'Fringe': An Observer in love

Tonight on "Fringe," the Observer kidnaps a girl. Except he's not THE Observer, he's AN Observer.

The Observers
This new Observer (August) kidnaps a girl (Christine), takes her to a motel and binds and gags her. (I thought "CSI" was on CBS.) Other Observers get together and realize August kidnapped a girl who was supposed to be on flight 821, which has now left already. This "irregularity" must be repaired, so they contact hitman Donald to kill her.

Back in the motel, August shows Christine that her plane has crashed and that he saved her. He says she isn't safe yet and goes to see the other Observers. He argues that she is special, that he sees that she is important. They say they only act when they are correcting a mistake of their own making and tell him they've already "seen to it" that Christine is taken care of.

Peter, Walter, Olivia & Walter
They have a book found near the kidnapping to analyze. It's full of weird symbols, none of which ever repeat, and also a blood splatter. The blood has a tint that indicates a hemophiliac and the symbols have been recently investigated by Massive Dynamic.

The scientist from Massive Dynamic can't crack the symbols, but he does show all these famous paintings where a figure who looks like the Observer is there (Boston massacre, Maria Antoinette's beheading, the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand). He hypothesizes that they show up at important moments in time, maybe two dozen in the past 5000 years, but recently he's tracked 26 sightings in the last three months.

Christine's subleasor says Christine was going to study ceramics in Rome for a semester, she was supposed to leave today. The roommate also relays that Christine's parents were killed when the bridge collapsed in the 1989 earthquake.*  In the background of the last picture Christine has with her parents, hours before they died, is an Observer. When they hear about the panae crash, they realize the Observer saved her on purpose.

The blood sample comes back as not blood but chile pepper juice. One of the hottest in the world, the King Cobra chile. The team tracks the Observers by who is importing those peppers locally (three restaurants and one private citizen).

Walter gives Astrid the slip to go meet with the Observer. He cracked the code by noticing a nitrogen molecule among the symbols. August wants Walter's help, though Walter thought August was going to take Peter back. Walter advises that since the other Observers won't believe that Christine is special, he must MAKE her special.

Donald the Hitman
Donald is surprised at August's place by Olivia and Peter. He shoots at them and runs for it. He then tracks August to the motel and shoots August three times in the chest. Olivia and Peter arrive and the dying August gives Peter his gun. Peter uses it to save Olivia from Donald and when they get back to where August was, he's gone. Olivia finds Christine hidden in the room.

August is picked up by another Observer and explains that he saw Christine as a little girl, who was brave when her parents had just been killed. She never left August's mind. He thinks he loves her. And then he dies. Now she's safe because she's important. Because she's responsible for August's death. Back at Christine's apartment, Walter returns a teddy bear to Christine that she was holding when the bridge collapsed.

Peter presses Walter for information about the Observers and why one saved them so many years ago but Walter won't budge. At the very end of the episode, two Observers watch Olivia and lament that things are about to get so hard for her.

Thoughts & Tidbits

• *The 1989 earthquake is known as the World Series earthquake because it happened during warmups for game 3 of the WS. Weirdly, the two teams in that WS were the two San Francisco-area teams, the Giants and Athletics. Since so many people had left work early that day for the game, traffic was especially light. If it had been normal rush hour, the death toll probably would've been much higher than 63. Just a bit of trivia for you, we're a full-service blog around here.
• Observer: Look how happy she is. It's a shame things are about to get so hard for her.
• Interesting episode tonight. I liked the information we got about the Observers and where/why they appear, though the actual plot with August and Christine wasn't fleshed out enough to grab me.