What happened?
Fuelled by a desire for revenge, Peter spearheads a plan to use the wormholes The Observers send packages from the future through. Interrogating a captured Observer, Peter believes he builds a device he can use but the plan fails. In frustration he removes the tech from the captured Observer's neck and inserts it into himself.
Thoughts
Another good episode, which perhaps came as a surprise since it was always going to be tricky following up the devastation of Etta's death. Straddling the difficult problem of having the main characters grieve whilst also keeping the plot and action pushing forward was always going to be challenging. I did sort of assume that Peter would most likely respond with focused rage, though what I didn't expect was that it would take over and pretty much supplant Olivia and Walter's effectiveness. The episode very much painted Olivia and Walter as weaker, more ineffectual, and thus created the need for Peter to take the drastic action that was needed.
They all failed - only Peter took a step to create the opportunity to level the playing field in their war against The Observers.
Olivia was the heart of the story. Seen at the beginning lying in Etta's bed, symbolically laid out by her grief. Only towards the end did she find the courage to face the video made years ago (though much more recent in her memory) of Etta's birthday. She voiced the pointlessness of it all - that they had survived their encasement in amber and found their daughter after such a long time only to then lose her all over again. Why?
Well, of course, there is no real reason why. Death is often as pointless as it is arbitrary. Though this episode did introduce the concept of wormholes that can allow time travel so, you know, I haven't entirely abandoned the notion that Peter and Olivia won't find a way back to their daughter after all. (Quite how they would manage such a thing and avoid a paradox could be overcome by travelling back in time to another universe. . .! Hey, this is Fringe, nothing is really off the table for this show!) I would be surprised if these wormholes are not used as a plot device in a future episode - possibly even to fulfill the 'First People' concept. It's an interesting card ready to be used, whatever the way of it.
Altogether far more interesting is Peter and what he is going to become. The episode title of 'an origin story' does suggest that we really have witnessed the birth of a whole new persona, which does have powerful connotations. There was a sense that Peter and Olivia's greatest threat now was in losing each other, and that Peter was risking his life. Walter certainly feared it, though like him we were all supposed to think that meant in the literal sense of losing his life. I didn't expect that he would just upgrade himself into more of a machine and therefore erase the old Peter. Although, of course, the erasure of Peter is also something that has occurred before. He is consistently conjured up as a wildcard element in the mix and here he is once more behaving as such.
I'm definitely fascinated to see what he becomes and what he does next, although I know it's going to have a terrible wrench on both Olivia and Walter as, I predict, they see his humanity slip away as he becomes more 'Observer-like'.
There's no question he could be extremely useful. As I said, the episode painted Walter and Olivia has more ineffectual than usual. Walter was baffled by why his plan to use the wormhole to create a blackhole on The Observer's side failed, and Olivia (save for a little bit of ass-kicking action) confessed to hanging on by a thread (even Astrid indicated she didn't need her around) and, by the end, was pleading for Peter to return when the Peter she knew had sacrificed himself for a greater vengeance. I believe it was deliberate, to facilitate that sense of need Peter was feeling justified his drastic action.
The captured Observer was quite the convenient deus ex machina but it was a welcome one. I liked the revelation that they are mostly 'tech', allowing us to imagine how it is the human race eventually developed into these near-omniscient, omnipresent, unfeeling beings. If they didn't behave so dastardly (ruthlessly porting back oxygen-stealing machinery for their own benefit) then there would be something tragic about what became of them (and, by extension, us).
I'm not quite sure how it is The Observers are avoiding creating their own paradox by going back in time and changing the world to suit them - unless they come from a future where this always happened. . .
An odd kind of question is that since the Fringe team are ostensibly battling against what it is human beings eventually become, is there a fight the future kind of plot being put into play where they twist humanity away from that fate? Again, once time travel gets involved and the notion of changing anything gets introduced, paradoxes constantly become a real problem. I have major doubts that Fringe will manage to outwit the same plot entanglements so many other time travel shows and movies have runaground on.
What isn't a real problem is how Fringe has gone from strength to strength in two episodes. Last episode took the bold step of killing off a character you would have probably considered as safe as anyone, and this episode took a main character and has effectively paved the way for having the person they were be overtaken by something else entirely. Brave moves and, with Peter's latest conversion, highly enticing ones. What Peter does next will be fascinating and how Olivia and Walter react to it equally so.
What was the best part?
I really enjoyed the mental skirmishes between The Observer and Peter, particularly the speech about how The Observer considered human activity no more than we would consider the comings and goings of an ant colony. That speech did a lot to explain the level The Observers pitch themselves at and gave me a better grasp of how it is the Fringe team exist in their frame of reference. Peter did remark that The Observer was a liar and I suspect he probably was bluffing a little about humans' unimportance, but still I liked the interplay between the two of them and the payoff towards the end, when it transpired Peter's confidence had been misplaced, was a nice touch.
What do I think will happen next?
It very much pivots on Peter and what kind of capabilities he gets. I still believe that the team will actively pursue the fulfillment of Walter's plan and I also believe that whatever transformation Peter experiences won't be a rapid, sudden shift. In a perfect world Peter will retain his mental faculties and simply become augmented with new skills and abilities that will aid Olivia and Walter in their plan. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if that was what happened for the next episode or two. But then I fear that Peter's humanity will become eroded, dulled - and whether that slide is preventable or reversible could become a key question.
Olivia was the heart of the story. Seen at the beginning lying in Etta's bed, symbolically laid out by her grief. Only towards the end did she find the courage to face the video made years ago (though much more recent in her memory) of Etta's birthday. She voiced the pointlessness of it all - that they had survived their encasement in amber and found their daughter after such a long time only to then lose her all over again. Why?
Well, of course, there is no real reason why. Death is often as pointless as it is arbitrary. Though this episode did introduce the concept of wormholes that can allow time travel so, you know, I haven't entirely abandoned the notion that Peter and Olivia won't find a way back to their daughter after all. (Quite how they would manage such a thing and avoid a paradox could be overcome by travelling back in time to another universe. . .! Hey, this is Fringe, nothing is really off the table for this show!) I would be surprised if these wormholes are not used as a plot device in a future episode - possibly even to fulfill the 'First People' concept. It's an interesting card ready to be used, whatever the way of it.
Altogether far more interesting is Peter and what he is going to become. The episode title of 'an origin story' does suggest that we really have witnessed the birth of a whole new persona, which does have powerful connotations. There was a sense that Peter and Olivia's greatest threat now was in losing each other, and that Peter was risking his life. Walter certainly feared it, though like him we were all supposed to think that meant in the literal sense of losing his life. I didn't expect that he would just upgrade himself into more of a machine and therefore erase the old Peter. Although, of course, the erasure of Peter is also something that has occurred before. He is consistently conjured up as a wildcard element in the mix and here he is once more behaving as such.
I'm definitely fascinated to see what he becomes and what he does next, although I know it's going to have a terrible wrench on both Olivia and Walter as, I predict, they see his humanity slip away as he becomes more 'Observer-like'.
There's no question he could be extremely useful. As I said, the episode painted Walter and Olivia has more ineffectual than usual. Walter was baffled by why his plan to use the wormhole to create a blackhole on The Observer's side failed, and Olivia (save for a little bit of ass-kicking action) confessed to hanging on by a thread (even Astrid indicated she didn't need her around) and, by the end, was pleading for Peter to return when the Peter she knew had sacrificed himself for a greater vengeance. I believe it was deliberate, to facilitate that sense of need Peter was feeling justified his drastic action.
The captured Observer was quite the convenient deus ex machina but it was a welcome one. I liked the revelation that they are mostly 'tech', allowing us to imagine how it is the human race eventually developed into these near-omniscient, omnipresent, unfeeling beings. If they didn't behave so dastardly (ruthlessly porting back oxygen-stealing machinery for their own benefit) then there would be something tragic about what became of them (and, by extension, us).
I'm not quite sure how it is The Observers are avoiding creating their own paradox by going back in time and changing the world to suit them - unless they come from a future where this always happened. . .
An odd kind of question is that since the Fringe team are ostensibly battling against what it is human beings eventually become, is there a fight the future kind of plot being put into play where they twist humanity away from that fate? Again, once time travel gets involved and the notion of changing anything gets introduced, paradoxes constantly become a real problem. I have major doubts that Fringe will manage to outwit the same plot entanglements so many other time travel shows and movies have runaground on.
What isn't a real problem is how Fringe has gone from strength to strength in two episodes. Last episode took the bold step of killing off a character you would have probably considered as safe as anyone, and this episode took a main character and has effectively paved the way for having the person they were be overtaken by something else entirely. Brave moves and, with Peter's latest conversion, highly enticing ones. What Peter does next will be fascinating and how Olivia and Walter react to it equally so.
What was the best part?
I really enjoyed the mental skirmishes between The Observer and Peter, particularly the speech about how The Observer considered human activity no more than we would consider the comings and goings of an ant colony. That speech did a lot to explain the level The Observers pitch themselves at and gave me a better grasp of how it is the Fringe team exist in their frame of reference. Peter did remark that The Observer was a liar and I suspect he probably was bluffing a little about humans' unimportance, but still I liked the interplay between the two of them and the payoff towards the end, when it transpired Peter's confidence had been misplaced, was a nice touch.
What do I think will happen next?
It very much pivots on Peter and what kind of capabilities he gets. I still believe that the team will actively pursue the fulfillment of Walter's plan and I also believe that whatever transformation Peter experiences won't be a rapid, sudden shift. In a perfect world Peter will retain his mental faculties and simply become augmented with new skills and abilities that will aid Olivia and Walter in their plan. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if that was what happened for the next episode or two. But then I fear that Peter's humanity will become eroded, dulled - and whether that slide is preventable or reversible could become a key question.
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