Castle 5x12: Death Gone Crazy

The founder and CEO of College Girls Gone Crazy holds a party to find Manhattan's craziest college girls, he seems a little down. And when he turns up dead in the bathroom, it looks like the party's over. Where's David Caruso when you need him?

Beau Randolph was strangled with a high-end bra, so the team thinks he was killed by a random hookup. Ryan and Esposito question his sexy lady bodyguard, and she points her finger at his ex-girlfriend, Tiffany.

The company's head producer introduces Castle and Beckett to the COO and he takes them to the office to show them the big file of all the death threats Beau has received over the years. But, when they get there, they find that someone used Beau's key card to access his safe ten minutes after he died. The security video shows that it was the sexy finger-pointing bodyguard.

Kevin Costner would not approve.

Under questioning, she says that she was stealing a sex tape that Beau had made with one of her friends. She then continues her finger-pointing ways by suggesting the killer might be a guy who accosted them in the street a few days earlier.

Meanwhile, research into the death threats brings up one major suspect, an ultra-conservative activist who was trying to get College Girls Gone Crazy shut down. Beckett interviews him, and he's an uptight, evil dude, but he doesn't seem like a murderer.

Since the sexy bodyguard busted the guy's nose in the incident, a search of local hospital records leads them to Seth Parrino and his import-export warehouse. Castle's thinking mafia hit, but the truth is far more disturbing.

College Guys Gone Nuts.

Parrino's been trying to do for dudes what College Girls Gone Crazy had done for women. Beau was on board for a while, but then he backed out and said he was going to invest in children's programming. He IDs a woman who he saw arguing with Beau at the party who turns out to be Tiffany. They bring her in for questioning, and she admits that the murder bra was hers, but claims she lost it while bathroom banging a dude. She's not the killer, but she does have some interesting evidence: A photo of the sexy bodyguard pulling a bag of cash out of a garbage can.

When you point one finger, four more point right back at you.

It's fairly easy to track her down again, since she's on a date with Esposito. He's about to get lucky when Beckett shows up to cop-block him. The bodyguard says she got the money from a children's entertainment company who paid her to dig up dirt on Beau.

Castle and Beckett question the CEO and he confirms it. Beau was looking to make a hostile takeover of his organization and the CEO just wanted some leverage to get him to back off. It turns out that leverage actually was a sex tape. But it's not the existence that Beau wanted to keep secret, it was who was on it. The girl was the daughter of the crazy right-wing activist guy. If it got out, it would ruin her life as well as her father's.

Beckett brings her in for questioning, but she lawyers up. Her father barges in soon after and wonders if his zeal led his daughter to do something terrible.

Esposito and Ryan search the girl's apartment and they find an email to her from Beau detailing a $5 million trust, and an ultrasound photo; she's pregnant with his child, and he was trying to clean up his act so his child could be proud of him. Right before he died, he told the girl that he was shutting down College Girls Gone Crazy, and that he was going to be a better man.

Apparently, that didn't sit well with his producer. He killed his boss so the party wouldn't have to stop.

It's a fairly reasonable motive for murder if you ask me.

On the home front, Castle Googles himself and stumbles across Alexis' vlog: Confessions of a Columbia Freshman.

Fortunately for him they're not *sexy* confessions.

Richard thinks she's being unsafe by telling the world what she's up to, even though Martha reminds him that he was far worse at her age. He has her drop by the police station to talk about the dangers of posting personal information on the internet, but she's not having it and barges out.

Later, she comes by the Castle loft to concoct a giant sundae and convince her dad that she's smart enough not to put anything too stupid on the internet. He's the master of doing stupid things, and doesn't wan his daughter to make the same mistakes he did, but he trusts her, so he's going to let her live her life while still occasionally butting in and telling her she's wrong.

It's called 'parenting'

What I Liked
-Esposito tries to talk about how $250 shoes are more practical than a similarly-priced bra, but Castle tells him to eject. Never argue with women about how much they spend on clothes. You can't win.
-Parrino's dance moves while his guys are going nuts. Dude knows how to boogie.
-Ryan had to do bra research to determine who might have owned the murder weapon. I didn't know it before I saw this episode, but that's my dream job.

What I Hated
-Castle gets all after-school special on Alexis. It was almost Degrassi-esque in its heavy-handedness. I really hope they don't go down any weird melodramatic avenues with her.

Final Thoughts
This entire episode was really depressing. When a wealthy porn producer is sad and melancholy, the world cries. The guy has millions of dollars and hot, naked chicks throwing themselves at him. If he's sad, what right do I have to be happy? Plus he died before he ever got to see his daughter, and Esposito didn't get to nail the sexy bodyguard. There was sadness all around.

Beyond that, the show seems to be falling into the trap of making the killer a random person who had 30 seconds of screen time and wasn't even a suspect before being outed as the murderer. That's fine every once in a while, but when it happens every time it makes the show seem far too random.

HIMYM 8x14: Ring Up!

Two plots this week, one of which is completely inappropriate for a man to tell his children.

Plot the first:
Ted walks into the bar wearing a leather wrist cuff, which is apparently a thing that you can buy. The gang immediately starts to make fun of him for it, but when he tells them he bought it to get a date with a 20-year-old girl, they think it's more sad than funny.

Even Barney is disgusted.

When his date goes horribly because they have nothing in common, Ted's almost ready to break it off until Barney breaks into his apartment in the middle of the night. Since he got engaged, Barney's been going through one-night stand withdrawals, and he needs Ted to proxy bang her for him. But, apparently Ted has this thing now where he can't have sex with a woman unless he connects with her on at least some level. Unfortunately, Carly doesn't like TV, sports, or books, and Ted's about to end it when her phone rings. Her ringtone is R2D2 and her phone even has an R2D2 skin. Ted's found a hot chick who loves Star Wars!

What more do you need?

The next day, Ted meets Barney at MacLaren's and gets the customary post-sex high-five. To help ease Barney's withdrawals, Ted shows him a picture of his conquest. Barney scrolls up from the 'do me' heels to the gravity-defying boobs, but when he reaches her face, he goes white. Carly is his half-sister. Dun dun dunnnnnnn!

Even though he's only known her for like a year, it's still not cool to bang a dude's sister, especially in the freaky ways that 20-year-olds get down these days. Barney ends their friendship, but after he's had a little time to cool down, he sends Ted a dead possum as a peace offering and invites him over to smoke cigars. But, moments after Ted arrives, so does Carly, then Barney claps his hands and a wedding appears. He's so disgusted with one-night stands that he wants Ted and Carly to get married so their hook up will have more meaning. However, Ted points out that Barney is now completely detoxed from one-night stands, so banging his sister was actually a good thing. Nevertheless, Barney makes them promise to never do it again. They both agree.

*Wink*

Plot number dos:
Barney and Robin are engaged now, and that means that Robin gets to walk around with a big fat rock on her finger. Unfortunately, guys notice that sort of thing, and all her perks dry up. She becomes figuratively invisible. Then later she becomes literally invisible.

The ring's so powerful that Ted's kids can't even imagine what she looks like.

Eventually she learns to live with it because she's loves Barney and she doesn't need attention from other men anymore.

In Marshall and Lily's plot, which as always can barely be called a plot, Marshall puts on Ted's discarded cuff and it really turns Lily on. He has an allergic reaction to it and eventually has to take it off, and they learn to have sex without needing costumes.

What I Liked
-Barney banged a blind girl by pretending he was Sean Connery. We've all been there.

What I Hated
-Ted bought a leather cuff from a 20-year-old and Barney didn't instantly realize that it was his sister. He's trying to be a better man, so he should at least have some inkling as to what his siblings do. Also, I find it a little hard to believe that he never showed his sister a picture of Ted. He must have hundreds of embarrassing photos of the guy that he just flashes around at random.
-Random song and dance sequence when Robin's explaining how her mornings usually go. Two problems with that: a)she's not that hot, and b)guys who break into a well-choreographed song and dance routine in the middle of the street aren't the kind of guys who give freebies to pretty girls.

Third problem: Random song and dance numbers suck.

-Ted tells Barney not to scroll to the next picture of his sister. I think that must be in The Bro Code somewhere. A bro must warn another bro when nude photos of his sister are coming up
-Robin's plot. I'm pretty sure they weren't the first ones to do it, but I recall the 'a ring makes women invisible' plot coming up on Scrubs like five years ago. In any event, it is neither new nor terribly interesting, and actually a little sexist. Most men don't give pretty women free stuff just because they're pretty, and most women wouldn't want to be objectified in that manner anyway.

Final Thoughts
Lily and Marshall have been really detached from the rest of the group since Marvin was born. I suppose that's true to life, but it makes me wonder how they're going to sustain their involvement in the show for another year. It already seems like they abandon their child to go drinking with fairly alarming frequency.

Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I think telling your kids about the time you had kinky sex with the sister of the man they call 'Uncle' Barney is probably a bad idea. Then again, Ted has pretty much given up on his prospects of finding a wife at this point and embraced his douchiness. Maybe Future Ted takes on characteristics of his younger self while he tells the story.

In its totality, this episode wasn't really bad, but it had some really bad parts. They're almost completely out of new ideas and it's starting to seriously hamstring the show.

Hawaii Five-0 3x14: Hana I Wa'Ia

As the episode opens, the campaign manager for a Senate candidate gets shot in the head by a guy who sounds surprisingly like Mark Dacascos, but we don't see his face, so there's no way to tell who it was.

No way at all.

The next day, Danny has to go to Family Court to keep Rachel from modifying their custody agreement and taking Grace back to the mainland. He prepared a statement to read directly to his ex-wife, but since guest stars are expensive, she's not there and he has to speak to the court. In short, he hates Hawaii, but it's their home now, and taking Grace away from her home just isn't right. Steve chimes in with some support, but he gets a call from Governor Denning and has to bail on his buddy.

The Governor has a picture of a dead girl and he wants the Five-0 team to take over the investigation. He wants it cleared up quickly and quietly. No interfacing with HPD, no interviewing witnesses, and all reports need to go directly to his cell phone. Something's smells fishy. And with good reason. Kono runs the girl's prints and finds out she was once busted for solicitation. So, the Denning is somehow involved with a dead prostitute. That's not going to help his re-election campaign.

Unless he's running on a 'Kill all the hookers' platform.

When Kono and Chin retrieve the girl's laptop from her apartment, they pick up a tail from a government vehicle that bails when they stop to confront the driver, and Danny finds out that the Governor himself has told the crime lab to slow down their processing of DNA evidence found on the victim. Things are looking really bad, so McGarrett goes to confront Denning face-to-face.

The Governor swears that he's not directly involved, but the DNA will trace back to his good friend and former military comrade, Congressman Chris Freed, who is currently running in a special Senate election. Denning wants to protect is friend, but he doesn't know if he killed the girl or not.

Danny and Steve go to the congressman's campaign office to talk to him, but he's not there and neither is his campaign manager, and his press secretary has no idea where either of them are.

He still lays on the industrial strength BS to keep from telling them that, though.

It looks like a pretty clear cut case until the DNA evidence comes back as a match to a university professor from Ohio who was in town for a conference. When they bring him in and threaten to tell his wife, he admits that he was with the girl, but he swears that he was nowhere near the Congressman's house and she was alive when he left her. I don't have much experience with these things, but I figure that 'that hooker was alive when I left her' is pretty much what they all say in these situations. Nevertheless, his alibi checks out and they're back to square one. Until the campaign manager from the opening turns up.

And she is decidedly unshot in the head.

The campaign manager says she delivered the prostitute to the congressman at around 9:15, but that doesn't add up because she was banging the professor at the time. The team checks her out to see why she's lying and finds video of her leaving a bar with everyone's favourite international criminal, Wo Fat.

The camera loves him.

It turns out he's holding the congressman hostage, and he has a wire on the campaign manager, so when Danny and Steve show up to question her, she can't talk. When she takes the wire off, she's immediately killed by a sniper who the guys manage to kill when he makes a break for it.

Wo Fat calls his man, and when he doesn't answer, the plan changes, and it's time for the congressman to die. Except he has conveniently escaped and is running like hell. Wo Fat kills a local hunter and steals his ATV, then begins his hunt for the most dangerous game.

Well, second most dangerous. There aren't any hippos in Hawaii.

The congressman takes one to the shoulder, but before Wo Fat can move in to finish the job, Danny and Steve arrive in a helicopter, and Danno starts spraying bullets at him. They get the congressman on board, but he takes another hit and they have to bug out before they get a chance to finish their nemesis.

An HPD search of the house where Wo Fat was holding his prisoner turns up a cell phone with a call log that implicates the congressman's opponent in his kidnapping. He cracks under interrogation and admits everything.

The Governor drops by McGarrett's house to apologize for not being honest from the start, and Danny gets a call from the court saying they've ruled in his favour and Grace will be staying in Hawaii.

Case closed.

What I Liked
-McGarrett doesn't know why dress blues are black. No one does, commander, no one does.
-Steve asks the congressman's press secretary what his position is on dead hookers found in his bed. I'm gonna say he'd probably fall on the anti side.

What I Hated
-They try to hide who the shooter was in the opening scene. Come on. Anyone who can hear or read the credits knew it was Wo Fat. The big reveal that he was the guy behind it all kinda fell flat because I know who plays him.
-During the final fire fight, neither Danny nor Wo Fat can hit the broad side of a barn. Danny's suppressing fire was so useless that Wo Fat was free to stand up and shoot.

Final Thoughts
Kind of a 'meh' episode. Wo Fat's a good character when used correctly, but they've neutered him this season, and he doesn't seem particularly threatening anymore. He can't even shoot straight.

Hawaii Five-0 3x13: Olelo Ho'Opa'I Make

Chin is missing, and unlike Waldo, he's kinda hard to find. So hard in fact that Danny and Steve have to shoot one guy and engage in a little police brutality on Daniel Baldwin. But then it's 14 hours earlier and we know exactly where Chin is. He's handcuffed to his bed while some creepy dude stares at him in the dark.

In order of creepiness, the Baldwins go Daniel, Stephen, Billy, Alec.

Daniel's henchman jams a syringe in Chin's neck, and soon it's sleepytime. Which is good, because he was in bed and they woke him up.

At the Noshimuri house, Adam and Kono are relaxing in the tub. It's taking Adam a while to get his brother up to speed on the family business, so they haven't had a lot of time for romance. Unfortunately, just as things are about to turn interesting, Adam gets an upsetting call that he has to take in another room. Afterwards, he has to run off, so Kono, being both a cop and his girlfriend, has to check the number while he's putting on pants.

"555? Damn, that must be fake."

The next morning, everyone heads over to Kamekona's truck for breakfast. Everyone except Chin. It seems he texted McGarrett late at night and told him he needed a few days off. Kono recognizes that it's the eighth anniversary of Chin's first date with Malia and she figures he needs some time to himself.

He's not going to get it, though, because when he comes to he's in the Halawa Correctional Facility, and prisoners don't get a lot of 'me' time. He manages to beat down a couple inmates who recognize him and get in touch with a guard, but he predictably turns out to be in on the whole thing and delivers Chin to an old friend: Former dirty cop and current prisoner, Kaleo.

He seems really happy to see him.

Now, Chin's a big tough guy, but Kaleo was Bruce Lee for a while in the early 1990s, so the fight's a little unfair. Fortunately, just as Chin's about to get his face mashed flat with a laundry press, a saviour appears.

Show Sang some love, Lieutenant.

Sang busts Kaleo in the back of the head with a sledgehammer, which I guess is standard prison issue, and saves Chin's sorry butt. Since the Five-0 squad got him moved back to O'ahu so he could be closer to his kid, Sang figures he owes them, and he's going to pay them back by keeping Chin alive. They steal the guard's keys, but they won't get them to the outside. Instead, they gather as many books and sheets as they can find and start a fire so Chin can tell the HFD who he really is and get a message out to McGarrett.

On the outside, Chin's grief counsellor drops by Five-0 headquarters to tell them that she's worried about him because he missed his appointment. That's a bit fishy, so Kono pings his cell phone, and when she discovers that it's at his house, they move out. They discover that his back door's open and his alarm's been cut. McGarrett figures that it's a kidnapping, but he doesn't know why.

Back on the inside, Sang's plan is going perfectly. The fire is too big for the guards to handle, so they have to start evacuating the prisoners. But when Kaleo sees that Chin's not coming out, he starts a riot so he can get back in. In a matter of minutes, the guards are incapacitated, and he's got everyone hunting for Chin and Sang.

Maybe they should've spent less on monitors and a little more on guards. Maybe.

Fong gets some DNA off Chin's phone and links it to the older brother of the guy who killed Chin's wife. Which is an odd coincidence, since the older brother of the guy who played that character is in this episode. I wonder if they knew they were related when they cast him. McGarrett has Catherine misuse government resources to try to track him down.

In the meantime, the riot's in full swing, and Chin and Sang have to get to a phone so they can call for help. The only one they can get to is in the main holding area, and that's swarming with guys, so it looks like they're screwed. Luckily, Chin's a hero, so when they spot some guys attacking a nurse in the prison infirmary, he kicks their asses and saves her. And, it just so happens that she has a master key and can get them out.

I smell a prison romance.

Catherine tracks down Daniel Baldwin relatively quickly, and we're back at the beginning. Steve and Danny smack him around a bit, and then use his phone to figure out where Chin is. It's not good news. It's even worse when the dirty guard grabs the nurse and her keys before they can escape and then Sang turns on Chin to save his own hide. It's all a ruse, though, and he does his best to convince Kaleo to call the Five-0 guys and trade Chin for their freedom. Ex-Bruce isn't buying it, though, so he stabs Chin with a screwdriver and has Sang locked up so he can deal with him later.

When the cavalry finally arrives, the warden won't let them go through the front door, so they commandeer Kamekona's helicopter and go over the wall. Then the shooting begins. Only they don't actually want to kill anyone, so they use flash grenades and bean bags. The distraction is enough to give Chin a chance to fight back, and he manages to slap Kaleo in an armlock and choke him out with his legs. The team picks him up and wants to head for the door, but he makes them go back for the nurse and Sang... who seems to have disappeared.

Oh wait, there he is.

While he's convalescing in the hospital, Chin gets to taste test Kamekona's new breakfast burrito, and the pretty nurse brings him a nail file as a thank you for saving her life. His wife died less than six months ago, which probably means she'll pursue him, but he won't be able to reciprocate because he feels like it's betraying Malia's memory. I've seen it a hundred times.

The episode ends with Kono cloning Adam's cell phone so she can more easily spy on him in the future.

What I Liked
-Kamekona uses spam in his breakfast burritos because it goes down smooth. I've never tried it, but I'm in favour of anything that goes down smooth.
-They brought back everyone's second favourite guest star. It's too bad Larisa Oleynik and her butt died.

What I Hated
-The flashback at the beginning was unnecessary. Chin gets kidnapped before the opening credits, so we know the stakes are high without Steve and Danny killing a guy.

Final Thoughts
Kono's actions seemed a little out of place. She knows Adam is technically the head of the local Yakuza and that his business is sometimes a little shady. She shouldn't be prying quite so much. I realize it's more Five-0 and less crazy jealous girlfriend, but she's still coming off as a little stalkerish.

I'm glad they found a way to get Sang into another episode and to get him out of prison so he can reappear in the future. He's a fun character and they do fun things when he's around. This show takes itself far too seriously sometimes, and they need a crew of guest stars who can lighten the mood every now and then.

Nevertheless, the story they told in this episode has been told many times before. But, they did a decent job of it, so I can't really complain too much. Danno didn't get to book anyone, though, so I can't give it a really high rating.

Fringe 5x12: Liberty

Windmark has Michael and the team has no idea where he's taken him, so Olivia enlists the help of Phillip 'The Dove' Broyles to help track him down. Broyles cons a Loyalist Lieutenant into telling him where the boy's being held, and it's not good news. Liberty Island has been transformed from a secret inter-dimensional customs booth into a high-security detention facility.

Inside, Windmark tries to interrogate Michael, but the boy's superior mind is impervious to his scans, and all he gets out of him is a nosebleed and some ruptured blood vessels in his eye.

Apparently, Michael's last name is Ironside.

The island is a fortress, and the team can't think of any way to get past the security. However, Olivia figures out a way to go around it: She'll hop between universes and pop into the facility from the red side. She burned all of the cortexiphan out of her system in last season's finale, but Walter has a large stash of the drug in his secret storage room.

Peter thinks it's far too dangerous to give Olivia large doses over a short period of time, but they don't have time to do it any other way, and she convinces him that she can do it. He reluctantly agrees, but he's concerned that the Observers may have invaded the other side as well, so Astrid suggests that they take a look and see for themselves.

Fortunately, even a broken window is still transparent.

When they're finished staring out the window, Anil secures a safe house and Walter begins injecting massive doses of cortexiphan directly into Olivia's brainstem. It's not pleasant. She's immediately tachycardic, and the injections themselves are incredibly painful.

When she's rested, the team takes Olivia to the site of the alternate Fringe Division's headquarters, and after a short embrace with her husband, she hops over to the other side... where she's immediately arrested by Fringe agents and taken to their leader.

Who looks kinda familiar.

Since last we saw them, Altlivia (hereafter referred to as Oldlivia since she aged while Olivia was in amber) and regular Lincoln have gotten married, had a kid, and been put in charge of Fringe Division. Olivia briefs them and they're sympathetic to her cause, so they immediately arrange for transport to Liberty Island.

Back in the blue universe, Observer scientists have finished their preliminary examination of Michael, and Windmark goes back to 2609 to report to his boss. Anomaly XB-6783746 is more intelligent than the Observers and more in tune with his emotions than regular humans. It's too dangerous to allow him to live, so Windmark gets permission to chop Michael up so they can study him at their leisure.

574 years in the past, and in an alternate dimension Olivia and Lincoln make small talk while they wait for Oldlivia to figure out exactly which room on the Liberty Island facility corresponds to where Michael's being held. Lincoln's feeling a little regret that he chose to swap universes and ended up with a wonderful life while everyone he left behind was killed or enslaved. Olivia assures him that it's okay; they all made their choices and no one should have any regrets. She gives him a reassuring swat on the arm, then her alternate self returns to show her where she needs to go.

Then it's time for jump number two.

The second jump takes a lot out of her, and Olivia gets woozy and has trouble focusing her vision on a single universe. Which is really bad because she's a little bit late and the Observers are about to vivisect Michael. She manages to shoot her way through one Observer, but a second teleports in front of her and knocks her down. Luckily, cortexiphan has its benefits and she distracts her assailant long enough to retrieve her gun by blowing up all the light fixtures. After that, it's smooth sailing all the way to the operating room. She kills the surgeon, grabs Michael, and jumps to the other universe in less than a minute. But that's still not quite fast enough. Another Observer sees her go, and they can hop between universes, too. Two of them follow her over and one almost gets his hands on Michael before Oldlivia and Lincoln take him down. After a quick ride back to the mainland, Olivia makes her last jump, and the rest of the team spirits her away before the local Observers catch up with them.

Everything has gone according to plan, however, since very few people knew where Michael was being held, Windmark quickly puts the pieces together and figures out that Broyles is The Dove.

Meanwhile, Donald has made his way to the lab and sets about building the wormhole generator. Finally, the rocks they picked up nine episodes ago get put to use. But there's a problem: A critical component has failed, and he needs help from an old friend who owes him a favour.

After all these years, he's still kinda grumpy.

What I Liked
-Special appearance by Mark Valley. We haven't seen him since he quit the show midway through the first season.

It must've been a bit weird for Anna Torv to work with her ex husband.

-Michael keeps making Windmark bleed. It's kind of a dick move, but it's still funny.
-Oldlivia chides Lincoln for checking out her younger self's ass.

Someone's getting some old ass tonight.

What I Hated
-Chelsea Clinton is running for president in the alternate US. They could've come up with someone better than that.
-The Observers' surgical tools consist of fancy future scalpels and 21st century pliers and bone saws, and the surgical nurse is dressed like something from the 1950s. Did the Observers come back just so they could play out weird fantasies?

Seriously, she looks like Nurse Ratched.

Final Thoughts
The word of the day is LOVED. A lot of people on this show are loved by someone, so I'm not sure exactly who it refers to. Peter loves Olivia, Walter loves Peter, Lincoln loves Oldlivia, and even Donald loves Michael, so it's hard to say if they had someone specific in mind.

Not everyone's aware of this, but every episode of Fringe (perhaps excepting the season finales) has contained an easter egg that relates to the next episode. Usually it's quite subtle and something like a sign in a shop window in the background, but this time the episode ended with a big fat 513 staring us right in the face. I don't know if they did it that way because they're lazy or because they wanted to make it easier for the fringepedia folks to find the last one.

It was nice that they took a quick trip to the other side. The alternate universe was a major story element in the first four seasons, but they hadn't really mentioned it at all this year. It's ironic that the universe that was falling apart 25 years ago is now in much better shape than the universe that was almost fully spared the reality-destroying effects of Walter's folly.

As the first part of a two-hour finale, this episode performed its job admirably. It set up the final confrontation between Windmark and Broyles, it got all of the grunt work for the plan out of the way. Beyond that it felt like something we've seen before. Crossing between universes to save someone from getting diced up by surgeons on Liberty Island is so season three. Still, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't new.

Fringe 5x13: An Enemy of Fate

And so, we reach the end. Will Walter and Donald save the past by changing the future? Will Peter and Olivia get Etta back? Will anyone tell me what the heck was up with those ball bearings? The answers may surprise you.

Donald sits in December's apartment, trying to convince him to bring him a piece of tech he needs to complete the device. The old man's not having it, though. He doesn't want to cease to exist, and he believes that it's humanity's fate to be conquered and wiped out by the Observers. However, his time amongst the humans has softened him, and Donald's passion manages to convince him that he can change fate if he's willing to try.

Elsewhere, the rest of the team has preparations to make. Walter directs Anil over the phone as he and the resistance set up the giant electromagnet, and Peter talks with Broyles. Which is unfortunate, because Broyles has been compromised and Windmark uses his fancy future tech to read their conversation of the windshield of his car. Then he heads up to Phillip's office to have a chat... and he does not look happy.

But then, he never really looks happy.

Broyles shields his thoughts from Windmark, but as he drives to meet with the team at Harvard, he notices he's picked up a tail. Olivia implores him to tell her where he is so they can come and save him, but Phillip knows the plan is more important than any one man, and he tells her to "Just get it done" while he leads the Observers on a wild goose chase for as long as he can.

Walter rallies the troops. While Astrid and Olivia retrieve the piece of tech they need, Peter lasers some final components out of the amber. As well as a few other things he didn't expect to find: A weird syringe and a tape addressed directly to him.

Using futuristic mining lasers to retrieve 1970s technology seems like a terrible waste.

The syringe is an inoculation that will allow someone to travel through time without ill effects, and the tape is Walter's goodbye note to Peter. When he takes Michael into the future, it will create a paradox, and the universe will resolve that paradox by deleting Walter in 2015. Peter is understandably upset, but his father tells him that it's the only way. Doing this will give Peter his life and his family back, and what father wouldn't do that for his son?

When Astrid and Olivia arrive at December's apartment, they find the door ajar and two Loyalists searching the place.

Also, December is dead and hanging from a pipe.

Olivia kills one Loyalist and captures the other. She asks what happened to the piece of tech they need. It's not good news. Windmark has it, and he knows what it's for. His goons also catch up with Broyles. Now, Phillip's still relatively spry, but he's an old man, and he doesn't put up much of a fight.

Now they're in trouble. They can't open a wormhole, and they know they've been compromised. No one has any idea what to do, so Olivia asks Michael. He tells her to shut up. With everyone quiet, Astrid comes up with the idea of converting one of the Observers' shipping lanes into a wormhole they can use. Donald thinks it can work, and he can read the Observers' shipping schedule, so he knows exactly when and where the next shipment is coming through.

To prepare, they dig out every last bit of fringe tech that Walter has: face-sealing gas, face-melting gas, and anything else they can carry. Astrid even digs out one last surprise for Walter.

He thanks her by telling her how 'Astrid' is a lovely name.

At Observer HQ, Broyles is about to get the once over with a metaphorical lead pipe. But first, Windmark tells him about the first twelve Observers and how spending so much time amongst normal humans infected them with emotions. He's been feeling something too: Hate. Phillip assures him that the feeling is mutual, and the psychic torture begins.

Back at the lab, Donald and Walter are preparing to clear out. Donald has given himself the time-travel inoculation. Seeing Walter with Peter has finally explained what he and the boy mean to each other. He can't communicate with Michael in any normal way, but when he takes him into the future, at last his son will understand that he loves him.

It took him 20 years, but he finally figured out emotions.

Meanwhile, Broyles is starting to bleed out of his face holes. He's not alone, though, because Olivia and Peter dump everything they can into the building's ventilation system and soon everyone is bleeding out of their face holes. Except of course for the people whose face holes get sealed shut. Chinese medical parasites burst out of guts, giant viruses pour out of mouths, heads explode, and one Observer even fights off the imaginary, razor-sharp butterflies. It's unpleasant for all concerned. With minimal searching, they retrieve the cube they need to stabilize the shipping lane, and they even find time to pick up Phillip.

Fortunately, torture rooms aren't known for their ventilation.

Out on the street, the Observers are setting up, but Astrid gets a call from Olivia, and it's time for the shooting to start. Anil and the resistance drive in with the electromagnet and lay down covering fire while Donald recalibrates the wormhole. Everything goes according to plan until Windmark shows up and kidnaps Michael. Peter manages to grab on to him as he teleports away, so he doesn't get far, but without the thing in his head, Peter's no match for a fully armed and operational Observer. He stays standing just long enough for Astrid and Olivia to come running. Astrid manages to shoot Windmark's backup, but Olivia gets the same beating her husband took. Except she's not like her husband. She just had her brain shot full of cortexiphan.

And she is very unhappy.

Olivia sucks all of the energy out of the surrounding area and uses it to smash Windmark between two parked cars. He manages to teleport away, but a good chunk of his face still winds up mashed into a window. He may not be dead, but he's not in good shape.

Donald retrieves his son and heads for the wormhole, but before he can get there he takes a stray bullet in the back. With no other choice, Walter grabs Michael, says one last goodbye to Peter and heads to the future. Then everything is as it was.

Back in 2015, Peter and Olivia take Etta home from the park. The Observers do not invade, and the world does not go to hell. Instead, at home Peter finds a letter from Walter.

Inside, all he found was hope.

What I Liked
-Walter would trade his comm unit for an old-fashioned, tumour-inducing cell phone. The future is a dark place indeed if you can get good phone reception.
-When they dig out all of Walter's hidden fringe stuff, Peter gets a set of anti-gravity osmium bullets so when he shoots Observers they'll just float away.

"Because it's cool."

-Michael Kopsa was really good as the antagonist this season. He started off completely emotionless, but at the end, I really believed that all he could feel was hatred for humanity. It was a subtle hate, but it was there.

What I Hated
-As neat as it was to bring back all the old fringe stuff, some of it didn't work quite right. In fact, the osmium bullets only worked originally because the laws of the universe were breaking down, so they shouldn't have worked at all.

It was still cool, though.

-Ultimately, Walter and Donald's plan was not terribly well thought out. No one other than the two of them would have been able to execute it, and Donald made certain of that by pulling Michael out of the pocket universe. It doesn't seem like the writers had everything set out before the start of the season, which is strange because they knew exactly how many episodes they had left. It was more or less a completely new story, so they couldn't really go off on a Lost-like tangent, but overall, it's still disappointing to find that even when they know the show is going to end, TV writers can't properly plan things out in advance.
-If the Observers never exist, then September can't go back in time to accidentally distract Walternate and prevent him from finding a cure for Peter, so Walter wouldn't have shattered the universe, and nothing in the show would have happened. Time travel stories cause a lot of problems. Not the least of which is messing with tenses.

Final Thoughts
Fringe's ratings declined every season to the point where it was bringing in fewer than three million viewers per episode. Yet its fan base was loyal and its cast and crew believed in what they were doing enough to keep the show going for 100 episodes. That's more than Firefly, more than Farscape, more than the new Battlestar Galactica and Caprica combined. It's even more than Enterprise, and Fringe didn't have the benefit of the Star Trek licence to prop it up. Sure, it would've been nice to see it do more than barely cling to life for the last three years, but all things considered, it did really well for a sci-fi show.

The word of the day was CLOSE, and at least one meaning is fairly evident. There may be others, but it's a little self-indulgent to argue about them now.

The ending was a bit more action heavy than Fringe has generally been, but I think it's important to go out with a bang, and it gave them an excuse to get everyone together in one place, so it doesn't bother me. Besides, in the very end, the show finished the same way it started: With a happy family spending a day at the park.

This was by no means a perfect episode, nor was it even a perfect finale, however, as series enders go, I think I'm comfortable with it. They didn't answer every question, but after last season most of those questions were trapped in another timeline, so I've had time to make my peace with that, and they did manage to dole out a few answers over the course of season five. I'm not happy to see Fringe go, but I find that I'm not sad either.