Fringe: S04 Ep20 – Worlds Apart

What happened?

The two universes are confronted by a crisis when the Fringe departments discover that Mr. Jones’ plan is to merge both universes together until they crumple and create one singularity, one universe he can control to his own ends. When the plan to use Nick Lane to track Mr. Jones down and stop him fails, both Fringe divisions are faced with the only viable alternative: to sever the bridge between the worlds permanently.

Thoughts

I am going to give myself a minor pat on the back here for predictive instinct. Sure, when I recently suggested that Mr. Jones’ plan might have been to merge the two universes to create a unified whole I actually thought it was too crazy to really, truly be the way of things – yet in the same breath it was difficult to imagine anything else, too. And so it was. Mr. Jones was collapsing two worlds to eventually create one world, and the neat get-out clause was that he had a plan to survive such an event via the safe zone he had created for himself. I liked that the episode about the small town – Welcome to Westfield – that was ravaged in a merged universe turned out to be a minor instance of the major grand plan; the writers basically gave us the truth about what Mr. Jones was up to on a small scale quite a while back.

This episode was also clever in setting up the usual concept of there being a terrible occurrence set to befall the world and only Olivia and co on hand to try and thwart it. The ruse here was that, ultimately, despite them finding leads and getting Nick Lane on their side to help out (another nice touch: the Cortexiphan kids being intrinsic to the plot, Walter and Belly's terrible tests once again threatening to destroy worlds!), their plans to save the world were not going to work out the way the formula usually dictates. Our heroes didn’t save the day, at least not in the way they wanted. Their victory was a bittersweet compromise.

It definitely did feel like a sense of loss, one side saying goodbye to the other. In some sense it made the distance that has been between them throughout the season more acute. What I mean is a bugbear of mine has been how much we haven’t seen the two sides interacting. We haven’t seen Olivia and Alt-Olivia getting to know one another, sort out their differences and work themselves out. Same goes for Walter and Walternate. The only characters that have had that kind of relationship were Lincoln and Astrid with their respective counterparts, and they were always enjoyable moments. Far from being a criticism, this lack of resolution actually added to the pathos of this episode. The characters just didn’t have enough time and didn’t realise it until time ran out.

It had taken this long before Walter and Walternate actually came face to face, and I liked that Walter was concerned he would be considered a fool or ignored by his counterpart. Perhaps the fact that Walternate was, for the first time, confronting the man that kidnapped his son (and in this universe prompted his death) ought to have been given more consideration, but most likely the episode didn’t want to distract too much from the drama in focus. The moment where they talked briefly was a wonderful moment, and the same goes for Olivia and her counterpart (although the dialogue about the rainbows felt a bit twee at first, the later pay off line about always looking up rescued it).

The fact that they were all saying a permanent goodbye was really emphasised by the sense that there was so much more they could have done and said together – if the show had seen to it that they were all cosy and knitted together like a family it might have been a different, more emotionally-rending type of scene, but I think the feeling that there was more that could have been done worked. There was some minor tension generated from the notion that Peter could disappear once the bridge was severed, yet this wasn’t a prospect that was completely played up and mined for extra stress. The bridge was closed and Peter remained. Since, like The Observer said, this was his world now and he had dragged his Olivia into it then anything else would have felt like a wrench too far.

I have to wonder if Alt-Broyles and Alt-Nina are still in the main universe Over Here, though. I get the impression they must be, since that was where we last saw them. Interesting, really. What on earth are they going to do with them now? Lincoln, also, disappeared to the other side so he could hook up with Alt-Olivia. That’s clearly been an idea that was seeded a few episodes back, perhaps to thin down the cast members and make things more manageable and focussed. I mean, I don’t know where the rest of this season is going to take things but I get the impression that we’re not going to be treated to too much ‘Over There’ action any more. I might be wrong on that, but Over Here has always really been the key driver of the plot and things that happened Over There were generally only shown because they effected Over Here. Now the bridge has been severed then that appears to have been removed.

I say “appears” because there is still the matter of Mr. Jones, and he still possesses the capacity to move between worlds using that material he gathered. There are implications therefore about what that may mean for Over There. The bridge being severed will mean that their world will no longer heal, but if Mr. Jones punches another hole to the other side and journeys over there will that not create further disruptions and chaos all over again? Possibly that danger is what the remaining episodes of the season will concern themselves with; dealing with Jones and his army of mutated bat-monster acolytes! This episode did actually feel like a finale, really, so the remaining episodes are like an intriguing overhang to the cliffhanger, and I am certainly interested to see where Fringe plans on moving to next.

One very plain oversight (potential oversight, perhaps) is that the importance of Olivia to Mr. Jones hasn’t been made apparent. He went to great trouble to kidnap her and test her and he delivered a threatening promise that she was capable of so much more than even she knew. Yet, had the bridge not been severed, Olivia would have been wiped out with the rest of the universes, so what was it about her that Mr. Jones had been after? Would Olivia have survived also? Or was it always Mr. Jones’ plan to have them sever the universes? It did seem like a quick and easy fix that he surely would have allowed for, so maybe it was what he wanted them to do all along and his masterplan is not yet complete.

The obvious pressing concern is formed from what was shown in the previous episode. It was established there appeared to be just the one universe in the future, so we have to figure that the bridge severing the link is one that really is permanent. And when it was stated that Olivia and Peter and Walter once saved the world I suppose we have now seen the instance where they did just that. They stopped the two worlds from collapsing and now each world is apart, as the title suggests. Now what remains are for The Observers to step into the picture and begin to take control of Over Here, and there’s also the matter of William Bell set to do something dastardly to Olivia, all before Walter and Peter and Astrid entomb themselves in Amber. . .

Fringe may have to go down some kind of future-averting ruse to avoid getting stale, but there’s every reason to believe that just because they’re now down to one universe the scale of their problems is going to be lessened any.

What was the best part?

The final farewells take the honours. Walter talking with Walternate was a fine scene, and one that ought to have been allowed more time to breathe (since it’s almost surely the one and only time we’ll ever see it) but what little I got I enjoyed. Same too for Olivia and Alt-Olivia, another pairing I wish I’d seen more of but didn’t get to. As mentioned, that sense of waste was probably the entire point so my feelings of remorse are precisely what were intended.

What do I think will happen next?

It has to be about cleaning up house of Mr. Jones once and for all. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to spring Alt-Nina out of her prison cell. As also stated, it occurs to me that Mr. Jones might have intended for everything that has happened to have happened. Maybe he wanted everyone to think he intended to collapses the universes when really he just wanted them to shut down the links from one to the other. I don’t really believe that, but at the same time it feels odd to me that he didn’t make precaution against such an obvious block to his goal. I know he sent Broyles to plant a deactivating device on the bridge in a previous episode, and I have to assume the goal there was to destroy the place but keep the bridge open making it so that the link could not be closed. . .?

Whatever, I have to believe that Mr. Jones still presents a great threat and, even if Olivia is part of his Plan B, his Plan B has probably got the makings of a whopping season finale written all over it.