Fringe: S04 Ep18 – The Consultant

What happened?

Both universe’s Fringe departments worked together when cases on one side were being effected by events on the other. Behind the matter was Mr. Jones, merely using test subjects at random to apparently prove something for himself.. He delivers a threat that he is harnessing the power to potentially collapse both universes in on each other.

Lincoln and Alt-Olivia also work together to try and establish the identity of the potential mole in their department, though it is Walter who clues Alt-Olivia in to the idea that it could be Alt-Broyles. Before he can be apprehended, Alt-Broyles hands himself over to his doppelganger and admits that he has been working for Mr. Jones all along. He is imprisoned in a neighbouring cell to Alt-Nina.

Thoughts

Right. Time to hold my hands up and admit I was wrong. Where did I get the idea as certain that Alt-Broyles was a shapeshifter? I guess it’s just something I figured had happened purely because I didn’t believe he was a man that would work for Mr. Jones if he was himself. As a consequence I thought that the trackers Lincoln had uncovered were going to lead them right to Alt-Broyles. It turned out that Alt-Broyles was eventually rumbled this episode but it had nothing to do with him being a shapeshifter, because he wasn’t a shapeshifter!

Silly me, really, for just wholeheartedly believing in something that had not yet been verified.

I preferred the fact that he wadn’t a shapeshifter, mind. That he was working for Mr. Jones under duress, and because he had cured his son of the terrible blind condition he had been afflicted with, made more sense and helped create a far more satisfying climax. It would have been tedious to see the likes of Lincoln and Alt-Olivia chase and gun down shapeshifter Broyles when he  realised he had been found out. No, the ending here, which pointed to that kind of finish was a lot more elegant – with Alt-Broyles handing himself over to a version of himself. Presumably this was so that Broyles would be inclined to ensure the safety and survival of Alt-Broyles’ family. But it also occurs to me that Broyles could now stand in for Alt-Broyles and try to get to Mr. Jones directly by pretending to be his alternate.

I don’t imagine the wily Mr. Jones is going to fall easily for such a trick, of course. He’s never anything but the epitome of controlled confidence, and everything appears to be happening perfectly how he intends it do. Which, as seems to be the case so often these days, opens up the question of what it is he is planning. The good thing is that the likes of even Walter can’t quite figure it out so I’m at least in good company!

The revelation that Mr. Jones is potentially capable of collapsing worlds sound impressively drastic. Surely if he were to collapse both worlds then he would, ultimately be killing himself as well. It’s not much of a masterplan. I suspect his plan is to perhaps annihilate Over There (a world he seemingly has less affection for) and maybe assimilate it into Over Here. What I suppose I am saying is that he plans to collapse them both together, making a new kind of unified whole.

God knows how that would work, what it would be like, or how anyone would survive it. But it’s the closest thing I have to an inkling of a suggestion about what Mr. Jones is up to. If his experiments with people have generally been about messing with their DNA genetics to produce different and ‘better’ versions of humans then perhaps he is tackling the same ideology but on a larger scale – the largest scale you can think of – taking two universes and merging them into a new and improved oneness.

If one side is capable of surviving such a merging and it would be a world with unique benefits then I can see why that would be a viable endeavour for Mr. Jones to invest everything in. It does all sound rather grand and far-flung, but from a show that’s had one of its main characters take a visit inside the mind of a scientist from the future where they observed the big bang then grand and far-flung is something Fringe is more than acquainted with.

It was good to see that the world of Over There picked up from where the previous episode left it and we didn’t just skip back to the other side. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Alt-Olivia and Walter – from his snide remarks about her personality to eventually realising that he was rather fond of the alternative universe after all. The only major character we haven’t seen in a while is Walternate – given how prominent a figure he is Over There and how much of a big deal this issue with Mr. Jones is then it seems strange that he’s not been included lately, but I guess there’s only so much time and space per episode to handle all the characters and do them justice. I’m happy that Lincoln has been kept in good focus so I won’t be too mealy-mouthed about what’s not present.

The case of the week was interesting, especially how it was depicted on the Over Here side. So we saw the mean old businessman guy suffer an airplane crash in his boardroom, and the poor woman endure a car crash plunge into water from the confines of a supermarket (very odd that she also coughed up water – was that water from another universe!?). That these incidents were all just random tests didn’t come as much of a surprise to me (I was more surprised that none of the main characters didn’t at least consider that) but it’s exactly fitting in the Fringe world for this to be the way of things so it works well.

Lincoln’s relationship with Alt-Olivia is being well-handled, too. The strange quality of being at Alt-Lincoln’s funeral whilst he waited in the car had a surreal, emotional quality. I did wonder if there was going to be some awful moment where Lincoln would confront the parents of Alt-Lincoln. Presumably, since they shared such a close history, they wouldn’t be too unlike his own parents. In effect he got to see what his grieving parents would appear as should he have been the one in the coffin. Very odd indeed. Yet at least there’s no sense of forced romance, or sudden character change, between Alt-Olivia and Lincoln.

There was that awkward moment between Olivia and Lincoln, briefly, which did seem a bit curious since really she had no reason to feel awkward at all, but I suppose she’s smart enough to figure that Lincoln has distanced himself into an entirely different universe for strong emotive reasons. And, also, probably Peter has filled her in a little on what is going on with him. All good, quiet moments in the characters, though. Bringing them to life. Making them feel like they exist and interact and aren’t just cypher’s for the next weird case or major revelation. Though since there’s a season finale on the horizon (maybe even a show finale?) I expect big revelations to be hitting soon.

What was the best part?

Alt-Broyles giving himself up was the best part, mainly because of the build-up as we revealed who he was and what he was doing. The near-confession of conscience he delivered to Walter was enlightening, with the reveal that he was doing all of this for his son stirring up echoes that resonate across multiple universes. Yet the final surprise that, rather than commit an act of potential world-threatening terrorism, he handed himself over to himself was just brilliant. I do wish we could have witnessed how that conversation had played out, though!

What do I think will happen next?

How many different ways can I make lame suggestions before collapsing and admitting that I don’t really know? What will happen next is that Mr. Jones’ plan will be unveiled as it takes effect and the Fringe team will do all they can to stop him. Does this mean he will succeed? Hard to say. The fact is, he might. Does it also mean that The Observers may intervene again to try and stop him? Don’t know, but it doesn’t seem likely they will, yet it seems equally unlikely that we won’t at least see or hear from September before this season is finished. I’ll hedge a predictive bet that this season ends with the destruction of Over There, and that there will be one solitary universe left standing. (And if I turn out to be right on that I won’t even consider myself smart – it’ll be a mostly fluke guess!)

Fringe: S04 E17 – Everything In Its Right Place

What happened?

Lincoln took a trip to the other side, feeling like his life with the new Olivia and loved-up Peter lacked substance. With the alternative Olivia and Lincoln, he was involved in a case of a suspected shapeshifter, albeit one that turned out to be killing morally unsound individuals purely to stay alive. However, Alt-Nina was out to kill this shapeshifter before he could potentially reveal that Broyles had also been converted. An assassin is sent, and kills Alt-Lincoln.

Lincoln and Alt-Olivia conceive a plan by using the friendly shapeshifter and they track down Alt-Nina and locate her base, with the possibility that they could now find every single shapeshifter around. With these prospects, and with Alt-Olivia grieving for her lost partner, Lincoln elects to stay in the alternative universe.

Thoughts

Ask and you shall receive! For the last episode I was concerned that Lincoln was threatening to become redundant, and how I hoped he wouldn’t and how I wouldn’t have minded more of a foray into his life – and then this episode goes and answers all my concerns and gives me a great big dose of Lincoln-related thrills! It turned out to be a cracking episode as well, containing all manner of character drama, interesting discussion points and serious potential for the shit to hit the fan in the next episode or so.

Olivia, Peter and Walter having a grazing day for the cow amounted to a rather frivolous excuse for Lincoln to be allowed to cut loose and go his own way. I can understand Walter taking a day for such things, for Olivia and Peter? Not so sure about that. Still, let’s put the quibbles aside and appreciate the fact that Lincoln once more went Over There and reminded us that one of the strongest aspects Fringe has is this parallel universe set up and, lately, they’ve been guilty of not utilising it. Things are certainly more fun Over There, most of the time, with Alt-Livia and Alt-Lincoln’s more easygoing, humourous spin on things a lot more appealing than the heavy fretting romance of Olivia and Peter (whom I didn’t miss this episode at all, and only realised they’d been absent when Peter cropped up briefly near the end).

It seems the world of Over There is in a state of repair. This certainly does suggest that the potential war I thought might be brewing between the two sides probably won’t happen. It’s a good thing, but does leave me confounded about what it is Mr. Jones and Alt-Nina were up to. They have shapeshifters all over the place, and they’re breeding superhumans in the other reality, and then Mr. Jones foresees Olivia has great potential. . . What is it all leading to? A conflict? An attempted unification? The possibility that there’s a third universe to be conjured out of all this?

I don’t know. In Fringe I must trust.

The insinuation that the friendly shapeshifter was a failed early attempt that Mr. Jones eventually perfected seems to be the way of it. It’s difficult to ascertain whether the shapeshifter was considered a failure due to his personality or because of his manufacturing lifespan. . . Probably not all that important. What seems pertinent is that there’s a band of shapeshifters at large, working at the behest of Mr. Jones, and quite what they’re up to is yet to be revealed.

Broyles the Shapeshifter is certainly in a tricky spot, now on the verge of being exposed for what he is the moment Alt-Olivia and Lincoln check out the trackers and realise there’s a shapeshifter in their department. I imagine he’s going to have to either make a rapid exit, or sabotage the tracker he is carrying, or else there will be an escalation in their plans to hasten what needs to happen before all is undone. I fully expected the episode to end on the cliffhanger reveal, actually, with Alt-Olivia and Lincoln realising there was a traitor in their midst.

I really enjoyed seeing the two Lincoln’s interact, which is just as well since it seems highly unlikely there won’t be any more of that. The central issue of why it is they had such differing personalities when their histories were near-identical was an intriguing debate. On the surface it appeared like it was a question left unanswered, but I personally believe we received our answer. It was plainly obvious. The reason Alt-Lincoln was so confident and arrogant and dashing was all to do with the fact that he had had Alt-Olivia in his life. It was clear that they were close from the photos Alt-Olivia was looking at in his locker, and she was the fundamental difference between the two men. One Lincoln had her close friendship, the other didn’t. Evidently the episode pointed towards the prospect that Lincoln may fill in Alt-Lincoln’s place, at least in Alt-Olivia’s life, and perhaps a consequence of that could be that he will become more like Alt-Lincoln.

There’s certainly an element of crassness about it; a version of a man stepping in to replace the version of him that had died. Yet Alt-Olivia is the barometer of how acceptable that is, and her warm smile at the thought of him staying around with her was all the validation that was required. I don’t want Fringe to try and force through a rushed romance between the pair, but I’ll happily watch a friendship blossom and flourish over the course of episodes.

At time of writing I still don’t know if this is going to be the last season. By this point I imagine that the end of the season has been confirmed and written, possibly even filmed, so the show creator’s and writer’s will have wrapped things up in some way. The question is have they ended this season on a game changing cliffhanger like last time, or have things been brought to a resolution that could be picked up and taken further if another season is commissioned? It’s a pity how the demands of TV networks and audience ratings can dictate the actual narrative development but there’s not a lot to be done about it now.

Very enjoyable episode, which actually generated enough momentum and interest in the characters for me to happily rejoin them Over There for a whole next episode. That probably won’t happen, but considering that Shapeshifter Broyles is surely set to be rumbled then Over There is a place that can’t be neglected in the short term.

What was the best part?

I most liked the part where Lincoln and Alt-Lincoln were continuing their discussion on comms about their similarities and personality differences. Trying to track down a shapeshifter, countless guys all listening in and Alt-Olivia quick to butt in and tell them to quit their chatter, it was just great stuff to see these characters tackling head on the critical fundamentals about themselves. It’s always something I’ve been surprised Fringe hasn’t been keen to explore – how these characters are the same, how they’re different, and why that might be so. The answer provided here was elegant, but it was just fun to see the two Lincoln’s actually tackle the matter.

What do I think will happen next?

I absolutely hope that Over There is kept in the mix and Shapeshifter Broyles feels the net closing around him as Alt-Olivia and Lincoln discover there’s an enemy in their midst. Desperate circumstances may prompt desperate measures from Broyles, and since he’s not really Broyles and surely has no compassion for anyone, any desperate measures could have devastating impact. The end of season is looming and the stage is looking set for Mr. Jones to tip his hand and clue us in about what his masterplan is shaping up to be. He’ll surely be coming back for Olivia, with perhaps a new set of extreme circumstances to provoke stronger unleashing of her innate powers.

Fringe: S04 Ep16 - Nothing As It Seems

What happened?

Fringe Team investigated a case of a man on a plane who terrified passengers and crew by needing to be sedated to stop something from happening. At the airport he then transformed into a monstrous beast and killed security personnel. Olivia and Peter both remembered the case from their previous timeline, but this time it had changed and there was the suggestion that Mr. Jones was once again behind it.

Lincoln lead the investigation and broke rules by including Olivia, who had been suspended, and they managed to stop another man that was transforming. However, it transpired that there were more people using this drug to warp their genetic code suggesting an army of these new creatures was gathering.

Thoughts

Episodes like this make me wish I could remember the first season of Fringe better. This season in particular has been carrying over hallmarks and plot threads from that first run (Mr. Jones being the most prominent aspect to that) and, whilst I appreciate the sense of continuity, I feel that it’s asking a lot of the memory of the general audience. Hopefully it won’t be entirely crucial to have intimate understanding of all that went on all those years ago, though for this episode and perhaps other details I do wonder if there are certain subtleties and nuances I am missing out on.

So this episode at least used its ‘case of the week’ structure to tie it in with the larger mythology, which is rather clever. Having it be a case that Peter and Olivia had previously worked on, with slight differences, meant there was a structured plot here to drive proceedings and provide some form of resolution. In the meantime the character progression of Olivia could have a little time to percolate, with it becoming more and more established that the old Olivia is rapidly replacing the new one.

Her not being able to remember conversations with Lincoln, and seeing the pained look on his face as he acknowledged that, was good stuff. It would seem that Lincoln and Nina are really going to be the only characters to which we get any sense of how much one Olivia is going to be missed as she is replaced by ‘Alpha Olivia’. Lincoln showed himself to be nothing other than thoroughly decent about the whole matter, of course, as you would expect of him. There was a little possibility that there could be antagonism from him towards Peter but that was soon quashed. Poor Lincoln. The only real problem for his character now is a threat of redundancy in terms of having a compelling reason to remain on the scene. Hopefully he won’t just be killed off and instead better uses will be made of him.

He stuck his neck out a little bit by allowing Olivia to work on the case, though I am glad that her being kept off the Fringe team wasn’t a conceit that continued beyond this episode. It would have just been tiresome. Luckily Broyles was there to see the light and realise that even this new Olivia with faint memory of this world was of far better use working on the team than she was sitting on the outside being evaluated. So it was she could assist everyone in figuring out what on Earth was happening with the hedgehog bat monsters.

In hindsight, the ending did a lot of good stuff. It would have felt like a diversionary enjoyment to have the episode concluded with the death of the remaining creatures. The questions then would have really focused around the question of why it was events in this timeline had worked slightly differently than how they did in Olivia and Peter’s timeline. There isn’t an easy answer to that question, really, beyond the obvious point that this isn’t quite the same world populated by quite the same people so it stands to perfect reason that events would never play out exactly the same way.

It appears to be the case that this army of creatures is being bred for a larger purpose. Very often throughout season one of Fringe it seemed like many of the cases pointed towards a purpose to build an army, or super-developed person for a larger cause. I have a jumbled memory of there being a manifesto that forewarned of a coming war and, of course, Olivia and the Cortexiphan kids all fell into a uniform and manner following their experimentation that was, again, designed to create hyper-developed individuals for a grand cause.

Like I said, I wish my memory of all this stuff was crystal clear. But we’re going back a few years and, besides, I also have the nagging feeling that a lot of it won’t be as pertinent as the show might hope I’d believe it is. That all being said, the ending appeared to suggest (and Fringe does do a lot of appearing to suggest stuff) that Mr. Jones was behind this collection of people that are all set on morphing themselves into these beasts that develop wings and, with enough time and drugs, potentially develop into something else entirely. Question always comes down to wondering about the purpose of that, and that question lately generally centres on what it is that Mr. Jones is up to. On that matter I am still none-the-wiser.

The return of the bookstore guy was a nice callback of an old minor character. I suppose we, the audience, are being made to feel like Olivia is. Having spent the whole season in a new universe with ‘new’ characters we are getting blasts from the past and having our memories jogged on stuff that happened a long time back in the old universe timeline. I’m not holding out a mass of hope that there is a big endgame planned, that this harking back to the original timeline represents some kind of cyclical design of some sort, but it’d be cool if this did all feedback strongly.

I did enjoy the episode, actually. I thought it did a great job in injecting genuine menace out of its monsters, and I wasn’t 100% confident that Lincoln was going to survive (the matter of his relevancy to the show feeding in to his increased level of peril!). Layering on the interplay between the characters and deftly showing us how things are going to be as one Olivia fades away to be replaced by what is, technically, a completely new person was also nicely handled. So whilst it was ostensibly just a transitional episode on a lot of fronts it successfully managed to make it feel substantial in its own right.

What was the best part?

I have to admit that for the first time in as long as I can remember a TV show actually made me jump. Fringe managed this, with the moment that Lincoln encountered the monster in the dark house for the first time. It was a text book jump scare, with Lincoln panicking at seeing something before letting his guard down and being attacked on the blindside. But it worked. It made me jump on my sofa, no question. I was rather glad I wasn’t holding a hot drink at the time, actually, otherwise I might have ended up tipping it all over myself.

What do I think will happen next?

Fringe seems to be almost moving through the motions of getting the old Olivia into and established within this new timeline. I don’t feel like the show is quite ready to tip its hand and show us what Mr. Jones is doing, and what further capacities he expects Olivia to be capable of, so for the next episode at least I am fully expecting a more routine case of the week, maybe another one that has callbacks to events in the first season or two.

That all being said, I don’t know how many episodes there are going to be this season (and I still don’t know if there is even going to be another season) but we should be definitely heading to the home straight for a finale by this point, so maybe things will gather pace for that quicker than I anticipate.

Fringe: S04 Ep15 – A Short Story About Love

What happened?

Peter is intent on leaving for New York but is called back when Walter discovers something unusual with the footage they had of September before he disappeared. They discovered an address had been implanted in Peter’s eye. Peter investigated and discovered a beacon emerging from under the ground. He activated the beacon and it served to bring September back who informed Peter that he was home.

Olivia investigated the case of a man that was killing couples, extracting the pheromones of the male to make the female momentarily kiss him before he then had to kill her. Olivia tracked him down and captured him and he told her that he could tell she was in love. Later Peter met back with her and they embraced and kissed.

Thoughts

Oh Fringe how you make me roll my eyes, this deep into the season, 4 seasons into the show, and still you feel the need to drop in a case of the week when there’s so much more intense and interesting serial storylines to contend with. This episode’s case of the week was perhaps about as unsubtle as they come in terms of feeding into the principle themes at play with the main characters. Here we had a burned man, a damaged man, that was taking the pheromones of those in love so he could recreate a sense of romance that he lost from his life. That, naturally, tied in with Olivia and her damaged state – longing for a love that felt all too real towards Peter.

See how I roll my eyes.

How the murderer de-saturated the male victims and eked out their pheromone juice was, however, just about one of the most disgusting things this show has ever done. They must have some fun in the writer’s room trying to out-gross one another with the latest high concept way of extinguishing a human life. The fatty deposits of concentrated pheromone excretions was truly the kind of substance I can’t say it’s ever occurred to me could exist – to extract it from a dying human and collate it all together to rub into the pulse points is absolutely revolting. Kudos to Fringe and this case of the week on that front alone – it delivered the yuck. The rest of it was totally irrelevant.

Peter’s odyssey into Observer world was a lot more interesting. At the beginning of the episode he was doing his usual thing of hightailing it away from everyone when the going gets tough. It’s what he’s done before so perfectly in keeping with his character – although considering his character is dead set on trying to return to his own universe, and so needs Walter and The Machine to assist him, it seemed a little shortsighted for him to be skipping town away from his one good shot at achieving his goal. But anyway, it didn’t matter, Walter called him back because he’d spotted that September, in the blink of an eye, had inserted something into Peter’s eye.

I suppose I now have to add faster than light movement to The Observer’s repertoire of available skills. September’s original plan had been to have the address on the ball in Peter’s eye absorb into his consciousness, but Walter finding it had the same result: Peter went and found the old flat that September used to call home. I’m not quite sure what to make of The Observer having an actual place to live in the world(s) they are purely there to observe. Still, I guess everyone needs someplace to hang their hat and The Observers probably have quite a lot of hats to hang. Before long Peter had stumbled across some weird technology that he figured out how to work and that lead him to the beacon machine that has turned up a couple of times in previous seasons.

It felt like a bit of a cop out that this beacon managed to return September back to the world. I say that because it felt like a plot contrivance to solve an inconvenience that didn’t even need to be there. September had turned up having been shot, bleeding out, and eventually ‘died’. As such Peter discovered a beacon, brought September back, and so this gunshot wound we don’t even know the circumstances for got resolved and September was brought back from a death that we weren’t even clear had properly taken place.

Unless there’s going to be some kind of backwards time travel, or a crucial flashback revealing how September came to be shot that is revelatory to future events, I just don’t see what the point of the whole thing was. It brought September into Peter’s path directly, sure, and allowed him into his head and explained what he was – but all of that could have been achieved any number of other ways that would have been just as satisfactory and left less question marks. The frustrating thing about suspenseful, mysterious television is how sometimes the show writer’s feel the need to drape everything in vague and elusive mystery when a straightforward and clear dramatic turn of events would work just as well.

September’s message to Peter, about how he didn’t need help to get him back home because he basically already was, felt a bit. . . wet. Sure, the point that Olivia here had changed to become his Olivia and so there was no other person to go back to has, over the past few episodes, become transparently so – but I’d like to expect some kind of solid explanation about that. I worry that we’re not really going to get one. That there might be a murky theory about the bond between Peter and Olivia being too strong to be held back, but I’ll be disappointed if there is something more powerful and more compelling underpinning all that has been happening since the beginning of this season, when Peter was drawn back into a universe that had erased all awareness of him. There just has to be something that sells such a thing better than true love between Peter and Olivia being the driving force!

Olivia reached a conclusion that she wasn’t going to fight this transition into the new Olivia of memories and feelings she was being imbued with. It certainly makes things easier on a plot level, though I do feel there hasn’t been quite enough conflict from the Olivia that is being supplanted against the one that is taking over. Still, it’s been sold on the notion that these new memories that original Olivia is becoming aware of feel so much better than the ones so much so she had that she is prepared to let that become her life. It was a nice scene between Olivia and Nina, with Nina facing up to saying goodbye to her ‘Olive’, because the new Olivia believed she was becoming a better version of herself.

Word also for Lincoln, quietly broken hearted on the sidelines. Seeing Olivia and Peter fall for each other when he used to be in with a shot is bad enough, but he is watching an Olivia slowly morph into someone who won’t even remember that they once had a potential relationship and intimacy burgeoning between them. I do like Lincoln’s character in this universe. I suspect the show isn’t interested in delving too much into who he is outside of the Fringe Department work but if things didn’t feel so important elsewhere, all over the place, then I wouldn’t mind a bit of a detour into seeing more about who he is and what he’s all about.

The last scene really let the schmaltz sweep up the emotions, with Peter and Olivia finally dropping all the battles to avoid each other, or resolve universes, or prevent consciousness takeovers (talk about obstacles in the way of true love and Fringe really has to lay claim to having the most outrageous ones you’ve ever heard of!) and just give in to their feelings. A hug, a kiss, and suddenly all those consternations and problems are set aside. Peter and Olivia are together at last, properly, finally! Whilst I’ve not always been on the side that says I should really invest in them as a couple I have to say that this resolution felt earned; I felt wearied enough for the pair of them being apart to feel happy that they are together again.

Now they just have to save a world or two, I suppose.

What was the best part?

Call me an old romantic fool but I have to admit that the last scene got me. As unlikely as it seemed, it worked. If you had told me before the episode that the last scene will have Olivia and Peter hugging and kissing I’d have thought, Meh. But it turned out to be a wonderful, touching reunion and had me feeling all emotional. Fair’s fair, they got me.

What do I think will happen next?

I am assuming Fringe isn’t going to undermine all this good work and, indeed, legwork this episode went through to get Peter and Olivia together. The show has managed to set up an entirely new universe where neither Peter nor old-universe Olivia had any reasonable right to exist. Now they are both there, pretty much, so I don’t see the show undoing all of that! Which means with our dynamic duo together they can set about dealing with Mr. Jones and tapping into whatever further powers Olivia is said to possess.

That all being said there’s every chance the next episode could zip across to the other universe to catch up on events there. It certainly seems to have been treated as the poor relation this season, which leads me to think that the side with Peter and Olivia on it is the side we are supposed to invest in and another war may be on the cards. . .

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep13 – Beside The Dying Fire

What happened?

The farm was besieged by a horde of zombies that forced the survivors to stage a desperate battle before retreating. A couple of Hershal’s family members didn’t survive, but the remaining group rallied at the freeway meeting point. Only Andrea did not join them – instead she was pursued through the woods before meeting a strange person with a samurai sword.

Rick eventually lost his temper with the group after Lori reacted badly to the news that he knew they all carried the zombie virus and that Carl had shot Shane’s reanimated form. Losing his diplomatic calm, he demanded everyone either stop second-guessing him or go their own way.

Thoughts

So the second season of The Walking Dead closed out with a wallop of zombie action and some left-field events that turned up to sprinkle some enticement for the next season. There wasn’t any surprise that the fringe members of the cast found their way into the mouths of zombies – Hershal’s wife and son (tellingly I can’t even remember their names) always seemed marked as fodder quite some time back, so no shocks that they were swiftly devoured. And given we’ve recently had both Dale and Shane killed off I was perfectly fine that the remaining core cast were kept in place.

The first third of the episode giving way to full-on zombie mayhem was interesting for me in the sense that it provided proof that a whole show based around this wouldn’t work. The attack was sustained and intense but just about ran its course before I started to want things to progress. The fact of the matter is you just can’t watch people running and shooting and avoiding being eaten by rampaging hordes for an overlong period before it becomes monotonous. If they had retreated into the farmhouse and there had been a siege – in the way so many zombie movies tend to become – then that could have held my attention longer. But the moment everyone was out, loose, driving cars and shooting with unerring accuracy the need for them to either escape or become victorious drove the momentum.

As per usual, Lori annoyed me this episode. As per usual she was fretting about Carl’s whereabouts because she’d allowed him to slip out of her sight and the only time it occurred to her to wonder about him was when the shit was hitting the fan. Still, that was nothing compared to her reaction to Rick when he told her the extent of what he knew at the end of the episode. The look on her face, the sheer hostility, actually beggared belief. I couldn’t properly understand why she turned on him the way she did, considering all he’s done for everyone and all they’ve been through. For some reason the thought occurred to me that him killing Shane had brought up a conflict in her she didn’t know was there.

I had the impression she held feelings for Shane that perhaps she hadn’t fully acknowledged and, hearing he had been killed by Rick, she suddenly resented him for killing the man she had strong feelings for. If it reads as weird that’s because I think it is weird, and not something the show has earned. Of course I might be misinterpreting that overly-angry reaction she had to Rick, but whatever the underlying reason I didn’t feel it was deserved.

Really the script was engineering it so that Rick could have his moment where he stopped being tolerable and understanding and decided that if he was going to have to shepherd people to safety then they need to stop undermining him. Naturally the deed of killing Shane (an event just hours old, don’t forget) weighs heavily on him. I liked that he pointed out that he had killed his best friend, that it had become impossible to do anything else. In that moment he was laying out his sets of commandments, yes, but he was also seeking forgiveness. Since his own wife had turned her back on him he, more than ever, needed to hear from someone that he had done the right thing.

I’m not sure this is going to be a permanent change of character for Rick, though. The show needs his leadership and decency and I don’t imagine he’ll lose that completely. He’s pissed off now, but it won’t last forever. But if he is a little less patient with his flock when it comes to making decisions and getting things done then I don’t think that would be a bad thing – so long as they stay in line. . .

Again, rather irritating, Carol was whispering in Daryl’s ear that he didn’t need to be Rick’s right hand man. It’s like she’s grooming him to become the next Shane, which is something I sincerely hope doesn’t happen. I very much appreciated how Daryl nonchalantly remarked that Rick had always been good to him. Quite right.

From Carol’s perspective I imagine she’s still feeling bitter and unsure about Rick since he was the last one to be with her daughter and, had he acted differently, could have kept her alive (in fairness I think he could have, too, considering the scrapes he has got other people out of!). Still, it’s irritating. I share Rick’s view that they are a rather ungrateful, conniving set of people and his exasperation has been a long time coming.

The episode opened with the startling appearance of a helicopter flying over the city. It was a stark, unflinching signal that there was life out there that had perhaps more organisation and control than the ragtag bands of survivors we had previously seen. The suggestion was that the herd of zombies that eventually found their way to the farm were drawn in the same direction having seen the helicopter. (I recall in the first episode of this second season, when there was a walker horde encounter on the freeway, there were a brief and subtle remark about how it had appeared strange to see so many all moving with a sense of purpose. By the end of the episode I believe we were allowed to glimpse where this helicopter had been heading.

The large fenced off facility in the woods has surely to be a big part of season 3. It’s impossible to know what they are, who is in there, and what their agenda is. Are they government of some kind? Military? Scientific? Did this facility get rapidly put together in the wake of the outbreak or was it already there as a precautionary measure? Do the people inside know about how the virus exists in everyone? Are they even in some way responsible? All these questions and more spring to mind but they are completely unanswerable. Which is as it should be, naturally. The Walking Dead needed to give people a reason to get excited about a third season and a facility waiting to be discovered seems like a good one to me. Rick’s tribe just can’t keep wandering from one desperate situation to the next, there has to be more progression.

I personally thought the episode’s most enticing prospect was with the character that Andrea encountered in the jungle. I did enjoy her desperate escape, too. It did feel apparent that she was unlikely to be reunited with the rest of the group so I did wonder if we weren’t just going to watch her run to an exhausted collapse where she would meet her end. She didn’t. No. Instead she was ‘saved’ by a strange figure in a hood, wielding a sword and carting around what looked like a couple of armless walkers, chained, and subservient!

What the hell?

Considering that The Walking Dead was launched from a comic book, this was the first moment that felt like a comic book origin. The character in the woods was so outlandish, so extreme and bizarre, it felt too strange to be real. It’ll be interesting to see how the show plays it. This new character immediately feels otherworldly and ultra cool so I expect the first task The Walking Dead will have to deal with is making this strange character retain their allure whilst also making them believable.

I expect the figure in the hood will probably be a female, which might make for an interesting dynamic between Andrea and this newcomer. Whether they get along and become a weird duo remains to be seen, but if it means Andrea’s character can turn the corner from the obnoxious and suicidal traits she’s generally conjured it’ll be an improvement.

This second season of The Walking Dead has been a triumph, for me. I’ve really enjoyed it, and it’s more than answered the question of whether it was able to manage with a longer episode run. (I also know that there were background issues regarding creative control passing away from original showrunner Frank Darabont, which is also something that the show has absorbed without any dip in quality – quite the opposite.) With Shane dead, the secret out about what Rick heard in the facility at the end of last season's finale, it feels like the show has brought itself to a resolution with much of what it had set up and is now set on charting new ground with as close to a clean slate as it can muster. Sorry to see it end, can’t wait to see it return.

What was the best part?

Not often I’ll say this, I imagine, but the scenes with Andrea escaping in the jungle to then be confronted by the hooded figure with the sword were just too cool to ignore. Long after the episode has finished and I’ve been left thinking about all that I saw, that figure in the woods and the walkers chained and following them was what my thoughts kept coming back to. It was altogether too strange and intriguing and, of all the elements this episode laid down for the next season, it was this that had me wanting to see what happens next more than anything else.

What do I think will happen next?

Assuming the figure in the cloak that Andrea encountered is operating alone, then their experiences will perhaps initially be a side plot that ticks along independently. The main plot must surely feature Rick and his group finding (or being found by) the people at the facility close to where they ended up. Whatever and whoever they find there, I expect that even if they are initially offered the hand of friendship then conflict and jeopardy will find them sooner rather than later. The one thing I’ve seen many times over in this genre is that any apparently well-organised, controlling force invariably means deep-down bad news and they aren’t interested in doing the right thing on a humanitarian level.