“Forced Perspective” is episode ten of season four of Fringe.
Olivia and Broyles are looking at photos of Observers, one having confronted her in “Back to Where You’ve Never Been” and said that in all possible futures, she has to die. Astrid analysed the blood Olivia gave her in the previous episode, “Enemy of My Enemy”, and found antibodies for Spanish flu. Last active in 1919. Broyles wants to assign security to protect Olivia because of the threat; she thinks it’s a warning.
In Boston, a teenage girl is painting, when she suddenly hears something. She starts sketching something new as she’s looking around, then rips the page out and gives it to a man. He and a woman are calling it depressing when he’s suddenly impaled by a dropped I-beam. Just as the drawing shows.
Walter and Peter are at the lab trying to work out how to use the machine when Olivia arrives. She had to see that Walter had agreed to help; he assures her it won’t interfere with his usual work. Olivia is just happy they’re working together. She gets a call from Lincoln, who explains what happened with the I-beam. The man’s co-worker thinks he can identify the girl if they get footage.
The girl, Emily, arrives home and is in her bedroom when her father puts his hands over her eyes. She asks if he isn’t tired of moving around so much and asks why God made her like this.
Olivia is looking at the drawing when Broyles speaks to her. She says Lincoln is looking with the witness through camera footage from the area. Broyles knows she’s been seeing health services; she explains about the migraines. And says it’s odd that the day after a stranger tells her she’s going to die, she’s investigating a case where the death was predicted.
Lincoln arrives after; they have the girl on surveillance and she didn’t take transport out of the area. Emily is on a bus when she hears a sound again. She draws something else, then follows a man off the bus connected to it. He’s gone, though.
Lincoln and Olivia arrive at Emily’s home, but the rest of her family don’t admit she’s a relative. They suggest they may have seen her at the park. Afterwards, Olivia tells Lincoln she saw the backpack the girl was wearing in the footage on the cabinet. Then bump into Emily outside.
They ask Emily if she drew the picture. She asks if the man is dead. Olivia thinks Emily already knows the answer. Emily explains she just sees things in her head; she senses death when she’s around someone. Her father arrives and says they can’t talk to Emily without his consent. Olivia says they just need Emily’s. According to him, they aren’t the first to come looking for Emily. People hear about her gifts and come after them, like the people from Massive Dynamic. He asks if Olivia has any idea what being prodded and probed does to a young girl. She actually does. Olivia gives her card. Inside, Emily tells her father it’s happening again.
Olivia heads to see Nina, who says they no longer do that sort of thing, though they did approach Emily. Her father wasn’t interested, even though they offered to pay for Emily’s schooling. Then Olivia gets a call. From Emily. The picture she drew on the bus shows a lot of people dead.
Emily seems to have seen some kind of attack; the problem is identifying when and where it will happen. And Olivia is feeling uncertain, thanks to the Observer.