Michael has shown Walter a memory of Donald/September that's hidden in his subconscious, and there's only one way to retrieve it: With the sensory deprivation tank. For the first time in the history of the show, someone other than Olivia has to get hopped up on drugs and lie in a tank of water.
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| Unlike Olivia, Walter goes fully nude so his body and mind can be fully unencumbered. |
He only manages to dig out a vague recollection of the location of September's old apartment, and there's no guarantee that he still lives there, but Walter is optimistic. A little too optimistic, in fact. So much so that when they get to the location in New York, Peter asks him what's up. When Michael mind-melded with him, it freed his mind. No longer is he a slave to his hubris, and what's more, he's gaining the memories Walter had in Peter's original timeline.
When they get to the apartment from Walter's memory, whoever lives there has a lot of locks. Peter puts his hand on his weapon, but when the door opens, it's just Donald.
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| Or Hairy September if you prefer. |
After a brief handshake with Michael, Donald brings the team up to speed. As punishment for his continued interference in the timeline, the Observers removed September's implant and experimented on him until he became virtually identical to ordinary humans. He chose the name Donald O'Connor after Walter took him to see Singin' in the Rain. As for the boy, all observer children are cloned and rapidly matured in pods. Michael's brain developed abnormally, and his maturation was halted. Donald hid him in the past because his studies of the past had shown him the love a father can have for a son, and Michael was cloned from his genetic material.
The plan was to send Michael to February 28, 2167, the moment when scientists first began the experimentation that would lead to humanity sacrificing emotions for intelligence. Michael is far more intelligent than the Observers can comprehend and he has emotions. If he goes to the future, then the world will never go down that path, and the Observers will never exist. It's some Terminator stuff.
Meanwhile, Windmark takes a trip to visit his boss... in the future!
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| It's 2609 or 1974. They both look pretty much the same. |
Michael should not exist, and yet he does. Windmark's really ticked off and wants to be allowed to mess with the timeline so he can wipe out the resisters. His commander denies his request; the resisters are inconsequential, and screwing around with the timeline would alter the probability of success. Nevertheless, Windmark's mind is overwhelmed with the desire to exterminate the resistance.
When he returns to 2036, he immediately begins searching for Donald. Since he was detained at the mine in Pennsylvania 20 years ago, Donald has a chip in his head that allows the Observers to track him. Windmark and two flunkies pop into his apartment, but they're too late: Walter and Peter have removed the chip, and they're gone. Instead, they find nothing but knick-knacks and jazz recordings. And a small antimatter device that Donald uses to vapourize his whole apartment.
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| I don't think he'll be getting back his security deposit. |
While the Loyalists begin a search, Donald takes Walter to a storage room where he's hidden some future technology they need to complete the plan. While they're there, they talk about how when September pulled Walter out of Reiden Lake, the boy he said was important wasn't Peter, it was Michael (which is probably some retcon BS), and that in order to complete the plan, Walter will have to sacrifice himself. He's a little afraid, but Donald tells him it was his idea, and that it was his way of making up for all the damage he's caused.
The tech secured, Donald takes his leave while the team and Michael start their trip back to the lab. Unfortunately, Windmark and the Loyalists have set up roadblocks all around Brooklyn, and they're surrounded. Astrid uses the resistance's network to hack the camera feeds and find them an exit, but it gets a bit dicey and they have to split up. Olivia and Michael make it onto the monorail, followed a few minutes later by Walter and Peter. But, just before the train departs, Michael walks out the door and presents himself to the Loyalists, who promptly deliver him to Windmark.
What I Liked
-Walter remembers that Peter never liked taking a dump in a public restroom. That's a good memory to have.
-Windmark's flunky starts tapping his toe to the music. Even emotionless cyborgs from the future can't resist the power of jazz.
-Donald busts Peter's chops when he says "Is that it?" to their boxes of timeline-distorting future technology. He thinks he's so big just because he destroyed a universe once, so he needs to be cut down to size every now and then.
What I Hated
-There's a bit at the beginning where Peter pulls his gun when Walter surprises him while he's lasering out the latest tape. I'm pretty sure that scene was included just to get some intense-looking shots for the preview.
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| Literally nothing exciting is happening in this scene. |
-The Observers think they have a 99.9999% probability of success. That's a little extreme.
Final Thoughts
The word of the day is GRACE, and honestly, I have no idea what it means.
It's nice that they made so many callbacks to previous episodes, but it seems mighty convenient that Michael was able to restore Walter's memories of the alternate timeline. I think what probably happened is that the writers had an "Oh crap!" moment when they realized that the Walter from the first three seasons doesn't exist anymore and all those references they wanted to make were to things that had never happened.
Which brings up the whole "The Boy Must Live" thing. The line from the second season episode Peter is "The boy is important, he has to live." At the time, everyone thought that meant Peter, but in this episode we found out it really referred to Michael, which makes no sense whatsoever. That line was a response to Walter's question about why September saved them from drowning in the lake, so saying anything about Michael is kind of a non sequitur, particularly since he runs into the two of them like 20 times over the course of the series, and has ample opportunity to explain Michael's importance. Plus, midway through that episode, September has a chat with December and August where he says "Dr. Bishop was on the verge of developing a cure for the boy." Unless he goes around calling everyone under the age of 18 "the boy" it seems like the original plan was for "the boy" to be Peter.
September screwed up and prevented Walternate from discovering the cure for Peter's illness, so he had to rectify his mistake by dragging Walter and Peter out of the lake. It obviously wasn't because they needed Peter to turn on the universe-destroying machine, since the people in the alternate timeline managed to do that without him, and it clearly wasn't because they needed Peter to father Etta or to help save Michael, because last season September built a machine to erase the echoes of Peter from the universe and very nearly turned it on. So, causing Peter's death was a problem, but not because they needed Peter around for any particular reason. The whole thing just stinks of retconning.
This was the third-last episode, so I can't really review it in a vacuum; it has to be seen as a portion of the ending of the show. They're tying up loose ends, but they're doing it in a wholly unsatisfying manner, partially because those loose ends are in another timeline. Nevertheless, they are making an effort, and this episode did have a few nice bits in it. However, it seems to me that they've Lost their way.
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