What happened?
The quest to recover Walter's forgotten plan leads the group back to his old laboratory where they discover a camera has been ambered. Whilst Etta and Peter infiltrate secret areas of The Observers base, Olivia gets to know one of the human loyalists. Etta takes him away but releases him due to the pity she saw in her mother's eyes - he in turn vows to join the resistance.
Walter recovers the camera and watches a video of himself explaining that the clues revealing the masterplan to take down The Observers have been scattered around and that whoever is watching the video must find the courage and resolve to find them and complete the scheme.
Thoughts
I said last week that the first episode of this new season felt like it was rushed and cut corners to get through what it needed to do. I also said that it felt like Fringe used its first episode to put down a marker about where things where at now and to give the new season a platform to build from. Well, if this episode is any indication, my feelings have borne out because this felt like a far better, more confident return to form for the show. The characters had room to breathe and develop, there was no high-octane action tension to rush events through – it just felt like an altogether more assured outing.
The episode started with a similar dream sequence like Peter’s from last week, concerning the arrival of The Observers, only this time depicted from Olivia’s point of view. The scene showed that some kind of explosion must have immediately followed that rendered both Olivia and Peter injured and, during that time, they must have lost Etta. I am getting the impression that this may have been the very last time they saw her, thus why the recurring dream is so strong for both Peter and Olivia.
Peter also remarked that it had been just a few months for them, but years for Etta – suggesting that the resistance movement Olivia and Peter and Walter mounted before they ambered themselves was quickly started and quickly over. The world has endured The Observers for a long, long time compared to the brief period of oppression our heroes experienced. This disparity between Olivia and Peter as parents, particularly Olivia as a mother to Etta, and the fact that Etta had fundamentally grown up into a tough world and had barely known them, was primarily what the episode began to explore.
Olivia had the more pivotal encounter with Etta, which I shall get to, but it’s worth mentioning that Peter had his moment where he saw the rage that existed in his daughter as they walked through The Observer laboratory and glimpsed various experiments in progress. When she saw her friend (who I can only think of as Desmond!) as just a head she lost her cool and wanted to blow everything to get some payback. Only Peter there to hold her down and promise her that their time would come stopped her, and a good thing it was too. I did particularly like that moment, though, as not only did it show us the difference between Etta and a traditional heroine but it really made me buy the idea of Peter as father and steadying hand. It’s taken a while but he’s grown into himself. Strangely, I buy the idea of Peter and Olivia as parents more easily than I did them as a profoundly in love couple. The notion that they are together and in love as a trio, and that it’s essential they remain together for each other, feels much more vital. The stakes are higher now than they ever felt like when it was just about Olivia and Peter getting and staying together.
The main plot of the episode has, ultimately, made Fringe feel a bit like Harry Potter in search of Horcruxes! They are now in the hunt for pieces of video (possibly, or maybe it’ll be other clues) that will allow them to piece together Walter’s masterplan. There didn’t seem to be much of an indication from the video that was recovered about where the next clue could be found – but possibly there’ll be something embedded subliminally, or in slow-motion, or there’ll be something cryptic in the words Walter used. Obviously he’s not going to film himself spelling out where to go for the next clue in case the film were to fall into the wrong hands!
Fringe has been down this route before, during the third season, when the gang were set on trying to find all the different bits and pieces that would make the machine that Peter eventually climbed into to connect the universes. So a treasure hunt isn’t breaking new ground, and as a quest to give this new season structure I am quite happy about how it will play out. It may become particularly fraught should The Observers get wind of the fact that there is a plan scattered about the place that could defeat them – then it will turn into a more competitive race so I can well see that becoming a factor. There’s no doubt that The Observers would make formidable opponents in such a competition!
The emotional heft of the episode was found in the interrogation of the security guard. Etta’s no-nonsense approach to interrogation was against Olivia’s softly-softly approach, but I feel Etta made a fair point about how the world had changed and that this man was not worth her pity. The fact that he did turn out to be lying about the family he had told Olivia about was a particularly lovely touch. I liked that he had been wily enough to lie, and I liked that Olivia had fallen for it. She has a lot to learn about how people in this new world work, but the very fact that she isn’t so tainted the way an entire generation has been was the very thing the security guard saw in her eyes that made him want to fight on her side.
Likewise, Etta seeing the pity for her reflected in Olivia’s eyes, caused her to show pity of her own and it worked out to be a good move. So whilst it was a relatively quiet return to the action for Olivia, and she misread her subject, she still came out of it looking like the best hope for mankind in the fight against their enslavement. These kinds of reactions just pave the way for Olivia to really step up and become a true saviour that will vanquish oppression. Whilst I do hope Fringe is going to pursue a more interesting and convoluted path before it finishes forever I certainly won’t mind seeing a bit of good old-fashioned, good guys beat bad guys action. It can’t be too long before we see Olivia go into kick ass mode and start showing the future how she can rock it old-school. It may certainly cause Etta to look at her in a totally different light!
What was the best part?
I really enjoyed seeing Peter and Etta go beyond enemy lines and give us a glimpse into the twisted world of The Observers and their experiments. Presumably they have some kind of agenda, some reason to be conducting the things they are doing, but God only knows what it is. All I know is I liked the extra sense of tension it added to things – and then Etta seeing Desmond’s (I know, I know!) head in a jar and getting ready to open up a can of inappropriate whoop ass was an extra nudge towards everything turning to shit that loaned the episode an extra injection of high drama.
What do I think will happen next?
Well, the treasure hunt is afoot. So now the gang will be following Walter’s videotape breadcrumbs and try to track down more pieces of the plan. I fully expect there to have been some kind of cryptic clue within the videotape that Walter, or someone, will decipher and they will figure out where they have to go next. I also expect this breadcrumb clue-hunting to occupy the next few episodes at least, before things get to move onto the next phase. The drama will come from how long it takes for The Observers to get wise to what our heroes are up to and either try to stop them, or beat them to it.
I said last week that the first episode of this new season felt like it was rushed and cut corners to get through what it needed to do. I also said that it felt like Fringe used its first episode to put down a marker about where things where at now and to give the new season a platform to build from. Well, if this episode is any indication, my feelings have borne out because this felt like a far better, more confident return to form for the show. The characters had room to breathe and develop, there was no high-octane action tension to rush events through – it just felt like an altogether more assured outing.
The episode started with a similar dream sequence like Peter’s from last week, concerning the arrival of The Observers, only this time depicted from Olivia’s point of view. The scene showed that some kind of explosion must have immediately followed that rendered both Olivia and Peter injured and, during that time, they must have lost Etta. I am getting the impression that this may have been the very last time they saw her, thus why the recurring dream is so strong for both Peter and Olivia.
Peter also remarked that it had been just a few months for them, but years for Etta – suggesting that the resistance movement Olivia and Peter and Walter mounted before they ambered themselves was quickly started and quickly over. The world has endured The Observers for a long, long time compared to the brief period of oppression our heroes experienced. This disparity between Olivia and Peter as parents, particularly Olivia as a mother to Etta, and the fact that Etta had fundamentally grown up into a tough world and had barely known them, was primarily what the episode began to explore.
Olivia had the more pivotal encounter with Etta, which I shall get to, but it’s worth mentioning that Peter had his moment where he saw the rage that existed in his daughter as they walked through The Observer laboratory and glimpsed various experiments in progress. When she saw her friend (who I can only think of as Desmond!) as just a head she lost her cool and wanted to blow everything to get some payback. Only Peter there to hold her down and promise her that their time would come stopped her, and a good thing it was too. I did particularly like that moment, though, as not only did it show us the difference between Etta and a traditional heroine but it really made me buy the idea of Peter as father and steadying hand. It’s taken a while but he’s grown into himself. Strangely, I buy the idea of Peter and Olivia as parents more easily than I did them as a profoundly in love couple. The notion that they are together and in love as a trio, and that it’s essential they remain together for each other, feels much more vital. The stakes are higher now than they ever felt like when it was just about Olivia and Peter getting and staying together.
The main plot of the episode has, ultimately, made Fringe feel a bit like Harry Potter in search of Horcruxes! They are now in the hunt for pieces of video (possibly, or maybe it’ll be other clues) that will allow them to piece together Walter’s masterplan. There didn’t seem to be much of an indication from the video that was recovered about where the next clue could be found – but possibly there’ll be something embedded subliminally, or in slow-motion, or there’ll be something cryptic in the words Walter used. Obviously he’s not going to film himself spelling out where to go for the next clue in case the film were to fall into the wrong hands!
Fringe has been down this route before, during the third season, when the gang were set on trying to find all the different bits and pieces that would make the machine that Peter eventually climbed into to connect the universes. So a treasure hunt isn’t breaking new ground, and as a quest to give this new season structure I am quite happy about how it will play out. It may become particularly fraught should The Observers get wind of the fact that there is a plan scattered about the place that could defeat them – then it will turn into a more competitive race so I can well see that becoming a factor. There’s no doubt that The Observers would make formidable opponents in such a competition!
The emotional heft of the episode was found in the interrogation of the security guard. Etta’s no-nonsense approach to interrogation was against Olivia’s softly-softly approach, but I feel Etta made a fair point about how the world had changed and that this man was not worth her pity. The fact that he did turn out to be lying about the family he had told Olivia about was a particularly lovely touch. I liked that he had been wily enough to lie, and I liked that Olivia had fallen for it. She has a lot to learn about how people in this new world work, but the very fact that she isn’t so tainted the way an entire generation has been was the very thing the security guard saw in her eyes that made him want to fight on her side.
Likewise, Etta seeing the pity for her reflected in Olivia’s eyes, caused her to show pity of her own and it worked out to be a good move. So whilst it was a relatively quiet return to the action for Olivia, and she misread her subject, she still came out of it looking like the best hope for mankind in the fight against their enslavement. These kinds of reactions just pave the way for Olivia to really step up and become a true saviour that will vanquish oppression. Whilst I do hope Fringe is going to pursue a more interesting and convoluted path before it finishes forever I certainly won’t mind seeing a bit of good old-fashioned, good guys beat bad guys action. It can’t be too long before we see Olivia go into kick ass mode and start showing the future how she can rock it old-school. It may certainly cause Etta to look at her in a totally different light!
What was the best part?
I really enjoyed seeing Peter and Etta go beyond enemy lines and give us a glimpse into the twisted world of The Observers and their experiments. Presumably they have some kind of agenda, some reason to be conducting the things they are doing, but God only knows what it is. All I know is I liked the extra sense of tension it added to things – and then Etta seeing Desmond’s (I know, I know!) head in a jar and getting ready to open up a can of inappropriate whoop ass was an extra nudge towards everything turning to shit that loaned the episode an extra injection of high drama.
What do I think will happen next?
Well, the treasure hunt is afoot. So now the gang will be following Walter’s videotape breadcrumbs and try to track down more pieces of the plan. I fully expect there to have been some kind of cryptic clue within the videotape that Walter, or someone, will decipher and they will figure out where they have to go next. I also expect this breadcrumb clue-hunting to occupy the next few episodes at least, before things get to move onto the next phase. The drama will come from how long it takes for The Observers to get wise to what our heroes are up to and either try to stop them, or beat them to it.
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