Fringe Episode 5.09: Black Blotter





Some notes and observations and detours on episode 5.09, Black Blotter:

X marks the spot

• In Peter and Olivia's bedroom, there was a knick-knack in the shape of an X on the shelf behind Peter's bed. There are four possibilities for the significance of this item. This may be a reference to Anomaly XB-6783746, the title of the next episode. It may be a hint that we'll see September soon; last season, he was identified as "Mr. X" on Walter's lab equipment. It could also be the Mister X destined to kill Olivia from that crazy cartoon episode a while back. Or it could be nothing.
• The signal from Donald's radio led the team to Willington, Connecticut, which is a real place. Willington was home to Jared Sparks, former president of Harvard University. Harvard, of course, is where the Fringe team makes their headquarters in 2036. When the Observer war is over, I nominate Walter Bishop as the next president of Harvard.
• The body of Sam Weiss was found in the forest. Interestingly, his Massachusetts driver's license was issued on February 27, 2017, the year after the Observer invasion of 2016. As I've mentioned before, the invasion must have been a strange time, with a combination of terror and normalcy. Buildings were destroyed, people went missing and universities were closed, but you could still get a good apple pie and you could still head down to the local RMV and get a license.

If I only had a (little less) brain

• The Willington location turned out to be just a repeater. The actual transmitter was on Thimble Island. This is also a real Connecticut location, or at least the plural Thimble Islands are. To Walter, the island looked a lot like Emerald City.
• When the team met Richard and Caroline at their house on the island, my wife observed that the way they were standing there looked a lot like a scene from a Twilight movie, with most of the characters dressed in black standing at the edge of a forest.

Team Walter

• The cartoon animals in Walters Monty Python hallucination were a Gene the cow, a frog, a dog (Toto from the Wizard of Oz) and a seahorse. The frog and the seahorse are classic Fringe glyph symbols. But why Toto?
• There were three dogs in this episode. Walter's notebook had a dog. There was a dog figurine (with a bell! A BELL, I tell you!) outside the front door of the house where the Observer kid was being kept. Finally, Toto was in Walter's acid-induced cartoon hallucination.
• In the living room scene, Michael, the Observer kid, was reflected in a glass panel to the right. Usually, a reflection implies some sort of duality. Maybe that was included because he knew both the original timeline from season 1 and the extra crispy timeline from seasons 4 and 5.
• The songs from this episode were The Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan, The Pusher by Steppenwolf and The Happy Wanderer from Frank Weir.