Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11

Fringe Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11
Season 5, Episode 1

Air date	September 28, 2012
Written by	J.H. Wyman
Directed by	Miguel Sapochnik Jeannot Szwarc
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Cast \| Transcript

"Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11" is the first episode of the fifth season of Fringe.

Synopsis[]

The year is 2036 and the overpowering Observers rule. The Fringe team - preserved in amber for 20 years - is now a rebel resistance team fighting for freedom. Peter, reunited with his now-adult daughter, Etta, sets out to find out what happened to his wife and Etta's mom - Olivia - as they start their mission to save the world from the Observers.

Plot[]

After being recovered by Henrietta Bishop, Peter Bishop, Walter Bishop, and Astrid Farnsworth begin to adjust to the Observer-controlled world of 2036. Walter notes that he and the Observer September had created a plan prior to the Observers' takeover, but September had fragmented Walter's memory to protect the information. After the Observers' arrival, Walter had Olivia Dunham retrieve a device to help restore these memories, but she had disappeared. In the present, they trace Olivia's path, finding a nearby patch of amber, but cut into with several

human-sized chunks removed. Etta explains there are "amber gypsies", who cut and sell trapped humans on the black market. They track down Olivia's piece of amber to Edward Markham, who had been in love with Olivia since the first time he saw her. While they are retrieving the amber, the Observers, alerted by the black market dealer, arrive. Though they safely escape with Olivia, Walter is captured and taken to a secure Observer facility, where the Observer Captain Windmark starts violently

probing Walter's mind. Walter tries to block his thoughts by thinking of music; Windmark taunts the fact that there is no music in this future, that nothing will grow from the scorched earth. On continued probing, Windmark discovers the fragmented memories and attempts to obtain the memories by any means possible. Olivia is freed from the amber and has a tearful reunion with Peter while meeting her grown-up daughter for the first time. As they talk, it is revealed that after the Observers' arrival, Peter and Olivia had separated; Peter going to search for Etta who was taken by the Observers, and Olivia in joining Walter in fighting them. Etta takes them to a

hidden facility where human resistance members can analyze the device that Olivia had retrieved just before she was ambered, the Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11. They believe the Unifier is capable of restoring Walter's thoughts, though the device appears to be no longer functional. While there, they are able to track Walter's capture to a secured Observer facility. Etta uses her Fringe credentials to break into the facility and recover Walter. Windmark connects Etta to images of a young girl from Walter's mind. Once safe, Walter finds that the Unifier device activates to his touch, but when they try to use it, it fails to find any memories;

Etta suspects that the memories were destroyed by Windmark, and the plan is lost for good. A despondent Walter tries to sleep but is distracted by reflections from outside, which he traces to a makeshift sculpture from broken CDs. In a bag nearby he finds an undamaged CD and plays it on a car's stereo; he cries as it plays Yazoo's "Only You", the first music he's heard since awaking in 2036. As he mulls emotionally, he spies a single dandelion, growing from the rubble, and cries to himself.

Notable Quotes[]

Walter: "Mostly it amazes me. Music helps you shift perspective, to see things differently if you need to."

Peter: "You were stronger than me. You could do something that I couldn't do. You saw that the world needed us, and you went to help. And I just -- I didn't have the will to give up searching for this -- this perfect little soul that we made. Out here for all these years... fighting for these people, defending them. And at the moment that she needed her father to protect her, I couldn't do it. And I wanted more than anything for that not to be true. And in the state-of-mind that I was in... that meant at all costs... including us."

Observer: "Resistance is futile"

Notes[]

Goofs[]

Markham says that he has loved Olivia from the first moment he saw her. But because of the timeline reset at the end of season 3, all of the times that he met her in seasons 1-3 never happened for him. So he has only met her one time, in season 4's Nothing As It Seems. A likely explanation is that Markham helped Olivia and Peter with unseen cases between 2012 and 2015.
In Amber 31422 the twin brother, who was freed from amber, reported that he was aware of every moment when he was captured in it. However, the Fringe team members (in this case Walter) after being recovered from amber, report feeling like they were ambered for only two months.

Transilience[]

Theory of being where different forms emerge as the physical state takes on, or absorbs different properties: an abrupt change or variation: transitioning or passing from one state of existence to another.

Glyphs[]

Butterfly collections are all around Etta's apartment.
A seahorse key chain hangs from the visor in the taxi as Walter listens to the CD in the car.

Callbacks[]

Walter states he fell in love with and almost married a woman in Japan. This alludes to a prime counterpart of Walternate's love interest Reiko from "Immortality".

Cultural References[]

Star Trek: An Observer states, "Resistance is futile," just before attempting to shoot Walter at Markham's apartment. This is a famous line from Star Trek episodes/movies used frequently by the Borg, a collection of various humanoid species enslaved as cybernetic drones as their queen attempts to defeat technological and resource-rich societies and assimilate their sentient lifeforms into one 'Collective' (hive mind) society.