Fringe Recap of Season 5, Episode 8: The Human Kind

I love Fringe. And while it's getting kind of late to review it (it ends in about 6 weeks), I can still review it, can't I? So, review and recap.

The Human Kind

Plot: Olivia meets up with Anil, the Resistance head. He gives her weapons, info -- and an Observer wire, identical to the one Peter stabbed in his head. He wants it to be studied.

Elsewhere, Peter (henceforth referred to as Peterver) is setting up his Truth Tables when Windmark arrives. Just before he sees him, Peterver disappears and revels in Windmark studying him.

Astrid liberates the eighth tape in the Plan To Defeat The Observers Tape Series. They must go to a town called Fitchburg and recover a large electromagnet. Olivia walks in with the wire. She tells them everything about Peterver and the wire. She gives it to them to study.

Olivia decides to go by herself to find the magnet because she needs to be proactive. She makes her way to a scrapyard and finds a small group of people there. She meets Symone, an interesting woman. Simone tells her that she's been waiting many years for someone to come with the magnet -- and it comes with a truck. While she waits to get diesel fuel for the truck, Olivia talks with a girl named Darby. Darby tells her that Olivia's is a fugitive with a bounty on her head and that people wanna turn her in.

Peterver stalks Windmark. While stalking him he hides in a random building. Windmark appears and they fight so dramatically. If there is one thing I love about Fringe, it is the amazing action that can take place in such a short amount of time. Only about a minute, but teleportation, jumping into thin air and disappearing...Peterver switching places with Windmark's lackey and killing him...after the fight, Windmark tells him that he is not the only one watching futures. Windmark has also been stalking Peterver, of sorts. He shows Peterver Etta's last thoughts. Peterver disregards it and disappears.

Walter and Astrid find that the more the wire is in the brain, more brain activity happens. With more brain activity, the brain grows outwards to accommodate higher rational thought, destroying the areas of feeling and -- wouldn't you know it -- hair growth. Peterver walks in and needs sutures from the fight. Walter wants him to stay, to take it out...Peterver won't have any of it. He leaves.

Simone comes with some water, and Olivia doubts it, thinking that it's a sedative because she mistrusts them. Simone says her people are wrong, and tells her about faith and hope. Olivia's doubting her, until Simone says she's an oracle -- she sees flashes around people. She knows Olivia drives at night, and has Etta's bullet. She attributes her powers to God and nature, but Olivia doubts it. Olivia calls her an anomaly -- she knows Simone's an anomaly because she's one herself. The fuel arrives and Olivia bades goodbye. Simone tells her that she has faith in her.

On the way home, Olivia is stopped by an accident up ahead. She gets out -- and two men knock her out. When she wakes up, she's in a warehouse. Typical. The two men plan to sell her out to Reward Wire -- the bounty system Darby talked about elsewhere -- and then Olivia escapes using Etta's bullet, a roll, and some paper.

Peterver plans to send Windmark off to his death. Olivia arrives as Peterver stares atop a high building. They talk and debate emotions and feeling. Peterver needs to kill Windmark the following afternoon snad avenge Etta. Olivia, crying, tells Peterver that emotions are the one thing they don't have -- and they need hope. Simone's words spark at last. Peterver stares at her and remembers Etta's last image. With Olivia's pleading, he produces a pocketknife -- and cuts out the Observer wire, making him Peter again.

Notes:

Fringe is doing a spectacular job with emotions and action...but they've really dug themselves in deep. There are too many questions unanswered.
What of the plan? I keep losing faith in it every time a tape is found because the object is always something random. A magnet, some rocks, a sheet of paper, a radio...
Walter was really getting around, wasn't he? He met and conspired with a lot of unknown people during the invasion...Of the top of my head: The Masseys (503), Simone and her mom (508), "Donald" (503, 506), and the Bald Kid (506).
Who is Donald? That's the big one weighing on my mind -- that and who the Observers really are. I think it's Bell's alternate universe self.

Name your theories and comments below!

-Rob