Keep in mind that this should have been the mid-season finale, until baseball threw off the schedule.

It’s an episode filled with reveals and action that should have kept you on the edge of your seat for weeks. Fortunately you only have to wait one.

This week we begin with Peter (Joshua Jackson) in a dream, with him having his Walter (John Noble) and Olivia (Anna Torv) back. Waking from his dream, Peter need to return home is even stronger, and he decides he must take action

In Walter’s lab, Peter confronts the scientist, almost begging for his help. Walter relates the story of his wife’s suicide, and how his actions to help the other Peter led to his wife’s death, as well as the ruin visited on two universes. Walter refuses to help again.

Olivia is on leave, dealing with migraine headaches. Peter goes to Olivia and asks for her help to travel to the other universe, where he intends to ask Walternate for help in returning home. While he is there, Agent Lincoln Lee (Seth Gabel) arrives, and a plan is hatched. They will use Walter’s original device to slip across and Lee, posing as his doppelganger, will get Peter in to see Walternate.

Well no plan ever goes off as expected, and this is no exception. The episode leads us through twists and turns, including our discovery that the new shapeshifters have infiltrated both universes, and Walternate is working to figure them out. The Lincoln Lees meet and annoy each other. Fauxlivia and her Lee pursue a lead on the shifters, and we are shown that the alternate Broyles (Lance Reddick) has sent them into a trap.

Back in our universe, Olivia waits to retrieve her Lee. But while waiting, a wounded Observer (Michael Cerveris) comes to her. She apparently doesn’t know who an Observer is, unlike before the universes were linked. In a typical cliffhanger fashion, the Observer has time to give Olivia one message before he disappears.

“I have looked at all possible futures, and in every one the result is the same. You have to die.”

WHAT WORKED
Those of you who just want the meat on your plate and hate being distracted by the monster/story of the week got your fill this time. Since this episode was supposed to be a mid-season finale, we got all the goodies.

I also loved the scene where Peter’s mother Elizabeth (Orla Brady) gazed into Peter’s eyes, and just knows it’s him. I guess a mother always knows, even across universes.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK
Peter telling his Lincoln Lee that at the end of the day, Fauxlivia is a good person. He doesn’t know this woman. Hasn’t he figured out that no one is whom he remembers? As far as the story goes, it was a stretch to get Faulivia and her Lee into their story. It didn’t hold together to me.

Peter was being very inconsistent. He knows the kind of man Walternate is, and still goes to him for help? He was just as likely to find himself in a cell where the sun doesn’t shine. Peter should feel lucky that this Walternate wasn’t like the one he knows.

And even if he seems like a kinder Walternate, I still don’t trust him.

GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
“Back to Where You’ve Never Been” was written by David Fury and Graham Roland and directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It starred regular cast members Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole, Seth Gabel and John Noble. It also guest starred Orla Brady, Michael Cerveris and Jared Harris.

“Fringe” airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.