Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Stegall
Fringe
“Over There, Part 2”
Fox, 9/10PM Thursdays
Written by Jeff Pinkner & J.H. Wyman & Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Akiva Goldsman
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the episode is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
“I’ve seen strange. This… this is something else.” —Peter Bishop
Seldom have I seen as satisfying a season wrap-up as in this season finale of Fringe. All our questions answered, plot points resolved, romance forwarded, and even a character death. I wish all the shows I watch were this well written.
Having crossed over to the alternate universe last week, Walter and Olivia continue to try to find Peter. Walter was shot by AltLivia last week (the red-haired version of our Olivia), and is in an emergency room. William Bell (Leonard Nimoy, in what is probably his last acting role) leads Olivia in a search, and even blocks the AltFringe team long enough for her to spirit Walter away. Having been healed by the very advanced techniques used in this universe, Walter is bubbling with excitement.
Walter: Why did you remove parts of my brain?
Shortly, however, he is bickering with Bell, in a scene worthy of a serious version of The Odd Couple. Bell and Walter discuss means of getting back to our universe while Olivia searches for Peter. This involves first finding her doppelganger, confronting her, fighting her (in a superbly edited scene), and then pretending to be her. She teams up with AltCharlie to find Peter, and manages even with red hair to convince Peter that she’s herself. In a wonderfully low-key yet tender scene, she tells Peter why he has to come home.
Olivia: You have to come back, because you have to be with me.
Having finally broken through that reserve, Olivia plants a kiss on Peter, he returns it, and much of the audience bursts into applause. Finally! But, this being television, we know things cannot be that easy for the course of true love. In trying to return to the Known Universe, Olivia gets caught in a crossfire with the AltFringe team, including her doppelganger. William Bell sacrifices himself so that the team can get home (once again proving, as only Leonard Nimoy can, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one). Except that the team members who arrive back home are not all what they seem to be. The Olivia who comes home to her apartment sports a fancy tattoo on the back of her neck—she’s the AltLivia. The “real” Olivia, our Olivia, is back in the other universe in a sensory-deprivation cell, screaming at a coldly smiling Walternate.
Next fall is going to rock.
As a cop show, Fringe is only middle-of-the-road. It’s still smarter than FlashForward, which allows FBI agents to interrogate suspects while armed. And it’s far ahead of shows like Bones, which have essentially abandoned all pretense at forensics in favor of an endlessly recomplicated soap opera. Fringe may have started out as a rehash of The X-Files, but it has already evolved into its own, unique brand of science fiction. The producers have already stated in interviews that this is really a family drama with a side of Sci-Fi, but even with that caveat, I appreciate the fact that they are treating the science-fiction side with respect. I love the introduction of the alternate universe, where things can be as inside-out as one likes, without stretching the imagination too far.
Walter: When our two universes first interacted, it caused soft spots on the other side, but it was much worse here. The laws of physics were turned into mere suggestions.
The differences between Us and Them are both amusing and tragic. Peter’s new apartment boasts framed covers of comic books such as Red Lantern and Red Arrow, Batman has red insignia, and Walternate’s desk furniture includes an autographed photo of an elderly JFK. The Brooklyn Philharmonic is playing at the Orpheum Opera House where the team switches universes, and the movie theatre across the street is showing Indiana Jones 6: The Hex of the Hydra. But as soon as we get a giggler like these, we see the Transamerica Pyramid—the signature of the San Francisco skyline—in downtown Manhatan. We learn about the courts declaring the quarantine victims encased in amber to be legally dead. On a drive through the countryside, Walter sees the effects of the Blight, which has devastated all vegetation (apparently including coffee). The nurse at the ER is questioning a man about the bees that stung him—were they bigger than a grapefruit? Yikes!
I hope that the writers, having established such a detailed and engrossing alternate universe, don’t abandon it. I would be happy if most of next season took place inside this alternate universe, with its inside-out variations on the known. I loved Peter’s helicopter ride over Manhattan—excuse me, Manhatan—with the guided tour of Fringe events in the city. The idea of a Madison Square Garden entombing 10,000 people is nasty enough, but apparently whatever happened to Boston is so terrible no one will even talk about it. Walternate tells Peter that “that man”, i.e., our Walter, caused “soft spots” on his side of the universe, but unleashed hell on this (the alternate) universe. That alone could fuel a season full of interesting events to investigate.
The “twist” at the end virtually guarantees that we will see more of this world, if not William Bell. I certainly hope we’ll be seeing more of AltCharlie again; it would be great if he wound up rescuing Our Olivia. I have a feeling that Walternate’s treatment of her is an attempt to frighten her enough to trigger the Cortexiphan in her system. If so, it looks like it will work. Of course, that will also make it possible for Olivia to simply open a door to our universe and come home, but something tells me that Walternate has provided for that.
Which brings me to the Transformer. That’s what I keep thinking of when I get a look at that huge machine Walternate was building in his basement. It didn’t take long for Peter to figure out that the power source for this mysterious contraption is himself. And may I say, that was one of Jackson’s best moments in this episode—the genius putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, and quietly realizing how thoroughly he has been used and deceived by his biological father. This guy is going to have more daddy issues than Oedipus Rex. Anyway, I have to wonder if Walternate has not decided that Olivia will make just as good a battery as Peter. Therein lies enough fuel for several more episodes of this show. I just love this.
Acting chops, again, go to John Noble for making Walter/Walternate so different that I could believe there were two different actors playing them. Someday I hope to see him in a role where his character does not have Father Issues. Anna Torv was once again on her best game, switching between AltLivia’s military swagger and Olivia’s subdued, competent calm. The fight scene between them was beautifully choreographed. And Joshua Jackson once again proved that subtlety can outshine even the most egregious scenery chewing. I liked the way he let sadness creep into his voice as Peter discovers how his real father has deceived him—nothing obtrusive, just enough to show us that it’s there. The kiss scene could have been laughably overplayed, but Jackson gives Peter enough reserve and enough passion to sell it as the expression of an intense love, the kind that doesn’t need fireworks to be real. Kudos to Jackson and Torv for making that pivotal scene a grown-up moment.
I cannot single out the actors without also praising the writing and directing in this episode. Writer-director Akiva Goldsman, in particular, brought a sense of wonder to almost every scene in this otherworld, without making it a tour of weirdness. The little things that make the otherworld different from ours were slipped in subtly, without fanfare, allowing Goldsman to focus on the actors and characters in a way many science fiction shows do not. In fact, I would say that the inability to balance the sense of wonder inherent in good sci-fi, against the need for a character-oriented medium to play out relationship themes, is one of the greatest failures of most TV science fiction. All too often, the gee-whiz element, which we must have, overwhelms the ordinary moments that ground us in a character. Goldsman avoids that trap very deftly. Walternate’s conversation with Peter, Olivia’s confrontation scene with herself, even Peter’s smile as he accepts welcome-home pie from Astrid, all convey more than just the words that are spoken.
As I mentioned before, the genius of this series was in the way the many loose ends (and not-so-loose ends) of previous episodes got tied up. The people-encased-in-amber harks back to the second episode of the series, for crying out loud! Last week brought back two earlier characters, and this one dealt with the back-story of several episodes, including the one where Bell took out parts of Walter’s brain. This kind of attention to detail builds a believable universe, the kind where the writers can introduce the idea of an alternate universe, or a machine that can destroy one, and have us believe it. My hat’s off to these writers, who have crafted a superb second half of this season.
Finally, one element of the show that I cannot overlook: the hidden puzzles. Apart from the code embedded in the commercial breaks, tonight’s episode had an all-out warning. In one scene, a blackboard in the background holds the phrase “a demon’s twist rusts”. This could be a comment on the show itself, of course, but if you rearrange the letters, you discover that the phrase is an anagram for “Don’t trust Sam Weiss”. Weiss, if you recall, was the bowling-alley guru that Nina Sharp sent Olivia to at the beginning of this season. I always thought there was more to that guy than appeared on the surface. Now we have a hint that he might be more than he seems. I love insider stuff like this.
Comparisons between this series and The X-Files are inevitable. The corollary I hope to prove out in the future, however, is the way The X-Files took off in Season Three. The first two seasons finished so low in the rankings that they could only be classified as “cult hits”. But in the third season, the 18-to-49 demo discovered the show, and ratings took off. In fact, The X-Files’ high-water mark was the fourth season, which had the show finishing 11th in all broadcast series. Maybe Fox has found this formula again. The show has been renewed already for the third season, so maybe some network exec has been reading his network’s history and believes the lightning could strike again. If any show is ever going to bring back those heady days when Fox was too cool for school, this is the show that will do it. At least it has the chutzpah for a show built on an epic scale.
Of course, all that depends on ratings, and I may be absolutely talking through my hat. The ratings for Fringe dropped 13% from last week, finished with a 2.0 rating based on 5.7 million viewers. It may well be the best science fiction show left standing, but for now it’s still an all-too-well kept secret. But then, once upon a time, so were The X-Files. Here’s hoping lightning strikes twice.
See you next fall.