Fringe 5x04: The Bullet that Saved the World

Peter goes into town to find some gas and get a replacement for the necklace they borrowed from Etta to melt down for solder. He finds both things, but when an Observer tries to read his mind, things go to hell really fast. He loses the gas, has to hid in the sewer, and nearly gets blown up by a grenade.

Plus, when he regains consciousness, some weird kid keeps poking him with a stick.

Back at the lab, Astrid and Walter are digging out the latest tape when a battered Peter stumbles in. He's not badly hurt, but Olivia shows some pretty deep concern for him. However, he's more concerned with the fact that his mind was read. The Observer didn't get much out of him, but he found it exhausting to fight off the mind probe, even for a brief moment. Etta promises to teach him and the rest of the team how to resist more effectively.

Then her daddy gives her a present.

At the shop where Peter bought the necklace, Broyles finds Windmark rocking out at Simon. One of Broyles' men failed a security check, and Windmark thinks the man may be helping the team avoid capture. Phillip says he'll look into it.

Unfortunately for the team, the latest tape turns out to be severely garbled, and Past Walter's directions are practically useless. However, Present Walter knows what he was talking about: He's hidden part of the plan in a train station. But, all the entrances to the station are guarded by both Observers and the Future Gestapo, so it'll be nearly impossible to get in. They need a diversion, and luckily, Walter just might have one. He's been hiding samples of every Fringe case they dealt with in a storage room under the lab.

Along with a jelly doughnut hole.

At NeoFringe HQ, an Observer interrogates the agent who failed the check. He's a member of the resistance, and he's had assistance from someone who's been using the codename "The Dove". He also knows where the team is hiding. Phillip is obviously The Dove, and he tips off the team. They re-amber the lab and hide in the vents, so no one knows they were ever there.

Then, it's time to catch a train. The family rolls up to a checkpoint in the Family Truckster, and after Walter is briefly electrocuted by an Observer, they use the toxin from the Season 1 episode 'Ability' that seals up all a person's orifices to create the necessary diversion. Walter's managed to aerosolize it, and it, and it's remarkably effective. They kill two Observers and ten or so Gestapo guys, and make their escape.

Killing a man by sealing up his face holes is barbaric, but effective.

The team heads off to an underpass to check out their newfound bounty; it's a bunch of physics equations that not even Walter can understand. They pack up to leave, but Etta gets them to linger for a while because an old friend wants to see them. Broyles arrives to give Olivia a hug and to deliver guns and anti-matter explosives to help them. The reunion is short-lived, however, as one of the guards had managed to attach a tracking device to their car. Observers start popping out of the ether, and everyone has to book it. Etta gives Broyles the equations, and everyone else runs off towards some abandoned warehouses.

Windmark and the goons arrive quickly, and the shooting begins. The team is separated, and he manages to get the drop on Etta. She tries to stab him while he's reading her mind, but he's just a little too fast for her. After finding out why Peter bought the necklace, he shoots her in the gut and leaves her to bleed out.

The rest of the family comes back for her, but they're too late. She's dying, and to make sure that her father leaves her, she arms an anti-matter charge. Realizing that love would make them go back for her, Windmark takes two other Observers and a squad of Loyalists to check out Etta's body. At the last moment, he sees the bomb and phases out of the building. He is the only survivor.

He doesn't seem terribly happy about it, though.

As they watch the building disintegrate, taking Etta with it, Walter is pragmatic and says they should leave, Olivia goes blank again, and Peter gives in to despair. War is hell.

What I Liked
-It's taking so long to get the tapes out that it could be another 21 years before they get them all out. And it'll make Walter so old that he doesn't want to do the math. Getting old while saving the world is a rough gig because you don't get a lot of time to enjoy it when you're done.
-"Astriff: Prepare the laser." They didn't get to say stuff like that often enough on this show.
-Anna Torv makes some good faces. Olivia's emotions really run the gamut, and Anna puts a lot of that on her face. It's only worth mentioning because most of the time she's very stolid, and Ms. Torv doesn't get to show too much range.
-Walter smokes a little bit after he gets electrocuted, but doesn't really seem to mind. A lifetime of drugs will do that to you, I guess.

Walter's had smoke coming out of his head since the 1960s.

What I Hated
-Weird, harmonica-playing kid. That whole scene was some kind of strange non sequitur.
-There's a high-pitched whine when the Observer interrogates the resistance agent. I understand that it's supposed to be uncomfortable for the person being read, it doesn't need to be uncomfortable for the home viewer as well.

Final Thoughts
The word of the day is Wound and I can understand why.

This episode was all over the place. It had action, it had comedy, it had drama; it's a lot to process. Overall, I'd say it really bummed me out. Rather than criss-crossing the country in the Family Truckster, the Bishop clan wound up right back at the lab. Now Etta's dead and they've lost the car. Olivia finally got to have some mother-daughter time and the two of them were actually starting to bond, and Peter was getting to be the doting dad he always wanted to be. Losing a child twice is the kind of thing this version of Walter has experience with, but Olivia and Peter certainly aren't emotionally equipped for it.

Where they're going to go from here isn't exactly clear. They still have to save the world, but Peter's probably beyond the point of giving a damn. Olivia was finally starting to open up emotionally, however, I'd expect her to shut right back up again. Walter is still Walter; he's a genius, but he's a mad genius. This is not a trio that can save the world. They're the broken husk of the old Fringe team. They're the post-John Scott betrayal pilot team. The fate of the world may very well lie with Astrid, now.