Tough time assessing this episode. On the one hand, it has a static, boring plot that sees the Fringe crew sneak into Walter's lab through heretofore unhinted-at tunnels to try to find any trace of the Observer-defeating plan feared lost forever in Walter's scrambled brain, and then they're there for the rest of the episode, trying to carve a video camera out of the amber that Walter set off for preservation purposes.
On the other hand, we're also treated to the emotionally complex reacquaintance of Olivia and Etta, where the joy at being reunited with her long-lost daughter fades at the realization that the loss of her parents coupled with the grim life under the Observers has hardened her into a resistance fighter willing to torture to get information they need. Every parent wants her child to have a better life than she did, and Etta's ruthless interrogating of a loyalist guard is the clearest indication Olivia could get of just how tough things have been for Etta.
The guard had the bad fortune to wander into Walter's lab while the Fringe crew were there, so Etta uses an "angel device," which destabilizes atoms or whatever (science) in the victim such that he ages rapidly. Olivia's shocked at her use of the device, as well as the contempt she holds for him and all loyalists. "Loyalists sell out their own kind like rats," she sneers.
Olivia gets a more complicated story from the loyalist, which involves the loss of one son and his desire to protect the remaining one. He makes Olivia promise to tell his living son what happened to him, presuming that Etta or resistance HQ won't let him live beyond his usefulness. Etta calls the guard a liar, that he saw a glimmer of vulnerability in Olivia that he exploited.
But it's that same pity that brings Etta to eventually release the guard into the wild, once he's helped them gain access to the power grid so they can reroute electricity to Walter's lab so they can use a laser to cut the video camera out so they can find Walter's recorded message -- which is to tell them to get all the videotapes he recorded pieces of his plan on, which will surely defeat the godless Observers.
The guard, before running to his freedom in a field, tells Etta that he's going to start fighting for the resistance now. She doesn't believe him, because it turns out he was lying about having sons. Or maybe she does believe him, because he says it after she let him go. Either way, she records his run to freedom to send to her mother and tell her, with all kinds of meaning, "I'm on my way back." Proud motherly moment for Olivia; between her daughter's callousness and the loyalist's capitulation, she spent a good chunk of the episode wondering if she weren't better off still encased in amber.
I mean, other than in Markham's apartment, obviously.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He sets very strict torture limits for his daughter. Half an hour a day, an hour on weekends. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
This week again we open with scenes -- sequenced a little more linearly -- of the Bishop-Dunhams enjoying a sunny day in the park. It's a little more from Olivia's perspective, though. She's reading a book while Peter talks about how he could happily stay here forever. That's what they all say, right before an invasion! They call Etta to come over, because it's time to get her home and into a bath, and the cherub happily starts tottering her way over.
And then: Building disintegrates. Observers pop into view. I don't mind watching that again, because it is effectively unsettling to watch and you can understand the instant terror that grips people. Olivia breaks into a run towards Etta, who's standing still out of fear. It looks like Peter's just about to scoop her up --
And then Olivia wakes up in the first-aid station that got set up in the wake of the invasion. She can't hear well at first and then she gets her bearings enough to make out a frantic Peter asking a doctor about their daughter, who had been standing right in front of him. Also: Has anyone seen our Bugaboo stroller? Those things aren't cheap! He dashes out to find where the kids have been taken. Olivia, suddenly realizing Etta's missing, leaps up from her bed to chase after him, screaming Etta's name --
And then Olivia wakes up in 2036, sweat beading on her chest, Peter hovering above her. Breathing hard, Olivia covers her face with her hands and Peter could tell she was dreaming about Etta. "For us, it's like it all just happened a couple of months ago," he reminds her. But it didn't and they're all here now, and it's all OK. Well, I don't know about "OK," exactly. But I suppose if "domestic bliss raising their daughter" is at one end of the scale and "separated and encased in amber" is at the other, then I'll grant you that where they are now is probably somewhere in between.
Olivia smiles, but it's tough for her to be truly happy about the missing 21 years; washing her hands in Etta's bathroom, she sees a row of pictures of a growing Etta with presumably a foster family. I'm sure Olivia's happy her daughter didn't live out the past two decades in some near-future Dickensian orphanage though, right? RIGHT?
Peter strolls into the kitchen to find Walter wearing the thought unifier and muttering to himself. Astrid tells Peter it's having adverse effects on Walter, as though Walter muttering non-sequentially things like "Not the thing working can't it's not" isn't enough to clue Peter in. And we're sure this thing isn't just some peripheral device for 2036's PlayStation 7, right?
Peter wants the doodad to come off Walter right now and they pull it off, much to Walter's annoyance. "I'm not an amateur, Peter. I need this contraption if I am to retrieve the plan to defeat the Observers from the depths of my memory."
Peter points out that they don't even know if there's anything to retrieve, or just what that device might be doing to him. Walter ignores him and starts muttering in Swedish, but it doesn't sound anything like the Chef. Astrid tells a surprised Peter that Walter was speaking Portuguese earlier.
Olivia strolls in and Etta says she hopes the floor wasn't too hard. Young lady, your mother has been encased in amber for twenty-one years! Give her your damn bed! Olivia asks how things are coming along, and Peter says they don't know anything other than that at some point in the past Walter knew both Portuguese and Swedish. Walter, getting frustrated again, rips the thought unifier from his head.
As usual, Olivia's the one who gets right down to business and points out to Walter that he's always documented things, so is he absolutely sure he didn't write anything down? Walter can't remember, but he says anything's possible. Etta says even if there are files, they can't go back to Harvard, because they can't get in.
You may recall that Walter has been known to squirrel things away all over town, not just in his lab, but never mind. The plot reason is that the Observers took over Harvard five years ago. Oh, sure, but if people ask for human-specific scholarships, they're the racists, right? Oh, they're not attending. It's some kind of base, or, "no one knows exactly," says Etta. Walter says the Observer takeover is "not a problem for someone who's done acid," and Etta stares at him with a half-smile. Yep, that's your grandfather, kid.
She pulls up some sort of security camera feed that shows checkpoints around the building where Walter's lab is. "No one gets in without paperwork," she says. "Tunnels!" blurts out a giddy Walter.
So there are previously unmentioned steam tunnels under the building as, in fairness, there usually are under buildings like this. Hell, my own university had a network underground, so we didn't have to go outside to go to the cafeteria or to class. I'm pretty sure ours didn't have a secret entrance in a field miles away, like the spot Walter takes them to now and I'd kinda think that if the Observers were using Harvard as some sort of top-secret base they'd, you know, GUARD ALL THE ENTRANCES. Plus weren't they supposed to be some kind all-time-seeing-and-thereby-effectively-omniscient at one point... oh why bother.
Anyway, they find the hatch underneath the grass and the dirt, and they pull it open and peer inside. If the shot taken from the perspective of someone in the tunnel looking up at Peter and Walter peering in doesn't remind you of Lost, then you never watched Lost. "Yahtzee," says Walter, happily, because we don't have to wait until season to find out what's down there.
So while the Observers mill about through security checkpoints above ground, the Fringe squad makes its way through the steam tunnels, Walter explaining that the temperature sometimes reaches as high as 120. "Sometimes Belly and I would wear swim trunks and Speedos," he says, and before we have to contemplate that regrettable image for very long, the group is forced to duck out of the way of a pipe literally blowing off steam.
A painting of a dragon on a pillar is what tells Walter they've arrived at the right spot, so they climb a nearby ladder and out a heating duct or whatever into the lab, dark and covered in cobwebs. Well, part of it is, anyway. Half the lab is encased in amber. "Why?" asks Peter. Uh, maybe the same reason all of you did it to yourselves? For protection. Walter peers into the amber and sees his Betamax recorder (wait, did he amber the lab in 1982?) on a tripod, and judging from the blast pattern of the amber, he must have been standing right in front of the camera when he triggered the amber. "I don't think I wrote anything down. I think I was making a video," he says.
So the question is whether the tape is in there and there's only one way to find out: A complicated process that will take the rest of the episode to come to fruition. Equally perplexing for Walter, who spots a half-eaten package of licorice encased in the amber: "When did I switch to grape?"
There's the sound of someone entering the lab, and as always in television and movies, the gang is able to instantly and silently duck out of sight as a loyalist soldier comes traipsing in. He's soon confronted by gun-toting Etta, who orders him on his knees. Peter asks what he's doing there. "He's a loyalist. He's not gonna tell us anything," says Etta, securing the guy's hands behind his back.
Olivia finds his ID -- Gael Manfretti -- and a bag of bread crumbs, prompting Etta to comment sarcastically on how well "the baldies"' feed him.
So now what do they do? Olivia's puzzled as to what the guy's even doing here, since the place is abandoned. Astrid suggests they tripped a silent alarm (although sending just one soldier to check it out seems foolish).
Leaving doesn't really seem to be an option, points out Etta, because if the camera's key to helping Walter remember, they've got to get it out of the amber. The device they use to push people out won't work, since it'll just push the camera further in. Walter needs a laser. Fortunately, he can make a laser. I think I'd be a little worried as to what kind of dangerous kill-machine Walter's addled mind might produce, but that's OK.
What Walter can't do, however, is use a laser when there's no electricity. Flipping levers in the breaker box isn't helping either. "The ambering must have blown everything," says Olivia, and then Peter somehow deduces that the power is "blown all the way back to the campus substation," whatever that means, which Astrid says is in the basement of the science building. Etta says they can get there through the tunnels, but before our merry band of adventurers can embark on this quest, Astrid reminds them that they don't even know what's in the science building anymore, or what might be waiting for them. "We don't, but he does," says Etta, indicating Gael, and she closes the door so she's alone in the room with the loyalist. Olivia cocks her head at this little development.
Inside the room, Etta tells Gael that he doesn't talk much, but she's gonna give him one more chance. She asks what he knows about the science building. He doesn't answer. "You're a real open book. It's okay. I'm good at opening books," she says, and starts putting together a little handheld device with a knob and exterior lights. 2036 iPod? Whatever it is, Gael's quite concerned to see it, and asks Etta where she got it. She says it's not important, but what is important is that she has it.
She attaches -- painfully, it seems -- cords to Gael's hands. "What do they use the science building for? He still doesn't answer, but seems a little more scared now. And with good reason: After a moment, Etta turns the knob on the device, and Gael's body spasms -- he's really just a blur as he violently shakes. Etta stares at him impassively.
After a few seconds, she stops it and Gael has noticeably aged. Male pattern baldness has got its clutches in him, and his beard is flecked with grey now. "I don't think you want to waste any more precious time," says Etta.
After the commercial break, Walter is holding a small mallet above his head and begging the Criterion Collection forgiveness for what he's about to do. Hey, screw Criterion. They still owe us an apology for putting out an Armageddon edition. Astrid soothes Walter, reminding him they need the laser from the laser-disc player he's going to smash. Walter, his eyes screwed shut, still can't do it, but Astrid's calling for Peter gets him going. "No, it should be me," he says, and he smashes the player.
Clearing a table, Astrid and Walter get to work. Astrid says she doesn't think this laser disc tube can generate enough power. Really? You don't think the laser in a home laserdisc player will be strong enough to cut through amber? I probably shouldn't sound smug, since unlike Astrid I would have no idea what to do about that. She says they need a better "gain ratio."
Walter's distracted by the fluttering of nearby pigeons -- "flying vermin," he mutters, and while he natters about how the least the Observers could do is hand them out to the poor for sustenance, Olivia finds herself looking over to the room where Etta is questioning Gael. Walter comes back to reality long enough to say they'll need a helium-neon mix, and there are a couple of canisters in the storage room off Astrid's office.
Olivia volunteers to go get them, but it's a pretext for popping in to see how Etta's getting along. Gael's even older now, his eyes milky from cataracts and his hair pretty much white. And he has started using old-timey slang like "whippersnapper."
"Etta? What are you doing?" says Olivia quietly. "It's called an angel device. It stirs up and destabilizes every atom in his body," says Etta, as calmly as you might explain how your popcorn maker works. A full-charge steals around twenty-five, thirty years, she says, but this is a long way from a full charge. But Gael is so disoriented by the process, he loses the will to lie. "Or he holds out until his heart fails," she says. Either way, she seems to think. "But most of them give us what we need to know," she says. "And if they don't?" asks Olivia, but Etta doesn't answer.
Olivia gets some water for the guy, but Etta stops him, saying it'll kill him to have water. He can't have any for another three hours. And we're spared some fake bullshit-science explanation for that. In fact we're spared any kind of explanation for that.
Olivia sits there, crouched beside Gael, and Etta coldly tells her he's not worth a single tear. "Loyalists sell out their own kind like rats," she says. With Gael listening attentively, Etta says she knows her mom just woke up, but she needs to look around and see what the Observers have brought. "This is war, and we're losing," she says.
From the other room, Walter calls for Etta, and she warns her mom not to get too near the guy. Etta leaves, and Gael and Olivia stare at each other.
Outside, Walter asks for her necklace. She's not currently wearing it -- the clasp is loose, so she took it off and put it in her pocket -- and she's surprised at the request, especially when Walter says they need to melt it down. Peter assures her they just need the silver for solder and she pulls off the bullet and hands it over, then looks at the bullet in her palm for a moment.
In the other room, Gael wryly asks Olivia how he looks, and she says, "Like you're in pain" but not sympathetically. She rejects his warning that his absence will be noticed by saying she doesn't believe anyone's coming for him -- he wasn't there because they were seen or triggered some kind of alert, but because -- Olivia pulls the breadcrumbs out -- he came to feed the birds. And since he's probably not even supposed to be here, this will be the last place anyone would look. It would also be the last place anyone would look, because they'd find him there and thus stop looking.
Olivia leans in to speak conspiratorially to him, adopting the Good Cop role in the classic Good Cop/Batshit Cop dynamic, and urges Gael to tell Etta what she wants to know before he ages into the colostomy bag years. "You must have something to live for. I'm trying to help you," she says.
Gael, presumably fishing around a little for information, says she doesn't have the authority to do that, does she? Olivia says, "Well, what authority do I need?" instead of "I'm her mother," and Gael says loyalists don't just walk away when they've been captured by the resistance. After watching Etta for five minutes, I believe that, but Olivia asks how he can be so sure, prompting a "You're new to the resistance" comment. Olivia cryptically says she's been around longer than he thinks -- you know, I'd like to see Olivia take advantage of her two decades in suspended animation for a few more "Miss Fitzhenry?" "Bugsy Brown" moments.
Anyway, Gael says he isn't going to survive this and he's not afraid to die, so he'll tell Etta what she wants to know if Olivia will go and tell his son I'm not coming home, and that he loved him very much. "I don't want him to keep looking for me. I don't want him hoping he'll see me again. I've seen that too many times, people waiting for people who never come home," he says, voice shaking. Nice work by guest actor Eric Lange here.
Before Olivia can respond, Etta finally comes in -- did she stop off for coffee on the way back? -- and wordlessly starts powering up the angel device again. Gael looks to Olivia, who gives him a small nod, and so he tells Etta that everyone has an access code, and you can't get in without one.
Etta shuts off the device and asks what's in the building. The main power grid is still in there, says Gael, but other than that he doesn't know. "I don't go below the First Floor. We don't ask. Rumours, mainly." Ahhh, Fleetwood Mac record storage!
Wait, not Rumours but rumors, of experiments. "Of what?" asks Etta. Little sigh from Gael. "On everything." He gives them the first part of his two-part access code: . The second part? asks Etta. "Me," says Gael.
Olivia goes out to ask the geniuses outside if they can beat an ocular scanner, telling him they have Gael's access code, but there are scanners at every point. Peter notes it didn't take long to get the information, and Olivia doesn't say anything, so he asks what's wrong.
thing you know, Peter's holding up the angel device and asking Etta where she got it, like it's a joint he found in her backpack. I'd love for Etta to say, "You, all right? I learned it by watching you," but she doesn't.
Walter calls the device barbaric, and wonders what the world has come to, that the resistance could create such a device. Jesus, Windmark did scramble his brain if Walter is suddenly surprised at man's seeming inhumanity to man. It wasn't the resistance, though, Etta tells him, but the loyalists who created it, from second-generation Observer tech, designed to prepare them for time travel. "But as you can see, the loyalists figured out a new way to use it on us. No reason we shouldn't use it on them," says Etta. Well, that's not really true, but before anyone can argue, they hear the sound of a big truck outside. Olivia carefully looks out the window, and says they're OK, it's just a transport truck.
So back to the ocular scanner business. Walter says the only surefire way to beat it is to bring Gael with them. But obviously, they can't bring Grandpa Gael with them, so Walter has a close look at his eye. "If you can't bring him with you, there's only one way," he says. "I agree," says Etta immediately, while Olivia says, "Walter, you can't!" Walter coldly says, not taking his eyes off Gael's, "Of course I can. Rather easily, in fact." He tells "Astril" to fetch a sharp scalpel and his long-handled stainless spoon.
I went into the commercial break confident that this was going to be a fake-out, but when we come back and Walter has an actual eye, optical nerve dangling, sitting in a test-tube holder while he works on it surgically, I confess I said "NO WAY" and fell for it completely.
As it turns out, Walter has a jar of pig's eyes in formaldehyde that he's using to -- I don't know, cut? -- to try to mimic the pattern on Gael's eyeball. "An iris is like a fingerprint. Each has its own unique pattern," Walter says. The complexity of fingerprints makes me think this is a fool's errand then, but I guess Walter's not really prepared to slice out someone's eyeball. Why does Walter have pigs' eyes in his lab? Probably so he can make an "in a pig's eye" joke.
Etta and Peter finally arrive at the door to the medical wing, where she enters Gael's access code. You'd think she'd at least turn around and serve as lookout while Peter is holding up a detached eyeball to the scanner (and not even leaning in a little closer. Can't get too close, I suppose, without risking the scanner picking up his eyeball too).
The door does not open. Instead, a couple of loyalists in a central monitoring room wonder what the hell Not-Aged Manfretti is doing in Building Four, since that's not his sector. And in Walter's lab, Gael's walkie-talkie crackles: "Manfretti, come in. Over." A concerned Olivia takes the radio over to Gael and orders him to answer it. He hesitates, so she reminds him that they had an agreement and he casually says, "Hey, what's up?" The security guy asks what he's doing accessing the medical science wing when he's supposed to be in Sector Seven. Gael looks to Olivia, who tells Gael to tell them he needed to change a fuse. He does so, but that only seems more suspicious: "Since when does security change fuses? Who asked you to do that?" Gael looks to Olivia again, but this time they realize that maybe the person who has been in amber for the past two decades isn't the best person to improvise a cover story on the fly, and Gael finally says "No. 19," and the other loyalist seems fairly impressed by that: "Big Guy 19, really?" Gael gets the order to change his "stupid fuse" and get back to his post.
So the guards give Peter and Etta clearance to get through the doors. Olivia accuses Gael of knowing that if they went to that area they wouldn't be killed. Gael pleads that he doesn't, because he's never been anywhere he wasn't supposed to be. Olivia doesn't look like she really buys that.
Peter and Etta stroll through the medical wing and as they pass by doors we get unsettling looks at creepily mysterious things going on. A woman lies motionless in an examination chair, a bald scientist (either an Observer or Lex Luthor, clearly) is checking out bubbling beakers. And then Etta glances into another room and sees the severed head of Simon Foster, hooked up to electrodes. That's not the worst part, though. The worst part is it blinks. Etta calmly steps away from the door -- Peter has a look-see himself -- but the anger starts to bubble up inside her and she draws her gun and Peter has to stop her from going in gun blazing. "Think of the tape. Think about what's on it. Think about your future," he says, adding that there will a time for vengeance and a time for grieving. Going all Ecclesiastes on her! "They'll pay for what they've done. I promise," he says, as she calms down.
After the commercial break, Gael asks Olivia if she really thinks they can win. She says they have to, so that all the people who died -- "including your son," she points out -- didn't die for nothing. That oughta shut Gael up pretty well.
Over in the medical wing, Peter is demonstrating that being frozen in amber while two decades of technological upgrades -- not to mention any modifications made by humanity's new bald overlords -- are no match for his genius brain, as he taps around on the power grid and gets Henrietta to throw a switch. Just like that, the power comes back on in Walter's lab, turning on lights and a cobwebbed record player. Astrid points out they should turn off the lights before someone sees them, which gives Walter a chance to see if his Clapper still works. Do they still make those? Because I lived through the '80s, and remember the commercial with the decrepit old people and the awful jingle and the endless jokes -- but now I kinda want one.
Anyway, now that they have power, Walter hauls out his Ghostbuster-esque laser and starts blasting away at the amber around the video camera. You'd think he'd test it out on a less important part of the amber first -- but what do I know? I'm not a mad scientist. Firing the laser appears to give Walter a massive hard-on, and he offers the laser to Astrid to have a go, and she gleefully accepts.
Peter and Etta return through the steam-tunnel access, and Olivia, watching Astrid and Walter carve away the amber, watches a sullen Etta silently walk past her into the room where they're holding Gael. Olivia asks Peter what happened. The two of them may start feeling grateful they missed Etta's grouchy teenage years.
Etta's unshackling Gael when Olivia comes in to tell Etta she's sorry about Agent Foster. "Freedom has its costs," says Etta, tonelessly. Yeah, it's a buck-oh-five... everyone knows that. Etta says Foster knew the risks, and then tells Gael to get up, because he's "travelling." Gael looks at Olivia, who asks Etta where she's taking him. Etta says he's useless to them now, so she's turning him over to the resistance. Olivia and Etta square off about whether loyalists ever return when turned over to the other side, with Etta's counter being that resistance fighters don't make it out of loyalist custody either.
Olivia's horrified by Etta's declaration that "HQ will get whatever else they can from him and dispose of him, and the world will be a tiny bit safer," and points out Gael did give them the code. Etta's not swayed, because that's just Gael's human survival instinct kicking in: the same reason loyalists turn other people into slaves.
Olivia relates Gael's story about joining the loyalists to save what was left of his family, but Etta's unmoved and says Gael's lying, because that's what they're trained to do. "He has no son," says Etta, adding that Gael gave up the code because he saw weakness in Olivia's eyes, that maybe he could manipulate Olivia into letting him go. Man, poor Gael. They're talking about him like he's not even there! At least not until Etta says, for his benefit, that it's not gonna happen, and calls him "sweetheart" for good measure.
Olivia tries again, says she understands how hurt she must be. Etta stops that cold with "You don't know my world" and Olivia's forced to acknowledge that that's true, but she had hoped that wherever Etta was, she hadn't been hardened by what had happened to her. Being ripped from her parents when she was three? Yeah, no reason why Etta shouldn't have been hardened by that. "It's not that I don't see what the Observers have brought, I do. But what concerns me more is what they've taken away," says Olivia. Etta says this is the world: "It is what it is," and steps out -- telling Gael not to move -- before Olivia can say she's also disappointed in her leaning on meaningless tautologies.
When she's gone, Gael gives Olivia an address. 143 Dunstable Street, No. 7. "His name is Oscar," he says. Jesus, unless whatever universe or timeline or whatever this is doesn't have Sesame Street, it's awfully cruel to name a kid Oscar, isn't it? Oh dear lord -- if there's a reference this season to "President Romney" then we'll know that's the case.
Olivia says she keeps her word, and Gael says he knows she does.
Out in the lab, Peter's taking a turn with the laser when Etta comes over to Walter and says she needs a sedative. Walter's more than happy to provide drugs to anyone who wants them, even his granddaughter, without any questions why. Then she comes back in and gives Olivia a communications device, telling her if Walter needs anything else for the laser, she'll get it, and then she leaves with Gael.
Looks like the laser's a perfect success though, in that in every other instance we've seen amber can only be cut out in chunks but I guess here they've been able to cut the camera out or melt the amber closest to it or some bullshit, whatever. Peter reaches in to pull it out -- it's still got some residual amber on it so it won't look too clean, like NICE TRY. "There you are," he says.
After a commercial break, Etta's driving on a gravel road out in the middle of nowhere, Gael snoozing in the back of the van. Then he wakes up on the ground, Etta standing by the van, holding a gun. He pulls himself up a sitting position, and puts his hands up. "You don't have a son, do you," says Etta. It's not really a question. Gael admits that he was hoping, right up until the last minute, that Olivia could convince her. "You were right about me. I became a loyalist because I'm a coward," he says.
Etta thinks about this for a minute and then tells him to get out of here. Not "Get outta here!" like he's kidding, but actually telling him to leave. He stares at her for a while, not sure if she means it or not. Then he gets to his feet and takes a few steps towards her, and tells her he's going to fight for the resistance now. "You don't have to lie anymore. I already let you go," she says, but he says that's why this time he hopes she believes him. He points out that his cheek tattoo may come in handy, since there aren't many resistance fighters an active tat ID. I'd imagine that his tat ID won't be active for long, but we'll allow it for now. Then he tells her that she was right, he did see something in Olivia's eyes: "There was a certainty that I've never seen before, and I don't know how to explain it other than to say I felt ... for the first time... that we were supposed to win."
Then, after a long pause (Etta doesn't say anything), Gael asks why she's letting him live. God, just go already! Etta says it was something she saw in her eyes as well: Pity. "For all of us," she says.
Back at Harvard, Walter frees the tape from the recorder, and notes that the heat from the laser may have damaged the PVC. Astrid, who was gleefully wielding the laser too, tells Walter that she told him they should have gone slower.
On the tape, Walter tells whoever's watching that if they're watching this, it he's probably dead and his plan to stop the Observers has failed. But he has documented his plan on videotapes: "You must recover each tape and follow the instructions on each of those tapes to retrieve all the parts of the plan," he says, and once they do this, what they need to do will be clear to them. "If successful, this plan will restore us and rid the world of the Observers," he says. There's some more bullshit about destiny and stuff, but the static and scratchiness finally overwhelms the tape and it becomes unwatchable. I fear the same thing happening to my VHS copy of Tougher Than Leather, which to my knowledge hasn't been released on DVD yet.
Peter ejects the tape, and tries the time-honored tradition of blowing on it to make it work. Meanwhile, Olivia's comms device beeps. She takes it out to watch video of Gael running away to his freedom, before the camera angle swings around to Etta's face. "I'm on my way back," she says. Double meanings! Olivia smiles and says OK.
Peter, having blown on the tape sufficiently, puts it back in, and... well, all we really get is more from Walter about how important it is that they retrieve the tapes. Yeah, hurry up and amber yourself already, we got it! "You are humanity's only hope. Now you must retrieve the first tape," he says. And then he ambers himself, and -- wait, where's the first tape? Where's the first tape?? You've screwed us again, Past Walter!
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. On the bright side, Gael now qualifies for any number of seniors' discounts. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel[at]gmail.com.
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