FRINGE Final Season Recap: “The Bullet That Saved the World”

Welcome to another recap of FRINGE! Let’s get to it before that antimatter bomb goes off…

Well, I had to figure something bad was going to happen eventually in this final season, but I didn’t really think it was what it was going to ultimately be. But, how about some lead in before we get to that tearjerker of an ending…

“What is baseball?” We start out with Peter picking up a new necklace for the bullet Etta carries since the last one was used to power the laser in “In Absentia”. He almost gets caught by an Observer, but is concerned he may have exposed Etta when he was mind probed. The problem is, she’s already being searched for by the Observers already (especially the one known as Widmark), and the make the leap in logic that it must be of some importance other than decorative. That much cause can be sussed out by Broyles, who is still working in the Observer-controlled Fringe Division. He also seems to be working with the resistance as an agent only known as “The Dove”. Luckily his cover is not blown during a routine security agent’s interrogation, but its enough to rattle him a bit. He has more to be concerned about, but before that, let’s get to…

The Fringe Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, back at the lab, another tape is found, and one that points to material needed for the “kill all Observers plan” being at a train station in Manhattan. They will need a distraction, and Walter has an answer for that…in the basement. Scarily unknown for who knows how long, Walter had been keeping mementos and pieces of their adventures in a secret chamber under the lab. Besides the fun callbacks to seasons past, they find their answer in some wonderful skin growing technology that if used properly (like say on a security guard or an Observer at a checkpoint at the train station), could suffocate you.

The Dove. Turns out Broyles is quite useful while under the Observers watch, managing to signal Etta that the lab may have been found out during that interrogation. The group re-ambers the lab and hides, throwing off the Observers (hey, Team Fringe isn’t going to lose those other videotapes still ambered in the lab), and then steals what they need from the train station (albeit with a lot of loyalist guards suffocating on extra skin over their faces). Broyles secretly meets up with the team, and talks about the past, like how Etta actually helped him to block the Observers’ mind probings. He also hooks them up with some nifty weapons, like antimatter batons that once armed, can’t go off. That cheerful reunion goes bad fast, when its discovered one of the soldiers from the train station got a bug on their car, and puts the team on the run (literally). Broyles escapes relatively undiscovered with the blueprints they found, but everyone else, well…

“She’s gone, son.” I had a horrible feeling going into this episode something bad was going to happen to the Bishop clan, but I did not see that Etta would be dead at the hands of Widmark. After that story about how Etta found the bullet back as a teenager, I should have guessed something horrible was going to happen. Peter and Olivia got back in time to see their daughter dying, arming one of the antimatter bombs and setting it off once the Observers rightly assumed they would return to find Etta. The building gets atomized, Widmark escapes just in time, and the daughter that Peter and Olivia fought to find for years is gone. Sniff.

The stakes got raised big time this week, and leaves me to wonder what’s coming next? How will this affect Peter, who has lost the daughter he obsessively fought so hard for again, and probably forever?

–Fun Walter Facts: Went on Manhattan Mystery Tours as a kid and had detective comics hidden at a train station there (he was 10), the Fringe Hall of Fame, knows Greek and a bit of Aramic in the Western dialect, and responds a bit cheerily when electrocuted.

–The “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” pillow.

–I don’t want to hypothesize about what those plans September left for Walter, but I have a sneaking suspicion what they could be for.

–Considering how many of our characters have being presumed dead and parallel realities, I’m not sure Etta is gone, but if so, what a gut punch way to go.

–You know its Fringe when the line “there’s got to be a better option to get us in than a portal that lets us see into a parallel universe” is a throwaway line.

–“Agent Dunham.”

–“Astriff! Prepare the laser!”

So what do you think so far? Did that end shock you as much as me? Need some tissues? Comment below…