FRINGE Recap: In Absentia

Since last episode ended with Walter having lost his memory, it’s fitting that we pick up this episode trying to find a way around that pesky issue. Olivia thinks Walter must have kept records of his plans somewhere, it’s his nature to document everything. If he did, Walter is sure it’s in the lab at Harvard. That could be a problem, since Etta informs them that the Observers took it over years ago. Good thing there has never been a facility that our Fringe team can’t find a way into, and also a good thing Walter remembers tunnels that run underneath the college and can lead them straight into the lab.

They arrive at the lab to find that almost everything is in amber. Walter apparently ambered all his work before he ambered himself. He can see his Betamax camera in the amber, and realizes he was probably recording his notes instead of writing them down. They just need to get to that camera, but first they are going to need some electricity turned on in the lab so that Walter can build a makeshift laser to cut through. Without knowing what the science building, where the main panels are located, is used for currently, they have no idea what they might be walking into there. Fortunately for them, a Loyalist happens into the lab. They have no idea why he’s there, but Etta intends to use him to get the information they need. Peter and Olivia look uncomfortable when Etta goes behind closed doors with their new prisoner, but that’s nothing compared to their discomfort when they learn their little girl is quite the torturer. She has a device that painfully ages a person in a matter of seconds, and she gives him several jolts to try and get him talking. It’s something the observers had once used to prepare them from time travel, but the Loyalists had taken to using it against the resistance.

Olivia talks to the prisoner while Etta helps Walter for a moment. She shows him compassion, and thinks the breadcrumbs in his bag were a sign he just came there to feed the birds. He tells her about his son, asking her to please let his son know what happened to him so that he doesn’t just disappear without a trace. When Etta returns and prepares to give him another jolt, he tells her what she wants to know about the science lab. He gives her his access code, which is simple enough. There is a problem, however, in that he also must pass an ocular scan. He’s not in any condition for them to be dragging him along on this expedition. Walter has an idea, using pigs eyes and the cataracts that have grown over the prisoner’s eyes, he manages to create a replica that hopefully will be accurate enough to get them through security.

Etta and Peter go on the mission, posing as Loyalists, thanks to the Loyalist tattoos Olivia paints onto their faces. It doesn’t take long for them to encounter a problem, as the sector they try to enter is far from where their prisoner should be. When security calls his radio, he gives a convincing cover story to help the Fringe team on their mission. While waiting, he tells Olivia why he became a Loyalist, about a Resistance operation that resulted in the death of one of his children, and how becoming a Loyalist helped him to find a safe place to live.

On the mission, meanwhile, things almost explode when Etta catches a glimpse of the experiments going on in the science building. Her old boss, Agent Foster, is one of the experiments and he has quite literally lost his head. She’s ready to barge in and make the Observers pay, but Peter grabs her and stresses that there will be vengeance, but this isn’t the time for it. They continue their mission and successfully get the power going that Walter needs back in the lab.

When Peter and Etta return to the lab, Etta is a woman on a mission. She starts preparing the prisoner for transport, planning to turn him over to the resistance. Olivia is troubled by her daughter’s behavior, by how hardened she has become in this world. She tries to appeal to Etta, that their prisoner was just trying to protect his family, but Etta tells Olivia that there was no family. Loyalists are trained to manipulate any perceived weakness they can find. She gives Olivia a communications device so that she can reach her, and then leads the prisoner away.

The prisoner awakens in the sunshine, Etta over him with a gun. She asks him about the son, if he was lying, and he admits he was. He admits she was right about him, he became a loyalist because he is a coward. Etta lets him go, but before he leaves he tells her Olivia sparked something in him, he’s going to fight for the resistance. Somehow Olivia gave him the hope that they could win. He asks why Etta is letting him live, and she tells him she saw something in Olivia’s eyes as well, pity for all of them.

Walter is successful in building and employing his laser. The camera retrieved, it has been damaged by the heat but the tape inside still works with a little effort. They learn there are multiple tapes out there, containing the information needed. They will have to retrieve all of them in order to be successful. On the video they watch, Walter tells whomever is viewing it that they are humanity’s only hope.

Fringe airs Fridays at 9/8c on Fox.