5.11 "The Boy Must Live" TV REVIEW
IF YOU'RE YET TO SEE THE EPISODE, STOP READING NOW! SPOILERS LIE AHEAD
Episode 5.11
, a and an .
THE PLAN Turns out all they have to do is use the random items from Walter's videos to build a time machine – how very Blue Peter . Then they have to take Michael forward to 2167, where the first experiments on increasing intelligence by removing emotions took place, to prove to the scientistဣs that it might not be such a good idea, and prevent the Observers from being created in the first place. Simple, right? But there's a catch – Walter's going to have to sacrifice himself to allowꦡ the plan to come to fruition.
SPECULATION Olivia seems pretty confident that preventing the Observers from existing will bring Etta back to them. Peter's scepticism may be well founded, though – if September hadn't been around to save him from Reiden Lake (in the original timeline, at least) he would have died as a child. So not only would adult Peter not exist, Etta would never have been born. Of course, we could be wrong about this &ndasꦕh; this time stuff is damn complicated.
IT'S THE FUTURE! So that's what the Observer future of 2609 looks like – a 1930s art deco painting. Turns out Windmark answers to a "commander" – and that he doesn't always get his own way. Apparently travelling back in time ⛄to eliminate "the fugitives" before they become a problem doesn't quite warrant the "protocol suspension" and "readjustment of probabilities" it would require – take that, Windmark!
We've also learned why the Invaders chose to invade in 2015 – there wasও a 99.9999% probabili♊ty they'd succeed. Hopefully that 0.0001% of probability will be on Olivia, Peter and Walter's side in the finale.
REALLY? We know that the Observers don't perceive time and space as we do, but how could September have expected Walter to know that his famous "the boy must live" remark was referring to Michael and not Peter. Honestly, brain the size of a planet, but no comm🍌on sense...
DEJA VU T🅺he white tulip Walter and September/Donald talk about first appeared in classic season two episode "White Tuli♚p".
ETTA LIVES ON A subtle cameo this week, but you can see a "Resist" poster in the background in the aဣlley when the gang do a runner.
POOR OLD ASTRID Stuck in the lab again. She really is runn𓃲🎀ing out of time to do something exciting – unless you count looking something up on the internet as exciting. Which we don't.
OBSERVERS LIKE JAZZ Who knew? And they've g♊ot some moves too – that's quality foot ﷽tapping.
HELLO! Windmark's meeting with Michael could have been overstated. Instead the Observer leader opts for a simple, efficient "Hello". Has he 🦄been taking tips from the ?
NITPICK Not the Fringe visual effects team's finest hour:
SHAMELESS PLUG There's a brief cameo for , which will appear in bookshops in our universe on 29 January. It's written by Paul Terry and SFX 's very own൩ East Coast Editor Tara Bennett &nda✤sh; and September, of course.
BEST LINE 1
Olivia: "Walter, why did you remove your trunks?"
Walter: "They were too restrictive. My body needs to be as free and open as my mind so I can find September."
Olivia: "Are you feeling sufficiently free and open now?"
Walter: "I am. Let's get started."
BEST LINE 2
Walter: "You never liked public displays of affection. Or going number t🀅wo in a public🐲 restroom, I remember that too."
BEST LINE 3
Peter: "Is that it?"
September/Donald: "You say that as though we're noꦐt carrying technology that can bend space and time 🌼into a Moebius strip."
Richard Edwards
The last ever episode of Fringe airs simultaneously in the US and the UK on Friday 18 January (technically the early hours of Saturday 19 January in Blighty, at 1.10am).
