Fringe 4.18 ‘The Consultant’ recap & review: Find the mole

Hello Fringies. I apologize for the delay. I mean, four days is too much, I know. But I’m really having no time and I’m trying to do the recap & review as fast as possible every week. This will probably be shorter than usual because I’m running against time today.

We begin the episode with Alt!Lincoln’s funeral and it’s pretty depressing. I didn’t cry like I did last episode, but it was too sad. Alt!Livia promised his parents that she’d find whoever is responsable for this. And we know that when Olivia Dunham – any of them – puts something on her mind, no one can get it out.

And that’s why Alt!Livia (let’s call her Liv, like in the last episode, ok?) reduces Nina Sharp’s sentence. So that she tells her who the mole is. That doesn’t happen, though. Instead of the name of the mole, Nina says something pleasant to hear, like: “It’s your world you are to be concerned about. Because as bad as you think things are now… Things are going to get much worse.” Just what I wanted to hear.

Case of the week: Some company guy who was screaming at his employees was thrown in the air and them back into the ground (table, whatever). And he died.

Best intro ever and we get to see Walter and Astrid having a discussion about her driving. It’s funny but it gets really good when Walter tells “Ascot” to look at Peter and Olivia. They are sooo cute walking. Walter is like the ultimate Polivia shipper.

After examining the corpses and a call from Broyles, Walter realizes that the wounds and broken bones are consistent with the ones people have from a plane crash. But how can they die from a plane crash if neither of them was in a plane?

Well, there was a plane crash OT, so it’s possible it has something do to with what happened here. But that’s not what Liv is interested in, no. She wants to investigate everyone who knew about the moving of Canaan, last week’s freak, to find out who is Jones’ mole in Fringe Division. At first Alt!Broyles is reluctant but then he lets her and tells her that their case about the plane is going to be shared with the other side, OH.

Then, Olivia takes Walter to OT, not without some questioning about drugs, obviously. In the room where everyone from the two universes meet (let’s call it Multi-Universal Room), Liv takes Walter with her and Lincoln and Olivia have one of those awkward conversations they always have. But it was sweet, since Olivia said Liv is lucky to have Lincoln.

After Walter, Liv and Lincoln get out of the Bridge, they start talking about the case. Walter says that even though he and Belly were able to do many things, never something that had occurred in one universe affected the other. And that gives Liv an idea. Could it be possible that Jones is causing all of this?

At Fringe Division, Walter tunes the dead body from OT to a device that makes it vibrate. “It’s a perfect ‘G’.” Then, he picks up a hand from inside his bag (yes, a hand) and does the same thing. It’s also a “G”, but it should be a “C” because every universe has its own frequency. If both universes have the vibrate at “G”, what happens there, happens here.

Then they hear the recording of the communications of the flight and Walter comes up with the theory that someone put a device inside the plane and that merged its frequency with the one from OH and made the plane destabilize. But he doesn’t have an idea what Jones was trying to prove with it.

We discover that it was an experiment when we see Jones having tea and talking with the man who put the device in the plane. And they are planning on doing it again.

We move on to Alt!Broyles getting home and talking to his wife about his son and how he is happy. I could be happy for you, Alt!Broyles, if I weren’t angry at you for being responsible for Lincoln’s death. He walks in the living room and Jones is there, talking to his son. Broyles didn’t seem very pleased by that.

The two men go to a private room where we finally know WHY Alt!Broyles is helping Jones. He is saving his son! Oh, God, now I felt sorry for him. Remember that episode in season 3 when we got to see how his son was sad and all of that? He’s just trying to save his kid!

Moving on, Jones’ guy is in a cab and I just know something bad is going to happen. It’s Fringe. And it does. The guy leaves something on the car’s floor and gets out. A woman gets in and her doppelgänger is at a store at the other universe. All of the sudden, she is thrown way back and dies, apparently drowned.

Astrid and Alt!strid have a fun conversation involving coffee at the Multi-Universal Room and the corpses are the same way, are the same person etc. Then, Peter starts looking inside the cab for the device and when he finds it, it’s just the confirmation he needed that Jones was behind it all: amphilicite .

They talk to Alt!Broyles about the case and Liv makes an offer to Walter. And he accepts it. So, Walter is sleeping over Liv’s house tonight. When Walter is about to leave Alt!Broyles’ office, he turns around and says that it’s his fault that things are now the way they are and that he’s sorry. Alt!Broyles asks him a question in return, if he would do it all over again. He obviously doesn’t like what he’s doing but he’s doing for his son, the same way Walter crossed over for Peter many years ago.

I’m getting emotional, so, continuing, Astrid tells Liv there’s nothing unusual with the names she gave her to find the mole. She seems disappointed. I’d be too.

Alt!Broyles and Jones meet he gives the colonel something to fix to the control panel of The Machine. Whaaat? You won’t do it, right Alt!Broyles? Alt!Broyles, it’s healing your world! When he gets home, his son starts talking about how things are so much better now. Only to make the choice even harder. But I have faith in you, Alt!Broyles!

At Liv’s place, Walter gets up to go to the bathroom and finds Liv on the floor with a bottle and Alt!Lincoln’s things, apparently drunk. But she doesn’t drink! They talk and we get to know why she is drinking: she’s trying to find the mole. I felt so sorry for her, I can’t even imagine what her loss must feel like.

The perfect solution was eggs. Sure, why not. It’s Walter after all. And this is Fringe, where breakfast food has great relevance. And, while talking about who could be the mole, Walter suggests that it’s Alt!Broyles. At first Liv doesn’t agree, but then…

She goes to the prison to visit Nina Sharp and see if she’s right. Affirmative, it is Alt!Broyles. When Liv tells Lincoln and he doesn’t trust Nina’s word, Astrid says that no one has seen Alt!Broyles around and his tracker was disabled, which concerns both of them.

When Alt!Broyles swipes his Show Me at Liberty Island, where the bridge is located, Lincoln and Liv rush there. But there was no need to run. Alt!Broyles was just there to turn himself in to Broyles. And he apologizes. Like Walter said when he was saying goodbye to Liv and Lincoln, don’t judge him for what he’s done for his child. And Lincoln is staying even longer on the Alt!Universe. I still ship Leeham, but Linham is cute.

We get to see Nina’s shocked face when Alt!Broyles is put in his cell and then we return to Walter’s lab. He called Peter and Olivia, who rushed there (I can’t help but wonder what they were doing, lol), to tell them that the cases of the week were just tests, like Jones had already told us. But he could do much worse. “Had Colonel Broyles uploaded this device into the machine, it would make it possible for Jones to do something much worse.” “Like what?” “He could collapse both universes.”

And that the happy ending of this episode! With the glyphs forming the word Simon, I quit trying to understand the meaning of this season’s glyphs as one. It wasn’t a small recap & review, but it was smaller than usual.