Welcome to the Observiews for Season 4 of Fringe. I call them Observiews because they are more visual observations than deep thinking reviews, if that makes sense
Screen caps from this episode are taken from fringefiles.com and DVD. Dialog is from fringepedia.net/transcripts.
All observations are mine and therefore could be totally off the wall and/or wrong. I have not read or looked at any recaps or reviews. I could also have missed a few things, oh well…
3.17 Stowaway
BELL: “Hmm. Peter, your father wouldn't want to hear me say this, but even if he does find out more about this machine, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll be able to prevent the events depicted in that picture. I mean, that just could simply be your fate.”
PETER: “Thankfully, I don't believe in fate. Whatever Walternate's plans are for me, I promise you, I'm not getting in that machine.”
BELL: “Son, it is not always that simple. I've lived a long time, Peter. So believe me when I tell you that sometimes when one walks away from his fate, it leads one directly to fate's doorstep.”
I wonder...
... if Peter changed his mind after he realized the only choice was to enter machine. And what implications will fate have on Olivia? I’ll get back to fate later.
Glyphs spelled: MARCH
-as in marching orders
-as in there is an Observer called March
-as in something is going to happen in March
Hm!
The Observer is waiting outside Olivia's apartment and is I’m sure up to no good.
Olivia is looking at a wall full of “Observer files”
just like she did in 1.04 The Arrival
August being among them. I miss him.
And apparently in this timeline Broyles knew about these people for 3 years. In 1.04 The Arrival they had spotted them too, took them a lot longer to spot them than Olivia.
So now we know the blood sample was the Observer’s and it had antibodies of the Spanish Flu which the last know epidemic was 1919. So that makes September a minimum of 91 years old. We know that the Observers have been sighted back to 1770 according to Brandon (2.08 August).
So Olivia shares with Broyles what September told her. Current episode is on the top 2.04 Momentum Deferred is on the bottom.
BROYLES: “I'm going to assign you a security detail.”
OLIVIA: “I don't think that that's necessary.”
OLIVIA: “A protective detail? Why?
BROYLES: “He threatened you.”
BROYLES: “The last time Peter showed me one of these devices, its owner had just tried to kill you.”
OLIVIA: “I'm not sure that's what he was doing. I -- I think that he was trying to warn me.”
OLIVIA: “I'm not worried, 'cause that was six weeks ago. So if a shape-shifting assassin wanted me dead... then I would be.”
So then we see Emily draw/color in this beautiful flower stand/store and I thought oh cool 3.03 The Plateau.
But when I went back to check, it doesn't even look remotely like it. I have no idea what I was thinking, lol.
She suddenly hears a hum and turns the page to draw something new.
We've seen something like this before in 1.03 The Ghost Network where Roy has similar experiences.
The difference between Roy and Emily is that she actually tries to warn the people she sees.
This guy is looking at the drawing of him getting hurt as he’s walking towards the construction site.
I don’t know but if he would have looked up and walked a different way would he still have died?
So back at the lab, a familiar sight: The Bishop boys working together.
PETER: “In my timeline, I can interact with the machine, but since I'm not supposed to exist here, it wouldn't respond to me.” WALTER: “It will require a biomechanical interfacing machine, calibrated specifically to your DNA. So you can operate it.”
PETER: "You've done it before, Walter. You can do it again."
Yeah and it should look something like this. Peter activated the interface in 2.22 Over There Part 2.
The color scheme of this episode was lots of blue and yellow.
WALTER: “Which reminds me, I can't feel my urine response yet. I should probably go empty my bladder again.”
Walter’s etiquette – only he can get away with it! Olivia’s reaction – priceless!
So then Lincoln calls her and says: “This is a weird one.”
I know I had heard that one before too but couldn’t place it until…
I remembered Col Jacobson referring to the beacon in 1.04 The Arrival. I know it’s not really related but the beacon showed up at a construction site too.
Of course Olivia is hoping that as Lincoln explains what happened, it would be the Observer but… no such luck.
All of a sudden I have to think of Sam asking Olivia if the headaches started yet in 2.02 Night Of Desirable Objects.
Meanwhile back at Emily’s house she’s asking a question. EMILY: “Why did God make me like this?”
JIM MALLUM: “You know how I feel, Em. God has a purpose for all of us. Even if we can't understand it. But I do know - mine is to take care of you guys.”
At the office Olivia is looking at the drawing. She’s so distracted
and getting another headache she doesn't even hear Broyles approaching. He has been informed that she went to Health Services to get prescription meds.
And she asks: “Do you believe in fate, sir?
Broyles answers: “No, I don’t.”
For some reason his answer totally surprised me.
OLIVIA: “Neither did I, but this drawing...
how is it the day after a complete stranger tells me I'm going to die, I end up investigating a case where the victim's death is predicted? I mean, maybe -- that man from the opera house -- maybe he does know something.”
And sure enough, time for more pills. I love how they let us see the characters “through the looking glass”
Lincoln informs Olivia that they got an image of the girl.
So Emily is riding the bus.
Just like Evelyn Mendoza in 1.03 The Ghost Network. Their postures are pretty close too.
Even the bad guys
kind of sit in the same spot.
Emily has the urge to draw Mr. Duncan but he gets off the bus and she loses sight of him. Emily: “I tried.”
Somehow that reminded me of Dana Gray in 3.17 Stowaway: “I don’t understand.”
both looking to God for answers.
Back at Emily’s house mom is trying to explain math.
DANNY: “Wait, 6/8 is the same as 3/4?” MOM: “Right. You keep dividing the fractions in half, ‘til you can't without changing the denominator.”
For some reason, this popped into my head.
PETER: “Do you ever feel like every time we get close to getting the answers, somebody changes the question?”
Olivia and Lincoln ask in the neighborhood and ultimately knock on her door, showing the printout from the surveillance camera although the rest of the family denies that they know her.
Upon leaving …
OLIVIA: “Did you happen to notice the cabinet?”
AGENT LEE: “No, why?”
OLIVIA: “Red backpack, same one she's wearing in the picture. So why did he lie to us?”
That reminded me of 1.03 The Ghost Network
OLIVIA: “That backpack. I just saw that woman, that backpack wasn't there. Has anyone seen a blue backpack with the other personal effects?”
I bring this up because I think her attention for detail is coming back. Back in 4.01 Neither Here Nor There it was Lincoln who paid more attention to detail than Olivia.
As they are leaving Emily walks up the street.
OLIVIA: “How were you able to draw this before the accident?”
EMILY: “I don't know. I just see it... in my head... whenever I'm around someone who's gonna -- I just sense it.”
1.03 The Ghost Network
ROY: “Look, I know that this sounds crazy, in fact, I think I am crazy. But I can be anywhere, at home or at work, and uh, then all of a sudden I get this, I don't know how to describe it... this... feeling and the only way that I can get it out, get rid of it is to try to draw what I see. Or to try to build it. Sometimes, that works.”
So then of course dad shows up and the conversation is pretty much over. But, and I’m not really surprised, he brings up Massive Dynamic.
MR. MALLUM: “And they never stop. No matter where we go, they find her. Watching from their cars, waiting for the right moment to grab her, take her to their labs. They poke and prod her like she's some kind of animal. You have any idea what that does to a young girl? Please... let my daughter have the chance at what's left of a normal childhood.”
Yes Mr. Mallum, she does! (end of 1.17 Bad Dreams)
So Olivia pays a visit to Nina.
There is the close up of Olivia with her riding ribbon and Nina.
She even has a book on horses on her table.
What happened to:
“Uh. I'm reading 'Advanced Forensic Science' by Annemann. I keep it next to my gun.” (1.14 Ability)
Sorry, back to the story.
OLIVIA: “Well, I thought you said that you were done using children as test subjects.”
NINA: “Yes, we are. Massive Dynamic did approach the Mallum Family when they lived in Baltimore. Emily exhibited some fascinating Precog abilities that would've allowed us to make drastic advances in our study of the human brain. We simply wanted to catalog her abilities. Her father wasn't interested, even when we offered to pay for Emily's schooling.”
OLIVIA: “I don't know how you could've raised me for so many years, and seen all the damage that was done to me, and pretend that there's nothing wrong with what you just said.”
NINA: “Olivia, I am sorry. Now, what happened to you was awful. But this girl is different. No one made her this way.” OLIVIA: “I don't see the difference. I mean, it's still abuse.”
I hope Olivia sees through Nina’s scheme soon because I absolutely don’t trust her.
So as always, everyone ends up in the lab. And Walter examines Emily.
WALTER: “Hmm. Fascinating. The Theta-One waves in your occipital lobe are remarkably active. And also, your brain seems to be drawing elevated levels of both oxygen and blood.” PETER: “Meaning what, Walter?” WALTER: "Belly and I always had a theory that some traumatic events echo backward in time. Put simply, some future events ripple backwards. Well, not in a way that we're consciously aware of, but it's sort of like vibrations."
Hm, is that what’s happening with Peter, since he wouldn’t be consciously aware of it?
EMILY: “That's not how it works. These images I see... they're like dreams. At first they're vivid, but then they fade. That's why I draw them. But it wouldn't matter anyway. Whatever I see... somehow it always happens. I know all these people are gonna die, but there's nothing I can do to stop it.”
PETER: “I don't understand, Emily. Why do you warn them if they can't do anything about it?”
EMILY: “I don't know. I guess if people knew, maybe they could say "I love you" to someone. Or just do one good thing.”
I wonder if that’s where Olivia got the idea to say that to Nina. Because right now, she really doesn’t have anyone else she could say it to.
After they were done Olivia asks if Emily senses anything with her.
And I think she did. But as most times
there is interruption and as we have seen Emily die at the end, Olivia and/or us never found out.
As they were about to leave Peter suggest to hypnotize her to get her back to the bus to find out where Albert Duncan is going.
WALTER: “Wh – wh -- what makes you think I can do that?” PETER: “Because where I'm from, I've seen you do it before.”
In 1.17 Bad Dreams, Walter hypnotized Olivia to find Nick Lane.
I thought it interesting too how close Olivia was to the device and how far away Emily sat from it.
Also Walter seems to be kind of scared, so Peter suggests that her dad help her. Just like Walter asked Peter to calm Olivia down in 1.17 Bad Dream.
So they are able to guide her and she ends up in a building with lots of dead people which she had seen earlier in one of her drawings.
BIG SHOUT OUT to the visual effects department. This was just awesome.
She also sees Albert Duncan there.
It reminded me of the people trapped in Amber from 1.03 The Ghost Network.
And there was Latin as well, just like in 1.03 The Ghost Network.
As the team heads to the Allston Courthouse Emily and her dad arrive at home, to find a black van parked outside their apartment and so the moving begins again. As Emily packs she hears the hum again and continues to draw on an already started drawing. As we find out at the end this is a special drawing.
The team discovers that Albert Duncan is the perp, trying to blow up the court house because he lost his kids in a custody battle. From Emily they know the bomb is most likely in the parking garage.
As I said earlier the color scheme for this episode is mostly blue and yellow.
Blue of course represents our universe. And does P2b mean something, like Peter to be …? I know doesn’t make much sense but that’s what popped in to my head.
As they find the bomb Olivia is talking with one of the agents. And behind her is a yellow car.
Yellow of course is a color our Olivia doesn’t like because it reminds her of medicine (1.15 Inner Child)
So now it’s time to move.
Last week I asked if September’s revelation will affect her decisions and choices. Well here is your answer.
BROYLES: “This thing goes off, we're gonna need to clear a 200-meter blast radius. Maybe you should help the police set up a perimeter.”
OLIVIA: “I know what you're doing, and I'm not going anywhere.”
BROYLES: “Olivia... what that man said to you... that you're gonna die... maybe this is what he was talking about.”
OLIVIA: “I can't live my life like that. Or do my job.”
You go, Dunhamator!
So Peter is wondering if it’s possible to figure out the frequency Duncan is using to set the bomb off.
In 2.03 Fracture they also used radio frequency to interrupt a signal.
As they come upon Duncan they discover he has a backup plan, a second bomb strapped to himself.
Olivia tries to level with him.
OLIVIA: “No, you're wrong. Nothing has to happen. Nothing is written in stone. You and I -- we don't have to die here today. Now, whatever happens next is up to you. You are in control. I'm not ready to die today. I don't think that you are either.”
I was watching 1.17 Bad Dreams Sunday night and I thought of this.
Anyway, Duncan gave up and Olivia was quite relieved calling Emily to let her know that those people she saw didn’t die. Emily’s dad went to tell her but found Emily gone.
Olivia had an idea where she went.
What Emily had drawn from the beginning was her own death.
OLIVIA: “Emily, you told me what's in your drawings is inevitable. But you're wrong. Today we saved all of those people because of you.”
Is this hope for Olivia? Can her death be averted?
EMILY: “I think you were right. Everyone has a purpose. They saved those people today. Maybe that was mine.”
For some reason Eugene came to mind (4.07 Wallflower)
Back at the lab with lots of blue.
PETER: “Hey” OLIVIA: “Hey” Awww!
OLIVIA: “Walter said that even if we'd known, we couldn't have done anything to prevent it. He says, "a candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long."”
Peter spots a picture of an Observer.
OLIVIA: “Is that what you call them?”
PETER: “Yeah, why? What do you call 'em?”
OLIVIA: “Well, up until now we haven't called them anything.”
PETER: “Things really are different here.”
OLIVIA: "What do you know?"
PETER: “Well, they show up at significant events all through history.”
OLIVIA: “Well, how do they do that? Like some kind of time travel?”
PETER: “No, it's not really time travel, per se. Uh, it's more like they exist in all times simultaneously. They don't experience time the same way that you and I do.”
That made me think of 2.08 August
BRANDON: “Or else they're not limited by our human perception of time. We think of time as linear, right? Life is a journey. You're born, and then you die. And to get from one end to the other, there's only one way through. Unless... you look at it like this... and then... you can see at any point. It's all happening at once.”
OLIVIA: “So they're traveling through time.”
BRANDON: “No. It's more like they're observing time. I think these guys show up at important moments. Um, historical, technological, scientific. But it's rare. Maybe two dozen different definite occurrences in the past five thousand years of human history.”
OLIVIA: "So they know what's going to happen."
OLIVIA: "I mean, if one of them said something about the future... could they be wrong?”
PETER: “Well, no, I don't really see how they could. They don't predict the future, Olivia. They've already experienced it. Did one of them make contact with you? Have they reached out?”
OLIVIA: No.
I was so sure that Peter was going to say something like this: “Really? Somehow I don’t believe you.”
Olivia just got home as someone knocks on her door. She seems reluctant to wanting to open the door. Of course we know it is Nina.
For some reason I thought of 3.06 6955 kHz as Peter is on the other side of that door.
Fauxlivia wasn’t reluctant I guess, just preparing herself.
NINA: “Sweetheart,”
1.01 The Pilot. OLIVIA: “Call me sweetheart one more time, I'd really like that.”
NINA: “about what you said when you came to see me this afternoon... I never should've reacted the way that I did.”
OLIVIA: “I'm sorry; I should not have accused you.”
NINA: “Please, I - I'm the one that needs to apologize. What happened to you as a child was unconscionable. You've come so far, I just forget sometimes how much you've been expected to forgive.”
OLIVIA: “I'm not angry with you. I thought I was going to die today. And one of the things that I kept thinking was that you -- you wouldn't know how I felt. You're the closest thing I have to a mother. And I love you.”
Again I wonder if what Emily said earlier about warning them sparked Olivia to say that. I hope she won’t regret it.
Olivia is having another migraine attack and Nina is offering to make soup ‘cause we know Olivia doesn’t really eat, lol.
I thought back to 3.10 The Firefly where Walter was fixing soup for Peter after getting banged up by September and drinking the milk.
Nina also says she bringing over a new drug that’s remarkable. Uh, Olivia, stay with the drugs from your doctor.
I know that you want those headaches to go away but I have a feeling they are going to be the least of your worries.
“Fate is a tricky thing.” (Nick Lane, 2.21 Over There Part 1)
As I said in the beginning Peter doesn’t believe in it or at least didn’t. Broyles doesn’t either. Olivia now does. Is Olivia destined to die? Can it be prevented? Will someone else have to die instead?
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
BIG SHOUT OUT to all the guest stars on this show and not just for this episode. They are amazing.
Another BIG SHOUT OUT, which I forgot to do last week, goes to Chris Tilton and Michael Giacchino. The music on Fringe completes the package of a well rounded show. If you have not listened to the soundtracks you should.
The Mallum Insurance sign on the building in last week’s episode was the clue for this one.
The next episode is called “Making Angels” and I wonder if this is the clue.
Plus Emily’s dad called her “Angel” one time as well.
Hang on to your seats! And don't forget to WATCH LIVE if you can.
"In the end I have to believe in HOPE"
13 Comments:
I didn't put it together until you mentioned it, but Emily's comment is definitely why Olivia told Nina that she loved her.
The question is... will she tell anyone else that she loves them?
Random thing I noticed: Emily's map on the wall has the Soviet Union on it.
@ Dennis
probably not. And if she does will they say it back to her? Because so far no one has in the same instance.
Great review i love your style and comparative rational with pictures is outstanding bravo!
While i agree that the guest stars are normally excellent on fringe, i thought these guest stars were really poor :L
"Forced Perspective" is good standalone episode that I think may be more related to the larger story than we now realize. I think after some future episode we may look back on this one differently.
I'm guessing that "some future events ripple(ing) backwards" through time is the result of technology, not something that just happened, and has some connection to the larger story, perhaps an attempt, or the blowback of an attempt, to move or communicate through time from the future. And that MD's involvement in Emily's life (and fate) is more than tangential.
I like to compare Emily with Tyler in 2.07 "Of Human Action". They are two sides of the "teenager with special powers" coin. Tyler's power was expansive ("Let's see how fast this piece of junk can go"), gleaned partly from fighter pilot tech, and he was too immature to handle it. Emily's power was inflicted upon her by an as yet unknown outside agency, and she suffered passively under it, having to repress herself. Tyler had no real family, and even the family he tried to reconstruct (going after his "mom") was an illusion as Tyler was really an MD lab rat. Emily had a real, supportive family and that was emphasized in the story. She, like Roy in 1.03 "The Ghost Network", at least wanted to make something good of her predicament. I think the differences in family backgrounds informed the motivations and choices of both characters, and since Fringe is a "family" show (the family of Peter, Walter, and Olivia) this is important enough to note.
Kudos to Alexis Raich for playing Emily, a difficult part, so well. I think it is more difficult to play a repressed character than an expansive one. The repressed character becomes a sort of prison that the actor must be careful not to break out of, in this role at least, since Emily was being repressed by fate itself. She managed to convey the burden she was under, yet remained "just a kid" at the same time. Nice balancing act. And a big shoutout to all the parents of "special needs" children who have had to deal with the question "Why did God make me like this?".
Although Peter was not central to the episode, three of his scenes emphasize his "special power", that of being the only non Observer to have conscious knowledge and experience from both timelines: 1) his coaching Walter to hypnotize Emily, 2) his idea to jam the bomb's radio trigger frequency (2.03 "Fracture"), and 3) his obvious take on Olivia lying to him when they talked about the Observers. He knows his other "family" members better than they do. I'm never playing poker with this dude. It was nice to see him take part in solving a case as a full team member again.
I'm a little surprised that no one has yet mentioned the resemblance of this episode's Emily to Emily the Strange. Seems very intentional.
@ Count Screwloose.
Sorry, but I don't know what that is.
cortexifan,
Great job with this. But to you and Dennis, I think there is more to the dialogue below than what you 2 mentioned:
PETER: “I don't understand, Emily. Why do you warn them if they can't do anything about it?”
EMILY: “I don't know. I guess if people knew, maybe they could say "I love you" to someone. Or just do one good thing.”
If you have this episode recorded, go rewatch this scene. Peter asks the question. As Emily answers him, the camera pans to Walter who's looking quite effected by Emily's words, and then the camera focuses on Liv. Both of them are thinking about her reply. And yes, that is why Liv tells Nina she loves her like a mother later on, but what about Peter's and Walter's reaction to Emily's reply?
Unfortunately we do not get to see Peter's face while Emily answers his question, but someone on Facebook last night pointed out he's probably thinking about how he didn't reply when Liv told him she loved him in 3.21, "The Last Sam Weiss."
There's no way to know that though because the camera doesn't show us.
Walter's face is quite expressive as Emily answers Peter. And I think this is MAJOR foreshadowing for our Walter in the future of the series(think also of 'Brown Betty").
I believe Walter will tell Peter he loves him in the future before he sacrificies himself for the greater good(like he tried to in "Unleashed"), but of course that is just my opinion.
I barely think of this episode as a stand-alone, because as you pointed out there are so many tie-ins to past episodes, and because of what I see as foreshadowing.
@ Fringeobsessed.
I agree. I guess I just didn't know how to put it into words.
I also thought that when Emily said that, Olivia looked at Walter.
Again I had the pleasure of reading and enjoy, their thoughts, conclusions and comparisons, refer to Fringe, this, his skilled work: Observiews on, 4.10, Forced Perspective, cortexiphan. I liked it too, their similarities and comparisons between episodes of dialogues, such as the backpack caught the attention of Olivia, among others. Very good. I've noticed that writers somehow are using facts, dialogues and even the same composition of the image, taken with the camera, almost even the actors' costumes, which were used in the first season of Fringe. Everything seems a repetition, with different focus, not equal, but rather similar. One of the examples I mentioned, that meeting was now between Olivia and Broyles, that room, where were the pictures of Observers. This scene is very similar to what happened in the first season if I remember correctly, was in the episode "Pilot", and the dialogues were very similar, too. Right now I was on the website of Fox/Fringe, and had something on Twitter, who was speaking at Peter, as a superhero. also, in past seasons, when Peter was rescued from the red universe, he unleashed a series of killings of shapeshifters 1.0 without further explanation, and with a knowledge of their location, impressive. the work of Peter, was more or less like a superhero, with attitudes fulminating against the shapeshifters 1.0. In this new context of the universes of Fringe, Peter again, is in some way, and attitudes of a superhero, solving all problems and putting you to unravel. Both Peter and Olivia, I think it's something more important and decisive role in Fringe, than we can suppose.
Is the story repeating itself again.
If not, see:
- The Pattern, now seems to be Mr. Jones, and Nina Sharp as boss;
- The shapeshifters 2.0, there are far more superhuman, more infiltrators, and more lethal;
- Observers are also there, but I think there should be an internal conflict among themselves (guess);
- The Broyles, looks the same as before, but now he has something with this "new" Pattern, I think;
In synthesis, cortexiphan, I think, one way or another, even different, "the time he turned back," so that his consistent work serves to help us find the similarities, this new context, with what happened in beginning of Fringe.
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