Fringe Review: Everything in Its Right Place ~ Fringe Television - Fan Site for the FOX TV Series Fringe

Fringe Review: Everything in Its Right Place

      Email Post       4/09/2012 03:11:00 AM      


“That’s the difference between us.”

In “Neither Here Nor There,” Olivia said, “I know what it’s like to have a hole in my life. It’s been there as long as I can remember.” That hole is now fixed, as Olivia has rediscovered herself and Peter along with it. But without that hole, Olivia can no longer connect with Lincoln Tyrone Lee. They don’t share the same language of loneliness anymore, and Olivia doesn’t even remember that she used to speak it.


Lincoln has always been a roamer, more given to leaving than to staying. For whatever reason, he preferred to remain untethered until he met something worth tying himself to: his partner, Robert Danzig, and Robert’s family. After the loss of Robert, Lincoln found a camaraderie with the lonely hearts in the Fringe lab: Olivia with her existential hole, Walter with his missing son and lost mind. Now that Peter has fixed both of those problems, Lincoln finds himself where he tends to be: unmoored. Now, though, he knows what he is missing.

Lincoln looked so happy to see Fauxlivia. She’s just similar enough to remind him of Olivia, but different enough that he’s not reminded of what he almost had and has so completely lost. In an odd symmetry, by the end of the episode Fauxlivia was in the same position: faced with Lincoln “Shy” Lee just as she’d lost Lincoln “Over-Confident Pretty Boy” Lee. Will Fauxlivia fall for our Lincoln the way she never did for her Lincoln? Will they at least develop a strong friendship that keeps him rooted? Or will it be too hard for her?

The two Lincolns had no obvious differences in their past, right down to their prom dates and the reason for the 3.85 GPAs. But somehow they developed crucial differences: Agent Lee lacks the personal confidence to assert himself professionally, despite his numerous skills. Captain Lee is brimming with confidence and has made himself indispensible at work. What Agent Lee doesn’t realize, of course, is that underneath Captain Lee’s bravado is their similarity: they are both men who cannot make O/Fauxlivia realize that they are worth loving. Their major difference is in how they present themselves and how they think of themselves, not what they actually are.

Lincoln “Spectacles” Lee’s fate is up for grabs now that their paths diverged in that most important of ways: the death of Lincoln “Captain Awesome” Lee. Is our Lincoln enjoying Over There simply because it’s a new opportunity to leave everything behind? Is he so deep in the habit of distance, of leaving, of detachment, that he can’t find home anywhere he goes? I hope not. I want Lincoln to find happiness and home either here of there, and to start believe what Captain Lee realized: he’s a good agent. Maybe he’ll make a choice to become the man he wants to be.

This episode broke my heart, and was a fascinating portrait of a character that I’ve come to care about deeply. (Sure, some of the dialogue was a bit on-the-nose, but who cares? It worked.) But what mattered most to me about this episode was that portrait—not the story of the week that made the portrait possible. Canaan’s story was interesting, and the reminder that David Robert Jones is a force to be reckoned with is important. But so far the Jones stories have seemed a bit too small: the shapeshifter episodes are often personal, which lessens the sense of peril as far as the army-building is concerned. I wonder why the shapeshifters are being created, what Jones has in mind, and generally what’s going on, but we’ve made very little progress on that front, which makes it seem sort of like Jones doesn’t have any master plan worthy of the name beyond creating and tracking a bunch of shapeshifters. Surely he does, but that “surely” just comes from my experience watching TV rather than any strong clues within Fringe itself.


Grazing Day:

• Fauxlivia: “Are we talking heat vision, or communicating with fish.”

• Lincoln: “You don’t like Tyrone? I think it’s a strong middle name.”

• Lincoln: “Your superhero is an insect?”

• Canaan: “I wanted to be needed. Or at least to be missed.”

• Lincoln [to Fauxlivia]: “I guess you still haven’t lost your touch.” What was Lincoln referring to? Am I over-analyzing?

• Walter: “I’m really looking forward to studyin—helping you.”

• The episode title is the name of a Radiohead song.

• Rest in peace, Lincoln “Pretty Boy” Lee.


Four out of four self-aggrandizing narcissists.





(Josie Kafka reviews episodes of Fringe, Awake, Vampire Diaries, and Game of Thrones for billiedoux.com. Her Over There counterpart is a sad-sack loser and she feels lucky to be the awesome one.)

9 Comments:

Patrick H. Lauke said...

Best thing about the insect superhero though: heck, it's Mantis! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.N.T.I.S.

Anonymous said...

I cried when Alt-Lincoln died. In a way, I kind of knew it would happen. But I wasn't sure what to feel next after the episode ended. Sad that we will no longer interact with Alt-Lincoln? Or happy that Lincoln seems to have found a new "home". I was really sad when Olivia couldn't remember the gift he had given her. The gift symbolized the fact that he's found a home in/with her the way Peter had/has with his Olivia. And now he doesn't have that anymore or at least not yet.

I'll be interested to find out if Fauxlivia will fall for Lincoln. I hope she does and the story does seem to be going in that direction. I'm still debating whether she really was in love with Alt-Lincoln, but just afraid to admit it or afraid to loose their friendship. Or was it just a deep friendship they shared... either way, I hope it happens.

pMaestro said...

Did anyone else notice how they made up Meana in this episode to resemble Fauxlivia, especially with that new hairdo? I never made any connection to Fauxlivia's red hair with Ni/Meana until I saw Meana tonight. Gives a whole new meaning to the mother/daughter relationship, doesn't it?

Sammo said...

Lincoln [to Fauxlivia]: “I guess you still haven’t lost your touch.” What was Lincoln referring to? Am I over-analyzing?

Fauxlivia is an expert sharpshooter, and won an Olympics medal for it (see 1st episode of season 3). Alt-Lincoln is just commenting how Fauxlivia took out the assassin with a perfect shot from the sniper rifle.

Zepp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Zepp said...

I found it very good and interesting, these thoughts and considerations about the “two” Lincoln, Josie Kafka. Of all the scenes related to the meetings, the people (characters) of Fringe, with its copies in another universe, this meeting of the Lincoln (s) was, for me, the best performed, the most "real" of all other "meetings" of those who attended in previous episodes. The actor Seth Gabel, really gone beyond in their performances, resized to the top, your own level of competence scenic in their interpretations of the "two" Lincoln, he was just brilliant, in my view. He, and the competent editor of these scenes, concerning to the dialogues between the "two" Lincoln, of course.

Since all of the Fringe team, had something not very "Fringe" to make, Lincoln, for its part, has also decided to substituting Astrid, perform a type of "tourist trip" to the universe red. Well, not "tourist", but rather more of a better knowledge of that parallel world, alone. But I see that this unpretentious journey will change his life, from now on. Not so much the death of your copy, Captain Lincoln, but more by Fauxlívia, I think. The "our" Lincoln was devastated by the memories of "our" Olivia, have drastically changed, without remembering almost nothing of what had and was happening between them, and moreover, she is in love with Peter. With these feelings and hurts is that Lincoln is the border between the two universes. And there is a Fauxlivia, always smiling, helpful and conniving with him, always at his side, serving him in detail, super responsive, companion, and hence came this sudden decision, Lincoln, standing for "there”, in the world of Walternate, but along the Fauxlivia. And, moreover, the Lincoln will there in the universe red, a position most notably, who is now in the universe blue It may be that I am relating here a deduction rather simplistic, obvious on my part, but this can stay of "our" Lincoln Lee there in the universe red, has a lot to do with the title of this episode, I think.


Go, Fringe towards the 5th season! Go!!

JonasSH said...

Very nice to see some action in the alternate universe again. It was interesting to see the happy state people seemed to be in, now that their universe is healing - opposite to how it was before, when there was a sense of an imminent doom. I suspect all that will change before long.
Lovely to finally see the plot with DRJ moving along, although I kinda miss the sense of the aforementioned doom - It brought a lot of suspense to season 3 knowing that one or both of the universes was on the brink of destruction.

Beef Wellington said...

Am I the only one to notice that Alt-Astrid addressed Broyles when entering his office near the episode end as "Agent Broyles" rather than "Colonel Broyles"? Unintended flub? Or has Alt-Astrid been replaced by a shapeshifter with Broyles pretending to be unaware of the substitution?

dsollero said...

Hi guys,

I was just wondering here about the Glyphs+ the radiohead song lyrics.

The glyphs= DREAM
And there a few parts of the lyrics which kind of are related to the glyphs meaning and the episode too:


"Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" - Lincoln noticing that Olivia doesnt remember their previous history(?)


"There are two colours in my head" - Of course the 2 universes which Lincoln is travelling and the two Olivias that he is trying to be in a relationship with.

I wonder if Nothing as it seems is related too with the Pearl Jam song/lyrics

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