I'll See You In Hell! (From Heaven)

S05E10

Previously on Fringe, Olivia told Silver Nina they need her help, which Silver Nina seemed more than happy to provide; Michael the Junior Observer met the Fringe team in the alternate timeline; the current Fringe team tracked him down via the radio signal. Well, that wasn't so much – how complicated could this episode be?

After Peter is able to ascertain that Michael doesn't have an implant in his neck, which may or may not be important later, the Fringe team tries to get Michael to tell them about Walter's lost plan with Donald; when Michael stays silent, Walter wants to put him on a coma and pump him full of drugs, and Olivia is like, "Ixnay," but she does wonder why Michael no longer exhibits his empathic abilities, so she calls Nina for help. Unfortunately, thanks to the Fringe team's recent use of the sublimation device, Windmark and the Observers know that someone in the Ministry of Science has betrayed them, and their money's on Nina, a suspicion they confirm in some kind of C.S.I.: Observers sweep of her office. Nina meets with the team and tells them some equipment she has in a "black" (i.e. off the Observers' grid, somehow) lab may be helpful in communicating with the boy; Peter also takes the opportunity to express his displeasure at Nina's promise to remove the pieces of Walter's brain once the world is saved, to which Nina points out that if the plan isn't completed quickly, Walter may regress completely and no longer want to go through with the procedure. She adds that anything worth fighting for comes with a cost, which is a total throwaway line that will have nothing to do with anything.

Nina takes the crew to the black lab, wherein they see, from the handful of apparently-dead Observers around the place in pods, that the Resistance experimented on Observers to try to find ways to fight them, but their scientists weren't able to extract any useful data. However, Nina theorizes the technology they used in their attempts might be useful in communicating with Michael; they try it, but when it fails, Nina realizes that instead of reading Michael's mind, they need him to try to read theirs, which will require different equipment, which her ally at the Ministry "Hastings" will provide. Unfortunately, this same Hastings is getting mind-probed by Windmark at the moment, and since Hastings has a worse poker face than Homer Simpson, all is soon revealed. The Fringe team breaks into the Ministry anyway and steals the equipment they need just in time to get a bird's-eye view of Hastings being tortured, news that Olivia relays to Nina. The Observers leave Hastings alive for the Fringe team to rescue, and he despairingly tells them that they know where Nina is.

When Nina gets the warning that her time is coming, she goes back underground to the lab, and, presumably moved by the need to say goodbye to someone, tells Michael everything's going to be okay. Perhaps through the force of her feelings, he finally steps forward and touches her face, which seems to impart some knowledge to her. Unfortunately, we don't get to find out what it is – yet -- as the Observers show up (in… a car?) in pursuit. Nina urgently tells Michael to come with her…and when Windmark gets into the lab, he finds only Nina, who, triumphant and unbowed, tells him the fugitives are long gone, and when Windmark sees the evidence of what the Resistance did to the Observers, he expresses cold fury in a way I don't think we've seen before. Windmark also reveals to Nina that Michael is not a child but a "chromosomal mistake" (the episode title is Michael's "anomaly" number) and was scheduled to be destroyed before he went missing. In response, Nina tells him that while the Observers may think they're evolved, their loss of human emotion has made them regress into the use of primitive instincts, making them lizard-like – even the way they tilt their heads is physiological evidence of it. Windmark, looking dark, has a lackey prepare Nina for a Hastings-level mind probe, but she lifts the guard's gun – AND SHOOTS HERSELF RIGHT IN FRONT OF WINDMARK. Oh, man. I hate to lose Nina, but tell me she's not going to get the most high-fives in heaven for that one.

When the Fringe team arrives on the scene, they find Nina's corpse, which threatens to break Walter more than anything that's happened up to this point, not that Olivia handles it much better. The team checks the security footage (nice for the Observers not to have thought of THAT trick) and sees the fateful touch, and also realizes that Nina must have hidden Michael in the lab. When they find him, Michael, seemingly once again moved by the force of strong emotion, this time Walter's, sheds a tear for Nina, so they have reason to hope that a new mind link will work. In the end, Michael touches Walter just as he touched Nina, and Walter learns, via a long montage, presumably, the same thing she did – that Donald was in fact September. And with that "buh?" moment, we take a three-week break, whereupon the show will conclude with three (one on January 11 and then a two-part series finale on January 18) final time-bending episodes.

Previously on Fringe, Olivia told Silver Nina they need her help, which Silver Nina seemed more than happy to provide; Michael the Junior Observer met the Fringe team in the alternate timeline; the current Fringe team tracked him down via the radio signal. Not that I was rooting for the setup to be any more complicated than this, but I have to admit I was hoping for a look at Seth Gabel, just because.

Back at the lab, Peter is examining the back of Michael's neck with a scanning device and concluding that not only does he not have the "tech," but, given his lack of scar tissue, he never did. I wouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion that Observers heal in the same way humans do, but if I stop to point out every time something about or around the Observers doesn't make sense in this ep, it'll lower my pay per word past the point my pride can take. Walter tries to get Michael to sample some licorice, but Michael looks at it like it's a combination of lima beans, liver and feces, which would only be warranted if it were black licorice. Olivia and Peter both bring up important events from Michael's past in an effort to get some kind of reaction from him, but when all he does is sit impassively, Walter loses his patience and suggests they go into his mind like they did with September. Peter's like, remember how September was in a coma, and Walter replies that it's cool -- he can just put Michael down and then take readings with an electromagnetic probe! While we pump him full of acid! If this were a little game to get Michael to be like "Dude!" I'd be impressed, but no... it's just that Walter is still losing his humanity or whatever, which gives poor Astrid the chance to make concerned faces. Peter tells Walter to chill, at which point he stomps off in frustration, leaving Olivia free to point out that something's wrong -- it seems like Michael's empathic abilities are gone for some reason. Peter's blank stare is perhaps not the most auspicious response...

...so let's go someplace that's more likely to have answers -- the Ministry of Science, in which Nina is examining a holographic representation of... something and while I don't know what it is, the hologram has a touch interface built into it, which means that I would like it now, please. Nina's phone rings and the blonde working the desk outside looks up, probably noting that it's her renegade boss' private line. Nina smiles when she hears Olivia's voice, but when she takes in the errand about which Olivia's calling, she gets a bit agitated, a point that's not lost on the blonde even though she can't hear the conversation. Nina in turn is hip to the blonde watching her and tells Olivia it's not safe for her to talk...

By Couch Baron

...and, without further ado, we cut to Windmark getting off the MoS elevator, flanked by two underling Observers. They walk up to Nina's office, which would be more dramatic and ominous if I weren't wondering why they didn't just teleport there and, ignoring the blonde, they march into Nina's office, which is now empty of her. The blonde follows them in and Windmark -- after regarding her for a moment -- announces that she's a Loyalist and, as such, she must know how important it is that she answer his questions. Well, I guess, but I wouldn't necessarily blame her for reserving judgment on that front until she actually hears them. Of course, he might mean that he'll fry her from the inside out if she doesn't answer the questions, in which case I'd have to agree that it's pretty important from her perspective to comply, so carry on. In response to Windmark's first question, Blonde Loyalist tells him that Nina got a call a little while ago and then took an early lunch. When Windmark hears this, he tells one of his henchObservers to bring "an LQ-7 unit," at which point the guy teleports out of there, like WHERE DID YOU GET SUCH AN IDEA. Blonde Loyalist says that Nina's always back by one o'clock, although you'd think that if she took an early lunch, she might feel the need to be back sooner. Government workers, am I right? Windmark tells Blonde Loyalist that "fugitives we are seeking" recently used a sublimation device to access an abandoned storage facility and the Observers traced the device to the MoS. Blonde Loyalist looks so stressed out her face tattoo might melt, but Windmark tells her he doesn't believe she was responsible and she practically collapses with relief. Of course, it'll be a little awkward if Nina ever makes it back to the MoS, but I didn't get the sense these two were office BFFs anyway.

Sometime soon after, I'm guessing -- if TELEPORTATION was involved -- the Observers are setting up the aforementioned device, which includes the sticking up of electrodes around the office (using, I think, suction cups? Super high-tech there) and spraying the glass on the door with some kind of investigative chemical, I guess, and then scanning it and, as I said, in the recaplet it's like C.S.I.: Observers, with the result, I think, that they're able to pull residual traces of Nina's phone conversation out of the glass in the door. I'm kind of glad that the Observers, at least, don't feel the need to explain the "science" of this to us. One of the henchObservers fiddles with the recording enough that we can hear a heavily electronic version of Nina's voice saying that it's not safe for her to talk, which is obviously all Windmark needs to convict, and that's as good a place as any to go to opening credits...

...particularly the awesome thoughtcrime version they have here. Someday, the technology will exist for us to view a supercut of all the different Fringe openers, you know?

In a not-particularly-dark-or-secret alley, Olivia and Nina meet, and when Olivia thanks her for taking such a risk, Nina replies that she's nothing if she can't be a resource for Olivia. Olivia doesn't quite know what to say to that, so Nina asks where the boy is, and in response, Olivia looks across the street where Michael's standing with that same blank look on his face as Peter and Walter chat. They're both smiling so big I wonder if the camera caught them breaking. You have to admit Walter's been a bit conversationally sour lately. As if to illustrate my point, Nina's been there for like two seconds when Walter's like, "Get a move on, I'm cold," and Nina on a bad day seems more capable than like almost everyone I know, but you'd think Walter could still temper his impatience given that she's IN A WHEELCHAIR. Rather than hit him with the boxing glove she has built into her chair, though (if Stephen Hawking had it on The Simpsons, I don't see why Nina wouldn't too), Nina tells the group that she has access to tech that she thinks might help them communicate with Michael, which is in a nearby "black lab." Olivia's like, I thought Massive Dynamic black labs didn't exist, and rather than be like, "that's the point, dumbass," Nina merely gives a playful smile and says she's glad she can still surprise Olivia. Yeah, having seen the whole episode, I think it's fair to say that's true. Nina goes on that since the invasion, she's allowed the Resistance to use the lab. Then, as if on cue, they see a bunch of Loyalist vehicles nearby and decide to get a move on...

...which they do, but Peter hangs back to talk to Nina, who asks him how Walter's doing. Peter essentially is like, not great, and admits that sometimes when he looks into Walter's eyes, he sees something he doesn't recognize. He goes on that Walter told him about Nina agreeing to remove the pieces of his brain once the Observers are defeated, and Nina realizes he doesn't approve, but Peter's just wondering what will happen to Walter after. "How many times can a human brain endure something like that?" Nina evenly replies that Walter was willing to take the risk and when Peter complains that he doesn't accept that, I wonder what choice he thinks he has. But Nina does me one better in telling Peter it could be a moot point anyway: "If the plan isn't completed in time, he may regress completely and no longer want to go through with it." Peter's like, so I lose him either way. And this is the kind of boo-hooing I'd think people fighting on behalf of the world wouldn't take the time to indulge in, but I guess Peter's been through a lot lately already, and it also fits character-wise with the Etta-related reason why he and Olivia broke up in the first place. Also, he looks good saying it, at least. Nina tells Peter that Walter understands that anything worth fighting for comes with a cost. Hey, easy for her to say!

By Couch Baron

Speaking of Etta, up the street, Olivia sees a big poster of her labeled "Resistance," and it's kind of hilarious how good her hair and makeup were for what's essentially supposed to be a mug shot. When Peter walks up, he follows Olivia's eyes and there's some good, understated work by both Torv and Jackson as they exchange a short but significant look.

Back at the MoS, it's 1:15 and Windmark looks hilariously put out that Nina's varied her routine the ONE DAY they came in to capture and torture her. How dare she! A henchObserver wonders if she might have been warned off and they don't show Blonde Loyalist, but I'm guessing she just clenched even if she doesn't know why. Windmark intones that every conspiracy has a network and it's an unfortunate effect of his overly serious delivery that just about everything he says sounds to me like he's reading it from a fortune cookie. Windmark says he wants to see the facility from which the sublimation device was taken, and I hate to keep harping on this, but the woman is IN A WHEELCHAIR. You can't wait until 1:30? (Also, how hard would it have been to put out a "silver-haired lady in a wheelchair" APB?)

By Couch Baron

If I were this group, I'd be worried that marching down the street en masse to go to the black lab might not be the greatest idea -- and regardless of what Nina said about it being close by, this part of town doesn't even look like it's in the same state as the big city in which they just were -- but whatever. Nina punches in the code to open a door that looks, on the outside, like a nondescript entrance to a small commercial or industrial space. However, when the door slides up, it reveals the door to a passenger elevator, surrounded by concrete on both sides. The group silently boards the elevator, the door to which closes without incident.

Downstairs, Nina scans her ID card to get the lights turned on. She motors forward into the lab while calling to Olivia to keep Michael back for a moment, and I didn't know what she was on about at first, but it is nice of her to consider that the test subjects therein might be the teensiest bit upsetting for him. Of course, Walter would probably toss him in one of the pods just to get a reaction, but there will be time enough for that later. Inside, Walter and Peter see, well, dead (it would seem, anyway) Observers in pods, and that's not a revelation for me on second viewing, but it still seems like an appropriate point at which to go to commercial.

For Michael's sake, Peter and Walter cover up the dead Observers as Walter notes the obvious -- that the Resistance experimented on Observers -- and Nina confirms that, saying that they hoped to figure out how the Observers read them and possibly come up with technology to do the reverse. However, they only succeeded in extracting fragments of data -- assorted images and words -- that proved not to be useful in their endeavors. However, Nina goes on, since they were able to communicate with Michael in the past using neural stimulation, there's reason to think that the tech in the lab could help them do it again...

...so Peter goes to retrieve Olivia and Michael. First though, Peter asks if Olivia's okay given the poster of Etta they just saw, and Olivia confesses that every time she sees one of those posters her heart jumps. Peter confesses that he feels the same way and given that we later see evidence that Michael is moved by strong emotion, if I were Peter and Olivia later in the episode I'd feel a little insulted at his continued indifference here. Anyway, Olivia breaks the moment by asking if they're ready, so Peter leads them in, whereupon Nina gives a little impromptu lecture on the workings of the brain as Michael looks at one of the pods and is like, "Um, I may look young, but I didn't just fall off the turnip truck?" As Walter looks out of his mind with delight, Nina goes on that the device they're going to use, which looks like a scaled-down version of "The Teacher" in that classically terrible Star Trek: TOS ep "Spock's Brain," ("Brain and brain. What is brain?") is an electrocognitive translator, or "ECog for short." Walter, with a "Gentlemen, to evil!" look on his face, is like, "Prep the subject," and Peter replies, "His name's Michael," which would carry more weight if we all hadn't learned that little nugget of information like practically ten minutes ago in the show's time. Regardless, Walter nods in acknowledgement...

Back at the lab, Peter puts The Teacher Lite on Michael's head and Olivia assures him it won't hurt. I'm glad she knows enough about Observer physiology to underwrite that statement. Walter announces that Michael's cortical activity is "off the charts," because they have lots of charts (a binder full of them?) of Observer cortical activity and Nina adds that the neural link is good, so they're ready. Olivia tells Michael that if he wants to stop at any point, he should squeeze her hand and I guess since he's not talking that makes sense as a safe word. Anyway, when Olivia asks him a question, Walter can see that Michael's brain is responding to the question, but Nina is unable to get a translation, as Michael is processing information in a way different from the other Observers, like WHAT A SURPRISE. Walter concludes that something has fundamentally changed in Michael's brain that has made it impossible for them to communicate in the way they did before, but Nina comes up with the idea to get Michael to try to read their minds; that way, he'll know what they want on an empathic level and will be able to respond. It sounds like horseshit to me, but Walter proclaims it "brilliant" and I'm sure it can be both. Besides, it's not exactly the episode in which to talk back to Nina. Nina says in order for this to work, she'll have to reconfigure her software and also, they'll have to break into the warehouse at the MoS to get another Teacher Lite and a neural adapter for the person who's going to link with Michael. She goes on that she's got a man in Archives who will hook them up and Walter's brain isn't so mushy that he can't fish out the name "Hastings."

Unfortunately, back at the warehouse, Hastings is waiting on the stairs to be questioned, and given his lack of a face tattoo, I'm not sure he's going to get the easy version of the interrogation. After the break, he's right up at the top of the line when his phone rings and maybe looking like the dude whose phone goes off at a quiet point in a movie isn't the way to throw off suspicion here? Also, when he fishes the phone out -- cell tech has really advanced over the years -- the number of the incoming call is given as "," like, if the population has exploded enough for that many numbers to be needed, I'm not sure how the camera crews are fitting in here.

The Fringe crew is just arriving at the warehouse as Olivia announces that she still can't get through to Hastings. Walter grumps that the situation is "intolerable," like, you're not exactly helping on that front, guy, and they also let us know that they can't get the pass code from Nina, because her cell won't work underground. For some reason I guess they need to hit us over the head that GPS signals still can't be tracked underground, but regardless -- NICE TO THINK OF THAT NOW -- I suppose they'll benefit from a similar lack of competence on the part of the Observers later. Anyway, at least this means Astrid gets a scene, as Peter calls her with the model number of the electronic lock.

Inside, the guard calls "" and despite the fact that Hastings has been at the top of the stairs for a while AND CAN SEE THE LAST INTERVIEWEE LEAVING, he looks like this is a surprise. Inside, he tells Windmark that he's a quality assurance engineer; he doesn't report directly to Nina, although he sometimes does indirectly. Windmark starts to tell "Mr. Hastings" that he believes him, but when Hastings corrects him that he's "Dr. Hastings," Windmark suddenly seems to change his tune. It's a moment that plays weirdly to me, because you'd think that Windmark, A) would have read Hastings better initially and B) wouldn't be ready to let anyone here go after such routine questioning, but on rewatch I guess the point is that Hastings was telling the truth about being a doctor, which gave Windmark a reference point to contrast with the lies he's told up until this point. (I don't know why I'm on about it, anyway; you could have picked out the fact that he was lying from space.)

Astrid gives Peter instructions; after some more grousing from Walter, she succeeds in blowing the lock.

Now Windmark is asking the tough questions and decides that he doesn't believe Hastings, so he has him restrained and orders for the dismissal of the rest of the warehouse staff, because of course Nina couldn't have had more than one co-conspirator. Meanwhile, in the storage area, the Fringe team accesses the database, learns where the relevant equipment is being stored and grabs it without delay. While Walter is confirming that it's the right stuff, Olivia happens to look across the room and through a glass, she sees Hastings being interrogated. She urgently relays the news to Peter...

...while, from the high frequencies we're hearing, Windmark is definitely inflicting some kind of pain on Hastings. Windmark ascertains that Hastings admires "Dr. Bishop," and you'd think that Windmark would hurry up and get to the information he needs, given that Hastings' head looks like it might explode like an overripe cantaloupe at any moment. Oh, okay -- he asks where the fugitives are and it looks like Hastings can see Olivia just as she can see him, but maybe it's a one-way glass, since he says he doesn't know, and the tears that look like they're being forcibly pulled from his eyes suggest he no longer has the wherewithal to lie.

Back at the lab, Nina asks Michael to stay there and then we cut to her going outside to check her phone. Unfortunately, this puts her GPS signal back on the map, which two Loyalist guards are all too eager to note. Back in the warehouse, Olivia gets a call from Nina and breaks the unfortunate news that she's been compromised. Nina looks stunned for a moment, but tells Olivia that it's okay. A bit choked up, as well she might be given that this rates to be her last conversation with Olivia, she says she has to go and Olivia tells her she's sorry. Nina chucks the battery out of her phone, does a little quick thinking, and then heads back down into the lab...

...while back in the warehouse, Olivia sees, to a now-unconscious Hastings, a guard come in and report something to Windmark, and Windmark and his team promptly teleport out. Olivia relays this news...

...and then, when two guards come in to collect Hastings, saying they're going to make an example out of him, Olivia gets to be like, "My thoughts exactly," before she and Peter shoot the guards down. It's no "Ice to see you," but it still probably felt good. (Sorry, I don't know why I'm acting like I just watched all the episode ever of The Simpsons for the first time.) Hastings has recovered enough consciousness to tell them despairingly that Windmark now knows where Nina is and yep, that's another act break right there.

In the lab, Nina returns to find Michael standing and waiting for her. Perceiving his question, she tries to cover and tells him everything's going to be fine, but his empathic nature is not fooled, and after a moment, he steps to her and touches her face, whereupon something courses through her that makes her sit up in her chair. She smiles in realization and looks at him in a new light, but the moment unfortunately can't last, as she follows his eyes to the security-camera feed, on which we see the Observers pulling up... in cars? Sure. I mean, yes, they have humans with them, but with time seeming to be of the essence I'd think they would have been like, "Meet us there, lower beings." Nina closes up the feed display and tells Michael to come with her...

...while the Fringe team realizes that there's a checkpoint in their way. With Loyalist military scanning the cars up ahead of them, Peter realizes they need to ditch the car while they can, so they get out one at a time and head to a nearby (and unsecured) parking garage and break into and hotwire a different vehicle without incident (despite lugging big, heavy, suspicious-looking cases right by military personnel). Since nothing really comes of it, I guess the story obstacle serves the purpose of delaying them from getting back to Nina in time, but this would be moot if the Observers had used their TELEPORTATION HELLO. Also, how easy is it going to be to evade this checkpoint, even in a different car? The episode does a good job of hiding it, but for being four from the end it contains rather a lot of filler.

Windmark gets on the elevator as more Loyalists arrive; when it doesn't move, he simply teleports downstairs, which puts paid to the idea that the Observers have to have seen where they're going in order to use that ability, which to my way of thinking is the last possibility that would have explained the CARS HELLO. Then, when he materializes downstairs, a couple Observers follow, but the elevator opens and disgorges a bunch of humans? Could Windmark not push the "down" button? We think at first from the tight camera angle and Windmark's "Find them" that the place might be deserted, but no -- when Windmark steps forward, the camera moves to reveal that Nina is there, looking unbowed. He asks her where the "fugitives" are, but she tells him he's too late -- they're long gone. He wonders what it is about them that instills such "misguided loyalty" in her and, getting only a defiant look in response, realizes that she's attempting to block her thoughts from him. "But it will not last." Even Nina looks a bit scared at that one, but Windmark's attention is soon diverted as, sensing something untoward, he approaches one of the pods and pulls the white covering off it. When he sees what's inside, for a moment, his face loses that detached expression, and he turns to Nina: "You... animals."

He steps back and sits in front of her, looking dark and purposeful, and as he closes his eyes, we hear a familiar high-pitched whine, although less intense than with Hastings. Windmark tells her about her conversation of that morning, saying it involved the "child Observer" and asking why he's so important to her allies. Nina, attempting to break Windmark's concentration, asks him why a child worries him so much and he replies that his interest comes from mere curiosity, adding that Michael isn't so much a child as a "chromosomal mistake." So there, at least, is confirmation that Michael is in some way physiologically different from the other Observers. Windmark goes on that, "like all anomalies," Michael was scheduled to be destroyed, but he went missing before that happened. "It was a great mystery in my time." He steps up the pressure on Nina's mind and orders her to tell him where Michael is, but he's interrupted by one of the humans telling him there's no sign of anyone else there. Windmark looks at Nina: "Then I will have to resort to a deeper extraction." I hate to make sweeping statements, but I feel fairly comfortable saying there's pretty much no context in which those words can be good. However, he then gets a puzzled look on his face and asks why Nina isn't frightened, and I thought on first viewing this might have meant she poisoned herself, but in response, she tells him that the way the Observers tilt their heads is an involuntary reflex (and plus a million points for one of the henchObservers tilting his head upon hearing that statement). She further explains that the head-tilt changes the angle at which sound waves hit the eardrum, allowing in more stimuli. "Like a lizard." Well, I don't know why you'd want a lizard in your ear... oh, I see, never mind.

She goes on that she's studied lizards too, and while their brains have evolved over 320 million years, they still form no social bonds. "Love does not exist for them. They are incapable of dreaming, of contemplating beauty" -- her voice breaks a little, understandably given what's about to happen -- "of knowing something greater than themselves." Nina concludes that the Observers are like lizards and her experiments showed that for all the Observers' years of evolution, "you inadvertently redeveloped and honed primitive instincts that we moved beyond long ago." She doesn't say "and that's how we'll defeat you in the end," but her final thought -- "In reality, you're the animal" -- amounts to the same thing while being conversationally more a propos. Windmark slowly stands and orders a lackey to restrain her, but while the guy's readying the cuffs, she lifts his gun off him and holds him at bay. She then points it at Windmark, who amusedly tells her she can't hurt him with it. But Windmark has apparently never watched TV before, because Nina smiles just as big and says she knows -- and then points the gun to her temple and pulls the trigger. Of course, they would never show the actual violence of the thing, but that's better anyway, because we get to see an uninterrupted view of the smile fading from Windmark's lizard face.

By Couch Baron

The Fringe team returns to the lab, but from the state of the exterior, they know they're probably too late. Guns drawn, they enter, and with their cautious movement, they at first think the place is empty of people, but then Olivia rounds a corner and we only see Nina's glasses in a puddle of blood in front of her chair. While it'd certainly be an effective enough image on its own, it's made ten times more so by Walter rushing forward and kneeling in front of her as he pretty much shatters right there, his jaw hanging open in shock as convulsive sobs wrack his body. Olivia covers Nina with one of the sheets they earlier used to shield Michael from the Observers in the pods, but once she's done that, she too sinks to the ground and her grief may have taken a bit longer to come through, but it's still affecting, if not on a John Noble level. As Peter strokes Olivia's hair, Walter laments the apparent fact that the Observers have Michael, but Peter looks at the security cameras, hoping against hope that there's more to the story than there appears. He activates the feed and sees a replay of Michael touching Nina, and then we see the two of them leave the room before the feed returns to stuff we saw, with Nina taking on Windmark and then making the ultimate sacrifice. The Fringe team realizes that Nina prevented Windmark from reading her thoughts and Olivia cottons on to the idea that maybe Michael is still in the lab.

They start looking around, calling to Michael to come out, but then it maybe occurs to them that A) Nina was a little clever just to hide the boy in some cabinet, and B) maybe the fact that he's not coming out means he can't really come out at the moment, so Olivia goes a little deeper, as it were, and notices one of the Observer pods getting fogged up in one spot. She opens it, flips the shelf on which the dead observer lies over... and there's the boy, in the space underneath, and I'm SO GLAD they shielded him from seeing any dead Observers earlier. She helps him out, whereupon he sees Walter grieving again by Nina's side and, once again, apparently moved by the strength of Walter's emotions, his own bond with Nina or both, he approaches and sheds a tear for the fallen. Knowing what this could mean, Walter smiles through his tears...

By Couch Baron

...and later, we're back at the Fringe base of operations, with Walter and Michael connected and wearing Teachers Lite. Walter asks Michael to touch his own mouth if he understands him and Michael complies, but when Walter asks him questions about Donald and the plan, Michael's like, I think I can speed this up, and takes off the Teacher Lite, walks over to Walter and touches him in much the same way as he touched Nina. Michael closes his eyes and Walter is thrown into a montage of images, some of Michael as a young boy, some of September... but the important revelation comes at the end, as when we get a good look at Donald, it's clear that, despite his full head of red hair, he was in fact September. Walter comes back to himself and smiles and when Peter asks what happened, Walter tells the group the news. Of course, we don't have time for anyone to react to it in any other way than to stare blankly, but I think it's going to be pretty damn relevant nonetheless. Daniel will be back for the final three episodes, in which -- you'd better sit down for this -- resetting time may be an important plotline.

John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. His new film, a documentary on online privacy and the sale of personal data called Terms And Conditions May Apply, will premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival in January. You can get news on it from the film's Twitter account. Also, you can email John at couchbaron@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/couchbaron, or check out his blog, "Pull Up A Chair," which he'd just love for you to stop by.

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