Fringe Episode 504
“The Bullet That Saved the World”
Written By: Alison Schapker
Directed By: David Straiton
Original Airdate: 26 October 2012
In This Episode...
Peter sneaks into town to siphon gasoline, and stops into a little curio shop to purchase a necklace for Etta, to replace the one she donated to the laser. While there, an Observer sneaks up on Peter and tries to read him. Peter does his best to scramble his thoughts, but an image of Etta slips past. Peter escapes through the sewers and returns to the lab. But the Observer isn’t done. He calls in Broyles to look at security footage and informs him that he thinks the resistance is protecting him.
Astrid and Walter have dug out the next video, but it is badly warped and nearly unintelligible. However, Walter is reminded of his childhood and concludes that the next clue is likely hidden beneath a platform at Penn Station. Every road into the city is blocked by Observers or loyalists. Walter shows the team and even secret-er lab, beneath this one, where he stored all the evidence from all the Fringe Division cases. The hope is that there is some equipment in there that they can use to their advantage. Etta gets a text saying that the Observers were planning a raid on the lab. If they stay, they are toast. If they leave but the Observers find their stash, they can never go back again. Walter found an ambering device in the Fringe room. They re-amber the lab, protecting the precious cargo and causing the guards to blow it off as nothing. The Observer chalks this up to a deceptive brain read from one of the loyalists.
Walter drives to the Penn Station checkpoint. With his brain swiss cheesy as it is, the Observers likely couldn’t read him. He pretends to look for his travel papers and instead comes up wearing a gas mask and shooting off a chemical weapon that causes the person’s face to become almost instantly sealed up. The rest of the team comes out from hiding. Walter and Peter proceed into the station on foot, while Etta and Olivia drive on. Beneath Penn Station, Walter finds a wall he drew on. A nearby vent yields a large blueprint tube. Outside, the girls have donned their gas masks and are shooting everyone who approaches. The guys shoot their way out of the station and the four drive off.
Beneath a freeway overpass, our foursome unrolls the documents. Walter sees them as complex physics equations. Though they are written in his hand writing, he cannot read them and doesn’t remember ever being able to read these types of equations. In an effort to calm him, Liv suggests that September dictated the equations to him. Before they head back to the lab, Etta has a surprise for them. Broyles drives up - he is Etta’s insider in the Observers’ organization. He didn’t want Etta to tell them in case they were read, but he just had to see them. Five years ago, he saw Etta at a crime scene and before she even turned around, he knew she was Peter and Olivia’s child. He instantly had her transferred to his section, and she recruited him into the resistance. Broyles gives them all sorts of fun weapons, but the reunion is cut short when Observers start showing up. Team Fringe grabs what they can and runs, while Broyles holds them off. Etta gives Broyles the papers they recovered, instructing him to guard them with his life.
The Observers follow Team Fringe into an abandoned warehouse. More police roll up outside. Team Fringe does what they can to keep the Observers at bay, but the team gets separated. Liv and Peter go find Walter (hiding in a dumpster) and then plan to double back around to collect Etta. Then they hear a shot. One of the Observers had Etta by the throat, and was trying to read the implications of the necklace. All he could figure is, “Love.” Etta fights back, the Observer shoots, and Etta slumps to the floor. Peter, Olivia, and Walter run to her. She insists they go on without her, that she will slow them down. Peter refuses to lose his daughter again, but Etta leaves them no choice: she has armed a bomb. The Observers, meanwhile, are trying to figure out where the rest of the team got to. The one realized that they would go back to Etta for love. So the Observers go back to Etta and are surprised to see they were wrong. Then the bomb goes off, and the entire building is vaporized.
Dig It or Bury It?
On the plus side, we got Broyles back. But then on the negative side, we lost Etta. I was not expecting that - and I liked her. I’m kind of wondering when Fringe Division will head to the other universe for help. It seems like that is the only way they can beat the Observers, and that is the direction the season is heading.
New World Order
Peter buys Etta’s necklace with a $20 bill, which shocks the shopkeep, who is unable to remember the last time it was he saw a $20 bill. Peter informs him to keep the change, with the shopkeep shouting after him, “Do you know how much this is worth?” I would have to assume if he was asking that, it is no longer worth face value.
Prophecies?
Peter goes off the rails seeking to avenge his daughter’s death.