By Daniel
Peter's starting to get the hang of his growing Observer-freakazoid abilities, using them to see future events before the unfold (as well as briefly appearing to stop time, which would, I suppose account for teleportation).
Obviously, he's doing this without the knowledge of the rest of his team, although Olivia is growing mighty suspicious of his secretive behaviour, as well as his increasingly robotic mannerisms. More and more he seems to be acting Observer-like and being forced to cover up with a false-sounding explanation. "I just think there's something he's not telling me," Olivia confides in Astrid.
The Tape Of The Week is No. 5, which requires the team to retrieve two of those bullet-or-vibrator-shaped Observer beacons from the rubble of one of Bell's storage facilities, with a handprint scanner, which means Bell's severed hand will finally come in ... um ... handy (sorry). There's a visit to Nina Sharp, in which Walter -- growingly bitter about his growing bitterness -- is mean to her about how Bell never loved her because Bell never loved anyone. Plus it seems to occur to everyone now that Bell sold them out to the Observers two decades ago. Even worse is that Walter discovers his LP of Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World in Bell's storage facility. "It's not enough that he institutionalized me, betrayed our friendship, but he pilfered my record collection as well!" he says, angrily.
No fear that Peter's burgeoning Observer-ness will make him sympathetic to them, though. He's been observing their largely predictable movements (and starting to adjust for variables) and -- enlisting the aid of Anil, who's not entirely sure what's going on -- gets three of Windmark's top lieutenants all together and sets off the flesh-eating toxin that makes their jaws drop off spectacularly.
"Our first Fringe experience was their last," Peter tells Olivia coldly. Yes, he tells her that at the end, when she's found the room where he's methodically mapping out Observer movements, and she now knows Peter has the Observer implant. She's been talking for two episodes now about being worried about losing Peter in the wake of Etta's death. Now she looks like she's realizing he's already gone. But Peter, perhaps passing the point where that might bother him, is more concerned about avenging Etta: Windmark's .
Also, it looks like he might need a wig soon.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Peter's intramural three-on-three basketball team is going to be unstoppable this year! Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
It's a busy downtown street full of happy Loyalists and stoic Observers going about their daily business. And in strolls Peter -- with the collar of his jacket turned up, presumably to hide the entry wound of his Observo-Neck-Tech -- surveying the scene. We get his POV -- blue overlay over everything as he watches Observers walking around, driving in cars, bumping into women on the street. Things speed up and slow down, and the audio isn't quite synced up as an Observer in a car spots one on the sidewalk -- "Mueller" is his name, he's the one that bumped into the woman -- and calls him over for a conversation about something he wants to show Mueller.
Peter refocuses, and suddenly the time and audio distortions make sense. What he just saw hasn't happened yet. Then he steps out into the street, halting traffic -- and it's nice to see that drivers are on just as fine a hair-trigger during an occupation as they are today -- and looking several car lengths back at the car with the Observer (and a couple of Loyalists) are now stuck.
After a few moments (during which no one, inexplicably, has pounded the crap out of him), he crosses over to the other side and traffic gets going again. Peter watches as Mueller, who's carrying a briefcase, strolls down some steps and onto the sidewalk, just as he watched him earlier, and bumps into the woman again. This time, however, he crosses the street and continues on his way unseen by the Observer in the car, as he's now much farther back than he was in Peter's Observo-vision. Peter sees a RESIST poster of Etta, and he smiles. He takes out his phone and calls Anil: "I'm gonna need your help with something," he says. His movements and his voice are very controlled, very robotic.
After the opening credits, Peter returns via the secret passageway to the lab, where an irked Walter wants to know why the hell it took so long. Whereas for me a delay getting somewhere usually means I stopped off at Fred's Records, Peter was busy playing God. But he tells Walter, "He wasn't as interested in bartering as a I anticipated. It took some convincing." This is surprising to Walter, who figured that gasoline for neon-helium sounds like a fair trade, and then he's disappointed that Peter scored only four canisters. Well, do it yourself, Walter, if you're such an expert in the post-Observer barter economy.
The neon-helium is fuel for the laser, and a happy Astrid says she'll fire it up after breakfast, and Walter gruffly tells her to get started. "The world's not going to save itself," he points out, earning an eyeroll from Astrid. I was going to say that if anyone appreciates the value of a good breakfast, it's Walter, but then I remembered that he's turning into an asshole again.
Meanwhile, Olivia's a little surprised/concerned that Peter left without her, since she wanted to go with him. Peter says it was really early, and he didn't want to wake her. "That's one way to put it. The other is that you didn't sleep again," she says. Peter admits that he couldn't sleep, but assures Olivia he's fine. Olivia's not buying it, since HUMANS SLEEP and everything.
Everyone freezes as a patrol pulls up outside, with a couple of Loyalists stomping around and trying the door to the building but not, you know, looking in the windows or anything. The door's locked, so they moved on, which is as rigorous a search process as the Stormtroopers looking for Droids in Mos Eisley. The patrol moves on, and everyone gets moving again, Olivia looking sadly at Peter.
Yay, a new Betamax tape! No kidding, people, my family had a Betamax until 1991, or several years after everyone else had VHS and you couldn't rent Beta movies anymore, but it was a Sony so it lasted forever and my parents wouldn't buy a new one until the old one conked out and who knows how long it would have lasted, but finally my mom won a VHS in a drugstore raffle so THANK GOD I could finally not be embarrassed to have friends over again.
Where was I? Oh yeah! A new tape! They stick it in the machine, which is nicer than we had. Honest to god, the Betamax was so old that the remote control WASN'T EVEN WIRELESS, I mean, it connected to the Betamax with a cord like some kind of caveman VCR, and my friends and I discovered that we could make a tape pause if we CHOMPED ON THE CORD, like I swear to god we did that, and how any of us don't have massive head cancer today is a wonder.
Wait, sorry. ANYWAY, Video Walter welcomes everyone to Tape 5 of Operation Make Observers Defeated Now, Walter shows them a picture of the Observer bullet vibrator, which he says a beacon that allows them to locate different points in spacetime, and also to achieve organism. "You will need two of them!" he says. Also, there are blueprints, which Walter recognizes as being for one of their labs at Kelvin Genetics, which he and Belly designed. Video Walter gives them directions to Bell's private storage facility within the building, where he had been keeping two beacons. "The doors are made of reinforced steel. They can be unlocked with Bell's handprint," says Walter. Astrid tells Walter that must be why he took Bell's hand when they were freed from the amber: "You said that it was for a storage facility. It was for this." Walter figures that's why Bell was with them in the amber: "I needed him to get the cylinders."
Everyone looks uncomfortable as Astrid says that it wasn't the only reason. Walter doesn't know what she means, and Astrid explains that before the invasion, Walter had been talking with Bell, who said he wanted to help Walter defeat the Observers, that he realized how important it was: "And then he betrayed us to gain favor with them."
It all starts to come back to Walter, as he recounts a tale of another man, with an accent, who was torturing Walter and kept asking, "Is it safe?" Then he escaped and Bell helped him, but drove him right back to where he was being questioned. "He worked for them. He worked for them!"
Thank god Astrid has seen Marathon Man because she tells Walter that's where that's from. Peter's turn: He tells Walter that Walter called Peter to tell him it was time to implement the plan, but Walter needed Peter's help. Olivia chimes in to say Walter sent her to Grand Central Station to get the thought unifier. Peter says by the time he got to Walter and Astrid, Bell was with them, but then the Observers found them, and they realized the only way they could have known where they were was if Bell had told them. And that's when Walter ambered them. "So if Bell led the Observers to you, how can we be sure that the cylinders were even there to begin with?" asks Olivia. Fair point. Astrid suggests they open up the storage and find out, and a subdued Walter tells "Agnes" to fire up the laser so they can Bell's hand back out of the amber.
They leave the hand-retrieval off-camera and head to Kelvin Genetics, right off the water, but it's nothing more than bombed-out rubble now. Walter points out where he used to drop acid and watch ships come in from the bay. They're right by the east entrance, he says, and the yellow doors mentioned by Video Walter are here somewhere. Peter surveys the scene in his Observo-vision, displaying the underlying structure, including a doorframe. He points at it: "The doors are there," he says confidently. Olivia looks at him, surprised, and says, "Peter?" and he quickly covers by saying, "From an engineering standpoint, they'd have to be." But it's not his certainty that she's worried about: it's the blood trickling from his ear.
Walter examines the ear, Olivia asking if the blast from the RPG Peter fired into the Observers' shipping lane could have damaged his ear, but Peter says his hearing is fine. Walter says he wants to examine Peter as soon as they get back to lab.
With Olivia continuing to look concerned, the team turns its attention to accessing the doors buried under the rubble. Astrid suggests the anti-matter batons they have left, but Walter points out those would also consume the storage facility as well as the debris. Olivia suggests Anil and the Resistance, which has the manpower, but Peter shoots that down: "The heavy machinery we'd have to use to clear away all the rubble would draw too much attention."
"We go through it," says a determined Walter, while Peter steps away to answer his ringing cellphone, telling everyone it's Anil (what a coincidence!). Anil says he couldn't "give him the briefcase," and then we learn what he's talking about: "I followed the Baldie into the park. I did everything just like you said." Peter says Anil should have seen him sit at a bench and then stand up and forget his briefcase, and then Anil was to have approached and given him the one Peter gave him.
"He never forgot his briefcase, Peter. He was sitting on the bench. I saw him get up. But he took his briefcase with him," says Anil. Peter says that's impossible, and then says he's going to come to Anil.
He goes back to the group, which has decided they're going to get in touch with Nina Sharp, since she's got access to advanced technology through the Ministry of Science; Walter's plan is to change the molecular structure of the concrete rubble. Oh, of course! Peter says he's got to go talk to Anil, and when Olivia asks him why, Peter says Anil didn't want to say over the comm. More suspicion from Olivia, and Peter jokes that she's got that look on her face, the one that says, "'I'm worried about you.'" Olivia asks if she should be, and Peter says no. Well, what else would he say? "You go talk to Nina. I'll liberate myself a ride," he says. That means he's going to teleport, RIGHT? Olivia does not look placated.
Over to Brooklyn, where Old Nina Sharp is riding her little Rascal around a fountain, when her assistant catches up with her to hand her a note that Nina reads. It seems to surprise her. She tells her assistant to push her afternoon meeting, and warns that she'll be out of the office for a bit.
And then we watch her motor over a pedestrian bridge for a warm if bittersweet reunion with Olivia. "I never thought I would see you again," Nina says. Olivia gives her a kiss, while Walter and Astrid look on. Nina asks how she's been, and Olivia admits it's been hard, but they're continuing on with Walter's plan. "For Etta," she explains, perhaps unnecessarily. Nina says she's sorry for their loss, because Etta was very special to her. She heard the news through Broyles. "I wanted to reach out to you so much, but I was afraid that I would jeopardize your safety," says Nina. Olivia understands, but now they have no choice, and need her help. Anything, says Nina.
They go for a walk (roll) and Olivia explains about the damage to the building, but they think the underground structure is intact. Walter says he was hoping she's got access to technology that could change the atomic structure of the rubble and help them clear it. "The Observers created a device that dramatically alters atmospheric pressure, speeding up molecules in all the matter in a controlled area. A process called sublimation," says Nina. As Walter knows, "sublimation" is the term for the conversion of a solid directly into gas, and Nina explains that they used the technology to clear large areas of land for construction, like when they were prepping Central Park to build their air-degradation device. She tells them she'll meet them at the south side of the building in ten minutes.
Moments later, the Fringers bring the van around, and Nina rolls up to greet Walter when he gets out of the van. She asks if he's angry at her, and he asks why he should be. "Because I told Etta and Simon how to re-implant the portion of your brain you had removed," she says. Walter, looking like he is pissed about that, says she did what was necessary, and Nina agrees with that, explaining they needed his intellect restored. "There was a lot at stake. There still is," she says, and then asks if he has noticed any changes in his personality since the implant. This draws Walter up short, and he admits to "some," and Nina says the tissues are integrating faster than she thought they would. "The man I was before, do you see him in me now?" Walter asks her. Nina says she doesn't, but Walter would know better than she does anyway. Especially since she's talked to him all of FORTY-FIVE SECONDS here. She asks if he's worried. He shakes his head slightly.
"The man I was before, he was consumed by ambition, by hubris. He never cared about anyone. All he cared about was walking with the gods," he says. This time, explains Walter, he's got Peter, who won't let him become that man again. Poor Walter doesn't know Peter's got his own shit going on.
A loading door rolls up, and Nina tells the white-jacketed man behind it, Hastings, to "give Dr. Bishop anything he wants." Hastings stares at the two of them, and Nina is all, "Yes, that Dr. Bishop." An awestruck Hastings says it would be an honor. Listen, Hastings, don't think this is going to be a recurring character or anything.
Over on the fringes of what's left of Central Park, Peter is going over with Anil what happened. Anil explains that the Baldie was sitting on the bench and writing in his notebook. Peter asks if he interacted with anyone in the park, and Anil says not that he saw. "Did you see a little girl? She would have been playing with a yellow ball in front of the bench Royce was sitting on," says Peter. Anil is dumbfounded. "How could you know that?" he asks, but Peter ignores him, and says "Royce" was supposed to be distracted by the kid playing as he stood to get up, causing him to forget his briefcase. Anil says Royce wasn't paying attention to any kid; he was talking on his comm. Peter's surprised to hear Royce was on his comm, and decides that was the variable that he failed to see. Royce is all, "What the HELL are you talking about," and Peter -- flashing through his Observo-Vision and seeing this Royce Observer handing over his briefcase at a restaurant -- takes the ringer from Anil and says he'll switch it at the restaurant. Anil is, unsurprisingly, completely baffled. "I know that you have questions, Anil, but I'm just gonna have to ask you to trust me," says Peter, handing Anil a slip of paper with an address. Anil recognizes it as a "Baldie precinct," and Peter explains that at 6:17, Royce and another Observer named Mueller will walk into the building. He wants Anil to call him when they do. Anil, after a moment, says he will.
Peter, carrying the briefcase, gets into a car and hotwires it, when suddenly everything goes bright around him, causing him agony, but it subsides soon, and he puts his hands on the steering wheel.
Over to the Cavatina Bistro now, where Observers cut into some sort of material that approximates food. Peter strolls up to the courtesy desk and says he'd like to check his briefcase. The woman behind the desk, mouth lipsticked to within an inch of its life, remarks that she hasn't seen him in before, and Peter says it's not really his crowd. She whispers that he'd better be careful if he doesn't want to get read. Peter says, "You should get that," moments before the telephone rings. She looks surprised, and Peter calls it an old trick, and goes off to sit at the bar. He checks his watch. Have some oysters, Peter!
Back at the Ministry of Science, Astrid and Olivia are waiting in the van, and Astrid asks Olivia how she and Peter are doing. Olivia, after a moment, just starts blabbing about how Peter doesn't sleep, and leaves the lab at odd hours. "And when he gets back, and I ask him where he's been, he's always got an explanation that makes sense," she says. But still she thinks there's something he's not telling her. "I can feel it," she says. Astrid says Peter has been through a lot, and hastily adds, "You both have." She's not defending him, she explains, but she saw how isolated he made himself after Etta went missing after the invasion. "I would say that, compared to that, he has come a long way," she says. Olivia says she keeps telling herself that this time they're stronger, but she's worried that she's losing him again.
Over at the Bistro, Peter watches over his shoulder as Mueller comes in and hands over his briefcase to the woman at the courtesy desk, sliding it into a slot to all the other identical briefcases, including Peter's. Peter checks his watch, then walks over to the courtesy desk. The woman gets a phone call and gets into an argument with someone named "Ronny" who doesn't appear to have a job, and in her distraction she hands Peter the wrong briefcase. He smiles and walks out.
Over at the Ministry, Hastings has brought out the sublimation apparatus, which can handle a radius of up to a thousand meters, via rods that mark the boundaries of whatever area the want to sublimate. He snaps at Astrid for getting too close to the equipment before he can explain about the power-up sequence, and points to a light on the device: "It turns yellow, you're good. But blue, that means the fission core is overheating. That's a common design flaw in these Gen-One models. Blue means run," he explains.
Meanwhile, Nina's decided to continue a boring conversation with Walter about how he said Peter will keep him from turning into the arrogant asshole he used to be, but she's not sure Peter will be enough. "I knew the man you were, you and William. You both tested the limits of science, of the universe. You felt that boundless power that comes with omnipotence," she says, adding that she couldn't hold on to William because nothing can compare to that kind of power.
Walter coldly tells her that the reason she couldn't hold onto him was because he never loved her. Well, so much for not becoming the asshole he used to be! "He never loved anyone except himself. I've been fooled by him too many times to think anything else. I know better, and so should you," he says. Nina stares at him and says she just saw Bell in Walter: "The Walter I know would never say anything so cruel," she says. I'm not sure that's true? Anyway, Walter, faith in Peter, "I love my son, he loves me, that will save me," blah blah blah. "For your sake, I hope that's true," says Nina.
Olivia comes over to tell Walter they're ready, and Nina warns them that since the Observers analyze any change in the atmosphere, so once they use the technology, the Observers will respond within minutes. Olivia thanks her, and Nina wishes them good luck, staring hard at Walter. Yes, even you, Walter. Nina starts to cry after they go.
Downtown, Anil's scoping out a high-rise. Mueller rides up outside, gets out of the car and walks inside. Or maybe it's not Mueller -- three Observers, all carrying briefcases, converge in a boardroom several stories up and take their hats off, so you know this is serious business. Just as Anil is about to make a call, the Observers pop their briefcases...
...and there is an explosion that blows the window out, and then we see the Observers stumbling around in agony. Probably has something to do with their faces falling off, literally. A single fedora rides the cross-currents down to the street below, and plops there, filthy and ownerless. Hey, free hat!
Back at Formerly Kelvin Genetics, the team is setting up the sublimation equipment as Peter pulls in, right when Anil calls him, having figured out Peter managed to switch the briefcase: "It was a success. This place is crawling with Baldies," he says. There's certainly enough of them just standing in the street looking up at the building.
After Peter signs off, Olivia comes over to ask what Anil wanted, and Peter says he waited for an hour but didn't show, and that was just him on the phone calling to let Peter know he got stopped at a checkpoint. But, uh, no, he didn't tell me why he wanted to meet, Olivia, that's ridiculous! Olivia's getting even more suspicious by the minute.
So they flip on the sublimation device, which works as advertised, turning the rubble into so much smoke, revealing the door. Everyone is suitably impressed. They make their way into the building using flashlights, and then pull out some sort of machine that, I don't know, turns on the power or something. Walter pulls out Belly's hand and sticks it on the scanner, opening up the security door, and they continue inside, shining their flashlights through beakers and vials of unspeakable things.
But Walter finds something that horrifies him more than anything else could: A vinyl copy of Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World. "It's not enough that he institutionalized me, betrayed our friendship, but he pilfered my record collection as well!"
Olivia's all, "Walter, we don't have time for the hilariously on-the-nose choice of album title right now," and they keep looking. Peter finds a safe, which thankfully doesn't require the scanning of any body part. Walter remembers when Belly had it built: "An extra measure of security to guard the things he valued most," says Walter. Thank you for telling everyone what a safe is for, Walter. Although we'll soon see why it was felt necessary to explain that the safe is for what Belly "valued most."
Walter knows the combination because Belly used the same combination for everything. "He had a terrible memory. Too much LSD, I suppose," says Walter (who I guess took just the right amount of LSD). Walter still has trouble recalling it, despite the urging of Astrid of Olivia, who reminds him that they're going to be up to their eyeballs in Observers any moment. Peter is much more encouraging, telling Walter to clear his head and think about the cylinders: "You have all the time in the world," he says. Finally Walter checks his DVR for the title of tonight's episode and comes up with five, twenty, ten.
Only when he opens the safe, there's nothing in there but a note that reads "Peace on Earth." Kidding. But the cylinders aren't in there either, just a metallic doohickey about the size of a teacup saucer. Walter finds something else: an old picture of Nina Sharp, red-haired and gorgeous. But ... if Bell only puts things he considers valuable in the safe, then that means...!
Meanwhile, Peter examines the doohickey and runs his thumb around the centre. It lights up red, and suddenly the two cylinders come burrowing up through the floor. Nice storage that requires putting down a new floor after you retrieve your valuables! The team wastes no time carrying them outside -- Olivia drawing her gun and hesitating before going outside. Despite her warning, Peter strides confidently outside without bothering to check if there are any Loyalists or Observers out there. She's even more discombobulated when Peter hands her the cylinder and says, robotically, "I'll take my car. It's logical that we split up." Olivia's too taken aback to respond, and now Walter is gruffly saying that before they go back to Boston, there's a stop he'd like to make first. Olivia is getting mad, you guys.
The stop Walter wants to make turns out to be to see Nina, and he makes small talk about how the device worked and they retrieved the cylinders, but Nina knows better than to think they made a stop just to tell her that. Walter gives her the picture of her he found in the safe. "I was wrong. He did love you. And it wasn't enough," he says, contritely. Then he starts agonizing about how he's losing himself and becoming the man he used to be again. That arguably means he's actually becoming himself again, but you take his meaning. He asks a shocked Nina to remove the pieces of his brain: "My intellect may be diminished slightly, but it's the only way to hold on to the man I've become," he says. I really like this concept of Walter's brain as a computer that you can just put in or take out RAM as desired. Nina looks utterly unconvinced, but she doesn't respond.
Back to Etta's apartment for Olivia -- clearly the go-to whenever she doesn't know where Peter is-- she walks in and is surprised to see several clear boards throughout the apartment covered with scribbles and pictures of Observers. The music lets us know this is not a happy surprise -- and side note: purchase a soundtrack or two of Fringe music, any season should do, and you really turn your drive home into white-knuckle, pulse-pounding excitement!
"They're timelines," says Peter, whooshing into place. "For them. Windmark's top lieutenants." He's speaking in monotone now, clearly less worried about appearing Observer-like than before. He explains that for security reasons, they're rarely in the same place at the same time, but using the information on how every second of their days is accounted for, he can manipulate events. "The tech that gave them their advantage over us... I have it now," he intones.
Olivia's horrorstruck. "That thing in their heads -- you implanted one in yourself?" Peter says -- as we watch flashes of the Observers' movements -- that he's been following them, garnering enough information to determine their probably futures, and engineering them all being at a meeting at a same time.
"What have you done?" whispers Olivia. Peter tells her he used a toxin from Walter's cold storage, the flesh-eating toxin that killed everyone aboard Flight 627. Olivia stares at him, not moving. "Our first Fringe experience was their last," he says. Aw, you can implant Observer tech in your neck, but you can't kill the sentimentalist in Peter!
Eventually, Olivia says that's how Peter knew that they wouldn't be coming for them at the storage site; he knew they'd still be responding to your attack. Peter swivels back towards one of the clear boards. And then, devastatingly, when Olivia says, "You can't do this," Peter says it at the exact same time she does. As when she says, "This is ... dangerous," pausing in the exact same spot.
"We're going to avenge Etta. Windmark is ," says Peter, utterly emotionlessly -- solid work by Joshua Jackson, really -- and as he scribbles "Windmark" above a picture of Windmark -- as a helpful reminder of which friggin' bald guy Windmark is -- Olivia backs away, despondent and scared. She leaves the apartment, and Peter doesn't even say goodbye. Just keeps working.
Elsewhere, Walter opens up a cabinet in which he's collected all the bits of a plan. It's like playing a video game and you get some sort of artifact and you don't know what you'll need it for until you talk to a wizard in a dungeon over the mountains much later. He turns on the radio and listens to the static for a little while, then puts it down.
He's taken back his Bowie LP, and puts it on the turntable -- he's shaking terribly, we can see as he drops the needle on the record -- and stands sadly, listening to the title track. Astrid comes in to ask if she can get him anything. He's fine. Well, not fine, but there's nothing Astrid can get him to help. She says they did good today, and gives him a kiss on the cheek. She leaves. He cranks up the volume, Peter keeps scribbling, Windmark walks down a hallway to an elevator. Peter writes "ELEVATOR" down, Walter reclines in a dentist's chair and cries, and Windmark gets in the elevator. Peter runs his hand through his hair, comes out with a nice clump. In case we're not sure what that means, the camera switches focus to a picture of a Baldie. And here's how we know Peter's gone completely emotionless. Instead of looking at all freaked out, he just cocks his head quizzically at this new development.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Have a good weekend, America! Also, your four-down "football." Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.