“Over There: Part 1” is episode twenty-one of season two of Fringe.
At Fringe Division headquarters in New York, a breach is reported in Brooklyn. Except, when Alternate Charlie appears, it’s clear this is the alternate universe. He’s joined by that universe’s Olivia and their team leader, Lincoln Lee. The team heads out to a theatre in Brooklyn and Lee detects the breach. He contacts Colonel Broyles and tells him it’s a potential quarantine situation.
A rather militaristic Astrid joins Broyles who wants her recommendation. Lee has unlocked a quarantine device which will cause in excess of 10,000 casualties. Including Lee and his team. In 60 seconds. Broyles is pressing Astrid for a recommendation who eventually says the event is terminating an no quarantine is recommended. Lee deactivates the device.
Charlie has found a man, covered in what Lee says is carcinomas. Similar to what happened to people in “Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver”. They find his ID, which isn’t a local one, and money with a picture of Andrew Jackson on it. Who they don’t recognise.
Walter tells Olivia – the other one – they need to go. They, along with Nick Lane from “Bad Dreams” and Sally Clark, are watching the others from above them in the theatre and make their way out.
36 hours earlier and Walter is in the lab. In the previous episode, “Northwest Passage”, the man Newton called Mr Secretary, who came over from the other side in “The Man From the Other Side”, was revealed to be Walternate. Peter’s real father. Walter is watching a video in which Peter agrees to go back with his real father, even knowing he can’t return. Walter remembers something.
Olivia is drinking in a bar when an observer leaves something on the stool next to her. She sees the Observer leave and gets up, spotting the paper. Walter calls; there’s something he’s supposed to remember about Peter. Something terrible will happen to him. The sheet of paper has what looks to be Peter with flaming eyes, writing and a device.
Olivia takes this to Walter, who thinks that’s what he was supposed to remember. After he brought Peter over, some years later an Observer came to him and made Walter agree Peter would never go back. Or this would happen. The end of the world. Olivia wants to know how they get him back.
They head to Massive Dynamic with Broyles to speak to Nina Sharp. She and Broyles are arguing when Olivia interrupts. She shows the paper and says that Walter says the technology has a specific and recognisable design. According to Nina, William Bell designed it but they didn’t build it. Olivia wants help crossing over.
Brandon makes a coffee mug appear and disappear. He says there’s a problem with crossing over; cells separate at an atomic level and don’t come back together with the same cohesion. He taps the mug which vanishes in a flash of light. Bell has been back and forth – they don’t know how – and Brandon suspects he’s now as unstable as the mug. Walter is concerned that opening a door a second time will shatter both worlds.
Nina tells Olivia she can do it safely; Olivia can’t control it though. Walter thinks with the aid of two or three coretexiphan children, that might be possible. Once, everyone has such abilities; Walter suspects aliens shut them down. And Olivia is the only one left. Broyles says she isn’t.
Broyles and Olivia head to Massive Dynamic’s experimental campus. They’ve been finding the coretexiphan children and helping train their powers. Three successes; James Heath, the cancer causer, Sally Clark, a pyrokinetic, and Nick Lane, the empathic transferer.
They’re brought back to Boston where Broyles shows them a new facility that was part of Peter’s demands. James says he could kill Walter where he stands. Walter doesn’t blame him. What they did was inexcusable. Barbaric. But the goals were noble. Walter has pinpointed a location to cross. The theatre in Brooklyn.
Plans are made to go to the other side. This doesn’t go smoothly, as might be guessed, given that James wasn’t seen alive, only a dead man covered in cancer. It also seems that Walter’s original door opening caused far more damage to the alternate universe. Walternate’s desire to get his son back may be less noble than it seems. The story continues in “Over There: Part 2”.