Fringe: S04 Ep11 – Making Angels

What happened?

Alt-Astrid travelled to the other side without approval to meet with her counterpart following the death of her father. Alt-Olivia goes to retrieve her, but not before the pair linger with the Fringe Team over here as they resolve a case concerning a customs worker that had discovered Observer technology which allowed to him to see people's terrible futures and kill them.

Observers reclaim the item following the man's suicide and also discuss the fact that September had disobeyed orders and allowed Peter to remain.

Thoughts

A rather offbeat episode with a rather refreshing switch in focus to one of the generally overlooked characters. It’s a strange time for Fringe to suddenly switch up into being lighthearted (well, as closed to lighthearted as it’s ever likely to be – aside from that ghastly musical episode they did!) and quite interesting that they’d devote an episode to a minor character. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it: it’s just that in a fourth season (when, at time of writing, there’s question marks about whether this will be the last) it’s not what you’d expect. This kind of episode bears more of the hallmarks of an earlier season filler tone.

It definitely was good to see Astrid getting some time, though. Too often she’s basically the fourth person in the room to make things happen, do oddjobs, or just simple be there to ask the question or provide a reaction. Fundamentally she’s there to humanise Walter and keep him relatively likeable despite his more shady qualities. But now I’m talking about a different Walter from another universe. . .!

Alt-Astrid is perhaps nearly as far removed from her counterpart as Walternate is from his Walter. Most of the other characters might have different emotional outlooks and dispositions but they are, generally, the same person. Alt-Astrid, however, is so mentally different and distant due to her phenomenal mental prowess that it has affected her relationship with her recently-deceased father. I do find Alt-Astrid just a tad too unhuman to completely buy but this episode went some way to addressing that. It didn’t quite land at an explanation as to why Alt-Astrid is a near-robotic person but it did provide emotional bewilderment peering out from behind the statistics and factors.

Astrid is the one that possesses a less ferocious intellect, but her emotional awareness is far superior to her counterpart. The excellent ending surprise that showed Astrid had delivered a compassionate lie to Alt-Astrid was really nicely done. Astrid remarked that her own relationship with her father was not too far removed from Alt-Astrid’s strained, oblique one. To then show that Astrid and her father were the epitome of unconditional love and understanding really credited her as heroic in her own small way.

The episode had a lot of fun with the relationships, squabbles and petty jealousies between the counterparts. I expect it was Fringe getting into these matters which was what made it so enjoyable for me. From the moment Astrid shrieked at seeing Alt-Astrid and Olivia remarked about how she found it odd that no one normally did that (a very arch piece of dialogue more for the audience’s benefit than something the character would say) the episode was setting itself out as one that had a little bit more self-referential knowing.

Alt-Astrid was there to voice opinion and reflections on the nature of Walter and Astrid’s relationship, for example. She made the good observation about how Walter basically spoke through Astrid at crime scenes. I thought she was going to make an acute criticism of how used Astrid was, but that didn’t quite transpire. I got the impression that was what the scene was hinting at but neither Alt-Astrid nor the show really wanted to go there.

There was jealousy from Astrid at how people were so impressed at Alt-Astrid’s calculations, and there was jealousy from Walter at how Peter was stepping into the middle of the action and calling the shots. The jealousies, particularly Walter’s towards Peter’s, felt a little manufactured for the purposes of what the episode was trying to achieve. It does seem somewhat incredulous that Peter has become the main man about the place, though. A few episodes ago he wasn’t allowed to wander free without a guard present!

Walter’s near-hissing at Altlivia was a lot of fun, and whilst she was perhaps freer and more flirty than I might have expected I didn’t mind. They pretty much kissed and made up by the episode’s end, which was more than can be said for Olivia and Altlivia. Olivia maintained a cold distance, viewing her counterpart with caution and, I detected, a touch of fascination.

Yes, I did like all of these elements in the mix. I’ve said it before but there’s a good show to be made and mined out of seeing how all these characters mix, react and interact with one another and Fringe tends to want to push that aside and get on with plot. This episode did it the other way around and whilst it might not make revelation-hungry, thrillseeking fans happy I found it very entertaining and eminently watchable.

The plot itself with the mathematician that had found the piece of Observer equipment was an interesting story that ultimately flopped for an tidy finish. The guy’s belief in God didn’t ring true with me, although Fringe has quietly maintained a curious attachment to the notion of God that may turn out to be something more meaningful. What was interesting was pursuing the concept of how The Observers see and experience time. It’s become accepted knowledge that they are able to see time happening all at once, and yet here we had some clarity to suggest they managed it via technology rather than something biologically intrinsic to them.

I’m not sure if this is what the episode was truly laying out, but that seemed to be the way of it for me. They have a device that allows for them to have such vision that would explain how they do what they do (like speaking words as someone else says them, as shown here). And if they can do these things without that device then it begs the question: why have it?

So if The Observers have, in some part, derived their abilities from technology then that paves the way for better explanation about their origins. The suggestion is that they can see all events happening at once, but only where they focus on it. This would explain why they were not aware that September had disobeyed the order to allow Peter to bleed through. And the fact that we saw an Observer appears and disappear through a kind of portal also suggests that, whilst they can see everything happening at once, they can’t be everywhere all at once!

Suddenly these mysterious beings are looking a whole lot less omniscient! But this is a good thing. The less God-like they become the better, and will make their previous behaviours far more comprehensible.

What was the best part?

Quick and simple one this, and purely because it made me gasp: seeing the Observer step into the world via some kind of invisible portal and then disappear back into it. We’ve seen Observers every episode, but we’ve never seen them do that!

What do I think will happen next?

Fringe being Fringe I find it hard to believe we’ll get immediate payoff to what will become of September at the behest of his colleagues now they know he has disobeyed them. And since this episode pretty much delivered some interesting character views and repaired some relationships, there really wasn’t a great deal of progression. So my prediction for how the next episode will play out hasn’t really changed: construction must continue on the machine from Peter, and the two sides ought to be working in earnest to find Mr. Smith and foil what he’s all about. My gut tells me they can’t let that plot thread left unaddressed for another episode, so hopefully we’ll be back on his trail next time out!