In the present day, Walter shows up at Olivia's to explain why and how Peter came from a parallel universe. Most of the rest of the episode takes place in 1985 (including a title sequence/opening theme that's been changed to match the era), where a darker-haired Walter and his still-living wife are heartsick over their deathly ill little boy. Walter becomes obsessed with finding a cure for Peter, using a gizmo-window he invented in order to see into a parallel universe that's slightly technologically ahead of his own universe. He "spies" as his other self works on a cure, using the information to try to concoct a cure of his own, but alas, it's too late for Original Peter. The boy dies, but Walter persists until he finds the cure, determined to take it to the other universe himself.
His assistant Carla and Nina Sharp try to stop him -- at first with logic and then with grabbing -- as he steps through the portal to the other side, but he manages to break free of them. Nina's arm is caught partially in the portal, causing it to go wonky. Walter's vial of cure ends up being smushed in the scuffle, so he changes his plan to take Other Peter back with him, just long enough to cure him. He even promises his Other Wife to bring him back, but once Original Wife sees her son alive again, he knows he's going to keep the boy for good. But we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit: On the trip back home, Walter and Other Peter (now just plain old Peter, it seems) end up falling through a patch of ice, and that's the point at which the Observer saves their lives, as mentioned in past episodes. Back in the present day, Walter is immensely sad as he finishes up his explanation/confession. Olivia seems immensely sad for him, but says nothing. Maybe she's sad for the '80s.-- Tippi Blevins
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Hey, Fringe is back! Did you guys know about this? Why didn't anybody tell me? I was busy planning my Good Friday Disco Dressup Party!
ANYWAY, the first thing you notice, as those giant hanging letters that give you a warm glowing warming glow tell you that we're at U.S. Army Research Headquarters in New York, is that those giant hanging letters that give you a warm glow are in a different font: Asimov, actually. If you don't know its name, you know its look. Science-fictiony and futuristic, but of course now archaically so, kind of like when you watch a film from the '50s that predicts people driving hovercars in the '80s. Speaking of which, the giant hanging letters also tell us it's 1985, so the typeface isn't horribly out of date yet. Oh, great! A flashback episode? Are you KIDDING me?
And we move down an office corridor featuring relics from a bygone age: old-timey computers, with the green characters on a black screen, huge car-battery-sized corded phones, framed pictures of President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President George Bush, and I'm presuming there's a can of New Coke and a cassette tape of USA for Africa singing "We Are The World" but I missed those.
You can also hear Walter railing away about something somewhere, so it's somewhat reassuring to know that not everything has changed in the past 25 years. Oh wait, he's not angry talking, he's enthusiastic talking. At a trio of generals: "Our success thus far should serve as an example of our ability to achieve that which most can't even imagine," he's saying. His hair is dark and full, and his face is a lot smoother and less craggy. We've come a long way from the "let's put a baseball hat on the guy to make him look younger" school of special age effects, haven't we? Anyway, he's going on about no limits, no boundaries. That kind of thing. For emphasis, he hands over a cellular phone -- the Motorola Razr, actually -- that doesn't exist in this universe for almost 20 years. "It's a mobile telephone. It can be made much smaller, I assure you." Oh, but will it have apps?
After Walter explains that the phone won't work here, not yet -- "it'll take us 30 years to get up to speed" -- one of the generals pouts that Dr. Bell was supposed to be here this evening. "Dr. Bell is in Europe. But I am here, so I can answer any questions you may have," says Walter, barely hiding his annoyance.
This being 1985, one of the generals asks if the phone is Russian technology. Walter explains that it's American, but from another universe: "An alternate universe just like ours ... but more advanced in some areas." The generals seem remarkably accepting of this "alternate universe" idea, with one incredulously asking if Walter actually visited the alternate universe and took the phone. Walter says it's "theoretically impossible" to go to the alternate universe, so he copied it.
And it's to the roof they go, where Walter continues talking about how he and Bell have been conducting experiments regarding the other universe, which is how they developed a "window of sorts," which is presumably what this blond woman is setting up here. Walter introduces her as his colleague, Dr. Carla Warren -- who we know dies in a fire, which at this time in history was just a horrible way to die and not something to be wished upon commenters who post "First!" in comments sections at The AV Club. Walter explains the window works by "capturing errant photons" from the universe beside theirs: "The window essentially stretches the membrane between our worlds and allows to see their image from our side." Why is he bothering getting technical? Or even "technical"? Unless these guys are generals of science ... no, one general asks if Walter is "gonna make some sort of alternate Manhattan up here." Or maybe it's "appear." Anyway, Walter, explains that the alternate universe is already there, they just can't see it: at least not until Carla turns on the magic window (she presumably already turned it to Channel 3), and we all look through it at the skyline at night, specifically the Empire State Building, which looks the same -- except for the floodlights lighting the way for an approaching zeppelin.
Sounding pretty proud of himself, Walter says, "I'm sure you know that the original purpose for the so-called observation deck of the Empire State Building was to be a docking station ... for zeppelins, of course." The generals stare, mouths agape. I think my first reaction would be "it's video trickery!" or, if I believed it, I'd ask, "So in this alternate universe their telecommunications technology has outstripped us by decades but they're still using zeppelins?"
"Gentlemen, you are looking through a window ... into another world," says Walter, triumphantly, waiting for the funding to start flowing.
And then the credits, which are amusingly also presented in the Asimov font, but there's more to it than that: the theme is a bleep-bloopy synthesizer-and-drum-machine version that could have been written by Harold Faltermeyer himself (look him up, kids), and the graphics are a lot less advanced and more ... vector. Think the Tron video game. No, not the new Tron, the old ... look, just forget it. Also, the concepts that are presented are ones that would have seemed amazingly cutting-edge 25 years ago: "Virtual reality. In vitro fertilization. Laser surgery. Black president." That's some nice attention to detail by the show here.
Afterwards, we're in the present again, in Boston, at Olivia's place, where the drink-holding Olivia -- I'm just going to assume she drinks all the time now after seeing Peter as Glimmer Man -- answers the door to Walter, who's holding some big cloth-wrapped object. She asks what he's doing there. Not unfriendly, but clearly she'd rather be getting her drink on alone. "You left me no choice. You wouldn't answer your telephone, return my messages. I tried to communicate," says Walter, and Olivia, sounding sleepy and drunk and freaked out, says she doesn't know how to begin to work this out. Walter invites himself in to explain and asks for a drink himself.
While she pours a whisky for Walter (and another one for her), he asks if she's told Broyles. She hasn't, but that doesn't mean she won't, she says. Walter sadly says he always knew he'd one day have to pay the price for his deception. Keep in mind he spent 17 years in a mental institution (not directly because of this, I know, but still), so I'm wondering what sort of punishment he thinks is still coming to him. Olivia points out they don't really know what the cost is yet, as she hands him his drink. Well, free alcohol, so it could be worse, hey, Walter?
He unwraps the object, which is, unsurprisingly, the multi-universe television that he says he invented after he and Bell learned they had doubles on the other side. Or it might have been after. He can't remember. "I was a different man then. I was going to change the world. But you see, after Peter became sick, none of that seemed to matter anymore."
He says the illness was genetic and savage. "There was simply no hope. At least, not on this side. But over there ... they're more technologically advanced." Don't tell her about the zeppelins. Walter's theory was that if the alternate Peter was sick, then wouldn't the alternate Walter be as equally motivated to find a cure? Which turns out to be true, which is fortunate, given that the whole point of the alternate universe seems to be the little differences.
Back to Harvard University in 1985, where Walter watches through the window as Carla Warren comes in, asking if there's any progress. "He's synthesizing a new compound now. He's using cobalt and magnesium," Walter tells her, and the camera pans over so we see through the window too, where the alternate-universe Walter works amid a group of other scientists. After explaining to Carla that he thinks the other Walter is selecting the filtering compounds randomly -- I'm not sure if that's significant or not, and I don't really know what it means, so I figure I should mention it -- and making a notation on a white board with a host of chemical formulas written on it, he tells Carla that he's taken to calling the other guy "Walternate." Which is funny. I also would have accepted "Walternative."
Anyway, they watch the chemical reaction, in which the reddish liquid turns milky white. Walternate looks dejected, as does Walter: "No cure," he says, turning back to his white board to cross off the formula. "Perhaps with a higher iodine purification," he says.
Then he rushes to his office to answer the ringing telephone. It's his wife, Elizabeth. He's concerned to hear from her: "Is he...?" he says. And Elizabeth says that he's all right now, but... "I think you should come home now, Walter. I think it's time you came home." Walter quietly says OK.
Elizabeth is sitting on the landing by the front door when Walter comes in. "He looks worse. Keeps asking for you. It's not like before," she tells him, only able to clarify that it's just different: "He keeps saying he wants to talk to you. He says he's worried he won't be able to." She's quite upset. Walter walks into the living room to put on some music -- on a record player, naturally -- and she follows him, to tell him she hates it when he's not here. Which is apparently all the time.
"You know what I'm doing. You know where I am 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he says, and he asks her not to doubt him. She seems to (more or less) accept this, even though what he actually appears to be doing is watching a different Walter trying to find a cure for his son. And maybe the disease is slightly different over there!
Anyway, Walter goes upstairs to see Peter, and I guess this show can only do so much, but they can't make Joshua Jackson and his constant stubble look eight years old. Young Peter is awake in bed, and Walter puts on a little false cheeriness as he tells Peter that he's supposed to be getting some rest. Peter's trying to do that trick where you roll a coin across your knuckles. He hasn't quite got it, so Walter (or a hand double) demonstrates, and then gives the coin back
to Peter, who does a better job than before. Peter weakly tells his dad that he wants his dad to have his lucky silver dollar if he dies. Walter's all, "Peter..." but Peter says, "It's OK. I'm not scared." Walter then promises that nothing's going to happen to him, and he should get some rest. "Wake me for dinner? I don't wanna miss it," whispers Peter, and Walter says Peter's not going to miss anything, and they hug, but Peter's arm just flops off of Walter's back. He's gone. Wow, Dr. Bishop. You're bad at this.Walter realizes what has happened, and lays his lifeless son back down on the bed, and John Noble provides us with the first of a few clips that should land him the Emmy for this season, retroactively for last season, and possibly give him enough credit to just give him year's Emmy already, for GOD'S sake. I don't know how much of it is because I'm a parent, and how much is because I'm a big baby (the following movies, which in no way constitute a full list, make me tear up: Eight Below, whenever a dog dies, or you think one has; Monsters, Inc., when Sully says goodbye to Boo and she opens the closet and he's gone; Toy Story 2, when Jessie falls under the bed as Emily has her first slumber party and eventually winds up in a box on the side of the road), but I found the room getting dusty more than once or twice this episode. Walter trembles as he presses his forehead against his son's.
Then we're at the graveyard (we pan across an overgrown tombstone belonging to "--inia --ters," as near as I can tell. Just in case it's important), and it looks like the only attendees are Walter and Elizabeth, Carla, and Nina Sharp, whose hair is a lot longer than it will be 25 years from now. We don't hear what the priest is saying, just listen to the minor piano chords as the coffin is lowered into the grave. Carla and Nina step away as Elizabeth starts to break down, and the gravediggers are like right over the Walters' SHOULDERS for God's sake, like "aren't you done grieving your dead son yet? 'Cause I wouldn't mind getting out of here early tonight if I could. I got a thing." I mean, good GOD.
Walter puts Elizabeth in the waiting car, and Nina walks over to talk to him, removing her sunglasses. Good lord, they made her look younger too. I think they might have digitally inserted stock footage of her from The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. She awkwardly tries to tell him how much William wanted to be there, but those dang meetings in Berlin, that she doesn't need to tell Walter how important they are to both of them. Walter doesn't look like he's really buying it. "He wanted me to make sure that you know how terrible he feels," she says. Which is kind of awful if it's true and not just Nina being a good sidekick, isn't it? "Make sure he knows how awful I feel," is what Bell said? "Yes, I understand. I'm glad you came," says Walter, kind of pointedly, and ducks Nina's attempt to touch him and walks around to the other side of the car.
Back in the Walter household, Elizabeth laments that they didn't give Peter a good life: "He practically never got out of the house." He was always too sick, says Walter. "He didn't go to a proper school. He didn't have any proper friends. He had no family but us. We kept him so well, we never let anyone else get to know him," she counters, and he quietly says that they did the best they could, and were dealt with what we were given. Walter sounds like he believes that's true, yet feels like it's still not good enough. In the second this-is-all-he-needs-for-three-Emmys clip, Walter says, "He knew he was loved." And you think maybe you can't feel sadder than when you're watching Walter's face slowly crumple, but then he looks at his wife and adds, pleadingly, "Didn't he?" and your heart shatters. Elizabeth gets up and walks away -- not angrily or accusingly or anything.
Later, it's dark. Walter sits on the bed while Elizabeth sleeps. She wakes up, sees him, asks what's wrong and notes that he feels cold -- has he been outside?
He asks her to come with him, and he takes her into Peter's bedroom, where he's set up his magic multi-universe window. She asks what it is, but instead of answering, he just turns it on, and Elizabeth can see Peter, sitting up in bed, playing with a toy. "Walter, what is this? How's this possible? How are you doing this?" she whispers. Walter gives his basic "window to another universe" non-explanation that fails to make Elizabeth's head explode, and after a moment he turns it off, which upsets her, and she pleads with him to turn it back on. He explains that he just wanted her to know that there's another Peter out there who will grow up safe and happy and normal, just not here. "And we must take comfort in this. And we must begin to move on," he says. You know, you probably could have saved the "we must begin to move on" part of the speech for at least the day after your son's funeral. Elizabeth kind of looks at him like "are you serious with this shit?" but then seems to accept it and walks out of Peter's room.
Walter, back in his lab, flicks on his magic window to watch Walternate toil away (and also drink -- Walter, not Walternate).
And then Walter notices something, and he stands up. "The compounds you're using for the cure ... not random at all. You are very, very smart." Just then, Walternate seems to be distracted by something just off screen, so Walter swivels the screen, and we can see Walternate talking to The Observer, while also gesturing at his experiment. Then the experiment goes blue, and Walter goes all giddy, at least until he realizes that Walternate has his back turned on the experiment, talking to the strange bald dude, and doesn't turn back until after the solution has gone back to its milky colour. Walternate never saw it blue, and he shakes his head, while Walter futilely pleads with him: "No! You had it, the cure! All you have to do is stabilize the compound, and you can save him. You can save him!" In anger, Walter throws his glass at the window, spiderwebbing the glass and knocking it over, which is going to be awfully tough to explain to the warranty people.
And then it's back to the past, as a zeppelin hovers over 1985 alterna-New York, while two Observers stroll out of a showing of the blockbuster movie Back to the Future. Amusingly, they seem to be carrying Slurpees -- possibly Tabasco-flavoured. Of course, this is the universe where Eric Stoltz was allowed to finish filming and went on to another successful sitcom in Spin City, while Michael J. Fox eventually had a memorable turn in Pulp Fiction as a drug dealer. Neither of the two Observers -- who are dismissing humans' cute ideas regarding time travel as mere "entertainment -- is the one we always see pop up, but that one does show up to tell them that he's made a big mistake. Are they speaking even more slowly than normal?
They already know about the screwup, and want to know what he was doing in the lab anyway. He's all, "observing! Duh!" and points out that it was an important moment, and there was no other way to witness it, but Walternate somehow managed to spot the hairless guy in a suit standing in the middle of his lab.
The killjoy Observers point out that it's the boy who's important, not the moment, and he needs to take action to restore balance: "You will have an opportunity to fix this," says one of them. We'll call him "Jerry." Oh, and now the scene is over.
Back at the lab, Carla arrives, surprised to see Walter already there and working (he's been there all night). She's very much the 1985 Astrid, it seems. Walter's been building some kind of contraption, and he explains that Walternate found a cure for Peter: "It's not too late. I can save him," says Walter. Carla gently points out that Peter's dead, and Walter says he's talking about the Peter on the other side. He explains about Walternate missing the solution, because he was distracted by a man in the lab. "And when he returned, the positive result had failed, and so he moved on." Carla fi
gures Walternate will figure out what he missed and go back, but Walter says Walternate is just like him -- except for the "finding a cure for his dying son" part, I suppose -- and therefore won't look back. "He didn't see the compound, but I did. And I've reproduced it." We see that Walter is whipping up a batch of blue magic in a flask, which he says just needed minor modification. "And without this, Peter will die. He'll die all over again. Which is why I have to go over there." Carla can't believe what she's hearing, and Walter is babbling about the "Casimir effect" which should produce a thinner, more porous region of space-time, and he only needs to affect the area for long enough to cross over with a vial of the cure, and then recreate the effect to cross back again. Oh. Well, as long as you're not planning anything CRAZY. Carla says, "Walter, you're trying to create a wormhole into another universe?" and Walter's all, "I think I just said that!" And then he goes off to find a map, because he noticed that Peter's bag was already packed for the lake house, which is where they always go this time of year, so that's where he's going to cross over.Carla says he can't do that, and we all know how much Walter enjoys being told what he can or can't do. "Shattering the wall between universes would rupture the fundamental constants of nature," she says, sounding just like my science teachers whenever we wanted to play god. Walter says that it's only a theory that crossing over would, you know, DESTROY THE UNIVERSE, and she says it's a good theory, which is why they've been lying to the military and saying it's impossible, and then she starts talking about how there has to be a line somewhere that they don't cross.
So he gets in a low blow about how he always considered her a scientist "despite [her] personal needs for religious claptrap" but he knows now he was wrong, and I don't think Walter is in a position to criticize someone making decisions based on "personal needs" right now.
She doesn't get mad, just quotes Oppenheimer's famous "I am become death, Destroyer of worlds" line at him, and he gets angrier, spitting about pursuing knowledge without morality and that she sounds like a "pious sanctimonious southern preacher," and she acknowledges going to church every Sunday but plays her three degrees in theoretical physics as a trump card to say he can't do this, because the amount of energy required to create a portal "will forever ruin both universes." Ruin like when you get mud on the carpet? Ruin like everyone in both universes is ripped apart molecule by molecule? She says he'll destroy the world for the sake of one life. "Some things are not ours to tamper with. Some things are God's," she says. Oh, doc. You had me, and then you lost me. Since STFU, Believers doesn't exist yet, Walter points out that his son is dying and he won't let that happen again: "There's only room for one god in this lab, and it's not yours."
He looks at the map, and points to Reiden Lake, by Albany. "It's perfect. The water will absorb the excess energy." He tells her he won't need her assistance any more today. She protests but he dismisses her with a curt "that will be all!" Hey, maybe you've still got time to catch a matinee of Back to the Future! I hear Eric Stoltz is intense.
Nope: she rats Walter out to Nina, who doesn't see what the big deal is, since Walter always goes off on "flights of fancy" but the design they'd need is decades beyond anything they could imagine. Carla tells Nina that Walter already has the design, and I'd like to point out that Carla saw an unhinged man with a contraption in the lab, which doesn't necessarily mean Walter has the design. Except of course he does, because Walter is so brilliant that he can accomplish something like traveling between universes on the first attempt with no problems, like all maiden voyages into the unknown. Anyway, Nina's concerned now, so she gets a cellphone the size of a fireplace log out of her purse and dials for Dr. Bell's room. They're too late! Walter's already at Lake Reiden with a vial of blue stuff!
After a commercial break, we watch Walter lug a sled with equipment wrapped in canvas out to the middle of the lake. "Here. It will do," he says, like WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO, WALTER, and he yanks off the canvas and sets up all his equipment, which includes hoses and tubes and a generator, and a couple of corrugated metal planks that form a kind of V-shaped gateway.
He checks his vial of cure one more time, and then spots Carla standing a little ways away, and he's glad to see that she's changed her mind. Then Nina steps out from behind Carla, because apparently the two of them decided that Carla would just STAND THERE and hope Walter spots her, whereupon Nina could step out from behind her all dramatically. Walter tells Carla that she disappoints him, and tells Nina to go home, because there's work to be done.
Nina urges him not to do it, and he cavalierly tells her he'll be there and back before she knows it. Not the point! She makes the mistake of saying "if William were here," and Walter seizes on that and asks her why William isn't here, and Nina offers up the lame "looking for funding" excuse, and Walter's all, "Oh, he's in Europe chasing funding? Too busy to come and stop me from destroying the universe?" Hee!
The point is, Walter figures (correctly) that Nina's phoned William several times today but William hasn't got back to her. Why? Because William would have applauded what Walter's doing: "You know how many times that William has encouraged me to take this very risk? To expedite our espionage program?" Nina doesn't believe him, which Walter says is because she doesn't understand William: "Like everyone else, you're blinded by the charming manner, the air of intelligence, the whole damn show."
But wait, there's more! Walter says William Bell has only ever been interested in has been adding to the power, knowledge and the legend of William Bell. Nina's a little speechless, and then gets all "irregardless!" on Walter and says she knows why he's doing this. Is it a secret? "You know how much Peter meant to me, and how difficult it will be for me to admit that he's gone," she says, adding that this isn't the answer. Walter seems to waver, but then decides "screw it" and says he won't let Peter die again. He powers up his equipment, which hums and glows impressively, and a wavering portal opens in the gateway.
Walter heads towards it, and Nina decides to try to tackle him to stop him, but he gets up and shakes her off and proceeds through, just ahead of it zapping closed. Nina starts yelling and Carla rushes to help her, but unless Carla knows what to do about an arm that was caught between universes, I think Nina's going to lose that forearm, which is blurry and wavy like a television station not tuned exactly right. So that's the origin of that!
Over in the other universe, Walter's got his own problem. What had been a vial of the cure is now an empty bottle and a blue stain on his shirt. You know, Walter, they had pocket protectors back in the '80s. Countless nerds in film and television were signified sometimes exclusively with just a single pocket protector. "Oh no," says Walter, and he runs off across the frozen lake.
Here's another difference in the alternate universe: it's Peter's mom who shows him the coin-knuckle trick, and we get the exact same scene we had with Walter and Peter, only with Peter and Elizabeth instead, right down to Peter wanting her to have his lucky silver dollar. It's the exact same conversation, only Elizabeth manages not to kill her son with a hug.
She leaves the room, and Peter closes his eyes to get some sleep, which is when Walter wanders in to sit on Peter's bed. Peter opens his eyes and sees his dad, and asks if he's all right. Walter fights back tears as he says he is, and kisses his alternate-universe son's hand.
Elizabeth comes in, wondering what all the RACKET is for crying out loud, and is surprised to see Walter, since she thou
ght he was working late at Cambridge. And she turns on the light and wants to know what he's wearing: "Where did you get that coat?" In a genius move, Walter avoids answering that difficult question by saying that he thinks he found a cure for Peter. A stunned Elizabeth asks if he's certain, and Walter says he'll need to take Peter back to the lab at Cambridge. Elizabeth, flustered, starts getting Peter up and dressed, while Walter looks on somewhat guiltily.And as Elizabeth gets her coat on, Walter pulls her aside to tell her that he thinks she should stay at home: "The cure, there's still testing to be done, and it could take all night to find the correct dosage," he says. She protests, so he lays on a guilt trip about how if the cure works, he could be recuperating for days and weeks so Peter needs her to "be strong" and get a good night's sleep here, that kind of nonsense that really isn't going to work until Walter busts out the "I need you not to doubt me" trump card.
She gives in, and goes to check on Peter, who's "burning up" which has nothing to do with the fact that he's standing inside with all his winter gear on. Walter wants to get going, which is a good idea, because "I need you not to doubt me" isn't going to work when Walternate arrives home and has no idea what his delusional wife is talking about when she asks him about the cure. Anyway, Elizabeth gives Peter back his coin for luck (it's this scene in which I notice the kid could easily be what a similarly aged Joshua Jackson might have looked like, so nice job by casting).
Walter gathers Peter up in his arms. "Bring him back to me," says Elizabeth, optimistically, and Walter, NOT AT ALL SUSPICIOUSLY, stops dead in his tracks but doesn't look at her and says, "I promise." She watches from the window as Walter ... I don't know, wanders off into the snowy night instead of getting into a car? Not really sure how THAT worked.
So there are Peter and Walter trudging across the frozen lake, with Peter complaining that he's cold. "Just a little farther," says Walter. "Where are we going? Why aren't we taking the car?" asks Peter. "We can't get where we're going in a car," says Walter. Or, as John Lithgow said in Alternate Back to the Future, "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."
"You're not my father are you?" says Peter. Check out the big brain on Peter! Walter's all, "Of course I am! Who else would I be?" He promises Peter that he's going to make him all better. I suppose THEN they can do something about the frostbite.
Walter pulls a little gizmo out his pocket, and presses it, and the little gateway opens up in the snowy air. "Hold on tight, son!" he says, and they stroll through it, back into our universe, with his equipment all around. "We did it!" says Walter. And then the ice cracks, and the two of them fall through. I don't know about you guys, but that's when I said, "Oh, shit! I forgot about the drowning!" Of course, we have a good idea how this turns out. Unless what we know as Peter is actually anotherdifferent alternate universe."
After the commercial break, Walter struggles to hold onto a sinking Peter whilst trying to break through the ice up top. Peter slips from his grasp and descends through the completely crystal-clear lake water, and Walter loses consciousness. Someone else plunges through the water and heads for Peter, while Walter floats into blackness.
When he comes to, he's in the passenger seat of a car being driven by the Observer. Walter groggily looks around, sees Peter sleeping in the backseat. He asks Michael Stipe over there if Peter's OK, but the Observer doesn't say. "Who are you?" asks Walter. As does the Observer. At the same time. "You're the man I saw, in the lab, on the other side," says Walter. As does the Observer. AT THE SAME TIME. Man, for dudes whose goal is to secretly observe major world events, you'd think they'd tamp down some of their more annoying and memorable habits.
The Observer explains that Walter's friend and the one who was injured left to seek medical attention. As for Peter, he won't live much longer. "You must fix him. Your lab is six miles from here. Can you drive?" He sounds like HAL in 2001. Walter figures he can, so the Observer pulls over. "Why did you save us?" asks Walter. "The boy is important. He has to live," says the Observer, and gets out of the car. By the time Walter gets out and comes around the hood of the car, the Observer's nowhere to be seen. Walter squeals the tires as he peels the shaggin' wagon out of there...
Over at the lab, Walter's on an IV drip of the blue magic, and Carla's already been brought up to speed. She comes in to say she just got off the phone with the hospital: "Dr. Bell called in a team of specialists. He has some thoughts on Nina's arm," she says. Walter thanks her for coming in to help with Peter - who's starting to get his colour back -- after everything that's happened. And just as you're thinking, "Well, how could she possibly be OK with this," she confirms with Walter that he's going to bring Peter back. Yes, says Walter, once he's stabilized. I think here it's killing Walter to know that he has to, but that he does indeed plan to.
Carl skedaddles, leaving Walter alone to wonder if he should start pegging the legs of his Guess jeans, and then Elizabeth strolls in. "Love, you didn't come home last night. I was worried about you," she says ... and then she spots Peter. "How?" she whispers. Walter explains that the other Peter he showed her - this boy - was dying to. "It was the only way I could save him," he says. "Well, at least it's not like in that recent bestselling novel Pet Sematary by Stephen King," says Elizabeth, as she walks over to get a closer look. She starts crying as she gathers the sleeping Peter up in her arms. "Oh, my baby," she says. "Elizabeth, don't. He's not ours. I have to take him back," says Walter. Elizabeth just looks at him, her eyes a mixture of fear, anger, sadness and warning. Yeah, you're not taking this kid back, Walter.
Back in the present day, that's exactly what Walter tells Olivia, that he realized at that moment that he could never do what he fully intended to do. "The way she looked at him, I saw in her what I feared most in myself when I saw him: that I couldn't lose him again," he says.
That was the first hole, Olivia, says Walter. "The first breach. The first crack in a pattern of cracks, spaces between the worlds. And it's my fault."
He shakes his head, fighting back tears. "You can't imagine what it's like to lose a child," he says. Oh, here I go again. You know what that last sentence means to me? Walter knows he would, given the chance, do it again.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter, whom he would unhesitatingly destroy the universe for, if it came down to it. It probably won't come down to it. Follow him on Twitter or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.