Some crazy stuff went down in the Grey's Anatomy finale last night, but I don't know about any of that because 1) I got off that train after about season three and 2) Fringe's season finale was nearly perfect, drawing the episode's threads together (namely the Peter dilemma) in a tenuously satisfying conclusion, only before everything went to hell in the last two minutes. It reeked of Jabrahms-inspired madness. It was wonderful.
But enough fawning. Let's break this down into our usual mad science capsules:
Scenario: Bolivia (or at least that's what the wiki calls her) tricks Walter, Peter and William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) and finagles her way over to our side. The episode's last scene sees Walternate shutting the lights out on Olivia in a stark cell -- she's trapped on the other side.
Plausibility: N/A. There's nothing like having the slight comfort of a neatly concluded finale dashed as one revelation cements the realization that everything is actually so very far from OK. Take last night: Peter and Walter are reunited, albeit with strain. But wait. That's actually Bolivia with them. And she's in league with Walternate, of course. And to get Olivia back, they'll have to go back other there. And oh, wait. Walternate literally wants to destroy the universe. Things are very bad. It is nauseatingly awesome.
Scenario: The power supply for Walternate's doomsday device looks like an old Xbox. Peter reasons it needs a "biological interface" to work. The interface is his brain, hence the document from last week with a picture of Peter shooting lightening out of his head. Also, Walternate wants to use it to destroy our world.
Plausibility: 4 of 10. Not a lot of time is spent nurturing the physics of this development, but Peter's reluctant exploration of the device is standout. The power supply only responds to a subset of people. "A narrow subset at that. A subset of one -- me," Peter rations out.
Scenario: To get from the other side (and is that a proper noun now?) to our side, Olivia has to create a tiny portal. But since our heroes lack the backup from last week, they need a particle accelerator to act as a door jam and hold the portal open. Unfortunately, they also need the energy from all of Leonard Nimoy's atoms splitting apart. William Bell, we hardly knew ye.
Plausibility: 5 of 10. The door-jamb analogy strengthens this one quite a bit, though what's not clear is how Bolivia, without possessing Olivia's Cortexiphan-heightened abilities, can open the portal in the first place. I suspect something has been over looked. But I suppose concessions had to be made for that cliffhanger. I'm forgiving, but that's kind of a big one.
So how about that cliffhanger? And how sad were you to see dear William Bell go? I think he and Walter might have eclipsed BSG's Adama and Tigh on my list of crotchety-old-man bromances.