Fringe Summer Rewatch: #212 "Johari Window" ~ Fringe Television - Fan Site for the FOX TV Series Fringe

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #212 "Johari Window"

      Email Post       8/17/2011 08:45:00 PM      



"Three dead cops and a missing boy." - Olivia Dunham


Join us for our Fringe Summer re-watch, where we review every episode of Fringe during the summer hiatus. Comments are welcome as we dig into the connections made over three seasons.


This is the story of Edina. A typical small town in America with an incessant "buzzing". This episode begins with boy named John who is found trying to run away from home and in typical Fringe fashion he is not what he seems. A police officer takes him back to the station and finds out exactly how different he is en route. John is one of the deformed people that are rumored to live in the area, but he is the first to be photographed once they reach the station. As the photograph is loading two more deformed men barge into the station and shoot the cops, taking the boy with them. Little John apologizes as he is pulled through the door, tear tracks running down his cheeks.



When the case pops up and the picture of the boy is discovered, the case is naturally put into the Fringe division. Of course Broyles warns Olivia before they leave for Edina that with three cops dead and this being the first sign of proof that the secret of the deformed people is obviously a well kept secret that some people want kept a secret and that she should watch her back while on the case. Broyles actually looked concerned. I think he is beginning to settle into a more protective role over the Fringe team with a growing soft spot for each member.


Team Fringe travels to Edina and after Walter sings a lovely tune about artichokes and elephants to the "Edina Hum" they talk with the town Sheriff and show him the picture of the boy. The Sheriff tells them that he's heard the stories but never seen picture proof of "one". After a long day of investigating they all pack into the SUV to head back to a hotel out of town. Walter is apparently zonked after a long day of playing scientist again and falls asleep in the back while Peter and Olivia talk in the front. They're in the middle of talking about Walter and his fear of leaving the house when an oncoming truck swerves at them and drives them off the road and into a ditch a ways into the woods. Walter is still asleep while Olivia is knocked out and Peter wakes to see a monster get out of the truck and he begins shooting at them. Peter is able to get Olivia's gun from its holster and return fire, wounding the monster and he drives off. A back up team of cops arrive to help them out and collect any evidence when a call comes in that a truck was spotted abandoned a mile up the road back toward Edina. They rush to the scene only to find an ordinary man dead in the woods, having tried to escape on foot. Peter appears to be silently upset over having killed a man and Olivia shares a vague story of herself and her first kill, explaining to him that he hadn't had a choice and that he had done the right thing. Peter doesn't seem to acknowledge her advice at first, but he had just killed someone, so I think we can give him a little credit.


While at the accident scene Walter sees a beautiful butterfly that he immediately wants to give to Astrid who has a love for them and collects it for her before they return. Once back at the lab, Astrid is almost offended that Walter has brought her back a misformed moth instead of the butterfly he had claimed to have captured. Poor Astrid also makes the discovery that the man is actually deformed as well and they discover that Peter wasn't stretching the truth about shooting a monster. Walter is convinced that it must be something with metamorphics.


Olivia and Peter return to Edina and talk to the Sheriff, but they are feeling less than warm toward the town Sheriff as he breezes by their questions with vague answers that seem helpful, but aren't. They end up at town hall looking through tax and population records in order to find out who Joe Falls (the man Peter shot and killed) is and where he lives so they can finish that lead only to come up with nothing. Meanwhile Walter and Astrid are led to the Harkness library through Walter's song: Hard Artichokes, rarely keep, Norwegian elephants Singapore sleep (HARKNESS) to find pictures of other deformed individuals from projects elephant and Walter begins to understand. They drive to the edge of town so Walter can show Astrid the transformation between moth and butterfly.


"The moth and the man don't change, what changes is our perception." - Walter Bishop


And there's that comment on perception. A lot of Fringe is based on our decisions and our perception.


Going against Peter's strict orders to return to the lab where he would be safe, Walter lies to Astrid and tells her that Peter wants them to head into town so they can find the source of the pulse. They eventually find a house with an antenna and dish. It ends up being the house of an old colleague that also worked on the project. Astrid distracts the boy while Walter explores the house looking for the machine that keeps them all hidden.


Meanwhile, Olivia and Peter make the leap that the entire town is actually deformed just as the Sheriff opens fire on them. A chase scene happens and just when they're cornered Rose comes to their rescue, shooting the Sheriff. The story comes out that the first pulse deformed people of Edina so Rose's father Cobb created a pulse to allow them to look past their deformities and live normal lives as long as they remained in Edina. Walter talks Broyles into keeping Edina a secret so that the people can live out their lives normally and not be humiliated through experiments. Peter and Walter talk on the way back and he tells Walter how proud he is of him and Walter says that he is glad Peter chooses to see him that way.

Interesting links:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window


If Peter Bishop Never Existed:


Olivia and Astrid would've been hard pressed to get him out of the house, because only Peter can coax Walter with such ease. There's a good chance Olivia and Walter would be dead after swerving into the ditch since neither was awake when the monster opened fire on the SUV.

4 Comments:

Unknown said...

This is one of my favorite episodes. I'm in a clinical pastoral education program and we had literally just learned about the Johari Window about a week before this aired. After my hubby and I watched it, I told my class and supervisors about it. They had me bring the episode in and we watched it and then discussed it as a group. Great illustration of the things we know about ourselves that others do not know which is one of the four panels of the Johari Window.

fringeobsessed said...

C.C.Almon,
Thanks for sharing that.
I love when others can learn from things in the Fringe episodes. Yeah, I didn't know a thing about the Johari Window concept and I looked it up as soon as the episode title became available before the episode aired. It is quite interesting.

Also interesting: In the Fringepedia it says there is a box above Walter's hidden stash in the HARKNESS Library that says "Magellan Files."
That's supposed to be foreshadowing of Walter'
s story of Magellan's travels and fate we learn in "What Lies Below."

seema said...

nice....!

Todd J. Haser said...

I find it interesting that the writers explored Walter's ability to recall key information in his mind by song. Even though his brain is missing key parts and that affects him - he shows his brilliance in that he would use songs and odd story/words to tag key information in his mind. While portions of his mind are now missing, he had mapped other key information in other parts of his brain this way. Quite ingenious!

TJ

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