FlashForward 1.18: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"

“You don’t blend as well as you think.”

-Malik

“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” certainly had its intriguing moments, but it wasn’t really enough to make me really mourn the fact that FlashForward isn’t getting a Season 2. The character development on the show has really been too little, too late. The focus (relatively speaking, of course…this is FlashForward, after all) of this episode was Janis, which is probably what made it more than tolerable, since Janis is one of the show’s more interesting, well-developed characters. I think this episode could have been truly great had the focus been even more fully on Janis. Instead we, as per usual, had multiple other competing stories to sift through, some related to what Janis was going through in this episode and some not at all related.

We get to see when Janis was initially recruited by the nefarious organization responsible for the blackout. That reminds me, I really wish they would give this organization a name. I used to think of it as Dyson Frost’s organization, but given recent events, he certainly wasn’t the man in charge. The whole conspiracy is much bigger than just him. Anyway, Janis was recruited because this woman she met the night before her first day in the LA FBI office happened to be a head hunter for the organization (I think that’s what I’m going to call it for now). Within a few days, Janis finds herself in a run-down pet shop, kind of flubbing the code line she’s supposed to give to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper gives Janis a fish tank (an excuse for future trips to the pet shop) and tells Janis that she’s supposed to stop by the shop at regular intervals to spill everything her FBI office has been up to.

In the present, Janis is still visiting the pet shop on a regular basis, and the shopkeeper is asking some very difficult things of her. The MOSAIC team discovered strange blueprints and photographs in Dyson Frost’s possession, and they can be traced to Afghanistan. Janis takes one copy of the blue prints to an antiquities expert (which she’s supposed to do) and another to the shopkeeper (which she’s most definitely not supposed to do). The shopkeeper seems disturbed by the fact that these blueprints have been circulated, and she orders Janis to get all the copies back and destroy all but the originals. Janis is less than thrilled about this because one copy is on the conspiracy wall in Mark’s office, and we all know how Mark becomes a huge drama queen if somebody dares to violate the sanctity of his office.

Janis successfully steals the copy and wipes all the computer hard drives that might possibly have a copy in the antiquities expert’s office, but Mark’s office is a significantly more difficult nut to crack. In fact, Mark catches Janis in the middle of the heist. Janis manages to concoct a plausible story for her presence there, although it does make her look like an incompetent agent, which she is most definitely not. Janis’ efforts were really for naught, as the antiquities expert took photos of the blueprints with his phone. He made a 3-D model of the device from the blueprint, and it’s some sort of time calculation device. It seems to calculate when black outs are going to occur.

When the antiquities expert leaves, Mark and Janis have a chat. Mark is concerned because Janis isn’t acting like herself. Janis tells him about how she’s having trouble with the baby, and her doctor said she might lose the baby if she doesn’t slow down a bit. Mark buys the explanation. He expresses his confidence inJanis, in what is a kind of sweet scene, and the two start joking about how Dyson Frost told Mark he’ll be saved by the lady he sees every day. This makes Mark think of the white queen chess piece on his conspiracy wall. The team picked it up during their mission to Pigeon, Utah. He breaks open the chess piece, and it contains a ring. Later, Simon and Lloyd are able to identify the ring as a Quantum Entanglement Device, the type of device needed to protect people from a future black out.

Janis isn’t exactly what she appears to be, though. Near the end of the episode, we see a flash back to right before she heads out to the LA office. Vogel approaches Janis about being a double agent. He feels that she’s a likely target for the organization, but she also has the integrity to remain loyal to her country. Maintaining her cover could come at a high cost, though. When the blackout happened, she was horrified and told the shopkeeper she wanted out. This request, obviously, wasn’t granted. At the end of the episode, Janis goes back to the pet shop. The shopkeeper isn’t thrilled about the fact that Janis has been failing her missions lately. She tells Janis that she can’t make another mistake. This is going to be a pretty tough standard for Janis to follow, considering her next mission is that she must steal the QED and kill Mark.

While all this is going on, Vreede has Olivia once again helping him on his own part of the investigation. Gabriel’s been freaking Olivia out, showing up at her house and telling her about all the moments of her life where he’s been present. He also warns her not to buy coffee from a particular cart, and when she gets to the cart, Olivia sees that a car has just crashed into it. Olivia goes through her photo albums and sees Gabriel in several photos. She shows these photos to Vreede, and they start talking about “Raven River,” which has come up at several points in the investigation. There’s an abandoned former psychiatric hospital in Arizona named Raven River, and that’s where Olivia and Vreede are headed.

Gabriel makes another appearance while Olivia and Vreede are at Raven River. The whole set-up really reminds me of that show that used to be on MTV, I think, where they had groups of people try to do these “paranormal investigations” at creepy places like abandoned psychiatric hospitals. It was called “Fear,” I believe, and it was indeed quite creepy. Gabriel, in a rather haphazard way thanks to his disability, explains what happened at Raven River during its heyday. The scientists there experimented on savants, forcing them to experience flash forward after flash forward and record in detail what they saw. These scientists were lead by Dyson Frost.

The third plot going on in this episode, which isn’t really connected at all to the emotional journey Janet is experiencing, is Aaron in Afghanistan looking for Tracey. At what must be the Middle Eastern equivalent of a café, Aaron is approached by a man named Malik. He is a contact of Wedeck’s, and he warns Aaron that Aaron doesn’t blend in to Afghanistan as well as he thinks he does. Aaron wants to find Tracey’s friend Kamir, and once Aaron draws a symbol he noticed in his vision, Malik has an idea. The symbol stands for “Eyes on the Mountain” a sort of medical humanitarian agency. Malik’s job is to navigate road blocks and keep Aaron out of trouble, and that succeeds for a while until they come upon a group of very heavily armed men. Malik barely has time to tell Aaron that the men aren’t from any faction he knows of before he’s shot dead. Aaron hides behind the SUV they had been driving in as another group of heavily armed men approaches and wipes out the first. This second group includes Kamir, who introduces himself to Aaron.

"Lost" Fifteen Favorites: "Outlaws"

“I never cared about having carte blanche ‘cause I just wanted to spend some time with the only other person on this island that just don’t belong.”

-Sawyer

Number seven on my Fifteen Favorites list is a more obscure episode from Season 1, “Outlaws.” I like this episode because it really reveals quite a bit about Sawyer, and there is some amazing Sawyer/Kate chemistry. This is back when I really liked that pair together- before Kate started really getting on my nerves because of how badly she treated Sawyer. I also like that the episode took a little time to deal with the emotional consequences of recent events. Charlie is suffering from a bit of PTSD following the incident where he killed Ethan, and Sayid is tasked with helping him through it. Overall, I just thought this episode did a great deal of really nice character work, and it’s nice to give a little recognition to an often overlooked, yet good quality, episode.

The episode opens with a flashback to the murder-suicide of Sawyer’s parents. Compared to that trauma, Sawyer’s on-Island trials in this episode seem kind of inconsequential. Sawyer wakes up in the middle of the night to see a boar rooting through his stash. Sawyer scares the boar, and it runs off, taking the tarp of Sawyer’s tent with it. Sawyer takes this as a personal insult, especially when he goes out in the jungle looking for the boar and it attacks him a second time. While it seems kind of silly on the surface, I think this plot gives us a lot of early character development for Sawyer. And it’s certainly better than the fairly lame re-hash “Sawyer wants to kill the tree frog” plot in Season 2.

Meanwhile, Jack is locking up all the guns, and he tells Kate that one gun is still missing. Kate, still fawning all over Jack (actually, I don’t think she’s ever not fawned over Jack, except maybe in “I Do") sassily tells him that she can get the gun back from Sawyer. She finds Sawyer as he’s wandering the jungle, still seeking revenge on the boar. Not surprisingly, Sawyer has gotten himself a bit lost. He’s followed tracks from just about everything but the boar, including himself. Kate offers to help track the boar for a price. She wants carte blanche for whatever she wants from Sawyers stash. We know, of course, that what she’s really after is Sawyer’s gun. Sawyer is so irritated by the boar with the apparent vendetta that he agrees to the terms.

My favorite scene of the episode (and one of my favorite scenes of the series overall), features Sawyer and Kate chilling by their campfire at the end of their first day of boar hunting. Sawyer produces an airplane mini-bottle of alcohol, and Kate wants one too. Sawyer says she can have her own bottle if she agrees to play a game of “I Never.” Some very interesting things are revealed during this game. I think the fact that surprised me the most the first time I saw the episode is that Kate was married once. This would later be explored in detail in “I Do,” but at the time of “Outlaws,” it was a rather shocking revelation. I love the easy banter between Sawyer and Claire in this scene. The questions they ask each other keep getting more and more pointed, but at no point does either of them give the game up.

Sawyer and Kate wake up the next morning to a third boar attack. And of course, the boar roots all through Sawyer’s stuff but Kate’s backpack is left untouched. Soon after the boar leaves, Locke shows up. Locke tells this story about a dog that showed up at his family’s home after his foster sister died, and I think Sawyer and Kate find it more awkward than helpful. Later on, Kate finally finds a useful sign- a wallow used by the boar to keep cool. Rustling in the bushes reveals a boar alright, but not the one Sawyer was looking for. This one’s a baby. To Kate’s disgust, Sawyer picks up the piglet, and no he doesn’t smoosh it like that tree frog I mentioned earlier. He holds it out and taunts mama or papa boar.

I’m not sure why Kate seems so incredibly horrified over all this. Sure, Sawyer’s not being nice to the boar, but he’s not exactly hurting it either. I just don’t think that the level of Kate’s reaction is quite warranted. Maybe she’s more disgusted with herself for enjoying spending time with Sawyer. When the boar he’s been after does finally appear, Sawyer thinks Kate has left. Perhaps more disgusted with himself than Kate was, despite her hysterics, Sawyer puts down the piglet and lets both boar go along on their way.

Although the opening flashback took place when Saywer was just a little kid, the rest of the flashbacks are much more recent. He’s about to start the usual pigeon drop con when he’s interrupted by another man sitting in his hotel room. The man’s name is Hibbs, and he and Sawyer once had a falling out over a job that went south. Hibbs tells Sawyer that he has some information that might interest him. There’s an American man living in the Sydney area who used to be a con man and used to go by the name “Frank Sawyer.” Thinking this man is his nemesis, Sawyer hightails it to Sydney.

My reaction when I saw Frank for the first time was “Thatcher Grey!” Jeff Perry, who plays Meredith’s awful father, also plays Frank the shrimp truck owner. Sawyer and Frank make small talk as Frank cooks up Sawyer a batch of shrimp in hot sauce, but when Frank goes to put the plate of shrimp on the counter, Sawyer is gone. I think we’re meant to believe Sawyer didn’t have the stomach to kill Frank and chickened out. Sawyer ends up in a nearby bar, where of course, since this is Lost, he happens to meet Jack’s dad, Christian. Christian tells Sawyer that he wishes he could tell his son he’s proud of him, but he’s too chicken to go through with it. This scene itself doesn’t do a whole lot for me, but later scenes between Jack and Sawyer that reference this scene are wonderful. There’s one in this episode where Sawyer starts asking Jack questions about his dad when he hears Jack say “that’s why the Red Sox will never win the series,” and there’s an even better one in “Exodus.”

Egged on by Christian, Sawyer returns to the shrimp truck and shoots Frank before Frank really has a chance to say much. Frank doesn’t die instantly, though, and before he dies, he tells Sawyer that Sawyer was lied to. Frank never went by the last name of Sawyer. He owed Hibbs money, so Hibbs made up this story to get revenge. Sawyer tries to maintain the tough exterior as Frank takes his last breaths, but we can see that he’s devastated by his mistake. I guess part of it is that Original Sawyer isn’t dead yet, but I think an even larger part of it is that he’s horrified he killed an innocent man.

Also dealing with becoming a murderer, although in his case the victim wasn’t so innocent, is Charlie. He’s being avoidant, even with Claire. Hurley notices this and is concerned, even as Charlie insists he’s fine. Hurley knows better and consults Sayid, figuring that since he was a soldier, he might have some experience with PTSD and what Charlie’s going through. Sayid agrees to have a chat with Charlie. Charlie isn’t all that receptive to the discussion at first, but he takes it to heart when Sayid tells him that he’s not alone, so he shouldn’t pretend to be. By the end of the episode, Charlie is talking and going on a walk with Claire again, and all is right in that little corner of the Island world- for now, at least.

"Lost" Fifteen Favorites: "Flashes Before Your Eyes"

“You’re gonna die, Charlie.”

-Desmond

So number eight on the list of my fifteen favorite Lost episodes is “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” Another Desmond episode. Big surprise, right? After rewatching this episode, I’m tempted to move it up the list a bit, but I’ll stick with my original ranking. The ending makes me teary, but not in the hopeful way that “The Constant” does. “Flashes” depicts the low point of Penny and Desmond’s relationship, with some “Lost” time wonkiness to make it unique. It’s one of the few “extended flashback” episodes the series has done (a more recent example would be the Richard Alpert-centric “Ab Aeterno”), and I think it works really well as a way to get viewers invested in Desmond and Penny if they weren’t already after that scene in “Live Together, Die Alone” where Penny’s letter saves Desmond at a low point in his life.

The framing device for this slightly twisted flashback is Charlie getting even more suspicious and a little bit pissed about Desmond continuously saving Claire and himself. It’s really starting to creep Charlie out, and Domenic Monaghan plays the frustration well. The final straw is when a bunch of the gang are out in the jungle having a conference following Eko’s death, and Des takes off running. He runs all the way to the water’s edge, where he dives in and ends up rescuing a drowning Claire. After Claire is resuscitated, Charlie demands to know how Des knew she was drowning, but Des just walks off, choosing not to respond to Charlie’s yelling.

Charlie has an idea for how to get the information he wants out of Desmond. As he tells Hurley, he’s going to get Des “bloody drunk.” When Charlie and Hurlie offer Des a night of drinking, he’s hesitant at first, figuring he’s spent a bit too much time drunk recently. His attitude changes, however, when he sees what exactly Charlie has brought to drink. It’s 60-year MacCutcheon whisky, and as we’ll see later, that particular liquor has special meaning for Desmond. He drinks it right from the bottle. The scene where Desmond, Charlie, and Hurley are drinking by the fire seems like a sort of precursor to the B-team hijinks I love so much in “Catch 22.” As the evening is winding down, Charlie again asks Desmond how he knew Claire was drowning, and he makes the mistake of calling Des a coward when Des doesn’t give a straight answer. This cuts deeply for Des, and he tackles Charlie, yelling that Charlie doesn’t want to know what he saw when he turned the failsafe key.

Thus begins the almost full-episode flashback to what exactly happened to Des after he turned that key. He wakes up on the floor of his run-down London flat, covered in red paint. A very concerned Penny hovers over him. Desmond can’t believe his good fortune at seeing Penny again, and he clings to her. He can’t help feeling something isn’t right, though. Little things, such as his microwave sounding like the countdown alarm in the Swan, trigger flashes of his Island life. Des can dwell on the déjà vu for too long, though. He’s got bigger fish to fry- a job interview coming up with none other than Charles Widmore. This interview doesn’t seem to be at all at Penny’s insistence, but something Des feels he has to do. I think that’s entirely consistent with their characters. Penny’s always been content to just let Des be Des, but Desmond always feels he has to have the approval of Penny’s dad.

The interview, not surprisingly, doesn’t go well. Oh Widmore offers Desmond a job all right, but that’s not really why Des was there. He wanted Widmore’s approval to marry Penny. In typical Widmore fashion, Charles turns Desmond down in the most degrading way possible. Widmore breaks out two glasses and the 60-year MacCutcheon, fills only his own glass, and tells Desmond he’s not worthy of drinking his whisky let alone marrying his daughter. Desmond is furious as he leaves Widmore Industries, ripping off his tie and throwing it to the ground. Something captures his attention in the midst of his tantrum- a busker performing “Wonderwall” on the sidewalk. It’s none other than Charlie, of course. Desmond has another flash to his other life when he sees Charlie, and he starts screaming at Charlie that he knows him (Henry Ian Cusick really does have the angry, yelling Desmond thing down pat, right?).

Charlie tries to both calm Des and keep the crowd from freaking out as Desmond babbles on about how he remembers living this day before, and then it starts to rain. The director (and perhaps writer as well, if this was spelled out in the stage directions) clearly isn’t a musician. When it starts to pour, Charlie closes his guitar case to protect his donation sign and money, but he’s still wearing his guitar. Um…probably wouldn’t want a wooden instrument like that nice acoustic guitar to get soaking wet...right Charlie? Des continues with the déjà vu theme when he and his friend Donovan, who happens to be a physicist, spend some time at the pub. Donovan thinks Desmonds time travel theory has no merit and that he’s just scared about committing to Penny. “Make Your Own Kind of Music” playing on the juke box prompts Desmond to say he knows exactly what is going to happen next- the underdog team is going to win the soccer match on TV, then a man is going to knock out the bartender with a cricket bat. When neither of these things happens, Des starts to think Donovan might be right.

Taking Donovan’s advice about Penny to heart, especially after Penny tells him she loves him because he’s a good man and that’s hard to come by. He’s poking around a sort-of musty shop looking for an engagement ring. The shopkeeper, though, gives Des a lot more than he bargained for. First she shows him the perfect ring for his price point, then she tries to tell him he can’t have it because that’s not what’s supposed to happen. He’s supposed to chicken out. Desmond is determined, though, so the shopkeeper asks if he’d like to go for chestnuts so they can talk about it some more. Yes, in the “Lost” version of London, there are roasted chestnut stands on the street. That was more than a little too cliché for my taste. Anyway, Desmond freaks out a bit when the shopkeeper correctly predicts the imminent death of a passerby. Desmond wants to know why she didn’t try to save him, and she replies that “the universe has a way of course correcting.” If she saved him from this particular incident, something else bad would happen to him instead. We would later learn in the series, by the way, that the mysterious shopkeeper is Mrs. Hawking, former lover of Charles Widmore and mother of Daniel Faraday.

Despite Mrs. Hawking’s warning that Desmond was not meant to get engaged to Penny- he was meant to travel the path that would lead him to the Island and pushing the button (the “one great thing” he would ever do)- Desmond is ready to propose when he and Penny go out for lobsters on the pier. On their way to dinner, they pass by a man who is selling photos in front of different backgrounds. Desmond and Penny decide to give it the go, and we see the origin of the iconic photo of Des and Penny in front of that marina that Desmond still carries around. When Penny has to pay for the picture because Desmond doesn’t have the money, something in Des snaps. He doesn’t feel like Penny deserves someone like him who can’t provide for her. Instead of proposing to Penny, Desmond ends up breaking up with her and throwing the ring into the Thames. Desmond finds himself back at the pub, where all the things he predicted on the night he was there with Donovan start coming true.

Back on the Island, once Desmond has calmed down a little, Charlie offers to walk him back to his tent. Charlie again demands answers, and this time Des gives in. He tells Charlie that his life flashed before his eyes when he turned the failsafe key, and he’s still getting flashes. Now, however, the flashes are about the future. Desmond hasn’t been saving Claire with all his heroic acts. He’s actually been trying to save Charlie. Charlie is fated to die soon, and Desmond can’t keep protecting him forever, although he’s trying his best for now. I think this plot is what made Charlie a likeable character again after all his moodiness in season 2.

Fringe 2.20: "Brown Betty"

“All you’ve done is eat all my snacks and talk about weird stuff.”

-Ella

I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into “Brown Betty.” I knew it was being billed as a “musical episode,” and I had seen publicity stills of Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson in their 1940’s finest, but I didn’t know what to make of that. And I’ll admit, I didn’t love the episode when I first watched it. It didn’t seem to have any consequence. Tonight when I rewatched it, though, I pretty much loved it. It was a beautiful, emotional meditation on something traumatic that had happened in the episode before. I think that time was necessarily to process the enormity of Peter discovering his true identity and running off. I’m not sure if Walter could have adequately expressed how he felt about losing Peter and the circumstances that lead to it any other way.

Walter has decided to try and get through his grief over Peter in the only way he knows how, smoking “Brown Betty,” his own special blend. And labeling things. This is the scene that poor, patient Astrid walks into. Olivia isn’t far behind. She’s got no new information, but she wants to follow a few leads. There’s just one small problem. Rachel is in Chicago for the weekend, and Olivia said she’d watch Ella. Astrid agrees to watch Ella for a little while so Olivia can go off and follow the leads. Walter tries to keep Ella entertained with snacks and a game of Operation, but it doesn’t go well. Ella wants Walter to tell her a story. Walter didn’t tell stories to Peter when Peter was a boy, but he does remember that his own mother loved stories, especially noir detective novels and musicals. And he weaves his own noir, steampunk musical for Ella.

Olivia is the heroine of Walter’s story, as a PI who is shutting down her practice after not recovering from a broken heart. The world Walter creates is rather beautiful. The 1940’s clothing and styling suits the actors extremely well, and it’s fun to see it juxtaposed with random modern technology like cell phones or the sleek interior of Massive Dynamic. As she’s packing up her office, Olivia is visited by Rachel who is not related to Olivia in Walter’s story. Rachel’s boyfriend is missing, and she wants Olivia’s help in finding him. They haven’t known each other for long, but Rachel feels like it must be true love. This peaks Olivia’s interest, and she agrees to take the case. Rachel tells Olivia her boyfriend’s name is Peter Bishop, and Ella interjects, telling Walter her mother isn’t in love with Peter. Walter agrees that in real life this is true, but tells Ella to just keep listening to the story. I like to think this is a little nod to how it appeared like the writers were trying to set up Peter and Rachel for a romantic relationship when Rachel was first introduced, but we fans did our best Emerson Cod impression and said, “Oh Hell no!”

Although “Brown Betty” was billed as a “musical episode,” there wasn’t exactly a whole lot of singing. I honestly think there could have been more. If you’re going to go there with the quirk and the music, go all the way. There’s Broyles (“Lieutenant Broyles” in Walter’s story) singing a few bars at a club before giving Olivia information that links Massive Dynamic to the case. There’s Astrid singing a few bars from “A Chorus Line.” She’s interviewing for a job at a mental institution (which I find hilarious, considering that her real work mostly involves taking care of Walter) after being laid off when Olivia decided to close her firm. Walter sings twice- once as Rachel when she first speaks with Olivia, and once near the very end of the episode. There are even singing corpses! And for my second “Pushing Daisies” mention of this blog post, I have to think that Bryan Fuller approves of such a development, what with all the corpses and all the singing that was in my still-all-time-favorite show. My favorite musical moment belongs to Olivia herself, though, and I’ll talk about that more in a bit.

Despite Massive Dynamic’s obvious involvement in whatever is going on, Olivia is also led to “Dr. Walter Bishop.” This happens after she discovers Rachel dead in her apartment. It turns out that Rachel was actually an actress hired by Walter to peak Olivia’s interest in the case of Peter’s disappearance. I thought Walter killing Ella’s mom in the story was kind of harsh, and luckily, Astrid agreed. It would have been unforgivable if someone hadn’t called Walter out on that particular bit of insensitivity. The Walter in the story is a Willy Wonka-esque inventor of all things good like hugs and chocolate bars. He has a dark secret, though. What’s fascinating about story Walter is what it shows about how “real” Walter sees himself. He wanted to do good but somehow seriously lost his way. Walter tells Olivia that Peter stole something very important from Walter- a glass heart that was keeping Walter alive. Walter is currently running on batteries, and that won’t work for very long.

Olivia is roughed up by some “Watchers” (who are basically the Observers from the “real” Fringe world), and she’s rescued from the encounter by none other than Peter. Given Walter’s story and Nina Sharp warning her that Peter is a con man, she’s naturally a little skeptical at first. Peter tells her the truth about the heart and his disappearance, though. The glass heart was originally Peter’s, and he was prepared to give it to Walter because of all the good he thought Walter did. Then Peter learned the truth. Walter stole all of the wonderful things he “invented” from the dreams of children and replaced those dreams with nightmares. I was a big fan of the cartoon “Moon Dreamers” when I was a little kid (it had a similar premise to Walter’s evil scheme, and it aired after episodes of “My Little Pony”), so I found this development to be entertaining. The chemistry between Peter and Olivia in Walter’s story is undeniable. I used to find Anna Torv kind of cold, but when given a little room to be creative, she and Joshua Jackson just sizzle on the screen.

The flirting is interrupted by yet another Watcher attack, and they steal Peter’s heart. A very nervous Olivia has to connect Peter to batteries to keep him alive. I half expected something like Jack’s “count down from five” speech from “Lost,” but what we got was so much better. Olivia thinks she has hooked up the battery properly, but Peter falls unconscious. Olivia thinks she’s lost him, and she sings a most heart wrenching rendition of “For Once in My Life.” It’s probably my favorite moment of the episode because it is so raw and beautiful. Peter wakes up, and he and Olivia go off to confront Walter. Walter imagines an ending to the story where he gives the heart back to Peter, leaving himself to die.

Ella isn’t satisfied with that ending, though. She believes all stories must end with a “happily ever after.” In Ella’s version, Peter and Walter share the heart, and Peter and Olivia happily dance to awesome 40’s music as we fade to black. Walter is pleased with this alternate ending, but his happiness is short lived. The real Olivia arrives back at the lab, and she still has not had any luck at all finding Peter. All Walter can do is hope that since he hasn’t gotten his “happily ever after” yet, the story isn’t really over.