Fringe 4.22 ‘Brave New World Part 2’ recap: Super Olivia to the rescue… of herself

Hello Fringies. I’m sorry, I tried to finish this on Saturday since it’s the season finale but I couldn’t and then there was Mother’s Day and I didn’t write anything. I’m also sorry for the size of this, I know it’s really big. By the way, I know I’m late but congratulations to all the moms out there, one especially… Anyway, back to Fringe, the episode was a lot of things, but it surely was one of the best season finales of the series.

The first image we got of the episode was the new world that Belly wanted to create. And as much as I find horrible what he was doing, I have to admit that it was beautiful. Like me, Walter didn’t like it much but Belly said he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to and he doesn’t.

Bell says that it seemed that the hand of God brought Walter here but he thinks there was nothing divine about it. He simply found Belly.

Speaking of people to be found, Peter and Olivia enter the lab and Walter and Astrid are nowhere to be seen. So they decide to have coffee. And they talk about her powers. To be honest all I could think of during this scene was that Peter called her Liv. He usually calls her Olivia or Livia, but no, he called her Liv! It was too cute. Back to the scene, he asks her to let Walter run some tests when he gets back.

Then Jessica, the girl from Part 1, calls Olivia saying she’s being followed. And then September shows up at her place and I thought the stalker was him but he got trapped on a symbol! I mean, how could he?

Anyway, they go to her house and there’s no one there. There’s a hole on the floor where September was trapped and Olivia is worried about how she put her in danger but Peter (using Liv again) comforts her saying that she saved Jessica.

Then Broyles calls saying that they found Astrid after an anonymous call. She was in surgery but now she’s ok. And they don’t know where Walter is either. There, they talk to Astrid about what happened and she explains everything. Seriously, all the awards to Jasika Nicole once again.

Tipped about the warehouse, Peter and Olivia head there only to find September, still trapped. Jessica shows up all bad and stuff, telling Olivia to drop her gun or she’ll never see Walter again. This one I seriously didn’t see coming. The truth is that Jessica worked for Bell and the whole infection was just a test. Bell also told her that if they put Olivia in danger September would show up. And then she starts shooting him but he catches all the bullets with his hands. She shoots him with another gun, faster and he can’t catch it. Oh no.

After some discussion, Jessica shoots September again and Olivia simply puts her hand in front of him and the bullets (?) go back and hit Jessica. Take that, bitch. No one fucks with Olivia Dunham and her loved ones.

Glyph number one, which was P, and Peter, all practical, calls for backup and scratches the symbol off the piece of Jessica’s floor. They talk to September about that happy day when he told Olivia that in every future she had to die. But he didn’t know where Walter is. The only way to know is to interrogate Jessica.

Peter and Olivia, together with Nina, who appeared a little bit later, prepared Jessica. Then Nina and Olivia talk about how Jones and Bell had been doing these things (the nanites, the sunlight) only to use her compassion and her feelings to activate her because Bell must need her for something.

Back at Noah’s Arc 2.0, Bell clarifies something for us. This was all Walter’s idea after Peter died twice. But then, when he realized that he was smart enough to actually create a new universe, he asked Bell to cut the pieces of his brain. This version was very similar to the old one and I liked it. Continuing the explanation, then Belly grew old, got cancer and decided to do it. “If we’re capable of being gods, then it’s our destiny to do it.” Wow. I know I’m supposed to dislike this but this phrase is so good.

Second glyph, U, and Peter says they’re ready. Warning: creepiest and scariest scene I’ve ever seen in Fringe. I’m serious here, it gave me chills. Jessica “awoke” because of all the equipment and her eyes kept moving in different directions, her voice kept changing, she kept saying things that made no sense and it was all scary as shit. Especially when she went all “ding ding ding”. They discover from the song she sang that Bell is on a boat and when Peter asks her if he is on a boat, she gets all serious and starts talking about hoe brilliant Bell is. Jessica says he needs an energy source but when she doesn’t tell what it is, Olivia gets mad and touches her, killing her again, lol.

Olivia realizes after this event that the energy source is her and that’s why Bell has been activating her. Then Nina says that if it is her, they may be able to find Bell. Already at the Fringe Division, Nina explains it all to Broyles. That Olivia is the energy source, that she’s emitting a strong electro magnetic field and they can use her frequency to find out where the epicenter, the eye of the storm, is. That’s where Bell will be.

Moments later, the universes start to collide. But what is that compared to a Polivia moment? I kid. But it was sweet. Peter finds Olivia in an empty room and when he says that it’s going to be ok, she answers saying that for the first time she doesn’t think that it is. “I remember being in that lab in Jacksonville… when Walter and William were doing the cortexiphan trials. I remember how it smelt, how I felt, how scared I was. How all alone I was. And now, years later, nothing’s changed. I’m still that little girl and William Bell is still doing experiments on me. I’m still being used.” “No, something has changed. This time you’re not alone.”

First of all, all the awards to Anna Torv and to the writers. And can we just talk about how amazing they are together. There are many tv shows where all is rainbows and unicorns when the couple is together and then some things happen and they are apart. But Peter and Olivia, through all this mess, actually talk about their problems and communicate. That’s one of the reasons they are my biggest OTP.

After a hug, we move back to the Arc, where Walter is staring at a gun. But then Belly calls him to watch the devastation and the storm around them. And the theory is confirmed, Olivia is the energy source.

Glyph time, R is the letter. I think I’m going to start to say all the glyphs instead of just the word they formed at the end. It’s more fun. But anyway, the division finds out Bell’s location and they rush there. Walter tries to make William stop in vain. When they get to where Bell is supposed to be, only Peter can see the boat, so they assume it’s on the other side.

The only way to cross over now that the bridge is closed is through Olivia. So, Peter and Olivia jump from the helicopter and it works! Peter seemed as surprised as me after almost falling from the boat. Then he takes a gun off his peacoat, saying that Olivia can’t always be the one who gets to carry a gun.

While they try to find Bell, he’s quoting Yeats to Walter. And then Peter and Olivia storm into the room, something that Bell didn’t expect. In the new world, the two of them will be the new Adam and Eve, or at least that’s what Bell said.

Peter tells Bell to end this but he says he can’t because Olivia is alive, basically. So Walter kills her, breaking my heart in the process. I jumped and screamed together with Peter and cried with him too. Bell goes away ringing his bell but I don’t care about that. I’m more worried crying about her death. I was angry with Walter but then I remembered that Etta hadn’t been born yet so Olivia had to live. Ok, I won’t describe my every emotion. Just look at Peter, that’s me.

G is the glyph this time. And it was good to have a commercial because this way I had time to calm down and stop crying.

It was horrible to see Peter struggling with Walter, telling him not to touch her, the slap, everything was horrible. But there was a way to save Olive. They needed to get the bullet out so that the Cortexiphan in Olivia’s brain could repair itself like the lemon cake. Cortexiphan being regenerative actually explains a lot. Olivia was said to be dead in ‘A New Day in the Old Town’ (2.01) but she miraculously awoke. On ‘Brown Betty’ (2.19), she healed herself too. And the only reason she died in ‘The Day We Died’ (3.22) was that the bullet wasn’t taken out in time.

Painful seconds followed with the uncertainty of what would happen next. Screw it, all the awards to everyone in this show. I began to sob a little once again when she healed herself. But they were tears of joy. Today I’m all analytic, so I’ll do it again. The bullet. Once it came out of Olivia’s head, she could awake. In ‘Letters of Transit’ (4.19) we thought the bullet Etta carried represented pain and death but after this moment I think it represented hope, even if she didn’t know it. Hope that something that seemed dead can be brought back to life, hope that the world can be taken back from the Observers.

Moving on from my analytic moment, Fringe Division finally received some credit for, hm, saving the world a zillion of times. And Broyles was promoted to general! Awesome! In his way out, he meets Nina and it’s such a parallel to 2.01, the other time when they were recognized as important people who save the world everyday for living. The first time they kissed, this time Broyles offered her a job. I just rewatched the scene and I think her hair on season 2 was better.

Then we go to the hospital, where Peter and Walter are waiting. Walter says that Olivia’s powers were so used that they probably disappeared. And then he confuses urine samples with lemon jello. Peter brings back the subject asking if she’s normal now and Walter says that some abilities may come back some day but yes, she’s normal.

Astrid shows up asking for Olivia and Peter asks her if she’s ok. We don’t get much of the Peter/Astrid friendship on the series, but it’s really sweet. The doctor shows up to tell them Olivia is ready to go home and Peter rushes to her room. We stick with Astrid, though, who sits down besides Walter and offers him one of his loved red vines. He thanks her and guess what, saying her real name!

Peter enters the room Olivia is at and starts to talk about an apartment. They were looking for one in Part 1, remember? I guess that’s not the first thing I’d say if my boyfriend has died and came back to life but I’m not Peter so. Speaking of him, he says that after all they’ve been through they deserved a little normal and that in every future she had to die but he never wanted to lose her again. Ok, Joel Wyman and Jeff Pinkner, you guys are trying to kill me with all these Polivia scenes. Don’t stop, I’m good.

They hug (I love the amount of hugs recently because I love their hugs) and Olivia seems to hesitate before telling Peter something. He becomes worried but it’s a good, a great thing.

It deserved a gif.

When they are going to kiss they are cockblocked by Walter mainly, but also Astrid. Why must Walter ALWAYS cockblock them? The good thing is this time they don’t care and kiss anyway. And I was so happy I could be jumping around. I didn’t, though, because we had guests in my house and my mom would kill me. I just kept smiling like crazy, instead.

With the end of this scene, we move to Walter making a midnight snack at the lab, which was interrupted by September. “We have to warn the others. They are coming.”

The end of season 4. Welcome season 5, welcome evil Observers. Now, there are some things I’d like to say before the ending of this recap. Brown Betty makes much more sense now. Think about it. Olivia heals and Observers are bad. The Mr. X threat is over now that Bell killed her. He was Mr. X. You can see that looking at his shirt and the symbols on the Nanites. It’s the same. And, in a way, Bell did kill her. Las but not least, I’d give the season a B. It started very slowly and, even though I was still enjoying it, many people weren’t. Then Peter came back and things started to get faster. Then there was Jones, Olivia remembering, Etta, the universes colliding, Cortexiphan, Bell and everything only got better and better. So, looking at it as a whole, I’d give it a B.

Well, that’s it, Fringies. The glyphs formed the word Purge, which I think it’s related to the fact that Olivia no longer has her powers. See you in September.