“Black Blotter” is episode nine of season five of Fringe.
Astrid is woken by a sound in the lab and follows it to find that the radio they found in “Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There” is picking something up. Walter is there and making even less sense than usual.
Peter is having problems sleeping; headaches after removing the Observer tech in the previous episode, “The Human Kind”. Astrid comes in and tells them the radio is working.
There’s a pattern repeating on a loop, like Morse code but not. Olivia wonders if it’s Donald and speaks to Walter. Astrid tells her Walter is on acid. Walter is seeing a fairy and then a woman. He tells Peter his old dead lab assistant Carla Warren is there. Walter can’t understand the message because he’s away with the fairies. Literally. He tells Peter he took black blotter.
Peter asks why. Walter says he wants to complete the plan before he takes over. He says he made an arrangement with Nina to remove the parts of his brain that were put back in when the plan is complete. Walter found himself dressed and heading out of the lab at 3AM and doesn’t know how or why. Carla says he does. Walter repeats this. Peter says Walter means the Walter that was. Walter wants to figure out the plan quickly to be rid of the devil.
Olivia thinks they could track the signal. Anil is called and he tracks the signal’s origin. Carla tells Walter something is hidden in the lab. The signal is coming from the woods, where there’s an old van and a skeleton holding a gun.
This is coming from Willington, Connecticut, and Peter and Olivia head there. They find the van and the skeletons of two Observers and a Loyalist, all dead for over a decade. Peter finds a body in the vehicle and thinks it’s Donald. The body has an early prototype of an Observer gun; it looks like he killed the others then died of his wounds. Peter follows the signal to a tree and a device attached to it. Olivia found a wallet on the body and finds Peter, who tells her this is just a relay station for the signal. It’s coming from somewhere else. Olivia tells him the body is Sam Weiss.
Walter hasn’t heard of Sam Weiss; Olivia thinks he was protecting the relay. And that Sam isn’t Donald. Walter is talking to both Carla and Nina and spends most of the episode high on acid. And finds his old lab journal. He may be becoming the old Walter Bishop. Which may not be good.