By Daniel
Strange things are afoot in an episode very reminiscent of classic X-Files episodes. A string of cars and trucks along a lonely road lose power, which is inconvenient. Small metal objects appear weightless, which is strange. An airplane crashes, killing everyone. The Fringe team comes to play, and find the nearby town full of corpses and psychos. Something's messing with the town's minds, making them confused and/or violent. More perplexing is that our heroes can't seem to escape the town when they're trying to transport a mortally wounded man to the nearest hospital. (Although that might not be as strange as the fact that Walter has joined the team on location, although that does turn out to be quite convenient, plot-wise.)
The gang holes up with the unaffected survivors in a high school, and the Bishops determine that -- after spotting double irises and double DNA -- that worlds are colliding, and they manage to shepherd the survivors to the centre of the alignment, which is unaffected as the overlapping universes cancel each other out, more or less erasing the town. The explanation: David Robert Jones did it, with the amphilicite, and it's not a huge surprise when they remind you during the "previously on" scenes that DAVID ROBERT JONES STOLE AMPHILICITE. Still, great episode. It opens with Olivia dreaming (remembering while sleeping?) of having sex with Peter, and ends with her greeting him with a kiss and takeout from their favorite place, because that's what they always do on Fridays. Peter's shocked, but if he plays his cards right, he and Olivia might go all the way!
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Memories light the corner of his mind. Misty, watercolour memories. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
We start off with lots of diffused blue light and shadow, soft focus and lens flare as two people have sex. It's like a sex scene from a late-night, not-quite-soft-core movie. It's Peter and Olivia, of course -- Olivia on top -- and it's obvious that we're again starting with a dream sequence. "I love you. Do you love me?" she whispers. He says he does, and she tells him to say so. He sits up and says it and they keep kissing and doing it, and then the surprise is that it turns out it's Olivia having the Peter-sexytime dream. She wakes up thanks to the vibrating cellphone on her nightstand -- as far as we know, it's the only thing vibrating right now.
She answers it. It's Peter, who apologizes because it's early and asks if he woke her. Olivia follows society's rule that, for some reason, you never admit to being woken up by a phone call, and asks what's up (not an erection reference, probably). "Me and Walter for the last twenty-four hours. We've been working on the machine," he says, adding that he thinks they've had a breakthrough that could be the first step towards getting him back home. There's a "...but" in his voice that Olivia asks about, and he says he needs her help with something. Also not an erection reference. Probably.
Olivia arrives in the lab while Walter and Peter are mixing bubbling fluids in beakers and flasks, Walter saying the trick is to ensure "optimal heat distribution while not allowing the mixture to separate." Olivia asks about what appears to be a pleasant smell, and Peter says Walter is creating a new breakfast cocktail: hot cinnamon roll. Any excuse for Walter to just be drinking in the morning I suppose, but to justify his alcoholism he explains that the cocktail was conceived as a morning beverage, pointing out that the word itself comes from the rooster, who announces the dawn of each day, in case we don't know what a rooster does.
Walter pours a glass for everyone, and they sip, with Olivia and Peter seeming to find it somewhat objectionable. Olivia asks what's in it, and Peter croaks out that it's mostly cinnamon schnapps and butter, but right now it's mostly butter. "Needs more butter," says Walter. Heh. He goes to churn more butter or whatever, giving Olivia time to be awkward with Peter, who asks her what's wrong. She says she's just tired. Oh, and moments ago you were inside her in her dreams, Peter. She asks what he needs her help with, and he directs hers to the biomechanical interface that he and Walter have just finished. Peter puts his hand on the device, and the machinery locks his arm in place with pins that look kind of painful, actually, and Walter explains that the device is uniquely calibrated to work only with Peter... blah blah we all know this. This Olivia doesn't, though, and wants to make sure she's got it straight: "So you're able to control the machine with your thoughts through this?" she asks, and Peter says that's how he did it back in his own timeline. "And what, you just click your heels and think of home?" she asks, and Peter says they haven't worked out how that works yet, but that's kind of how he ended up here in the first place, so in theory, yeah. Walter says they won't know for sure until they're able to test the prototype on the machine itself, and Olivia clues in that that's what she's here for, since that would require Broyles' authorization. She says she'll see what she can do. I'm sure it's no problem, really. They just want to test this thought-control thingy on the doomsday device that can alter timelines. Probably just a simple requisition form.
Over to Southern Vermont now, along a lonely stretch of road with a truck driver singing along to a song -- something about crazy dreams -- when the radio starts cutting out. It's not the signal, it's the radio itself, and soon the other instruments on his dashboard are likewise going haywire, as are the lights on his rig. Presumably the CB radio won't tell him just where Smokey is. He rolls to a stop behind a line of cars with similarly flickering headlights that then go dead completely. He climbs from his cab, and then notices that several small objects in his truck -- pliers, screwdriver, sunglasses -- are floating, and then they drop to the ground. Perplexed, he joins the other confused motorists, who have gotten out of their cars and are staring at lights in the sky. Just when you're thinking (hoping?) it's a UFO abduction -- it has the feel of one of those X-Files episodes where people got abducted -- the lights turn out to be a plane, albeit one that's much too close to the ground as it passes overhead, tilting to the left, and it crashes just beyond the line of trees behind them, throwing up a huge fireball. As people clutch each other, all their vehicles start up again in unison, headlights shining and radios broadcasting crazy-dream country music. One guy looks around, embarrassed, as everyone realizes he was blasting Lady Antebellum in his car.
After the amber opening credits, Olivia's arriving not at the crash site but the stretch of highway where the vehicles all lost power. Broyles welcomes her to Vermont, forgetting to point out that it's for lovers, and explains about Atlantic flight 591 passing overhead crashed after their electrical and hydraulic systems failed. Nearby, Astrid's having trouble raising Walter on her phone.
Broyles says they think whatever caused the crash originated here, and he fills her in on the vehicles losing power three hours ago. Olivia figures it's some sort of interference, and asks if there are any high-frequency towers around. Broyles says there aren't, and at any rate that wouldn't explain some of the stranger events described by the witnesses here, like the objects suspended in midair.
By this point, Astrid is yelling into the phone at Walter, asking if he can hear that, until he says, from behind her, "For God's sake, woman, lower your decibels!" He and a grinning Peter have just arrived. Walter's presence surprises everybody, and Olivia congratulates Peter on getting him to leave the lab. Peter says it was his idea. Broyles figures Walter finally just got tired of being caged up, but Olivia says he's been much more open overall lately. The step is Walter leaving the door open while he's going to the bathroom, so let's not celebrate just yet.
Of course, none of the people in this timeline, except for Peter, realize how much havoc Walter can cause at an investigation site. He tells Peter to "look at this," and to everyone's horror, kicks a hubcap off a car. Then everyone's amazed when he tosses at the truck ahead in line, and it sticks to the driver's door. He's already figured out that the floating objects and the failure of the electrical systems were caused by a brief surge in the area's electromagnetic force, which was so strong it left a residual magnetic force in all metal objects in the vicinity.
Broyles asks if Walter has any idea what caused it, and Walter doesn't, probably because he didn't see the "previously on Fringe" scenes this week, which conspicuously reminded everyone that David Robert Jones stole a bunch of amphilicite, which is very bad news. To figure it out, Walter's going to need some samples from here as well as some of the plane's wreckage and the black box, so Broyles and Astrid head out to get custody of the wreckage and the bodies from the NTSB.
Of course, this being Walter, he just happened to see a sign for a place down the road that serves rhubarb pie. Sure, it's probably open! It's only the middle of the night!
So the team heads down to Westfield, past a sign welcoming people home, so it must be for any of the 584 people who supposedly live here. They pull up at the diner, Walter gleefully taking at its word the sign that proclaims the rhubarb pie to be "the best" in this town of fewer than 600 people. I've got twenty bucks that the menu also proclaims the rhubarb pie to be "world-famous," which is an adjective used with an alarming frequency on small-town diner menus. Olivia can't get a signal on her cellphone, so she heads off for a payphone so she can get an ETA from Astrid.
Inside the diner, they're welcomed -- along with the classic "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" on the jukebox -- by a friendly proprietor who invites them to come in out of the cold and have a seat. "Your largest slice of rhubarb pie and coffee, please," says an absolutely giddy Walter. Peter's just looking for the bathroom, and the owner gives him directions. Serving Walter coffee, he starts in with the diner small talk of where they're from and which relatives might be in the area, and then the owner's surprised when Walter admits he had no idea that he was in Vermont. "How does a man drive all the way from Boston to Vermont and not even know that he's there?" asks the owner, not unpleasantly. Walter guilelessly explains that he's not allowed to drive: "I haven't renewed my license since I got out of the mental institution," he says. This throws the owner for a momentary loop, but then he starts guffawing and tells Walter the pie's on the house.
Outside, Olivia passes by a car that's running but empty, with the driver's side door unlocked. She looks inside, curious. She can't get a dial tone on the payphone either, which is perplexing. Also perplexing: Peter finishes up in the bathroom, and steps out, but then hears groaning coming from somewhere in the back.
Out front in the diner, the owner seems to have forgotten he and Walter have already met. He says it looks like June got him coffee, and asks an extremely confused Walter what he'd like to order. "But I ordered a moment ago," says Walter. The owner tells him it's his busiest shift, and asks if Walter wants to order or not. Walter -- stealing a glance around the empty diner -- says he ordered rhubarb pie, which was offered free of charge. The owner leans in, good humor gone. "Are you trying to steal food?" he says. Walter, a little scared, says he's not. "Nobody steals from me. Not you, not Cliff, nobody. You hear me, old man?" says the cook. Walter hears him and doesn't protest the "old man" part. He's frightened. There's something off about the owner's eyes -- they seem unusually large and dark. But he blinks and he's friendly again. "Oh! Still got to get you that pie. Must've forgot. I'm sorry about that," he says, straightening up. Walter has the good sense not to remind the owner this time that it's supposed to be on the house.
In the back, Peter opens the door to some sort of stockroom, where he finds a man, bloodied, lying on the floor. There's also something hanging from the ceiling that I thought was another body wrapped in plastic, but that doesn't appear to turn out to be the case. It's not a refrigerated room, so it's probably not a side of beef, because my other fallback explanation was that the cook has a Rocky fixation.
While Peter goes to help -- oh, let's call him "Cliff" -- the owner's serving up the rhubarb pie to Walter (and the camera angle lets us see there's another body behind the counter, which Walter can't see) and asking if Walter needs anything else. Walter says he doesn't -- he's still staring at the owner's extra-large, notched irises -- and something clearly seems off so it means Walter's at least on alert when the owner picks up the large knife from the counter and swings it at Walter. Walter jumps back and then has to fend the owner off. He yells for Peter, who comes running, tackling the owner, who then kicks Peter off and lunges for him, only to be dropped by a single shot from Olivia, who has returned like a ninja.
Everyone seems to be OK (except for the cook), and Peter tells the others about the wounded guy in the back room. Everyone heads back there, although Walter takes a moment to check the eyes of the cook again, to have another look at the curiously hourglass-shaped irises. Also, he grabs a few of the customer-comment cards so that everyone can give the diner low marks in the customer-service category.
Walter examines the unconscious wounded guy. He's got weak pulse pressure, thanks to a puncture in his arm. "An inch to the right, it would've hit his brachial artery," he says. I'm going to assume that would have been bad. Meanwhile, Olivia's found the other body, and Peter wonders if the cook was a serial killer. Olivia, though, thinks there's something off about the whole town: "The whole place is deserted. I can't get a cell signal. All the phone lines are down," she says. Walter's perturbed to discover they can't call in an ambulance, since Buddy has lost too much blood for Walter to treat him there. So they pile into the SUV to take the guy to the nearest hospital, twenty miles away. They pass the "Now Leaving Westfield" sign, and then Cliff starts to come around. Walter tells him that he's injured. Indeed, there's also blood around his mouth. "We're going to get you to a hospital," says Walter, but Cliff moans that they can't leave. Walter assures him he'll be fine, and asks his name. "Cliff Hayes," says Cliff.
Meanwhile, Olivia drives past the "Welcome to Westfield" sign again, much to her and Peter's surprise. "You must've gotten turned around someplace," says Peter. Yeah, on the straight road you've been driving for twenty seconds. Peter tells her she just has to stay on the main road, and it's always fun to get condescending directions from the passenger seat. Olivia says she thought she did that, and in a moment, they pass the "Now Leaving Westfield" sign again. And then in another moment, they pass the "Welcome to Westfield" sign again too. "What the hell is going on here?" asks Olivia. Cliff's in the back, muttering over and over again, "We can't leave, we can't leave," and Walter's all, "Yeah, maybe we should LISTEN TO THIS GUY." They're trapped!
So they wind up parking at the deserted Westfield sheriff's office. No luck with the payphone there either. Peter and Walter carry Cliff in and set him down, and then Peter goes in search of a first aid kit in the hopes there may be an IV in it so they can try a transfusion. In a lucky break (!) Walter is Type O negative, so he can donate.
Olivia, meanwhile, is trying every single phone in the place and coming up empty. She asks Walter if he thinks it's got anything to do with what happened on the highway, because only a genius-level scientist could make that connection. Walter's not sure, but he's seen this once before, only he's talking about the musical Brigadoon, which apparently takes place in a magical town in the forest where no one can leave. "Of course, that quaint Scottish village was more hospitable than our present locale," he says. Maybe, but at least with the lack of cellphone reception, you're not going to be interrupted here with someone's cellphone ringing during a crucial scene.
Olivia's too freaked out to indulge Walter in his usual bullshit, so he tells her in all seriousness that he hasn't formed a hypothesis as he's currently preoccupied with keeping this dude alive. Fortunately, Walter comes back with an IV kit, and as they're getting things ready, Cliff sits up and stars hissing about how they're not safe here and how everyone in the town is crazy.
A little later, daylight having broken and Cliff no longer at death's door, he fills them in. He says the craziness started three nights ago, when his sister called, frantic, scared because a man had broken into her house. He tried calling the sheriff, but the phones were down, and when he arrived, his sister had shot her husband point-blank in the head: "She said she'd never seen him before in her life. They'd been married for eighteen years," he says. Look, if I survive through 18 years of marriage without my wife finally getting sick of MY bullshit, I'll be surprised. Peter says, so the effects are amnesic? And Cliff says not exactly; she was delusional, talking about people she'd never met, things she'd never done, children she didn't have, Farmville crops she'd never sown. He says it was like she was having memories from someone else's life. Walter, who's looking after the IV line into Cliff's arm, says the symptoms resemble schizophrenia, which he solemnly notes he knows well.
Except it wasn't just her, says Cliff -- it was everyone. Olivia wants to know how a whole town turns schizophrenic overnight, and Peter suggests a biological contagion, like a virus that affects the human brain. Except, points out Walter, that theory doesn't explain how they drove out one side of the town and right in the other. He asks Cliff what else he can tell them about the symptoms.
"Most got sick right away. Others took longer, like hours, a day. But it always started the same way. First confusion, forgetting things, tremors. Some of them became paranoid. Others turned violent," he says. Pssh. He could be describing Frosh Week at my university. Cliff explains that a few of them, who seem to be immune -- including his wife and daughter -- are holed up at the high school. They need supplies, which is what he'd gone to the diner to get. "But what they need most of all is hope," he says. No, I'd still go with "supplies" on top of the list of things they need most.
So: how to contact Broyles to let him know what's going on? Peter says he found some radios out back, but he'll need an elevated place with a clear line of sight and something to boost the power if he's going to get a signal out. Hey, what luck! There's an emergency generator at the high school!
But they're not going out unarmed. They stock up on firearms from the sheriff's department -- which is a little suspiciously well-stocked given that people here have been descended into mad violence -- while Olivia notes that there's a military base about fifty miles away, and wonders if it's a military experiment gone wrong, like that case in Edina where the town population was disfigured. Walter's all, "We never had such a case," and a surprised Peter tells them he investigated a case in Edina with his Walter and his Olivia.
Olivia's confused for a moment and then says she must have read about it in Peter's debrief. Jesus, did Peter list every single case he and his Fringe team investigated? Anyway, no one thinks twice about Olivia's confusion and memories from another person, just moments about hearing the town's descent into anarchy started with confusion and people having other people's memories, and they continue grabbing guns. Walter, nervously saying he's not a violent man "per se," decides that, given their present predicament, should probably have one of them, but Peter gives him pepper spray, a disappointment that seems like it's for the best when Walter holds it the wrong way.
They have no problem strapping Cliff, though! "You ever use a gun?" Olivia asks him. Surprised, Cliff says, "I'm a teacher!" Yeah, in the United States, so lock and load, Rambo. Olivia gives him a five-second lesson how to use it, and now it's time to roll out.
Outside, they're getting into the SUV when they hear some sort of humming sound. Turns out it's coming from some dude in a business suit, covered in blood and holding a doll (also covered in blood). He takes no notice of them, not even of Peter holding a shotgun on him, and just goes shambling up the street, still humming to himself. "We gotta get out of this town," says Peter.
But they've got new troubles: the SUV won't start, no matter how urgently Olivia says, "Come on." Walter says the increase in electromagnetism that caused the cars to lose power on the highway must be present in this town too. Olivia points out that the car was working when they arrived, and Walter says the effect must be intermittent. "Intermittent" is a word that, in this case, means "a plot device."
Rather than waiting for god knows how long for the "intermittent" effect to wear off, the team decides to walk. Can't imagine that in a town of 548 the school is too far away anyway.
Making the walk somewhat uncomfortable is the brisk wind that's blown up, which does add a little atmosphere in the form of swirling leaves and rubbish to give the town that "just-abandoned" look. Cliff tells Walter that he sees the resemblance between him and Peter, who he assumes is Walter's son since Olivia called them both "Bishop." Walter at least doesn't deny Peter is his son, but answers confusingly (for Cliff, I mean), "In a fashion, yes, you could say that."
Behind them, Olivia's struggling because her arm won't stop shaking. It's almost as if she's getting tremors. Peter's concerned, but she says she's OK, just a little dizzy. Then she starts badly slurring her words, like she's having a stroke, and finally admits that there's something wrong -- that it feels like there's someone else in her head. She hands over her gun to Peter, because she's scared that what's happening to the other people in the town is happening to her too. Peter stares after her as she keeps on walking, wondering if he's going to get a chance to tap that before he has to shoot her.
The expedition makes its way -- rather disappointingly uneventfully, for a town full of violent nutjobs -- to the school, where Cliff hammers on the door, and a guy named Brian lets them in. "I thought you were dead. What happened?" says Brian, and Cliff calls it a long story. He's already let Brian know that this is the FBI with him, but I think he still has some time he fills the guy in. Anyway, Olivia asks how many they have here, and Cliff says twelve, which Brian corrects to eleven. Cliff looks at him, and Brian says, "Teresa," adding that they had to lock her up in one of the empty classrooms, since they couldn't take the chance she'd hurt one of them.
Then the group of survivors comes out to meet them, including Cliff's little girl Lacey and his wife, who thought Cliff was dead. "I'm here, I'm here," he says, and here's hoping she didn't, in a fit of fear-induced self-preservation, decide to get remarried already.
Peter pulls Olivia aside to tell her that she's got to tell Walter about what's happening to her. Or, really, Peter could, because I think survival trumps privacy, but before Olivia can respond, Brian gets all up in her grill demanding to know where the rest of the FBI is. It would be easy enough to point out that since no one from the town has been able to call out, there's no way the FBI would have any reason to know what's going on, but Olivia -- probably mindful of Cliff's hokey statement that the survivors need hope more than anything else -- just says they'll be here soon.
"We've been trapped here for days. Our whole damn town's destroyed. Our friends, our families, everyone's going crazy, and the U.S. government sends three people?" he snaps. Well, budget cuts, you know. Better to send three FBI agents than curse the darkness!
Olivia promises that help will come, but in the meantime they need to work together to figure out what's going on and how to get out. That's where Walter comes in, saying that if has a chance to examine one of the victims, they may be able to get some answers.
Fortunately, there's Teresa, locked in the classroom. Walter shines a light in her (normal) eyes. She seems a little spaced out, and when Walter snaps her fingers, she says, "You're the man from the government. You're here about our air quality. The air quality's bad here, isn't it?"
Walter checks her mouth, and finds a double row of teeth in her lower jaw. "Fascinating," he says, as Angela -- Cliff's wife -- gasps. Walter's got a theory now, which he shares with Olivia, after telling her about the double irises of the diner's cook: "Perhaps whatever is afflicting these people is creating some sort of rapid mitosis, causing the cells to replicate exponentially, duplicating body parts," he says. Man, what I could do with four arms! Or two p-- anyway, Walter goes back to examining Teresa, who flops a hand against his chest and says she should go start supper, since Lee will be home soon. Angela points out for Walter and Olivia's benefit that Teresa's husband died six or seven years ago, and so Walter, taking a blood sample, asks Teresa herself when the last time she saw Lee was, and she says it was this morning, when she packed his lunch before he went to work. Walter, I assume just making conversation while he draws the blood, asks what she and Lee talked about, and she turns suddenly, snapping and asking if this is some kind of sick joke: "My Lee's dead. Seven years this April." Then, a moment later, she's dreamily spacey again, saying she should start supper, what with Lee going to be home soon and all.
Peter strolls in, having been unsuccessful at getting the radio to work. "I couldn't get a signal. Even if I had a generator twice that size, there's just too much electromagnetic interference." He thinks they're stuck there for a while. Olivia tells him about Teresa thinking her dead husband is still alive, and Peter urges her to let Walter test her blood too.
She stares at him for a long while, and then we cut to Walter taking a blood sample while assuring Olivia that the symptoms she's feeling are probably just psychosomatic: "You were always very empathetic, even as a child. That's why you're such a great investigator: your ability to empathize with the victims," he says. Of course, that doesn't explain how she had a memory of a case that Peter worked with another Olivia, but maybe Walter's forgotten about that. At any rate, if they find out that it's not actually all in her head, then they'll just deal with it.
Walter moves over to a microscope in the lab to examine the sample, and Olivia tells Peter that she's glad he's here; not just for her, but for Walter, who was more shut-down and isolated before Peter arrived. Peter says this Walter is a lot like his Walter, which prompts Olivia to ask the obvious question: "What's she like?" and she has to clarify for a clueless Peter that she's talking about the other Olivia. Peter, a little awkwardly, explains that she's very driven, stubborn, and doesn't like to lose. She also sees the best in people, even when they don't see it themselves. "When she first found me, I was in Baghdad trying to run a scam on these two Iranian businessmen," he says. Olivia seems surprised by the admission, and tells Peter she didn't picture him as the scamming type. "That's what made me so good at it," he points out. Peter fills in some of the broad strokes, about how the other Olivia just needed him to babysit Walter while he was working on a case for the FBI, and then after it was done he could go back to his own life. "Despite, of course, how gorgeous she is," he says. Nice job saying that after revealing what a scam artist you used to be, Peter. Olivia compliments his good taste, and then Peter gets serious and says Olivia gave her something that he hadn't had since his mom died, and you get a little concerned about what he's going to say , but it's just that Olivia gave him a place to call home, and eventually they had their own thing: "A routine, you know? On Friday nights, we'd get together. We'd watch cheesy horror films and order in from Damiano's." Olivia says knows the place, so you get some idea where this is going to go.
Olivia says the other Olivia is lucky to have Peter, and then their tender moment is interrupted by someone screaming. They rush off to a bathroom, where Angela has found Teresa dead on the floor, apparently after slashing her wrists. Later, as they cover her up -- Teresa now has double irises -- Cliff says he doesn't understand; she was fine when they got here. "If it happened to her, what's to say it's not gonna happen to the rest of us, and why hasn't anybody come?" he asks. Olivia refrains from telling him it's even happening to one of the FBI agents that IS already here, and just says that they'll all be OK. They just need to figure out what's happening and how to get out. Oh, is that all? How's that going for you so far?
Then Cliff starts lamenting not taking a teaching job in Philadelphia that he was offered last fall, like his wife wanted him to do. He convinced her to stay, because deep down he was scared to leave the town that was all he'd ever known. But if he'd done that, his family would be alive today. Olivia says that if it weren't for him, his family might not have made it as far as they have. I'm not sure how that trumps what he said, but before they can discuss it further, Walter's voice crackles over the loudspeaker, summoning Olivia and Peter to the biology lab.
When they get there, he tells them that he thinks he's worked out what's happened to the town. Upon examining Teresa's blood, he found ninety-two chromosomes in her DNA, twice the genetic material any human should have. Olivia wants to know how that's possible, and Walter starts explaining that he and Belly once combined a tiny portion of their universe with the alternate universe (no explanation on how that happened) in a goldfish bowl in the lab, and the effect on the physics -- gravity, electromagnetic fields -- was catastrophic. Peter sums it up: "What you're saying is the two universes merged together somehow?"
Walter draws a Venn diagram on the blackboard, with each circle representing respective universes, and the overlapping portion representing Westfield itself. That's where they're trapped. Peter's starting to follow along, figuring that people are going insane because they're merging with their doppelgangers. "Can you imagine being flooded with years and experiences and memories that were not your own?" asks Walter. Olivia asks if it can be reversed, and Walter says it can't, that the damage is done. This, understandably, freaks Olivia and Peter out, surprising Walter until he remembers to tell them that Olivia's blood was fine. "You left that part out," says Peter, as Olivia practically collapses in relief. Walter explains that as with the three of them, Cliff and other survivors don't currently have doppelgangers in the town in the alternate universe. Olivia relays the information about Cliff turning down a job offer in Philadelphia, and Peter figures that Cliff in the other universe must have taken it and moved his family. He asks Walter if this could happen naturally, and Walter doesn't see how, because when he and Belly merged just a tiny portion, it required tremendous energy. "I can't imagine an energy source that would merge an entire town."
Peter's already got it figured out, and asks if it could be amphilicite. Walter, following his thinking, says that would do it. Olivia wants to know, if this is what David Robert Jones wanted the amphilicite for, why he's doing it, but Walter says there's a more pressing concern: "The effects I have just described, they are just Phase 1." Olivia asks what Phase 2 is, and the school immediately shakes, like it was just hit with a miniature earthquake. Cliff hobbles in to tell Olivia that she needs to see this, and everyone goes up on the roof, and look at the town, which is blurry and shimmering in spots. As the watch, a water tower winks out of existence. "That is Phase 2," says Walter grimly.
After the commercial break everyone's in the gym, with Cliff's daughter, Lacey, looking through the window at the blurry landscape. As mini-tremors shake the school, a very worried Walter confesses to Olivia that he doesn't know what to do. "The two towns have merged together. They're creating an excess of mass and energy in the overlapping regions. The fundamental forces of physics are colliding -- out of balance, destroying everything," he says. She asks if there's anywhere they'll be safe. He says there isn't because two things can't occupy the same space without dire consequences -- both towns are going to be destroyed, and everyone along with them, he says.
Walter shuffles off, muttering "There's nothing we can do" to himself. That'll be great for morale! Olivia goes to Peter in the hopes that he'll talk to Walter, since he seems to respond to Peter. Peter puts down the shotgun shell he's playing with, like WHAT THE HELL, PETER, and goes to ask to Walter if the forces of nature that are colliding could be offset by opposite forces. Yes, says Walter, and that's really all it takes for him to remember that the sum of equal and opposite vectors is zero. "We need to find the place where the opposite forces meet and cancel out," he says, getting excited. The fabulous Bishop boys determine that they need to be in the centre of the merger, as that may be the only place that survives.
While they try to figure out exactly where that is, Olivia decides to rustle up a ride to take them there. She tells Cliff and Brian that they're working on finding a safe place to stay, but they're going to need vehicles to take them there. And since what's going on affects electronics, they can't be any fuel-injected engines. Your little Nissan Leaf's not looking so useful now, is it, Olivia? At any rate, they need older cars, from the 1970s, at least a couple of them. Brian's got a better idea, though.
Meanwhile, Walter and Peter have already found a town map and they're plotting coordinates on it based on estimation and memory, which I'm sure is always preferable when it comes to calculations, especially those on which your life depends. They plot where the town signs are and which building was the first to fall and they draw a bunch of lines and X's and come up with Cypress and Quimby as the centre. Vote Quimby! So everyone heads out of the school into a hurricane-strength wind as Brian pulls up with a school bus. "Need a ride?" he says, opening the doors, and I'm sure everyone appreciates his dry, cool wit as their entire town is literally disintegrating around them. Olivia shows him the map, and tells him to get to Cypress and Quimby, and he says there's a bike shop there. Everyone piles on the bus, screaming and crying, with Walter doing his best to reassure Lacey that everything's going to be fine, but then she screeches in terror because one of the survivors has suddenly lurched up from the back of the bus. He's got a second face, an upside-down one, growing out his other face, in a nice, creepy effect. Peter wrestles with the guy, but let's just pretend that he has the strength of two men, which is more than enough to overpower Peter, at least until Walter gives him a faceful of the pepper spray he's been carrying. Two-Face staggers backward, and Peter knocks him out with his shotgun then dumps the body out the back door, and the bus gets on its way.
After the commercial break though, the bus is blocked by a power pole that's fallen across the street and landed on a car. Peter, Brian and Olivia get off the bus to check it out. "That's not moving," says Peter, so Olivia orders everyone off the bus -- they're going to hoof it from there. As the ragtag band of survivors runs up the street, the bus shakes out of view. Everyone piles into the bike shop. Sure hope your calculations are right, guys, especially since there are four corners on the intersection and businesses all around. But as Walter gets to the door, he turns around. "Peter, you were right. This is it. This is the eye of the storm." He can feel it. Good thing the eye of the storm is exactly bike shop-shaped, I suppose. Inside, Walter's quite calm, despite everyone freaking out around him. His words of reassurance go unheeded as the windows blow out, everyone screaming and huddling on the floor. Through the window, across the street, we can a building get sucked out of existence, and everything goes black.
Wherever the "Welcome to Westfield" sign was, it got blown right in front of the bike shop. The wind has stopped, and the survivors, all go to the front window to stare out in shock at what's left of their town, which is nothing. Like literally nothing. All the buildings are gone. Even the landscape looks zeroed out and grey.
Later, Broyles is now on scene, along with an ambulance and fire truck -- must have been an interesting drive for them, given that highway doesn't exist anymore, right? As we see that the merger left a few buildings untouched on this little piece of Cypress and Quimby, Broyles tells Olivia that search teams scanned the entire area and found no other survivors. But they did find several unusual devices placed around the perimeter of the town, as well as trace amounts of amphilicite. It's still a mystery to Olivia why Jones would destroy a town that people didn't even know was here to begin with. Broyles has no answers on that score, but the amount of amphilicite recovered from the devices is only a fraction of what Jones stole.
Anyway, after Broyles leaves to take a call from a "Director Norris," Olivia goes to check on the Hayes family. Everyone seems to be doing all right, except Cliff's wondering how his home and everything he's ever known could just disappear. She tells him the Bureau will help with temporary housing until they back on their feet, and Cliff talks a little bit about how they've got each other, and that's a lot. For looooove, they'll give it a shot. Anyway, this is unlike loveless Olivia, right?
Speaking of home, Walter's back in his lab, using a Bunsen burner to heat a frying pan. He's making crepes, for breakfast for dinner, and he's disappointed when Peter heads out the door. Peter apologizes, not knowing Walter was doing this, and asks if he'll take a rain check. Unhurt, Walter says, "Of course," but then he's a little stunned when he remembers that he and Peter are working on a way to get Peter out of this universe, gone forever. He puts on a brave face, but stops Peter at the door -- he maybe wants to say something else, and only winds up saying "good night."
At Olivia's place, she's listening to Billy Bragg and Wilco and putting her hair up, when Peter shows up at her door. He says she hopes she doesn't mind, but he was in the neighborhood and thought he'd stop by to see how she's doing. Olivia wonders why he'd think she'd mind, and she pours him a glass of wine to go with the one she's having. Interestingly, she's already got too wine glasses out.
Peter asks what smells so good, and she brings him his glass of wine and says, "What do you mean? It's Friday. I ordered Damiano's," and before he has a chance to react she puts her arm around his shoulders and pulls him in for a kiss. Peter's all, "Whoa, Olivia!" and she pulls back, confused, either by his reaction or by what she just did.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He haaaaaates rhubarb pie. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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