Fringe: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

Manhattan skyline, zeppelin-style.

Season Finale!  Part Two!  Here goes.  In the alternate universe, Peter is doing exactly what I’d do upon visiting an alternate universe for the very first time: He’s taking an aerial tour of New York by zeppelin.

An automated voice points out the 1908 Grand Hotel (hey, our New York doesn’t have a Grand Hotel!), as well as the locations of various past Fringe events, most of which seem to have been caused by emerging cracks between the two universes.  The voice tells Peter there are ten thousand people presently encased in amber in Madison Square Garden.  Aha!  That’s what quarantine does!  It encases buildings and people in amber — or, more accurately, an amber-like substance, like we saw back in the first season — to contain dangerous anomalies!  The voice dispassionately mentions to Peter that, as a result of lawsuits, the people trapped in the stadium were legally declared dead after ten years.

Madison Square Garden has seen better days.

Peter buzzes over the shiny copper Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island, which, the automated voice tells him, is now the headquarters of the Department of Defense.  This might mark the first time in television history that key chunks of exposition have been delivered via zeppelin.

Inside the Department of Defense, Walternate receives a report from a young woman in camouflage gear about a person of interest being admitted into an emergency room.  The person, of course, is Walter — our Walter, who was shot by Alternate Olivia last episode.  Any viewers coming into this episode without having seen the first part are probably going to be a bit at sea.

Smug bastard Walternate.

Alternate Olivia lolls in bed with Frank, her shirtless bit of fluff.  Her video phone goes off.  Great merciful Zeus, her ringtone is “Science Fiction Double Feature” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  That’s… incredibly random.

Alternate Olivia is enjoying the good life.

She wakes to see Alternate Broyles’s grim face on her phone’s little monitor, alerting her to her new assignment.  Olivia snuggles with Frank and protests that it’s Sunday.  This goes over about as well with Alternate Broyles as it would with our Broyles.

Broyles gets an eyeful.

Peter arrives at Walternate’s office.  While Walternate appears to be pleased to see him, it’s worth noting that father and son don’t hug, or exchange any kind of physical contact.  No handshake, no arm punch, no manly thump on the back, nothing.  Considering how touchy-feely and emotional Walter is, it’s a big difference.  Walternate says he’s imagined this moment many times.  Both Peter and Walter agree the situation is strange.  Stranger for Peter, I’d imagine.  He just took a zeppelin ride.  Walternate is probably pretty blasé about zeppelins by now.

William Bell and Olivia approach the check-in counter of a crowded hospital waiting room.  There’s a young man in front of them, who is telling the harassed duty nurse about his symptoms.  It’s hard to be sure what his problem is exactly, but it appears to involve bees that are larger than grapefruit.  Bell elbows his way to the front of the line.  Wait your turn, Bell.  I do appreciate that you and Olivia are in a rush to find Walter, but maybe the medical problems of the nice young man with the grapefruit-sized bees should take priority right now.  The nurse starts to chew Bell out for his impudence.  Bell shows her some kind of identification card (his Starfleet insignia?), and she suddenly becomes deferential and apologetic.

Lifetime pass to “Star Trek: The Experience”?

Olivia glances over and sees Alternate Olivia and Alternate Cute Agent Charlie entering the waiting room.  Bell tells her to find Walter — he’ll distract them and stall for time.  While Olivia starts peeking through rooms in a haphazard manner, Charlie and Alternate Olivia approach the counter.  Charlie asks the nurse for Walter’s room number.  He’ll also need her to purge Walter’s medical records from her system.  The nurse doesn’t appear to notice that Alternate Olivia is an exact double of the woman who was just at her desk.  Makes sense, I guess — neither Olivia had much direct contact with her, and the two Olivias seem very different from each other, disparate hairstyles and all.

As Alternate Olivia and Charlie cross through the waiting room hell-bent on finding Walter, Bell intercepts them.  He cheerily introduces himself and mentions that he designed the pulse rifles carried by all members of the Fringe division.  He yammers on and on about the features of their weapons, seemingly oblivious to their growing irritation, and all of a sudden I’m sort of thinking it might not be a treat to be stuck on a long flight in the seat next to Leonard Nimoy.  Alternate Olivia and Charlie get rid of him as politely as possible and move down the corridor.

Olivia — our Olivia — locates Walter first.  His gunshot wound is almost entirely healed, thanks to the accelerated healing techniques found in the alternate universe.  Maybe he spent some time in a nanite regeneration chamber, a la the mysterious Lincoln Lee in the first part of this finale.   We don’t see or hear anything further about Lincoln in this episode, so I’m presuming we’ll find out more about him next season.  He received waaaaaaay too significant of an introduction last week for it to be a one-time appearance.

Walter is also flying high on a whole bunch of marvelous drugs, which makes him especially delighted to see Olivia.

Delighted!

When Alternate Olivia arrives at Walter’s room, she finds him already gone.  She asks a nurse if she can see the surveillance footage from the room.  Surveillance cameras in hospital rooms make a whole lot more sense than surveillance cameras inside motel rooms, which is what we saw last episode.

Still delighted!

Outside the hospital, William Bell roars up in a black SUV and picks up Olivia and Walter.  Bell and Walter pull faces and bluster and hurl insults at each other.

Not delighted.

Also not delighted.

Flashbacks excepted, this is the first time in the course of the series these two characters have encountered each other, right?  They’re sort of fun together, what with their seething mutual hatred.

Alternate Olivia watches the security footage.  She sees her alternate self on the tape.  She’s appropriately flabbergasted.

Red opening credits again!  Did I mention this last week?  I don’t think I did.  Just for this two-part season finale, they’ve tinted the opening credits with a brilliant wash of red.  I like to think it’s an homage to Alternate Olivia’s jazzy hair color.

Sinister red credits.

In Walternate’s office, Peter looks at a map of the United States in which all of the quarantined areas show up in red.  Peter notes that pretty much all of Boston is red.  As Peter is personally invested in Boston, this concerns him.  Walternate says our Walter can be blamed pretty much entirely for that.  Well, he’s not wrong.  Walter’s awesome, but it’s hard to counter the argument that he did a bad, bad thing when he crossed universes to kidnap Peter.  Walternate claims that, by crossing back and forth betwixt universes, Walter turned the laws of physics on the alternate side into mere suggestions.  He’s optimistic that Peter can help restore the balance.  Peter is skeptical, but Walternate says there have been breakthroughs in science on our side that the parallel world hasn’t achieved yet.  Yeah, but do we have zeppelins?  Nanite regeneration chambers?  As we saw a few episodes back, the parallel universe had Razr phones a good twenty years before we invented them.  I’m not sure the alternate universe should be looking to our technology to bail them out.

Walternate pours Peter a celebratory glass of… Gatorade?

Walternate says the blueprints he left for Peter contain the plans to build some very old technology, which he hopes can be applied to heal the problems of both worlds.  While he’s already built the device in the blueprints, he hasn’t been able to get it to work yet.  The power source he’s been using — the weird box-like thing he was holding at the end of last episode — doesn’t work, so he needs to find another.  A power source named Peter, to be exact.  He doesn’t mention that part, actually, and Peter is too hopped-up on warm fluffy feelings from his new family to pick up on the subtle vibes that maybe things are terribly amiss here.

Walternate’s aide enters and announces that Alternate Olivia has arrived for an unscheduled appointment.  Walternate starts to tell her to send her away, but Peter stops him, clearly curious to meet this version of Olivia.  When Alternate Olivia enters, Peter gapes at her.  He tells Alternate Olivia she resembles someone he knows, though her hairstyle is different.  “I think I like yours better,” he says.  Hey, me too.  The red hair/heavy bangs combination really suits her.  Stick Olivia next to Alternate Olivia, and Original Recipe Olivia starts looking a little drab and sickly.

Walternate kicks Peter out so he can talk to Alternate Olivia alone.  Alternate Olivia, naturally enough, is concerned about having spotted her doppelganger on the hospital surveillance tape.  Walternate feeds her some lies about how the alternate versions are “monsters in our skin” and warns her not to trust them.  She says Peter seemed to recognize her — does that mean he’s from the other universe?  Walternate explains that Peter is his son, the one who was famously kidnapped twenty-five years ago.  Olivia seems floored by this.  I kind of think finding out about the existence of an alternate version of yourself would trump finding out about the existence of some random guy who apparently disappeared a quarter century ago, but everyone is different.

Olivia, Walter and William Bell sit at a KFC and indulge in a little overt product placement.  KFC?  Really, Fringe?  What’s the Our Universe-versus-Their Universe tally right now?  They’ve got zeppelins and nanite regeneration chambers.  We’ve got coffee and a welcome lack of horrific quarantines.  Both universes have KFC.  Call it a tie.  Walter wears a baseball cap, and Olivia hunches into the hood of her pullover.  There!  They’re disguised!  Even though they’re the subject of a government-sponsored manhunt, they can sit with Nimoy in the middle of a crowded fast-food joint and remain undetected!

Keen-eyed viewers may detect some subtle product placement.

Delighted with his chicken, Walter rambles on about how he identified all eleven herbs and spices in KFC’s proprietary  recipe in 1983.  Walter rhapsodizes about the awesomeness of KFC for a while, and seriously, in exchange for the tongue bath it receives in this episode, KFC must’ve delivered huge suitcases filled with filthy lucre to the offices of key FOX executives.

Walter frets they won’t be able to cross back to our universe, now that Nick and the others are dead.  Olivia might be able to open a crack between universes on her own; Bell says they just need to find some kind of doorstop to hold the crack open while they slip through.  Mangled metaphor alert!  Didn’t we have a long scene last week explaining that, as the universes overlap, it’s not a case of moving from one to the other — it’s a case of letting the other universe pass through you?  Thus, this whole “doorstop” comparison is invalid.  Walter thinks he could build something to keep the hole open… if only he had a particle accelerator.  Bell thinks he might be able to track one down.  Hell, I’ve got a spare particle accelerator kicking around in the back of my closet somewhere.  Bell and Walter argue for a while, because that’s just what they do, then they decide to go off and do their own thing while Olivia searches for Peter.  They agree to meet back at the opera house — I called it a concert hall last recap, but apparently it’s an opera house — in twelve hours.

After Olivia leaves, Bell tells Walter that she might be their greatest achievement.  They both stare after Olivia like a couple of doting parents, which is the premise for some fanfiction that I never want to read.

(Much as I enjoy Fringe, I haven’t delved into the fandom at all.  Is there a significant amount of Fringe fanfiction out there?  Do Peter and Olivia have a cute fan-given portmanteau couple name?  Polivia?  Petlivia?  Is there, say, a lively and optimistic Pestrid community?)

Alternate Olivia shows Peter around an apartment in a Manhattan high-rise, designated by Walternate especially for Peter’s use. I guess that explains the framed comic books on the walls.  Does Peter read comic books, or is he forever ten years old in Walternate’s mind?  Just wait until Peter sees the bed shaped like a race car!

“Seriously?  You know I’m in my thirties now, right?”

Alternate Olivia points out the features: UV protection on the windows, an air filtration system, something called “viral purging”…  Oh, awesome.  Viral purging.  The alternate world is looking better all the time.  She quizzes him about the other side.  Peter says it’s much the same, only with subtle differences.  He doesn’t mention the lack of zeppelins.  Probably doesn’t want to shock the nice lady.  Alternate Olivia says Peter’s kidnapping is a famous story.  Peter compares it to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, which draws a blank with her.  When you think about it, it’s kind of odd that the only kidnapping to remain a notable pop culture reference point in American films and television took place eighty years ago.

Alternate Olivia asks him what his Olivia is like.  She’s clearly fishing for a compliment, but Peter doesn’t take the bait.  He passes up the opportunity to point out that Olivia is smart and pretty and clever and smells nice and is a damned good shot.  Instead, he kind of half-heartedly describes her as “haunted,” then abruptly dismisses Alternate Olivia.  Haunted?  Man, Peter.  Weak.

Bell and Walter take a road trip to Boston.  Bell chomps on Red Vines; Walter sits in the passenger seat and stares out the window, aghast at all the dead trees and surrounding devastation.

Nice going, Walter.

“Am I responsible for this?” he asks.  “Yes, Walter, I’m afraid you are,” replies Bell through a mouthful of delicious fruity licorice.  I bet there’s a surprisingly hefty line item for Red Vines in the Fringe prop department’s budget.

Licoricey goodness!

Leading up to the science building at Harvard is a tremendous glob of the quarantine amber with a bunch of visible people preserved inside.  A plaque commemorates whatever terrible event brought about the quarantine.  A particularly harrowing finals week?

I bet enrollment took a hit after this.

Bell and Walter enter the alternate-universe version of Walter’s laboratory, which on this side is a big deserted room filled with equipment covered in dropcloths.  Bell explains that it’s Walternate’s old laboratory.  While Bell himself has done some work for the Department of Defense since moving to this universe, his parallel-world counterpart died in a car accident as a young man and thus never met Walternate.  Walter acts all crabby and bitter about how Bell created Massive Dynamic and pilfered the technology in the alternate universe just to make a profit.  Bell points out that Massive Dynamic was a joint venture between both of them.  He went to the parallel universe to prevent a war and to stop the deadly chain of events Walter set in motion when he kidnapped Peter.  This argument fails to placate Walter, who is having far too much fun being cranky and difficult.

Walter’s rant comes complete with funny hand gestures.

Walter starts sputtering about the seventeen years he spent in a mental institution, and how he still forgets things and gets confused at times, all because Bell cut out pieces of his brain.  He’s working himself up into a righteous lather, but Bell cuts off his rant to point out he’s found what they’ve been looking for: a particle accelerator.  It’s a small, portable one, though, not the football stadium-sized ones you usually see.  This is a particle accelerator you could toss in the back of your truck and take to a picnic.

Alternate Olivia returns to her apartment.  There appears to be an assortment of, uh, small wooden churches on a table by her front door.  So Alternate Olivia has a taste for kitsch, huh?  She just needs a collection of angel figurines and maybe some needlepoint samplers to complete the look.  She heads to the fridge, where her shirtless bit of fluff, Frank, has left her a dish of leftovers, complete with a red bow and a little note taped to the glass lid.

Aw.

Alternate Olivia, holding her dinner, walks into the living room… and finds Olivia waving a gun at her.  “We both leave our Hide-A-Key in the same place,” Olivia tells her.  As unlikely as it may seem, the location of Olivia’s Hide-A-Key takes on great significance later.

“Hand over the pot roast, and no one will get hurt.”

Back in the lab, Bell and Walter futz around with the particle accelerator.  Walter worries Olivia won’t be able to keep the door between universes open by herself; Bell once again reassures him to leave that to him.  Was there really any doubt this episode would be William Bell’s swan song?  Even if Nimoy hadn’t previously announced his retirement from acting, all signs point to a dramatic self-sacrifice in the climax.

Olivia orders Alternate Olivia to take her to see Peter.  Alternate Olivia, who seems bemused and fascinated by her visitor, isn’t terribly cooperative.  Olivia spots a photo of Alternate Olivia posing with her — their — mother.  She discovers Alternate Olivia’s mother, unlike Olivia’s own, is still alive, though she’s had a hard time ever since Alternate Rachel died during childbirth.  Olivia tells her counterpart that, in her universe, Rachel is alive and the mother of Olivia’s young niece, Ella.

Alternate Olivia, who seems to be a bit of a gossip hound, grills Olivia about her interest in Peter.  She asks if Olivia and Peter are romantically involved.  Olivia sort of half-heartedly denies it.

Back at the lab, Walter is still hung up on why Bell sliced out bits of his brain and removed his memories.  Strangely enough, he’s holding a bit of a grudge about this.  Bell dodges the question.  He points out that they have under four hours to get back to the opera house in New York to meet Olivia.  Isn’t that timeline fairly flexible?  If they need more time to fiddle with their particle accelerator, it’s not like Olivia can cross back to her own universe without them.

Alternate Olivia agrees to help Olivia.  Olivia gets paranoid when Alternate Olivia picks up her purse and orders her to hand it over.  Right idea, wrong target: Alternate Olivia keeps her spare gun in her jacket — which she’s currently holding in her hands — and not her purse.  She pulls the gun on Olivia.  When Alternate Olivia goes to contact the Fringe division, Olivia attacks her.

Girl fight!  Olivia and Alternate Olivia kick and punch each other, which is sure to spike the ratings a bit.  The ratings for this episode, by the way, were very poor, which is a shame; this season as a whole has been pretty damn strong, and it sure ended on a high note.  The Olivias end up rolling around on the floor together; Alternate Olivia gets the upper hand for a while when she starts throttling Olivia, but Olivia manages to pick up an overturned end table and whack her over the head.  There’s some marvelous stunt double work in this scene.  It looks for all the world like Olivia is kicking the crap out of herself.

Girl fight!

Cut to Olivia staring at her reflection the bathroom mirror as she chops crude bangs into her hair, which is already freshly-dyed a vibrant red.  She looks kind of horrified about her impromptu makeover.  She shouldn’t — it’s a good color on her.

Textbook expression of haircut regret.

Leaving Alternate Olivia bound to a chair in her underwear, Olivia dons her double’s clothes, black leather jacket and all, and rifles through her purse.  She peeks at some kind of little handheld electronic device — the alternate universe version of a Palm Pilot, I guess — and finds a little map pinpointing the apartment where Peter is staying.  Convenient!

As Olivia leaves her apartment, she collides with Charlie, who says he’s been trying to reach her — is everything okay?  Olivia insists she’s fine.  Charlie says there’s been a reported power surge in Walternate’s old lab at Harvard, which Broyles wants them to investigate.  Olivia counters with a claim that Walternate just called and instructed her to move Peter Bishop.  Charlie is astonished to learn Peter Bishop has been found so many years after his disappearance.

She’s still not thrilled with her new haircut.

In his lavish apartment, Peter drinks white wine while talking to himself about the structure Walternate wanted him to help with.

Pinot Grigio? Chardonnay? Sauvignon Blanc? Arbor Mist?

There’s music playing in the background, and I can’t place the song.  B-52s, maybe?  That’d be pretty much in keeping with the cheerfully random musical choices on this show.  Anyway, Peter fiddles with the power source — a box containing a series of small round objects — and notes that it’s not entirely mechanical.  He believes it needs some sort of organic interface in order to work.  He moves his hand over the little round thingies.  Some of them jump up and stick to his hand, like static cling.

Charlie drives toward Peter’s apartment, with Olivia in the passenger seat.  Charlie grills her about what she knows about Peter’s reappearance.  He seems baffled and amazed by the existence of the parallel universe.  Charlie launches into a speech about how his job has changed too much from a decade ago. I can’t be certain, but I think that’s the same speech our universe’s version of Charlie — you know, the dead version — gave to Olivia in the pilot episode.  From Olivia’s weirded-out expression, I think she thinks it’s the same, too.

After this screengrab, I’m revoking the “Cute Agent Charlie” nickname.

Alternate Olivia wakes up.  She notices she’s bound hand and foot to an armchair.  She also notices she’s not wearing any pants.  Kinky, Olivia.  Very kinky.  You couldn’t just go to Alternate Olivia’s closet and grab another pair of pants?

Peter continues to exposit out loud, for the benefit of the viewers, about Walternate’s device.  He notes that the object is designed to respond only to “a narrow subset of one” — specifically, himself.  I’m going to start referring to myself as “a narrow subset of one,” just to see how that goes over with everyone.  He starts to look sort of grim about this revelation, like maybe he’s not terribly amused that Walternate invited him over to the alternate universe just because he needed a battery.

He answers a knock on his door.  When he sees that it’s Charlie, a huge, delighted grin spreads across his face.  Aw, that’s kind of sweet.  Charlie introduces himself, and Peter says he’s very happy to meet him.  Olivia, disguised as Alternate Olivia, takes charge.  She gives Peter the sketch she received from the Observer and warns him he’s in danger.  Charlie, who is no idiot, notices something funny about the situation.  Before he can protest, Olivia smashes a lamp over his head and knocks him out.  She reassures Peter she’s the Olivia he knows; Peter reassures her he kinda already figured that out.

Peter explains that he now understands Walternate’s reasons for bringing him back had less to do with paternal love and more to do with wanting to destroy the other universe.  In answer to Peter’s query, Olivia says she discovered the secret of Peter’s origins for a few weeks before he figured it out.  Peter looks heartbroken and betrayed.  Olivia insists he doesn’t belong in the alternate universe, but Peter insists he doesn’t belong in the other one, either.  Olivia launches into a heartfelt speech about how she could list a hundred reasons why he should return with her, but in the end, the only reason that matters is that he belongs with her.  And then they kiss!  It’s a pretty good one, even though Peter keeps one hand jammed in his front pocket the entire time, which makes me doubt his commitment to smooching Olivia.  Making out should be a two-handed task.

Both hands, Peter.  Both hands.

Walternate and Alternate Olivia barge into the sleek, glossy Fringe headquarters.  They tell Unexpectedly Sexy Alternate Broyles they need to find Olivia.  Alternate Olivia’s Show-Me card — currently in the possession of Real Olivia, of course — was recently scanned in the area of the opera house.  So that was easy.

I want the Unexpectedly Sexy Alternate Broyles action figure.

Bell and Walter haul their smallish particle accelerator inside the opera house.  Peter and Olivia arrive and join them.  Peter and Walter are curt and gruff with each other; Bell smooths over the awkwardness by introducing himself to Peter.  With a flurry of lights and sirens, police cars pull up and surround them.  Bell and Olivia use Bell’s special souped-up pulse rifles to hold them off while Peter and Walter rush to set up the device inside.

Inside the opera house, Walter tries to apologize to his son, but Peter is still prickly and distant.  I hope next season opens with Peter and Walter having already repaired the rift between them.  This show is more fun when Peter is benevolently exasperated with Walter, instead of being outright angry with him.

“After it takes us back to our world, we can roast hotdogs over it!”

Olivia and Bell hold a big shoot-’em-up outside with Alternate Broyles and Alternate Olivia and various police officers.  Bell gives Olivia a prototype of a phosphorous grenade and instructs her to use it judiciously.  I sort of love that Bell just happens to be carrying pulse rifles and a grenade around with him.  Meanwhile, Alternate Broyles and Alternate Olivia receive some kind of instructions from Walternate over their earpieces.  Sneaky, sinister instructions.

Peter and Walter fire up the particle accelerator in the middle of the stage.  They’re startled by the sound of a loud explosion outside.

William Bell regains consciousness to find himself lying on the sidewalk with Olivia bending over him in concern.  She explains that she used his grenade.  They’re surrounded by fire and destruction.  Olivia, you’re a dangerous woman.

Olivia leaves mayhem in her wake.

Bell and Olivia hurry inside the opera house.  Walter frets, again, that the device won’t work because they don’t have a big enough power source.  Bell gently explains that he’ll power it up himself.  His atoms are already poised to split apart from all the universe-hopping he’s done.  Since there are as many atoms in the body as there are stars in the sky, he should be able to supply more than enough power for Olivia, Peter and Walter to get home.

“Stop interrupting my noble sacrifice to remind me that you hate me!”

“You’re going to explode yourself? That’s wonderful!”

Walter, realizing Bell is going to sacrifice himself, claims he never should have lost faith in his old friend.  He thanks him and starts up the machine.  Bell explains why he took pieces of Walter’s brain — Walter asked him to do it, because he was afraid of what he was becoming, i.e. like Walternate.  Bell starts to drift apart into a blinding burst of white light.  He holds up a hand to Walter in farewell, and there’s more than a whiff of the end of The Wrath of Khan here; Bell just needs to tell Walter that he is now and always will be his friend, and the cycle will be complete.  In any case, it’s a nice scene for Nimoy to end his acting career upon.

Live long and prosper.

Back in the opera house in our world, Broyles — our Broyles, the one who doesn’t wear sexy tight t-shirts — approaches Peter, Walter and Olivia, who have successfully flipped back from the parallel universe.

Back in the world.

Olivia returns to her apartment.  She feels around the top of her door jamb and retrieves her spare key — hey, funny how we had that little line of dialogue earlier about how Alternate Olivia and Olivia keep their keys hidden in the same place, isn’t it?  She flicks on the lights and looks around the place.  She seems hesitant.  She seems like she’s never seen this place before, in fact.

In the Harvard laboratory, Astrid presents Peter with a slice of pie.  He protests that it’s his third piece.  Astrid explains she’s been baking pies and muffins and cakes all week.  She bakes whenever she gets nervous.  Poor Astrid.  Maybe next season we’ll get an episode where Astrid gets to do something more essential than baking and providing moral support.  Peter apologizes for his absence causing her such distress.  He asks Astrid to drive home Walter, who is currently milking the cow in the background.

He’s not enjoying that pie.

Peter wishes Walter goodnight.  He’s still distant, but not unfriendly.  Walter wants reassurance that Peter is really home — he’s not going to run away again, is he?  Peter says he’s trying to see Walter’s side of things, but can’t.  He acknowledges that Walter did cross between universes twice to save his life, which surely counts for something.

Olivia enters a typewriter repair shop (I’m sure those still exist, somewhere, someplace) and tells the proprietor she’s in need of a Selectric, model 251.  The clerk looks at her, askance and wary.   He opens the cash register drawer and hands her a key.  He tells her it’s in the back.  As she heads toward the back of the shop, he looks after her in deep concern and fear.  You don’t see many emotionally-fraught scenes taking place in a typewriter repair shop.

Olivia enters a room with cement walls covered by a garish mural, graffiti-style.  There’s a desk with a typewriter on it sitting in the middle of the room.  Olivia sits down, and we catch a glimpse of the tattoo on her neck, tipping us off that this is Alternate Olivia.  Which we all already figured out long before this moment, but okay, good to make it official.

“The quick brown fox…”

She feeds a sheet of paper into the typewriter and types INFILTRATION ACHIEVED.  AWAITING ORDERS.  After a brief pause, the typewriter begins to automatically type a reply to her.

Back in the parallel universe, Walternate strides down a hall.  At the end of the corridor is a lowered metal grate.  He lifts it up and flips on a light… and we can see that behind the grate is a white padded cell.  Olivia — our Olivia, though she still has the red hair — is being kept prisoner behind a glass wall.  She pounds on the glass and shouts at Walternate to let her out.  With a slight smile, Walternate ignores her pleas.  He flips off the light, lowers the grate, and walks back down the hall.

Still a smug bastard.

Excellent episode.  See you next season, Fringe.