The final two episodes of season four are a one two punch, a two-part episode that brought a number of things to a close and set up things for the final season. Brave New Worlds: Part 1 first aired on 4 May, 2012 and was written by Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Wyman and J.H. Pinkner.

The Fringe team gets called in a strange case of spontaneous combustion and discovers that David Robert Jones (Jared Harris) has a number of plans in motion, but Olivia (Anna Torv), Peter (Joshua Jackson), Walter (John Noble) and Astrid (Jasika Nicole) soon realize that Jones is just a pawn, though only Walter truly believes that it is William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) pulling the strings.

The rest of the group believes Bell is already dead, but with the changes to the timeline…

As the group investigates, Olivia flexes her cortexiphan-induced abilities, and she helps Peter in a final confrontation with Harris.

But it is Walter and Astrid who walk into the real trap. Following a lead, the pair end up in a warehouse, which sounds like it has cages of animals like we’ve seen on that cargo ship, all strange-mutated animals and humans.

Astrid is shot! and Bell reveals himself to Walter in the last moments of the episode.

This one is a tense ride the whole way through, from the spontaneous combustion, which features a lovely turn by Rebecca Mader, to the stunned expression on both Walter and Astrid’s faces after she is shot.

Let’s see how season four wraps up!

Brave New Worlds: Part 2 aired on 11 May, 2012. This one was also written by Goldsman, Pinkner and Wyman.

Walter is being held by Bell aboard the cargo ship which can move between the universes, and Bell reveals his ultimate plan. Olivia has been dosed with as much cortexiphan as she was in the original timeline that she will be the power source Bell uses to collapse the two universes into one new one.

Before that comes into play, we discover that Rebecca Mader’s Jessica from the first part isn’t all she seems, and that she’s also trapped Michael Cerveris’ September (before he was shot and dying – though this is where he gets shot – time is a different thing for Observers).

But we are also reminded of what he said/will say to Olivia. That in all timelines she has to die to save the world.

So even when she, Peter and Nina (Blair Brown) discover Bell’s ship that is still hanging over us, and amazingly comes to pass, though the writers planted a way out, even from death, in the precious installment.

The story actually races to a happy ending, the team is united, they are all alive, the day has been saved, Bell has been vanquished, and Olivia is pregnant!

Seems like a great place to end the season, and it would have been a perfect wrap up for the series if this had been its end, but September appears one more time to Walter warns him that They are coming.

Who are they?

I guess we’ll find out next time when we jump into the final season of Fringe.