A noise awakens Astrid in the middle of the night. At first she thinks it's Walter, but upon further investigation she discovers that the radio they picked up in the pocket universe is receiving a signal.
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| Also, Walter is awake and he's tripping balls. |
But, why did he drop acid in the first place? He needs Nina to remove the parts of his brain that Simon and Etta put back in because Old Walter has been slowly taking over. However, Nina won't remove the pieces until the plan is complete, and in order to remember the plan, Walter needs to expand his mind.
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| If it gets any bigger, they're going to have to clear some space in the lab. |
While Walter's head inflates, Olivia figures that they don't actually need to decode the signal they're receiving, they just need to trace it back to its origin. To that end, they summon Anil and he brings them a device they can use to track the transmission.
Olivia and Peter follow the signal and it leads them to a forest in Connecticut. The trip allows them to spend some quality time together and talk. Peter's terribly embarrassed by his actions; he abandoned her again, which is exactly the thing he said he wouldn't do. He apologizes and tells her he's lucky to have her. To show him that everything is going to be all right between them, Olivia pulls him in and kisses her husband for the first time in 20 years.
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| Forgiveness is divine. |
And yes, I definitively say 'husband' now. While I was on the fence before, Peter is once again wearing his ring on his hand, rather than around his neck. Olivia's not wearing hers, but I assume she wasn't carrying it when she ambered herself.
Anyway, their make out session is cut short when Olivia opens her eyes and sees the source of the transmission behind Peter. It's an old, dilapidated RV. Surrounding it are the 15-year-old corpses of two Observers and a Loyalist, and inside is the corpse of a Mr. Sam Weiss.
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| I guess you can't really trust a dead man. |
Unfortunately, in this timeline, Walter's never heard of Sam Weiss. And, to make matters worse, Sam's RV isn't the source of the transmission, either; it's just a repeater. Peter recalibrates the tracking device to track the true source, but it's going to be a little while before they can find it.
Meanwhile, back at the lab, Carla is tormenting Walter. Something is hidden somewhere, but she won't tell him what or where it is. Further, she tries to convince him that a man of his genius and vision should be using his stature to curry favour with the Observers. At first he's able to resist her -with a little help from a hallucination of young Nina- but, one should never underestimate the power of a pretty blonde woman. Even an imaginary one.
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| For a woman who's been dead for 50 years, she looks surprisingly good. |
With some direction from Carla, Walter discovers a notebook hidden under the floor. A green fairy tries to stop him from opening it, but he swats her away. Inside the book are all his old crazy ideas from before he had Belly cut out parts of his brain, including his universe portal and an engine that runs on potatoes. He immediately hops in a cab and heads to the Observer headquarters in Manhattan. The old Walter has briefly taken over, but a moment of discussion with Carla makes him realize his mistake and he tries to figure out a way to escape without being seen. But, it's too late: An Observer approaches the taxi and opens the door.
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| This could be the end! |
It's not an Observer, though. It's not even a cab. Walter hallucinated the whole thing. He's really at a marina with Astrid, Olivia, and Peter. They've tracked the signal to an island, and they need to rent a boat. Just as they're about to board, a patrol boat full of Loyalists drives up and asks for their papers. A brief firefight ensues, which ends with five dead Loyalists.
On the island, they find a house that's occupied by a very angry man with a gun... and his wife... and the Observer child. The man's willing to give up the boy, but when Donald left him there, he told them that whoever came to claim the kid would know the password. Walter knows what it is, but first he needs to take a Python-inspired trip into his subconscious to dig it out.
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| I understand the frog, the seahorse and the cow, but what's up with the dog? |
The password recovered, the team heads inside to hear just how the boy came to live with angry man and his wife. They were early members of the resistance, and eight months after the invasion, Donald came to them and dropped the kid off, along with the transmitter that's been broadcasting the signal. They've been turning it on every five days for twenty years, and during that time, the child hasn't aged a day. His temporary parents say their goodbyes and the boy they call Michael becomes the latest member of Team Fringe.
Back at the lab, Olivia gets maternal and gives Michael some cocoa. He remembers her, even though this version of Olivia has never actually met him.
Elsewhere, Walter relives the events that led to him creating the first wormhole between universes. He remembers who he was then, and all the damage he caused to his family and to the world, and he resolves to do what he can to keep from becoming that man again. To that end, he takes the notebook, douses it with lighter fluid and sets it aflame. But as the fire burns, Carla appears and reveals to him the truth: There is no notebook. And, even if there were, it wouldn't matter. Now that Walter remembers all the things he's capable of, there's almost nothing that can stop the old Walter from returning.
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| Grumpy old man. |
What I Liked
-Peter tells Olivia that he doesn't deserve her, and she gives him a little 'Oh, stop' swat in the chest. It's cute.
What I Hated
-The shootout with the Loyalists. It seemed sort of arbitrary and tacked on, as if they wanted to include an action scene for some reason. Perhaps they wanted to show that the world is still a dangerous place and the team could be captured at any moment. But, the bad guys go down so fast that it's hardly indicative of any kind of danger. The entire firefight lasts a grand total of 30 seconds; they don't even take the time to pitch the dead bodies into the water. Also, I haven't been paying really close attention to the actors and stunt guys playing the Loyalists, but I swear they've killed a few of these guys before. Although, I have to say that Walter's cry of "Why are these mice shooting at us?" made me chuckle.
Final Thoughts
The word of the day is GUILT. Most of it comes from Walter. He feels guilty for all the things he did to get Peter back, for what happened to Carla, and for being unable to mourn her loss at the time. But Peter has a little guilt floating around in his head as well. However, unlike his father, he actually has the opportunity to apologize to the people he's wronged; everyone Walter needs to apologize to is dead, including two Peters.
This episode was mainly about Walter's drug trip and consequent introspection, and his fight to keep himself from becoming old Walter again. I don't really buy Carla's assertion that he was the evil Walter longer than he was the good Walter, though. He developed the technology to move between universes in the early 1980s, then was committed around 1990. But, before that he spent most of the 1960s and 70s expanding his mind with Belly. The Walter who wore a purple tuxedo to his wedding and woke up in bed with Yoko has far more in common with the Walter of today than the one who tore the universe a new a-hole for taking away his son does. Peter's head is in the right place now, so he should be able to keep his father from turning completely evil.
I'm not convinced that he should, though. They're in a fight to save the world from invaders from the future; a man who can open portals to other universes and transport matter through time and space is a powerful ally. Nina may or may not recognize that, but I would expect pushback from Astrid at the very least if Peter and Olivia decide to unleash the monster.
This is a hard one to rate. It didn't feature any particularly powerful or complex acting, and since it was a drug episode, it was sort of weird by design. That being said, it was by no means bad or offensive, and it had some memorable bits.
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