We've been fed bits about The Observers since the first actual episode (Not the Pilot) of this series. Now we find out a bit more.
An Observer who is not the usual one we see is standing outside writing in a book. He is looking through some spyglasses. A veteran compliments his glasses, wondering where they were made. He gives this new bald man a flag-pin.
He sees a particular young girl ("Christine Hollis" - Jennifer Missoni) and kidnaps her. An armed security guard who fires a gun at the gentleman (played by "Equalizer" offspring Peter Woodward) has no effect at all, and the man can start a stolen car by pressing his finger against the ignition switch.
Enter Fringe Division, Olivia is a little miffed because she had planned the day with her niece Ella (Lily Pilblad). It seems that Broyles has been keeping tabs on these guys for a few years. But someone else has as well - Massive Dynamic.
Olivia is the first to see that this is not the same guy that Peter and Walter had seen before. In fact there are a bunch of them - All eating at a famous Canadian eatery which is supposed to be a Bostonian eatery: Their favorite meal, Roast Beef Sandwiches with lots and lots of hot Chile peppers. They are discussing the activities of their colleague who they refer to as "August" and "irregularities" he has caused which must be corrected. The leader looking of these, played by Eugene Lipinski (As "December") suggests that they must call somebody named Donald. Which they do on an odd looking cellphone/beeper. He pulls an old dot-matrix printer from his trunk which turns itself on and produces a picture of our kidnapped girl.
As I am writing this during the run of season 5 and the "Purge" - This episode is the first indication that these men with fedora hats are kind of callous when it comes to human life, and in this case the girl Christine would have been killed in an Airline crash had August not intervened. So they wish to put it back that way, and their man Donald is the one who is to do this.
Peter had seen a red mark in the Observer's book, which he mistakes for blood, but in fact is Chile-pepper juice, from a very rare and hot type of pepper. This leads Peter and Olivia to the one address in Boston where such peppers were delivered.
Meanwhile, Walter had seen the atomic symbols for certain elements written down, and he deciphers an address from them. He sends Astrid away on an errand and he "escapes" the lab, meeting August, who had just shown the girl that she would not have lived had she gone to Paris.
Of course Walter thinks August is there to take Peter away, but in fact August wants to know how he can get away with changing the time-line. The only way, Walter can tell him, is to make something (or someone) important - But to also accept the consequences should there be any.
Meanwhile Peter and Olivia go to Augusts Apartment and find evidence of time travel. And they "meet" Donald, who can run pretty fast for the hefty guy he is. Donald had discovered where August has brought the girl, that's where he is heading.
It turns out that this is not the first time August has seen Christine Hollis, he saw her as a child, before and after she lost her parents in the Collapse of the freeway in Oakland during the late 20th-century San Francisco and Oakland Quake. In fact he has feelings for her, which was his motivation for saving her now. This is a foreign concept to the rest of the observers including "September" who is the Observer who watches Walter and Peter.
It is unclear if this is the first time that September has been introduced to the concept of "Love" but it is not the last time he will be.
August had arranged it so that he, Donald and Peter and Olivia would all meet at the motel hideaway at the same time. August allows himself to be shot by Donald, who in turn is shot by both Peter (with Augusts' last round) and Olivia at the same time.
As September drives away with the dying August, they contemplate the importance which August had bestowed upon Christine Hollis - By his dying in her place. "She is important-She has caused the death of one of us."
The next morning Olivia asks Broyles for the day off - And she takes Ella to the Roller Coaster (Which she had not wanted to so earlier). December and September watch her ride, and one of them comments on how happy she looks - December indicates an unhappy future for Olivia.
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