What happened?
Whilst Peter has gone
solo in his quest to kill Windmark, Olivia ventures out to continue Walter’s
plan and procure a large magnet. She is captured but manages to escape her
captors whilst they wait to turn her in for the bounty on her head. Peter’s
plans to kill Windmark hit a snag when he is caught in a fight. Undeterred, he
sets about putting Windmark back on the path that will lead to his death and
it’s only Olivia seeking him out and pleading with him to remove the tech
before he loses his humanity that wins out. Peter cuts the tech out of his head
and Windmark survives.
Thoughts
I have to say that
was rather more shortlived than I expected! Peter’s removal of the tech that
could have been him change into more of an Observer happened far sooner than I
would have predicted. Perhaps it’s purely because this final season is shorter
than the others and, of course, since it is the final season then there’s an
awful lot that needs to get resolved. It could be taken, however, that these
past few episodes which have seen Peter change into the enemy only to abruptly
stop after a few episodes have been a bit of a non-event.
I’d disagree. I think
they have been very illuminating. Firstly, for the sake of dramatic television,
they’ve been really entertaining and intriguing. In terms of action, the fight
scenes have been totally cool (this episode, in particular, being really
special). And watching Peter’s transformation has been a disturbing,
captivating one. For that alone Fringe can be forgiven for taking this plot
route.
Perhaps more
importantly seeing what happened to Peter when he used the tech has allowed us
to better understand what The Observers actually are, and I have found this
most beneficial. To have it explained and shown about how it is they can
predict future events, for example, has been great. Without the explanation The
Observers could have been perceived as these all-knowing beings, with limitless
capability. Having it shown that they can calculate the trajectory of events by
knowing key events that have taken place is a lot more grounded. (Oh, don’t get
me wrong, it’s not particularly believable but in the context of the Fringe universe it’s acceptable.)
Their ability to
teleport is a little more woolly, but it’s OK. We can appreciate that it’s
another skill that comes along with the tech that Peter put into his head and
quite what the limitations and boundaries of that are perhaps just depends on
the individual. What has been most pertinent about Peter’s minor foray into
becoming an Observer is in allowing us to comprehend what they are and where
they came from. Previously I considered them to be a version of the human race
from many centuries into the future, a version of us that had evolved into
the bald, super-intelligent yet emotionally distant beings. Now I have learned
that they are not particularly far removed from us at all and it’s
fundamentally technology that has transformed and, curiously, enslaved them.
As has often been the
case with Fringe it’s true love that trumps technology – specifically Olivia
and Peter. When universes collapse and Peter steps into the breach to forge an
entirely new one that erases him from existence, Olivia is there to sustain the
love and bring him back. And here again, just as Peter is on the verge of
losing himself forever, Olivia is there with nothing but love to bring him
back. As she stated, the key difference between humans and The Observers is
their capacity to feel. Far from being their Achilles heel it’s their greatest
strength.
The matter of whether
or not the Fringe team, in their battle against The Observers, are doing
anything that can avert the future entirely is another matter. Can The Observers somehow
be thwarted so that they never exist at all? And what does that mean for the
space-time continuum if they do? Will Etta ever be able to come back or will
she truly be memorialised as a figurehead of the resistance once humanity frees
itself? I am expecting some form of happy resolution to all of this once the
very last credits rolls, so I can’t help but wonder what shape that will take.
I still feel unable to comprehend the idea that Peter and Olivia will have
inherit a future without their daughter. . .
It was good to see
Olivia being pushed back into the fray. She had become a little sidelined
during the past couple of episodes but, as I expected, she didn’t crumple. She
got on with the task of continuing the plan without Peter and, at the same
time, keeping her busy mind whirring on how she was going to get him back. The
actual mission to go and get the magnet from the people at the small farm
commune felt like an odd foray. I am not quite sure what the significance of
the woman who had some kind of spiritual gift was supposed to be about, but it
did get me a little worried. Olivia listened to what she had to say, and took
in the astonishing truth that the woman knew she had a bullet on her (and
wouldn’t that come in useful later!), and then she hit the woman with her
version of the truth: no matter how mystical and wondrous it may all seem, it
basically just comes down to anomalies and numbers.
The woman wasn’t
particularly perturbed by what she heard, and this made me wonder if Fringe was sowing the seeds for a more spiritual end to its science-heavy journey.
That the solution to the future of mankind, which leads to The Observers and
their tech, could be averted by a more new-age path.. . That idea worries me.
It would feel like a cheap cop-out. I really liked Olivia’s clinical answer and
her convictions that the world is full of many strange and inexplicable things
that don’t need a spiritual rationale applied. Fringe has been blessedly free
of such things, and to take that leftfield turn now wouldn’t sit right. Lost and Battlestar Galactica all saw out their finales in that manner, but the
pair of them had those notions rooted in their core from their inception.
Fringe hasn’t been made that way and I’ll take a lot of convincing if it
tries to twist itself into that shape of things to come.
Now that Olivia has
the big magnet it does make me wonder what on Earth Walter’s plan actually is.
I must confess that I have rather lost track of what materials they have picked
up over their scavenger hunts during these episodes, though I recall there is
still the small Observer boy to be tracked down and surely he is a part of the
plan. So we have a big magnet, which presumably will be fashioned as part of
some large device, and the Observer boy potentially to be a key part of it.
Call me crazy, but I can’t help thinking of X-Men and Professor X and his machine
that allows him to telepathically connect to all mutants. I wonder if Walter
might just build something like that, which would allow Observer boy to connect
to all the other Observers. . .
OK, sure, you can
call me crazy – that does sound pretty nuts.
What was the best
part?
Peter’s scrap with
Windmark was the highlight. I didn’t realise it at the time but this was surely
Peter’s last bit of action with Observer powers, so at least they made it a
good one. The choreography and coolness of teleporting and grappling and
fighting were ingeniously put to use – good enough to have been a part of a
blockbuster fight sequence for sure. Windmark wasn’t taken down easily, of
course – he’s going to be around right up to the finale, no doubt about it. . .
What do I think
will happen next?
OK, so barring the
idea that Walter’s plan isn’t to build a big ‘Magneto machine’ for Observers, I
would get myself back down to more basic next steps. With Peter back on the
team Walter’s plan is their major course of advancement so I should hope the
radio they found in the pocket universe will be put to use in tracking
down the mysterious Donald and Observer boy. I suppose there ought to be a reason
why Donald's identity has been kept secret, too – and potentially that truth could
lead to something further. Right now I’ll hazard a guess that Donald is either
from a different time or a different universe, and his existence is proof that
there’s a way to get rid of The Observers without wrecking the space-time
continuum.
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