Through Etta's contact in the resistance, Anil (Shaun Smyth), they learn that the Observers have received a delivery of parts for their atmospheric modification machine, which, if completed, will make the planet inhospitable to humans.
While Astrid (Jasika Nicole) works at decoding the book, Peter attempts to understand the device, believed to focus the opening of the wormhole upon delivery.
Meanwhile, Walter has found an old video tape of one of Etta's first birthdays, and offers it to Olivia, hoping to coax her out of her depression, but she refuses to watch it.
Peter, Olivia, and Anil go and start the device, and prepare to fire one of Etta's anti-matter canisters into it, expecting it to disrupt the wormhole and cause the other end to collapse in a singularity.
An estimated 2.7 million viewers watched the episode, and earned a ratings share of 1.0 among adults aged 18 to 49, to rank fourth in its timeslot.
Club rated "An Origin Story" an "A", citing that it did an excellent job in handling the fallout from Etta's death in "a way that never becomes overly self-indulgent or grim", and that " the mourning we do get is direct, powerful, and, most important of all, relevant not just to the characters’ emotions in the moment, but also to this season's, and this show's, overall themes".
[4] In a 2013 list, Den of Geek named "An Origin Story" as the tenth best episode of the entire series, explaining that it "stuck in the mind" in part because it "kicks off one of the season’s more interesting mini-arcs.
"[6] Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly named "An Origin Story" the eighteenth best episode of the series, stating "Fringe worked one of its best themes — the dehumanization we risk by seeking to become superhuman to assuage pain and achieve justice — to shocking effect when Peter, raging from Dead Etta grief, butchered an Observer to jack his quantum computer/teleportation power plug and become an omniscient yet dangerously distant transhuman himself.