Aaaaand…. Fringe is back! I don’t know about other Fring-o-philes, but I am ready for an action packed albeit short season. And, since the first 50 seconds have so far been devoted to John Noble speaking in his deep, somber Denethor voice about the events of the future (as revealed in a future flash episode from season four), this should be pretty interesting…

(Sidebar: I re-watched ROTK recently. It’s not the same after seeing Noble as Walter.)

We begin with a young girl making wishes on dandelions—Peter and Olivia’s daughter. They watch from a blanket on the grass. The music is very creepy. Then, boom! A huge percussion wave knocks Peter backward. Looking up at the city skyline, they watch as buildings begin to disappear.

Observers… many observers enter the park. Olivia and Peter run to snatch up their daughter. The next thing we know, Peter is searching for his family in some kind of makeshift hospital.

Gotta love Fringe. It never fails to confuse.

Peter next wakes with a jolt. Walter is asleep on a couch…. Without pants. (And then he raised his eyebrows at me, I think…) Going into the next room, Peter finds Henrietta, his now grown up daughter, just waking up.

Welcome to the future.

Once he leaves the room, she fingers a chain that is usually around her neck, a chain with a bullet on it. And that is just kind of creepy. She also looks sad, which is quite ominous. I would hope nothing has happened to Olivia but hey, what’s the point?

Once Walter is awake, he goes to the window. A light is flashing from outside, casting reflections into the room. Not sure what the significance is there.

Astrid has already familiarized herself with a fancy monitor that floats in the air (but it is still no rival to Tony Stark’s). She introduces Peter to a new easy breakfast: egg sticks. And… that is gross.

Walter is ready to find Olivia, pants or not. He is unnaturally irritated to be reminded he is not fully dressed, which reminds us all that he got a piece of his brain back after being de-amberized. If I have to go through the whole season without silly Walter, I will be a very unhappy camper.

Olivia was apparently last seen in New York. Walter seems to have sent her to get something, based on a plan he and Buddy concocted. Yes, I still refuse to call him September. The information has been scrambled in Walter’s mind to keep it from being read. She was returning from Grand Central Station when she vanished. Walter next takes a bite of an egg stick and spits it out. Disappointment ensues. Mainly mine.

Henrietta has doubts that Olivia is alive, but Peter is still hopeful. The gang next ventures to Columbus Circle in a panel van. It’s a mess, surrounded by barbed wire and graffiti. Next horrible bit of news: Central Park is gone. Possibly important piece of information: Observers are altering the atmosphere to be less oxygen-rich, a move that will greatly decrease average human lifespan.

Astrid spots some amber nearby, and they go to check it out. Unfortunately, however, the “amber gypsies” have already cut all the inhabitants out of the amber. And with that creepy realization, an even creepier theme song follows.

We cut next to a black market of sorts. Henrietta deems it best that her face not be known down there, as she is Fringe Division. She hands Peter some currency in the form of walnuts, a value of $3,000. (And just when I thought they couldn’t get any more expensive. I guess that means no walnut brownies. It is a bleak, bleak future before us.)

The black market dealer is kind enough to give Peter and Astrid directions… just before pressing some kind of silent alarm button.

While they wait, Walter is refreshingly more Walter-like. Yay!

Peter and Astrid comb through the area but find nothing. Peter next tries bribing Mr. Silent Alarm. He checks his records and finds that Olivia was already sold.

Goodness gracious. If the creeper that comes on screen next was the one who bought her, I am severely disturbed. And… yes. He is using her for a coffee table. What a freak. When the doorbell rings, he invokes some kind of statutory rights, obviously thinking the Observers have come. Hearing a more normal sounding voice on the other side of the door, he next goes to answer.

Peter bursts in. The man is Markham, who cannot figure out why they didn’t age. He has in his mind some kind of Snow White scenario. Ugh.

Cutaway to black market man, who is making a call…

Walter, who is bashfully confessing to Markham that he once tried his hand in science fiction, is suddenly attacked by an Observer. Henrietta comes to the rescue. A very odd gunfight ensues. She apparently has the ability to shoot bullets they can’t catch, which is pretty darn awesome.

Henrietta and Peter escape, unable to find Walter in time as some Nazi-looking dudes fire after them. Walter is unfortunately arrested. Yikes.

The good news is, Olivia gets de-amberized. Imagine her shock to see her adult daughter standing in front of her. Long delay of shock… and wait for it… HUG!!!

Without Walter, they must all now figure out what the plan to defeat the Observers had been. Olivia produces the item she had been retrieving, but no one knows what I tis. At least they are having more fun than Walter, who is chained to a chair. An Observer comes in to question him. Walter tries thinking of music to keep his mind unreadable. The Observer, after saying some less than encouraging stuff, begins his interrogation.

Next scene starts in Bronx, New York. I can tell by the letters in the sky. Oh, how I missed those.

Etta (Henrietta’s nickname, it seems) brings the others to some kind of remote location. Then, she promptly bids them to wait outside. She goes in to meet friends. Apparently, one has been shot and killed recently, and brought there to be mourned.

Outside, Peter and Olivia regret not having been able to save the world. There is apparently some tension between them, having lost Etta at some point. It seems they drifted apart in grief, with her going to New York to save the world and him remaining in Boston to search for Etta. I am guessing they lost her in the park in the opening scene.

Etta emerges to invite them in. Once in the bunker like area, they meet Anel, a friend of Etta’s. He identifies the device with a long name I don’t care to figure out how to spell. It is apparently a thought/memory retriever that hides information from the Observers.

Astrid interrupts them with news—they’ve located Walter. Using traffic cameras, they set out to see where he is being taken.

We cut back to the interrogation, which looks extremely uncomfortable. The meanie Observer quickly realizes that Walter’s intel is out of sequence. He says Walter is “partitioned.” He begins trying to organize Walter’s thoughts into the proper order, but Walter fights back… giving himself a nosebleed.

The Observer at least manages to get some images of Etta at a young age. He tries to get her name, but Walter passes out. At least, I hope he has passed out. If he dies, I’m not sure I want to keep watching.

It seems like Etta’s friends have technology that would make their bodies appear dead. The only catch is, once they use it, the Observers will know that they have it. The tech looks like nun chucks. Just saying.

Etta pulls up to the headquarters and gains entry. She has the Peter and her expired friend in body bags. Yes, the old Wookie prisoner routine. The creepy guard hits on her before checking the bodies. As expected, they appear completely dead. (But Peter is only mostly dead.) Creepy guard reveals that Agent Foster has been found in amber with William Bell.

Erstwhile, Walter’s interrogation continues.

Once Etta has them in, the creepy guard wants to steal stuff off Peter, but Etta neatly shoots him. They infiltrate the headquarters, guns drawn. It doesn’t take them long to find the door Olivia is waiting behind and let her in. To create a diversion, Peter disables the Observers’ atmosphere modifier.

By now, Walter is nearly out of time. But the air code saves him at the last moment. The Observer runs away to check it out, and the others burst in to save him. Walter seems pretty out of it, but at least he’s alive. (Hopefully, his brain is nice and scrambled again. I miss Silly Walter.)

As Etta and Peter get Walter to safety, Olivia provides cover fire. They escape in the van, but Walter is still in bad shape. When he opens his eyes, he calls Astrid “Afro.” YESSS!!!!

But all is not well. Observer dude checks the security feeds. He recognizes Etta as the little girl.

Once they’re back to safety, Walter is delighted to see Olivia. Not so delightfully, he no longer remembers the thing Olivia retrieved—a unifier meant to put the pieces of the plan back together that had been in Walter’s mind. More bad news: Walter no longer remembers cutting off William Bell’s hand. He remembers nothing since he was de-amberized. And he is very upset about it.

Etta realizes that the parts of the plan were destroyed while Walter was fighting the interrogation… and his mind will never heal. So we are pretty much back to square one.

Walter, back on the couch, is once again distracted by glints of light. Aha! So it was significant. He goes outside and finds a mobile made of broken CDs. He is once again not wearing pants, and happily doesn’t seem to realize it. Under the CDs, he finds a bag. The bag contains a whole CD labeled Trip Mix 6. Putting it into an old cab’s player, he turns it on. Closing his eyes, he lets the music relax him… He next spots a dandelion. Looks like the future isn’t so bad after all. (Proof to me that dandelions are horrible weeds that manage to survive anything.)