What happened?
Mr. Jones allowed himself to be captured by Fringe Division in order to reclaim a hard drive disk that Brandon held, a disk that contained information on where to mine necessary materials to open a gate between universes and potentially use the same principle as a weapon.
Fringe Division’s attempts to keep track of Mr. Jones fail but the two sides agree to unite against their common enemy, with Peter presenting himself as the wildcard element Mr. Jones won’t have factored for to give them the advantage. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Nina is in contact with Mr. Jones, and they discuss how phase 2, involving Olivia, is almost ready.
Thoughts
Another strong episode, and one that finally sees the key characters from both sides unite and start working together! I suspect there’s reluctance to have too many scenes that involve the key characters and their counterparts being in the same room because of the logistics of filming such things, but there’s no doubt that they are really cool to see.
Like that end scene in the boardroom, I could have spent so much longer with each character viewing their counterpart across the table – it makes you want to know what they think of how they look, get them talking about their differences. . . It’s actually a really fascinating concept that this show, in pursuit of its story arcs and cliffhangers, has seemed to largely ignore. I suppose it would be a rather frothy, superfluous concern but, you know, that still doesn’t stop it being fun to watch and, really, a little bit of fun is exactly the kind of thing that Fringe could use once in a while!
Hey, couldn’t we all?
Mr. Jones seemed relatively nonplussed, as ever. It seems that this Mr. Jones pretty much went through the same thing we saw him go through in Season 1, with the difference here being that Olivia and Peter had nothing to do with him and so he was able to achieve his ends without hassle. Somehow he found a way to stop the decay he was riddled with, albeit with residual scarring, and now he’s on track to complete his mission.
Unlikely as it seems, Nina Sharp is also in on it with him. I could wonder if this means Nina, as I suspect of Broyles, is a shapeshifter. I believe Mr. Jones mentioned there were 47 of them in existence so there’s plenty that are unaccounted for. Thing with Nina is that she’s always possessed a shadowy quality about her so you can believe bad things, duplicitous things, about her without the requirement of a proxy posing in her stead. I would presume she isn't a shapeshifter and, since she's in touch with Broyles, perhaps he actually isn't either.
The re-appearance of Mr. Jones does make me wonder what, if anything, there is of the Alternate Universe’s Mr. Jones. If there are always two of everything then there ought to be two of them, should there not? Yet there was never a sign of him in the old universe’s Over There and the same goes for this one. Not only is that a curious omission it’s also bizarre that no one from Fringe Division has raised the matter. I mean I remember one episode not so long back where they used an alternate from one universe to help catch his serial killer counterpart in the other, yet here it’s as if he’s the only one. . .
What is Mr. Jones’, and Nina’s, endgame? I can only assume they seek to destroy Over There to preserve their side. Mr. Jones did make that remark about how the air tasted sweeter when he was back on his home side, certainly positing a bias for one universe over another. Going back to the war between universes does feel like a backwards step, though, but I can’t really imagine what else it could be. He certainly seemed incredulous at the sight of Peter, so the ‘former’ universe doesn’t seem to be one that’s in his realms of plotting.
Peter is shaping up as an interesting proposition. I think he’s perhaps behaving with a tad too much cool and swagger considering his situation but in the same breath I can’t deny that it’s fun to see. He’s just an eminently more capable person. In the gunfight that occurred he was swiftly handed a gun (I recall there was once a big deal about ever letting Peter have a firearm!) and took out a guy with cool aplomb. He’s got to be right about his own sense of importance – indeed the reason he did bleed back through may entirely be due to this important function he has yet to fulfil.
Things are looking up for Peter all over the place, with Walter having now come around to leaving the lab and assist his boy. What’s the betting that Walter and Peter wind up living together sooner rather than later? As for whether or not it’s a good idea to let Peter start meddling with The Machine is another matter. My instinct tells me if it really does achieve the goal that Peter intends then it can only eradicate this current timeline and revert back to the old one. I don’t see that happening. It feels like we’re to be invested in this universe now and the only lingering sadness is that poor Olivia, Peter’s one true love, has been lost. It’s only that truth which gives me reservations in wholeheartedly believing these new dual universes are immutable.
Walter came around due to the conversation he had with Elizabeth. In the space of two episodes she has shown herself to be a remarkably wonderful woman. She knows Peter isn’t really her boy, and yet him being an approximation of the Peter she lost is enough for her love to exist. Like any mother, she will do whatever she can to help her child. And so she journeyed to another universe to persuade the man that kidnapped her boy, and decimated the universe, to forgive himself like she had forgiven him and help Peter.
It was a really tender, moving scene actually. The little details from Walter’s look of elation at first seeing Elizabeth to knowing how she liked her drink with honey sweetener; it was lovely dialogue matched by top performances. Certainly better-handled than Lincoln and Olivia's relationship, that once threatened to potentially emerge into something lovable but has been given short shrift. I guess there’s just not the room for it at the moment but, if Fringe does plan on making these two an item, it needs to work harder at selling them as a couple.
There was a little bit of business introduced that I can only hope will be revelatory in the next episode or two. Olivia handed Astrid a small sample of blood, presumably collected from where September sat bleeding, and asked her to go and check it. I’d be amazed if it came back human, anomaly-free, so I can just hope that whatever weird results are returned are the kind from which better estimations to what exactly The Observers are can be breached.
What was the best part?
Not often I’d plump for a scene that’s basically just talking and acting, but the moments between Walter and Elizabeth were really a cut above the already decent performances Fringe regularly showcases.
What do I think will happen next?
The universes’ united front against Mr. Jones would appear to be the driving plot at present (though with Fringe and its occasional standalone episodes there’s always the risk that big plots get inexplicably sidelined for a week whilst some one-off investigation takes priority!). I am guessing that Olivia is being drugged and primed for her innate capability to cross over between universes (a facet of herself this Olivia doesn’t know about) to be used in this ‘war’ I am figuring Jones and Nina are gearing up for. Outside that, blood results of September might hopefully yield interesting revelations about what he, and The Observers, are all about to move that big mystery forward some.
No comments:
Post a Comment