Remember the interdimensional antichrist Olivia's supposed to have been looking for all this time? He has a name -- Newton -- and he's been a busy boy. He and Curtis from 24 have been going around removing stuff from the brains of schizophrenics, rendering them inexplicably sane. Of course the Fringe team can't let that go unanswered, especially since they know Newton is behind it, so Walter figures out that the victims were driven insane in the first place by having pieces of someone else's brain parked there for years. And that someone else is -- wait for it -- Walter himself. Unfortunately, Peter and Olivia are inexcusably slow in figuring out that Newton is going to want to put Walter's brain back together for reasons that can't possibly be altruistic. And by the time they do, Newton has Walter. Before Peter and Olivia catch up, Newton has forced Walter to reconstruct -- and worse, share -- his memories of how he built the portal between worlds. Olivia nearly prevents Newton's escape, but the evil bastard had the foresight to inject Walter with a neurotoxin, and the only way Olivia can save him is to let Newton go. Which she does, saving Walter, although the old bits of his brain fail to survive the ordeal, forever snatching away the possibility of restoring the sanity that's been tantalizing him al episode. But ultimately he does get one old memory back; the memory of those pieces of his brain about to be removed by none other than William Bell.
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Late at night, an array of courtyard lampposts illuminate a set of floaty letters reading "HENNINGTON MENTAL HEALTH INSTITUTE BOSTON, MA." Amazing how a block of text that large can get off the ground. Inside, the corridors are dark except for the light coming from the crack under a door. Behind that door, a man mumbles disconnectedly about a girl in a red dress with flowers. A pair of hands sheathed in bloody surgical gloves is at work behind him, their owner telling "Mr. Slater" -- played by Jeff Perry -- to think and it will come back to him. The hands turn out to be attached to a person, which was not always the case for that person's head. Yes, the last time we saw his face, it was still reattaching itself to a body back in October. Finally, the stolen frozen head is back in play. One also notices that its color has come back, and so has its hair. "Container," he calls to his hench-nurse, doing something with a pair of retractors. He tells Slater in a pleasant British accent, "Hold very still, and I assure you there will be no pain." In an extreme close-up, it looks like he's pulling a pale sliver of something from the living, bloody brain matter, but that can't possibly be the case. He sets the chunk into a vial of greenish gel and says to his hench-nurse, who is about as scary-looking as Scott Hamilton circa 1992, "Let's close him up." They start to fire up a piece of machinery, but the hench-nurse is getting a call on his earpiece from Curtis from 24, who is parked in a van outside and notifying him that he sees an orderly moving around in one of the windows. The hench-nurse goes to deal with it, "deal with it" in this case meaning "putting two silenced bullets in the orderly's chest." Hence the "hench" in "hench-nurse." He goes back in and tells the boss -- now busy with some kind of laser -- that they have to go. "My sincere apologies, I'd rather not leave you in such a state," he says to his patient, but they pack up and take off. The hench-nurse quickly opens an electronic lock to a door opening to the outside, and the boss takes a look around the hall behind him while following him out. Then they get into Curtis's van, which drives off. Poor Slater is left sitting there, and that's how a nurse finds him. With the entire back of his scalp peeled down, exposing his brain. "Help me," he begs. Ooh, Fringey!
In the meantime, they go and watch the security footage of the bad guys' exit the night. Actually, Olivia and Peter watch it while Walter leans against the window eating a cup of applesauce. Peter marvels at how easily they handled the high-tech lock when leaving. "They're either very smart, very rich, or very well-connected," he says. Pretty bold guess about two people who are sneaking around doing illicit brain surgery. Olivia looks at a freeze-frame of the moment when the stolen frozen head turns around, and wouldn't you know it, Olivia recognizes him. How, you ask? After dismissing the security guard, she logs onto a secure FBI server and says she knows him from Laston-Hennings Cryonics. That gets Walter's interest -- like us, he remembers the frozen head-thefts from a couple of months ago. Olivia reminds everyone how the bad guys from the other side were looking for a leader, as William Bell warned her (and as she failed to prevent). Ever since, it seems, she's been scouring the files from Laston-Hennings, trying to figure out which head was the one they wanted. "I've been looking at these faces for the last two months," she says. Well, I'm glad to hear she hasn't been totally slacking. Peter is skeptical that their perp is a stolen head. "The dead don't rise out of their graves and perform midnight brain surgery." "But this one did," Olivia says, and pulls up a photo of their quarry in less-alive times. "Thomas Jerome Newton," she reads, and a side-by-side comparison of the two photos proves it's the same guy. "Wow," Walter says mildly.
During the ads, they've summoned Broyles to take a gander at the screen, which is also showing the headphones-shaped mark that William Bell drew for Olivia -- the one that also appears on Newton's head somewhere. Olivia has to admit that all they have is the name, which was just an alias that led nowhere. Olivia reminds Broyles what William Bell told her -- that "Newton" would try to open "a car door" from our universe to the other side. A car door? Why a car door specifically? Why not a revolving door, or a garage door, or even a corridor? "He managed to infer that the results would be less than desirable," Olivia understates. Broyles asks her to elaborate. "Global destruction. Biblical proportions," she elaborates. So much for understatement. Seriously, drama queen much? Broyles sighs and asks what this has to do with what Newton and his crew did to Slater. "You're leaving out the part where they apparently cured him," Peter says. "As opening moves go, that's pretty strange." Broyles asks what Walter's figured out so far, and Peter says he's off working on figuring out the cure. "If we can do that," Peter says, "maybe we can anticipate Newton's move." "There's no maybe," Olivia insists. "I don't know what Newton's up to, but I know what I have to do. I have to stop him." Jeez, bring the room down.
At Chez Bishop, Walter is not in good shape; in fact, he suspects he's suffering from a Valium overdose. Astrid offers to take him to a hospital, but he refuses. "Violet Sedan Chair," which at first sounds like word salad, but he's actually referring to a band. "Their debut album always helps me come down from a Valium high," he pants. He wants them to go to the lab to get it. "I might puke in our car," he says apologetically. So Astrid suggests he stay and rest while she goes and gets it. Fantastic idea, leaving him alone, especially after what happened last week. But it's all worth it to keep Astrid's floormats clean.
Back at the MRI lab, Olivia thinks this sounds like the work of Dr. Paris, although she doesn't know why he'd remove pieces of Walter's brain and then preserve them in the first place. "Memory!" Peter realizes. He voices what we've all figured out by now, which is that Newton wants to open a door to the other side. Which Walter has done, but can't remember how. "That is why he can't remember!" he says, rapping on the lightboard. "He literally had the memories removed." "No way," Olivia says amusingly, wondering how Newton plans to retrieve those memories. "In theory he shouldn't be able to, but in theory he should still be a frozen head." Peter says. "He would need to implant the memories into a brain that could interpret them." Gosh, wherever might one find such a brain? FINALLY, Olivia and Peter figure it out, and hit the door running.
On their way, they call Astrid's cell phone, and reach her as she's in her car on the way back to the lab. "Where are you and Walter?" Peter asks. Astrid tells him about the errand she's on -- alone -- and Peter tells her to get back toot-sweet. Astrid says she's on her way and whips the car around. I would have liked to see her pull a handbrake turn, but you can't have everything.
Walter sits sweating in his easy chair and gets up to answer the knock on the door that he thinks is coming from Astrid. But of course when he opens it, there's Newton. "Hello, Dr. Bishop," Newton smiles.
After the ads, Astrid is back at the house and has her gun out, but Walter and Newton are long gone, so the only people she can point it at are Peter and Olivia as they arrive, and that's just not the same. Having lost Walter for the second time in as many weeks, Astrid sputters her apologies, and Peter says it isn't her fault. Although Olivia gives her kind of hilarious look that's like, That's two strikes, A-Farn. Luckily, Peter has an idea: "Last week when Walter got lost, he did exactly what you'd expect Walter to do. He implanted a transponder chip into his neck so that if he ever got lost, I could find him." Snagging the little beeping remote from a shelf in the kitchen, he leads the agents back out the front door. Or Olivia, at least. If Astrid were to find Walter, she'd just lose him again.
Curtis from 24 carefully places a metal-and-wire armature over the head of Walter, who is strapped into a barber's chair in that dank basement lab. Walter asks Newton if they know each other. "Oh, we will," Newton Brits. The hench-nurse prepares to inject Walter with a sedative. "I've already had 50 milligrams of Valium," Walter points out. "Then this should be very enjoyable," the hench-nurse says, and gives Walter the shot anyway. Judging by Walter's expression, at least the hench-nurse isn't a liar.
Olivia's driving a big black Fringemobile down the road while Peter navigates using the transponder. Over speakerphone, Broyles says he's sending a SWAT team to meet up with them.
Curtis presses a switch to the containers of brain-bits. All three of them light up red, and the machine on Walter's head -- wired to the containers -- sends electrodes into his temple. Newton gives Walter a lecture about the brain that's probably not necessary, considering his audience: "The human brain is a fascinating organ. But it's not static. Remove or damage a section, it reroutes the connections and grows in new pathways." But I guess if you stick a new section in someone else's brain, that someone else is stuck being bonkers for the duration. Wouldn't the host brains have tried to rewire the foreign tissue? Would it really be so easy to tug them out intact like incompatible memory cards out of a computer? "Figuring out where the old connections once were can be very tricky," Newton concludes. The hench-nurse flips a switch, and soon a computer monitor is showing a rotating 3D display of Walter's brain. I guess so they can see which areas light up as Walter's old brain bits are hooked up like so many external flash drives.
Olivia's Fringemobile, with the SWAT van behind it, pulls up to a curb. Peter follows the transponder signal down to an underground men's room (they have those in Boston?), and bursts right in with the team. No one else seems to be in there other than themselves. But Peter goes over to one of the sinks, which is spattered with blood, presumably Walter's. And a tiny chip that nearly went down the drain, after it was apparently cut out of Walter's neck. "They found the chip," Olivia duhs. Peter takes it out on a stall door. Dammit, stall door, why didn't you stop Newton from removing it?
Newton gets ready to show Walter some images so he can do some free association. "To map my brain function," Walter says dreamily. "Find my neural pathways." Then he gets kind of pathetically hopeful. "Are you trying to fix me?" Aw, poor Walter. "I'm afraid not," Newton answers, not unkindly, and nods at the hench-nurse to switch on the slide projector. The first slide is a molecular diagram, namely a benzene ring. Walter remembers sitting in the back of Organic Chem and sniffing benzene fumes with his lab partner. Then there's a boy playing on the beach. "Peter," Walter says happily. Then a bowl of what might be vanilla pudding. "Peter," Walter says again, just as happily. Then a closed casket. Oh, ouch. Walter's face crumples as he says his son's name for the third time, this time not nearly as happily. Newton apologizes, not insincerely. But Curtis, looking at the three red-lit jars, says it isn't working. Newton says they need a more powerful memory stimulant. After a moment Newton realizes, "vision alone is not the strongest trigger. Sound and smell actually work better. We need the proper context." A tear spills from Walter's eye. Tastes like context.
Olivia rolls out a city map on one of the workbenches at the lab for Broyles. At least they know Walter has to be close, since brain tissue can't survive on its own for long. Broyles says they've got alerts out to every hospital in the area, including veterinary ones. Olivia says they can't be sure that'll work, since these guys might have the resources to handle this on their own. "It's a start, and if we're wrong, we'll have to get creative," Broyles says, which is just about the least reassuring thing he's ever said, and that's saying something. Peter, who has been standing with his back to them pouting this whole time, doesn't wait for that; he's going to get creative right the hell now. "The girl in the red dress!" he suddenly realizes, referring to Slater's obsession. "28, 28, Sydney Greenstreet." Peter says the girl in the red dress that Slater used to rant about did exist after all. "She lived across the street from me. When I lived in Cambridge as a kid. Her name was Sydney. She lived at 2828 Green Street." It's Walter's memory, in other words. Peter's fingers are flailing around Walter-like in his rush to get his ideas out. He basically echoes what Newton was just saying about memory requiring context and association. "Every time Walter asks for a piece of food or music or art, he's trying to create a moment in time to help him remember." Which again, explains a lot. If the show knew that all along, that's pretty impressive. Only Peter's not sure where to go from there. "Maybe they're going to take him to the place where he did it," he guesses. Olivia thinks that means the lake house, but Peter says it would be not where Walter did it, but where he first had the thought.
"CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS," the giant floaty letters over the Boston suburb remind us. Walter is indeed in a house there, having his memory jogged, which is lucky, considering that he seems to have been transported all the way over here still wired up to his former brain-bits. He reminisces about the autumn leaves the last time he was here. Newton, feeling chatty, says this place is there in both worlds. "You see, but on my side, the trees died long ago .The same thing killed the grass. They call it the Blight." Imaginative name, that. Walter says that's terrible. The hench-nurse comes in and reports, "[Curtis] is on lookout and I've taken care of the Rubells. They're secured." I guess the Rubells must be the current homeowners. Newton adjusts a video camera on a tripod that's pointed at Walter, and explains, "I can see which areas of your brain can make sense of the data that's stored in these slivers of flesh. In a perfect world, I would simply put it back. I would never subject you a process so crude. But this is the only way we can reconnect these pieces of your brain." The hench-nurse depresses a plunger hooked up to the brain-bit jars, Walter gasps, and the red lights in the jars go green, so we can see it's working. Showy much? "You do know where you are, don't you?" Newton asks Walter. Walter kind of reboots, and says it's his home. "Where's my wife? Where's my son?" he demands. He doesn't also ask where his furniture is, or all his other crap. "You've drugged me!" he accuses, baring his teeth. Newton asks Walter how he built the door. "How are things on your side?" Walter taunts. "Worse, I'm told," Newton says mildly. "I know why you built it. The door. I know what you lost. Now are you going to pretend that you're willing to lose it again?" Walter's bravado disappears, and Newton says, "Now. Tell me about the door."
Olivia's Fringemobile heads through Cambridge, with Peter in the shotgun seat, looking like he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a shotgun right now. Dude is in a mood. Olivia looks at him worriedly, but he just keeps scowling. They drive unawares past Curtis, who reports over his earpiece that they're here. "That's okay," Newton says. "We're done. We've got what we need." As he and the hench-nurse pack up, he pauses to give Walter another injection in his arm from a spring-loaded pistol syringe. "My apologies, Dr. Bishop," he says once again. Walter goes limp, resting his head on the table to him, his nose all but pressed against the glass jars holding the dying bits of his brain. This episode just keeps finding so many new and interesting ways to make it suck to be Walter, doesn't it?
Peter and Olivia pull up outside and rush up to the house, Peter in the lead, bursting through the door and yelling, "Walter!" He runs over to him lying on the living-room floor, and manages to revive him after the appropriately suspenseful pause. Olivia starts searching the house, and finds the homeowners bound and gagged in the back room. "They just left. Out the back!" Mr. Rubell tells her. Olivia sprints out of there and out into the alley, just in time to see Curtis pulling closed the back doors of the van as it pulls away. "Freeze, FBI!" she bellows. The van does not freeze even a little, instead laying rubber all they way out to the street. As it turns the corner, it seems all will be lost, but from the corner, Olivia fires a single shot that goes through the van's driver's side window. The van careens and crashes to a stop against a parked car, and through the broken driver's side window, we can see that the one bullet also went through the driver's head, with mercury trickling out. So long, hench-nurse. Bad luck for you that Olivia's apparently been spending enough time at the range to learn how to shoot like Dana Scully. Olivia approaches carefully, and when Curtis bursts out the back, drawing his trademark brace of handguns, Olivia drops him with one to the forehead. Good thing she remembered what it takes to bring down a shapeshifter, even if it's a shapeshifter who hasn't shifted shapes since at least October. As she comes around and looks inside, her gun still leveled, the van almost looks otherwise empty, with Newton barely visible in the shadows in his black clothes. "Come out of there," Olivia orders, her gun never wavering. Newton slowly exits the van, keeping his hands spread wide. "You so much as twitch and you won't have a head left to re-freeze," Olivia threatens. Awesome. She whirls him around and gets ready to cuff him. She's going to freeze him herself with her frosty attitude if she's not careful.