Fringe – S4 Ep22, Brave New World, Pt. 2

Man, seriously, folks, this episode killed it. (Er, no pun intended.) I could ramble incoherently about how much I loved it, but let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?

The flying wereporcupine overhead really adds to the scene, don't you think?

The first scene of the episode is a pastoral view of green grass and some weird dinosaur-looking things grazing in it, with mountains behind. I’m relieved when Bell’s self-congratulating spiel about how wonderful it is reveals that it’s not ‘real’ yet, because it looks rather fake. Anyway, Bell is excited even as it’s clear that Walter is not. Instead, he’s very alarmed and trying to convince Bell of what a terrible idea this all is. Bell won’t listen, of course. He says even if he wanted to stop the process now, he couldn’t — and he doesn’t want to. And it seems like Providence has brought them together, at the culmination of all he’s worked for.

Meanwhile, Olivia and Peter walk into the lab and find it empty. Neither Walter nor Astrid are anywhere to be found. The two of them find that odd. There’s a little moment where Peter asks Olivia if she wants to talk about what happened on the roof — her “Jedi mind trick”, he calls it. Heh. Olivia is uncomfortable and reluctant to talk about it, but says she can only attribute it to the Cortexiphan and has no idea how she did it. Peter points out that all this has been far more than she used to be able to do, and he’d like her to let Walter run some more tests when he gets back. Olivia agrees. Also, I don’t buy that they didn’t have this discussion earlier, since it’s clearly been several hours since then. Whatever.

Then Jessica from last week calls, tearfully telling Olivia that someone has been following her. Olivia tells her to stay inside her house until she gets there — and then we see that September is in her house. He walks forward until he freezes, standing on top of a weird glowy symbol painted on her floor. Huh. And when Olivia and Peter get to her house, it’s empty, and a hexagon around that spot on the floor has been cut away. That’s when Broyles calls Olivia to let us all know that Astrid is in the hospital, recovering from surgery from a gunshot wound. An anonymous caller brought the EMTs to a site where they found her, but Walter’s still missing.

Aww, poor littlest Bishop.

Astrid’s going to be fine — which is a relief even though we knew she would be because she’s fine in 2036. Olivia, Broyles, and Peter visit her in her recovery room. In tears, she confesses to Peter where they were and that she tried to keep Walter safe, but the armed men must have taken him. Peter looks worried, but holds Astrid’s hand (aww!) and assures her he doesn’t blame her. Jasika Nicole and all the actors knock this scene out of the park, by the way. Everyone realizes that Bell and his team must have cleared out by now, but Peter and Olivia still head out to the warehouse.