The Boy Must Live
| "The Boy Must Live" | |
|---|---|
| Fringe episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 11 |
| Directed by | Paul Holahan |
| Written by | Graham Roland |
| Production code | 3X7511 |
| Original air date | January 11, 2013 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
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"The Boy Must Live" is the eleventh episode of the fifth season of the Fox science-fiction/drama television series Fringe, and the show's 98th episode overall.
The episode was written by Graham Roland and directed by Paul Holahan.
Walter (John Noble) is recovering from the visions that the child Observer Michael gave him by touch, including that which revealed that "Donald," the man that helped Walter in the past with the plan to defeat the Observers, is really September (Michael Cerveris). Realizing that the visions implored his sub-conscious, Walter decides to use the sensory deprivation tank to explore the visions further. With Peter's (Joshua Jackson) help, Walter is able to review the vision of September as Donald, and locates the experience as having occurred in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. The Fringe team travels there with Michael, during which Walter reveals to Peter that he remembers things from the original time line, including the relationship he and Peter had before Peter entered the Machine. Walter helps identify the correct apartment, and they find it occupied by September, who has not seen Walter for 20-some years.
September explains that after helping Fringe division in the past, the Observers had stripped him of his Observer implant and performed a "biological reversion" to make him human. He and Walter had spent time together following this, taking the name Donald from Donald O'Connor from Singin' in the Rain. September further explains that in 2167, an experiment in developing human genes and sacrificing human emotion for intelligence, would eventually give birth to the emotionless Observers. The Observers developed asexual procreation techniques; in the case of Michael, he was born from September's genes but came out as an abnormality having both emotions and great intelligence. Michael normally would have been destroyed, but September decided to hide him in the past. September now suggests that by sending Michael forward in time to 2167, September would hope they would be able to prevent the experiment from being performed, wiping out the Observers from existence. Should this happen, time would possibly be reset from the point of the Observer's first interference with the past; Olivia (Anna Torv) takes this as a chance for them to see Etta again. Walter identifies that he was given the hologram of the plans for the device from Etta (as seen in "Letters of Transit") that would be able to send Michael forward in time, which will be constructed from all of the components collected by following the tapes. The group, with September, take leave to recover an item in a nearby storage locker that is another component of the device.
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