyles makes sure his gun is loaded and holsters it, keeping his hand close by, when the interrogator comes in. He and Broyles stare at each other for a moment before Broyles asks what he discovered, and the Observer says the guy is a low-level operative with limited information, so he found bits and pieces, but not everything. The Dove, I mean, Broyles looks at him for a moment, then says they've heard the name "The Dove" three times now. The Observer cocks his head.
Broyles asks what else, and the interrogator says that when he said the name "Peter Bishop, Holden recalled a moment when he heard Anil mention a lab in Sector B. "I think you know this as the old Harvard University," he says. The music has been building in intensity too, such that I'm half-wondering by this point whether the interrogator is trying to read Broyles too.
After a moment, Broyles nods and the Observer says he thought Broyles would recognize it: "You had a relationship with these fugitives that I thought we would call upon." Broyles asks how he knew that and the Observer says Windmark told him, and said he was going to ask Broyles about it. Man, adding to the general creepiness is this guy's got skin like coarse sandpaper and a slight walleyed thing going on. "I knew them, but that was a long time ago," says Broyles.
The interrogator says that according to this man's knowledge, they are in the lab. He stares at Broyles a little longer before announcing that he'll go make his report and leaves. Broyles looks mighty relieved and he takes his hand off the butt of his gun.
Over in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Astrid is working with some sort of weapon of mass destruction in one of those sealed chamber thingies -- you know, the ones were you put your hands in through built-in sleeves? And the Bishop boys are goofing off and firing some sort of gun and freaking her out, before deciding that the gun he's holding will be a "perfect delivery system."
Meanwhile, Olivia and Etta are scoping out the Penn Station checkpoint, via iPad 2036 and I think it's just stock footage of the same checkpoint they used for Formerly Harvard University. Olivia says it looks like they bumped up the number of Loyalists at the checkpoint and it's not going to be easy getting in. Then she notices Etta is threading the chain through her bullet, and asks where she got it. Seemingly casually, but clearly not.
Etta explains that she found it in their old house on Quincy Street. Olivia looks surprised she was even there. "I wanted to remember things. I don't know. I just wanted to be there. It made me feel closer to you," she says.
The house was looted -- like the whole block, naturally -- but up in what used to be Olivia's bedroom was what was left of her old jewelry box, with a matchbook inside and the bullet inside that. "I figured it had to be important or you wouldn't have kept it," says Etta. She's been wearing it since she was thirteen.
Probably because Olivia's making a big hairy deal over it, Etta asks if she wants it back. Olivia laughs and says no, but does ask to see it, so Etta hands it over. Olivia turns it over in her hands and says, "You know, your father used to call this 'The bullet that saved the world,'" and Etta stares at her uncomprehendingly, but there's no time for Olivia to explain that "This used to be in Mommy's brain" because she gets a message on her phone alerting them that the lab's been compromised. Cut to Broyles surreptitiously putting his phone away and acting all non-molish as he strolls Observer HQ.
Etta and Olivia run into the lab to alert the others that the Observers know they're there. Peter wants to know who told her that. She hesitates, before saying only, "Somebody I trust." She says they don't have time, and sure enough we can see the Loyalists already outside cutting through the chains and locks.
Walter isn't hearing it though, and says they can't leave the lab: "Without the tapes, we have nothing. Forget the blueprints, forget the rocks from the mine, forget whatever is in the tomb; none of it means anything without the plan. There goes the world. The world ending."
Not to be outdone in the doom and gloom contest, Peter says that once the Observers see they've been there, they'll never be able to set foot in the lab again. Olivia comes up with the brilliant idea that they'll re-amber the lab. Thus, even though it appeared that the Loyalists were maybe five seconds outside the door, when they get in all trace of the last couple weeks of their work has been erased -- I guess dust has been added to everything -- such that it takes the Loyalist soldier just a couple of moments to determine that there ain't nothing here but an ambered lab and it's been that way for a long time. Windmark and Broyles are watching via special Raid-cam. Broyles does his best not to look too relieved.
After the commercial break, we see the Loyalists stomp out of the lab and Astrid pops out of her hiding space in an air duct. She does that thing people do on television and in movies where as soon as the bad guys are off-camera, they pop out of their hiding space and stomp around like there's no chance anybody ever says, "Oh, hold up, guys, I forgot my phone" or whatever and comes back. She's got the amber laser with her and she heads back into the lab.
Meanwhile, Windmark is griping about how no one has been in that lab, and that the reading from the prisoner was deceptive. Broyles asks how that's even possible and Windmark turns on another little holographic device; this one is of Etta: "Somehow she hid her thoughts from us, deceived our readings. Perhaps others can as well," says Windmark. He does that head-cocking thing too, but just for a moment -- that thing where it seems like he might be reading Broyles.
But then we're off to the Penn Station checkpoint, where Walter pulls up in the hunk of junk station wagon and tells the Loyalist guard that he's trying to get to Kennebunkport, Maine, and the guard just scans him with a barcode reader-type thingy and asks to see his travel authorization.
Walter, unsurprisingly, plays a doddering old geezer convincingly enough that an Observer comes up to give him a mild electric shock to focus him a little bit but is not so threatening to suspect Walter's any kind of threat -- much to their woe, as Walter reaches beside him for his "travel authorization" and instead presses a gas mask to his face and then gives the Loyalist and the Observer a blast of the toxin that seals peoples orifices shut, suffocating them. Goddammit, I've only just gotten over my nightmares of what it looks like when people's mouths seal up. I'm not going to be able to sleep for weeks again!
Walter turns off the electronic barrier while the remaining Fringers climb out of the trunk. The women take the car around back, while Peter and Walter stroll into Penn Station, surprisingly unmolested because I guess nobody saw the guards suddenly fall over and die.
Inside, they stroll past a Loyalist guard who seconds later gets an alert that there's been a checkpoint breach. The Bishops head down onto a disused platform where Walter shines his flashlight around until he finds a brick column with "Kilroy Was Here" scrawled on it. That's the one, he says. "'Kilroy'?" asks Peter, like it's not hip enough graffiti for him. They pull off the air vent and yank out the heavy tube stashed inside, and we should probably be concerned about the approaching footsteps we're hearing.
Speaking of danger sound-effects, Olivia and Etta are waiting in the car outside and I guess it's a really tight budget this season because we don't see any kind of checkpoint kerfuffle; we just hear sirens and doors slamming and people yelling. "Let's go," says Olivia, and they get their gas masks on and get out of the car.
Inside, Walter and Peter are getting ready to go when the Loyalist guard shows up. Peter shoots him, as he does the Observer that pops into view. Outside, Olivia and Etta are now drawing fire from the guards, but they use Walter's special guns to launch some toxin canisters and it's not long before the sentries are clutching at their throats while dying horrible, horrible deaths. Guess Olivia's gotten over her "Loyalists are people too" hang-up.
Peter and Walter shoot their way outside (well, Peter does, anyway) and into the awaiting car, and then the team peels on out of there, shaking off one final Loyalist who latches onto the station wagon but then falls off, suffocating like the rest -- only he's clutching some sort of device in his hand that's conspicuous by its presence.
After the commercial break, we're over to Manhattan, where Broyles is typing on a laptop that he then sticks in his bag. Looking over his shoulder, he then pulls out an old faded picture of Peter and Olivia and stares at it for a moment.
Meanwhile, the team has managed a clean getaway and have pulled over under a bridge, where they pull the plans out of the heavy tube and unroll them on the hood of the car. It's a huge formula covering every inch of a massive piece of paper, but Walter can't make head or tail of it: "It's some kind of physics. It's beyond everything I've seen. I don't understand," he says. Olivia points out that it's in his handwriting, so even if it was wiped from his mind, he understood it at some point. Walter suggests it may have been dictated -- perhaps by September, as Peter suggests -- and he gets snappy with Etta when she asks if he'll be able to figure it out. "This is Greek to me, except that I read Greek. This is Aramaic to me," he says. Except not the Western dialect, because he does speak that a little. Heh.
Olivia says they should all head back to the lab, but Etta's got a little surprise for them, first: It's Broyles. Aww, Etta, you shouldn't have! That's so sweet! All the Fringers are happy to see him, none more so than Olivia, who clasps her hands in front of her face and responds "Phillip" to his curt "Agent Dunham" (never change, Broyles) and gives him a long, long hug.
Broyles explains that he asked Etta not to say anything to them, in case they were read (Peter's already figured that much out). Broyles says he was called to a crime scene five years ago and saw Etta for the first time. "Even though she was turned away from me, I could have sworn I was looking at you," he tells Olivia. Aw. Etta's got her mother's ass! Once he found out Etta was their daughter, he had her transferred into his section, so he could keep an eye on her, but in fact she recruited him to the Resistance and how to block the Observers from reading his thoughts. Peter wants to know how long that took. "Nearly a year," Broyles tells him. A year? But Peter's got important shit in there right now!
Back over at Penn Station, a Loyalist is walking Windmark through what is, to be fair, the scene where the Fringers murdered several people in rather horrific fashion. Windmark -- with a little lip service to how barbaric it was -- is more interested in what their purpose was and he's shown to the pillar that contained something the fugitives took. What it was, they don't know. Another Loyalist comes over to show Windmark the little device held by one of the men who were killed. He turns it on, and we can hear a light beeping. "I think we're gonna be able to find them," he says. If Windmark ever smiled, now would be one of those times.
Over at the bridge, Broyles is outfitting the fugitives with all kinds of stuff he stole from the office, but where you or I might nick a stapler and some printer paper, Broyles has brought HK pistols with rechargeable power cells, pulse rifles, motion sensors, "scent cones," whatever those are, and -- to Peter's surprise/terror -- anti-matter batons.
"Fourth Gen. Delayed fuse. Blast radius of one hundred metres. And once it's armed, it can't be deactivated, so when you use it, make sure you don't stick around." Well, like Chekhov always said, if you introduce an anti-matter bomb in the fourth act, it must go off in the fifth.
Olivia asks how he got all this stuff, and Broyles says it wasn't simple. Well, that explains that! "Seeing you makes me realize how much I miss Boston," Broyles tells Olivia, adding that maybe he'll put in for a transfer.
Just then, they notice an Observer standing nearby. Everyone freezes, then Broyles tries a nonchalant wave and "It's all right! I've apprehended them!" It's a terrible cover, but I don't think it was intended to do anything other than buy Broyles enough time to pull his gun and plug the guy. "They found you," Broyles tells them, and it's Olivia who spots the tracker with the blinking red light -- you know, like trackers tend to have -- on the underside of the car.
So the concern is immediately twofold -- protecting Broyles' cover and protecting the plan. Broyles tells them they won't make it by car, but they should run. Instead of taking the tracker off and escaping in the car? Another Observer appears, knocking Peter off his feet with a pulse weapon before Etta shoots him, and then the gang gets the hell out of there, heading for some nearby warehouses as Broyles leaves tracks in his car. Just after everyone makes it out of sight, a couple more Observers pop into view. They stand there, facing the buildings, and one of them silently lifts his arm and points towards them.
After the commercial break, the team is hobbling its way through a warehouse, while all around Observers and Loyalists are swarming the area, including Captain Windmark, striding cinematically into a darkened structure. "There," he says, after he and the other two hit their marks, and they continue on. What, is he a bloodhound?
The Fringe team hears the sirens and shouting and know that their enemies know they're there, but there's only so much running you can do when Observers can literally pop out of thin air in front of you and start shooting. Peter and Olivia get separated from Walter and Etta by some bullet-spewing Loyalists, so Peter and Olivia keep pushing forward to get out, Peter assuring Olivia they'll double-back to get Walter and Etta (if Walter survives this, he might want to think about learning to shoot a gun).
And then Etta loses Walter after she provides covering fire for him to get past as well. The fact that she's on her own doesn't bode well and it's not long before Etta -- cautiously inching her way through an empty warehouse -- is joined by Windmark, who apparates behind her, cracks her across the jaw, and throws her through a window. She drops her gun, but she -- bruised and bloodied -- can barely crawl over the broken glass to get it. Windmark puts his foot on it and stands there, staring at her.
Peter and Olivia find Walter hiding in some sort of steel strongbox. I'm sure they're happy to see him, but Etta not being with him is cause for concern (although you could argue that anyone would do better in a firefight solo rather than having to worry about Walter).
Etta is, at that moment, being held up against a pillar by the throat by Windmark (one-handed, no less). He's too strong for her to break his grasp, giving him plenty of time to see her necklace and make the brilliant deduction that Peter bought it for her. He asks her why, and starts reading her thoughts. We see images of her as a child, blowing the seeds off a dandelion. We see Peter holding out his arms to her. "Love," says Windmark, in one of the hokiest science-fiction clichés I can think of. Now he knows why humans cry, is that it?
Meanwhile, Etta has managed to pull out a little dagger that tries to jam into Windmark's neck, but he blocks it and squeezes her hand until she drops it. "You never know when to give up," he says. He steps back from her, points something at her stomach. We hear a gunshot.
So does Olivia -- her head snaps around. "Etta?" she whispers.
Etta slides down the pillar to the floor, coughing. Windmark looks at her a moment, pleased with himself, and then walks away. Moments later, Peter and Olivia come racing in, pausing a nice, long moment on the catwalk to stare down at their dying daughter. They rush to her side, Peter going "no, no, no, no" and Olivia doing her best to be practical and calm and telling her Etta that she's going to be OK, they just have to move her. Etta tells her there's no point. Peter, as any father would, says they're not going to leave her there. "You have to. You won't make it with me. I'll slow you down," says Etta. Look, I get what she's saying, but wounded Etta is probably no worse an anchor than Walter is.
And then: a little beep, and Peter looks down to see that Etta's turned on one of the anti-matter batons.
"You have to leave," she says. Well, that's true now, isn't it? Olivia tells her daughter she loves her, and Etta smiles and says she knows, and gives her the bullet necklace. Peter's not quite as calmly (which is not to say happily) accepting this -- he clutches Etta and says he can't leave her, not again. Walter, his voice cracking as he himself fights off tears -- and even though Etta's really only been around for a few episodes, I do find it getting a little bit dusty in here -- says they have to go. The antimatter baton timer counts down, currently at twenty-six seconds, like SHUT UP ANTIMATTER BATON TIMER.
Outside, a Loyalist tells Windmark that they're sweeping buildings 2 and 3 right now, but there's no sign of them. Windmark, having learned all about love now, says they would go back for her.
A trio of Observers and a couple of Loyalists find a motionless Olivia, still sitting up. "You were wrong," says... somebody? Off-camera. I think it was a Loyalist. But the Observer crouches beside Etta's body and discovers the necklace is gone -- right before he sees the antimatter baton, at four seconds. He sports as much of an "oh, shit" face as those guys ever do...
...and then we watch from Windmark's perspective as the bomb zaps the building (and I guess anything within a hundred metres) out of existence. And then cut to Peter, Olivia and Walter, who have made it, oh, about A KILOMETER AWAY IN TWENTY-SIX SECONDS SOMEHOW. They watch for a moment, not speaking. Olivia stares, face hardening. She's got the necklace wrapped around her fingers, and starts to stride purposefully away when Walter gently says they need to go. Peter remains. "She's gone, son," says Walter, for a second time. Peter remains.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. On the plus side, Peter and Olivia haven't had a ton of time to get reattached to Etta, right? Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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