Fringe Summer Rewatch: #213 "What Lies Below"

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.

I cannot think about "What Lies Below" without hearing the music of this excellent fanvid by littletonpace in my head:


We're working our way into the middle episodes of Season 2, and what I like is they are all different. "What Lies Below" has a really different feel to it. You can tell in the first 10 minutes this is not a Wyman/Pinkner/Goldsman episode. It is something different than that, but it has a very dark and intense feel to it, none the less.


An Episode In The Medical Thriller Genre, and 'Fringe' Meets Outbreak
There is a genre in fiction called medical suspense. Basically, the plot invovles something medically sinister, like bad bacteria, bad viruses, bad doctors, nurses, hospitals, or these days, HMO's. Basically, a medical suspense story is a whodunnit in a medically-related setting. If you've watched any of the Rissoli&Isles shows, that's medical suspense. Once in awhile a good medical suspense book is made into a movie, like Robin Cook's Coma.

"What Lies Below" is a medical suspense episode of Fringe. And it reminds me very much plot-wise of the 1995 movie "Outbreak." In the movie a man smuggles an illegal monkey out of Zaire and into the US to sell on the Black Market. He doesn't realize the monkey is infected with an Ebola-like virus called Motaba. Of course the monkey bites him and he dies, and so does the pet shop guy who gets bitten trying to take care of it. In the world of epidemiology, all you need is the first patient, known as Patient Zero, to get the ball rolling. The pet shop guy infected other people in a mythical California town. The situation gets crazy out-of-control, and the CDC and federal government get involved trying to figure out how to keep the contaminated people within the quaratined city limits. They also struggle to decide if they will need to kill the inhibitants of the town to keep the virus contained, and save the world. In the movie, the CDC epidemiologists get their hands on the monkey and his antibodies and get lucky, and so do our favorite dysfunctional characters in 'Fringe.'

Colors In "What Lies Below"

If you've been reading other posts in our Summer Rewatch program, you've probably noticed that fellow fan, cortexifan, has been picking up on the significance of colors in the episodes. That is something I've missed in some of them, so I feel the need to mention them here.

Mike the Courrier's bike is BLUE.


Mr. Vandenkemp(Patient Zero)'s shirt is BLUE.


After Mr. Vandenkemp dies he's placed under a YELLOW tarp.


Olivia is wearing a BLUE blouse with her usual black pantsuit.


The caps on the virus samples Walter studies are BLUE.


When Walter, Astrid, and the CDC team enter Vitas Petrol their biohazard suits are RED.

Do these strategically-placed colors mean anything? Well, it could be foreshadowing of Season 4, we'll have to wait and see.


Walter Bishop, A Special Needs Individual
I love the second scene where Astrid has lost Walter(reminiscent of "Snakehead" and "Grey Matters") in the mythical Boston Children's Science Center. A kind employee asks her what school he's with. Astrid replies, "He's not from any school, he's a man. His name is Doctor Walter Bishop."
The kind employee replies, "Hmm, I see. A special needs individual."
Astrid deeply chuckles and says, "Heh, you have no idea."

Astrid finds Walter only after he's narrated a horrifying story to a group of youngsters about the return of Magellan's ship(without him) to Spain with only 18 crew members out of 237, and about the result of looking for and finding monsters under their beds. A concerned Science Center employee looks on as Walter tells the children, "You see, when you open new doors, there is a price to pay," which is foreshadowing of the upcoming "Peter" episode.

Once Walter mentions the children getting eaten by the monster, the employee asks Walter, "Excuse me, do you work here?" He tells her no he's just a season pass holder and gives her his name. In the next scene Walter is telling Astrid how upset he is that they revoked his membership. Astrid points out that he terrified the kids. Walter replies that they are "tragically coddled and ill-advised," and in that moment it's easy to picture Walter as the scientist experimenting on 3 year olds in the upcoming "Jacksonville." This episode resembles the structure of "Unleashed," as there's a story of something scary and then an actual scary plot unfolds.

Again, Give Hime The Keys, And Save The Girl
Poor Peter accidentally falls into the deceased Mr. VandenKemp's blood when the secretary scares him, before she takes a header out the window. The look on Olivia's face is pure horror as she takes in the blood on his arms and hands. Her voice almost cracks when she says his name. Peter makes a beeline to the nearest sink and starts scrubbing. His baby blues are intense as they bore into hers, as though she shouldn't even entertain the possibility that thy won't have their time together in the future. Olivia leaves Peter to keep scrugging and goes into a hallway to try to get herself back under control. I believe this is the first time in the series we see her come anywhere close to hysterical.
Remember, normally Peter calms her down, but he can't this time-he's preoccupied.

Olivia gets her breathing under control and sees Peter moving quickly down the hall in his undershirt. As she rounds the corner, she sees Peter frantically digging into the pockets of VandenKemp's clothing. She screams at him to get away. The rest of that conversation is below:

PETER: Can't wait any longer.
OLIVIA: Stop it! Get away from him now!
PETER: I got his blood on me. If I wasn't infected before, I probably am now.
OLIVIA: Peter, this is insane!
PETER: They're down there and we're up here. And they're not sending anybody else up. This is our last chance to figure out whatever it was that he came here to try and sell. Rental car keys. Never take anything into a negotiation that can land you in jail. Always leave it in neutral territory.
Peter finds the car rental keys. Which leads to the next scene where hazmat-suited workers open the trunk of a car with a bumper that reads: Altius Car Rental.

Altius=Higher; Who's higher on the food chain-viruses or us?
Altius is Latin for "higher," and I think this refers to Walter's great lecture to Astrid and Bill Hubert, the CDC guy manning the centrifuge, back in Walter's lab. That conversation is below:

WALTER: If we can isolate the strain, we may be able to understand this virus's personality.

ASTRID: The personality? Walter, it's not a person.

WALTER: Centrifuge is over there. No, viruses are not people, Astrid. But they seem to have minds of their own. The rabies virus can't survive in water. So it inflicts its host with a paralyzing fear of water.

ASTRID: Walter, that sounds...

WALTER: Heh, trust me, I know how it sounds. It's almost beyond belief. The more we learn about viruses, the more unbelievable they become. They deny our definitions of living and dead. And their only function seems to be to survive, to replicate. And they use us as a vehicle to do so. It's the folly of humans to believe we're at the top of the food chain. In truth, viruses are.

Walter grows more animated as this conversation goes along. It reminds me of the scene in "Bound" when Peter and Olivia are trying to catch the super-sized cold virus slug, while Walter gets quite passionate and loud over deceased Dr. Kinberg's continuing slide show on viruses:

Walter: Look. Simian hemorrhagic fever. The infected cells have a definitive spiderweb look. Makes HIV look like a common cold by comparison.
Ebola. First the headaches then the skin turns to rice pudding.
No time for the immune response.

Let's face it, besides food, viruses get our Walter Bishop excited. And he repects them.


There are many great conversations within "What Lies Below"
Peter and Olivia
1. A frustrated Olivia is tying to figure out who VandenKemp came to see. She's looking through Ames' appointments when Peter notices the employees on the phone.
PETER:They're all calling their families. Wanna call your sister? Just to let her know what's going on?

Olivia doesn't even acknowledge what he said, and makes a comment about the schedule.
Peter just shakes his head.

2. Peter and Olivia sit down on a sofa. He asks her if she got ahold of Rachel.
Olivia says she didn't try, that "Rachel just went through all this stuff with me in the hospital," which is a reference to 201 when Olivia almost died after flying through her windshield.
Olivia ends her defense with "What's the point in scaring her again?"
Peter intensifies those baby blues and replies,"That's just like you. Even now, you're protecting her. I thought that was the point of having people who care about you in your life... to have someone to talk to when you're scared." And that could be some Season 4 foreshadowing right there. Fear is half of what triggered Olivia's ability to see the glimmer of things from Over There in "Jacksonville." Perhaps it will be fear again that makes her see through to Peter in Season 4?
They don't have much time to let Peter's words sink in as Olivia sees the sick secretary out and walking. Peter and Olivia split up to look for her.

3. Olivia is well on her way to the switchbox ofr the ventilation system when she gets hit by a fast-moving infected Peter. The conversation is below:

OLIVIA: Ohh! (draws her pistol to defend herself. pleads to her friend) Listen, I'm here to help you.
PETER: Give me the gun, Olivia.
OLIVIA: Peter, they're gonna shoot you.
PETER: They're gonna kill us all anyway. (stalking forward. paranoid) The cure is out there. They're lying to us. And you locked me in here.
OLIVIA: Uhh! (as Peter attacks her) Uhh! (they struggle) Uhh!
PETER: You betrayed me! (takes a blow to the midsection) Ahh! (her pistol fires into the ceiling)
OLIVIA: Uhh! (Olivia knees Peter in the privates and then dives for her dropped pistol below a vehicle)
PETER: (steps on her arm) Hyuh!
OLIVIA: (in pain) Agh!
PETER: (after grabbing the pistol) Stay down. (aims at her. dazed, he wanders away)
Wow! Did you ever think we'd see the day when Liv has to draw her gun to protect herself from Peter Bishop?! I'm still shocked how after she kneed him rather effectively he didn't even flinch.

Broyles and McFadden, the CDC Man in Charge
One of my favorite parts of this episode is when we get to see how protective Phillip Broyles is of his 'family.' He begs McFadden for more time to find a cure, twice. McFadden seems like a blood-thirsty beaurocrat who can't wait to send in the Army to "eradicate" all those still in the Vitas Petrol building. The first time, Broyles has an idea. "Fentanyl gas. Pump it inside the building. Knock them out long enough to synthesize a cure. We could have a gas truck here in ten minutes."
The second time Broyles begs for more time, he bares his soul to McFadden, and shows us what lies below. "I understand you have operational authority here. But there are people in there that are like family to me. Another ten minutes." Wow. Phillip Broyles has sure come along way from the pilot, hasn't he?

Walter and Astrid
Another of my favorite scenes in this episode is when Walter refuses to leave the building.
Astrid never tells him of the Army's plan to kill those still inside. Walter asks her to help him get VandenKemp's body on a table in another room that they make into a lab. It looks like Walter's making progress in evaluating the body and thinking how they can beat this virus when he gets frustrated. In a gut-wrenching moment Astrid asks "Walter...what can I do?"
Walter replies,"I can't let Peter die again. He's going to. They all will. There's nothing I can do about it." I wonder if that statement right there is foreshadowing of the bigger plot. I sure hope not!
Astrid is not focusing on Walter's reply. She reminds him of the 18 of Magellan's crew wh made it back alive. That's all Walter needs. He makes the leap to how we're still alive today. He is reminded
of the giant volcano Mt. Toba that erupted thousands of years ago raining down....
WALTER:Ash.
ASTRID:Astrid.
WALTER:No, ash. Mt. Toba.....
That is a lovely little comic moment where Astrid thinks he forgot her name again, but he was making reference to the ash from the volcano.

Walter's hand is shaky as he attempts to check the effectiveness of their horseraddish on the blood sample containing the virus. Astrid lovingly takes it from him and finishes the test.

Beautiful Blue Flares
The scenes near the end of this episode where Peter and Olivia are passed out on the floor from the Fentanyl gas and get treated by Walter's cure are beautifully shot and full of blue flares like the ones in "There's More Than One Of Everything," and other scenes in Season 3.

Our Jekyll, Peter, looks almost angelic when he wakes up cured from the virus.
And from Peter's point of view, Olivia looks angelic as well. Is this foreshadowing as well?
Peter waking up from who knows where and seeing Olivia?

Things of Interest
There is a real Museum Of Science and a real Boston's Children's Museum in Boston, but not a Boston Children's Science Museum.

Astrid loses Walter twice in this episode, like she does in "White Tulip."

If you call the number on the Altius Car Rental bumper sticker, 800-555-0995, you get a recording to call a "talk" line.

The movie the Vitas employees and Peter are watching is "Forbidden Planet," the same movie Peter's watching in the pub in episode 304 when FauxLivia gives Peter his booty call.

Astrid tells Olivia, "Walter will figure something out, we're gonna be fine." She also tells Walter "Peter will be fine." Both remind me of Charlie Francis's message to Liv "You're gonna be fine" via Sam's jumble exercise in "Dream Logic."

Astrid and Walter work in this episode on a closer level than before, yet when Astrid asks Walter in the last scene what he meant by "I can't let Peter die again," Walter puts distance between them and bluntly tells her "Some things are best left alone, Agent Farnsworth."

Peter apologizes to Olivia for the events in the parking garage. She tells him, "You weren't yourself." That conveniently fits into the post-Season 3 theme of Peter not existing. It also reminds me of Peter not being right in "The Last Sam Weiss."

Peter was quite dark when he was infected, which I believe is foreshadowing of "Dark Peter" in "Reciprocity."

Olivia allowed Peter to take charge several times in this episode.

It's a good thing neither Peter nor Olivia were allergic to sulfa drugs.

Unanswered Questions That Arise From "What Lies Below"
1. Why did Walter seem to know immediately what was going on with Mike The Courrier as he stepped up to the door of Vitas Petrol? Did Walter have previous dealings with a highly contagious virus?

2.Is it significant that Mr. VandenKemp's body was placed under a yellow tarp?

3.What did Peter Bishop keep in neutral territory while he made shady deals in his past?

4.According to the Fringepedia website, the core sample in the briefcase was drilled 10 miles down at the "Pioneer Valley Project" in Massachusetts by Solum Oil Corporation. What is significant about that area? Does it have something to do with "The Pattern"?

5.OK, if the virus was wiped out by the sulphur from Mt. Toba thousands of years ago, why was there still live virus in the earth?

6.Why was Peter able to have some control over his actions while he was infected?
If the virus's main goal was to infect others, why didn't he try to infect Olivia, or use her as a hostage to try to get out of the building?
Why didn't infected Peter kill Olivia with her gun?

If Peter Bishop Never Existed
Would Walter have been as motivated to find a cure for the people inside, including Olivia sans Peter?

Olivia probably would not have rifled through VandenKemp's pockets and found the rental car keys. Therefore, Olivia may have died with the others at the hands of the US Army's "Level 6 Eradication." (Full circle for "Give him the keys and save the girl.")

Would Olivia have been able to stay in charge effectively of the quarantined Vitas employees?

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #212 "Johari Window"

"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.

The Sign Of The Four, Why You Can't See Peter Bishop, And The Last Great Storm Revealed

By Count Screwloose       Email Post       8/17/2011 08:26:00 AM      

"What if the team member fated to die doesn’t actually die but merely disappears? Perhaps after the time-deck is reshuffled, they become someone who simply was never born…"

Or so we guessed in the piece we wrote shortly before the season finale aired (“I Love An Apocalypse!”), but then we stuffed that thing with so many guesses that one of them was bound to stick to the wall. So we’re going to stop short of claiming any powers of clairvoyance. After all, looking into the future can be a dangerous business…

At any rate, you can never say that FRINGE doesn’t give you any clues as to what they’re on about. When the show namechecked “The Schrödinger Hotel” early in the proceedings of 6B, I doubt it fazed any longtime viewers. FRINGE fans have been discussing the relevance of the paradoxical thought experiment known as “Schrödinger’s Cat” since its first season. Even viewers who aren’t terribly well versed in the concepts surrounding quantum mechanics are probably familiar with it:

"A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays and the geiger-counter detects an alpha particle, the hammer hits a flask of prussic acid (HCN), killing the cat. The paradox lies in the clever coupling of quantum and classical domains. Before the observer opens the box, the cat's fate is tied to the wave function of the atom, which is itself in a superposition of decayed and undecayed states. Thus, said Schrödinger, the cat must itself be in a superposition of dead and alive states before the observer opens the box, “observes” the cat, and “collapses” its wave function."

In other words, the cat is both alive and dead until the moment it has been observed.

"The most commonly held interpretation of quantum mechanics is the Copenhagen interpretation. In the Copenhagen interpretation, a system stops being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes place."
- Wikipedia

Perhaps even more interesting:

"Other interpretations resolve the apparent paradoxes from experimental results in other ways. For instance, the many-worlds interpretation posits the existence of multiple universes in which an observed system displays all possible states to all possible observers. In this model, observation of a system does not change the behavior of the system—it simply answers the question of which universe the observer is located in."
- Wikipedia

The idea that observing an event changes it, that two worlds can exist at once, etc., are so much a part of FRINGE that one might say that the shadow of this particular cat has been draped over the show from Day One. The difference here is that the writers have finally made the concept of Schrödinger’s Cat a literal and physical one. In the last moments of the finale, we are left with a Schrödinger box created by Peter in which two states exist simultaneously and which is surrounded by “observers.” It’s a wonderful, wonderful joke.

It was Schrödinger, also, who conceived of the idea of “quantum entanglement” that Walter mentions and which I suspect may become even more important as the story proceeds. You might also want to do some reading up on “Bell’s Theorem” (honest!) if you really want to impress your friends!


“Oh, that’s fantastic news!” – Walter Bishop

There was another moment in that last episode, however, that struck me as intimately familiar and with the release of the “Where Is Peter Bishop?” teasers, I now have to wonder if I’m not seeing something of an intentional campaign to bring something in particular to mind.

I’m talking about the scene where Olivia reunites with Walter after he’s been released. A box of delicate equipment appears to be headed to the floor when it halts in midair, as if by magic. Olivia has used her powers of telekinesis to prevent it from being damaged and explains to Walter that she’s learned to control it.

And this thing is bugging me, as if I’ve seen it before, practically grown up with it: a young woman with long blond hair creating a force field, a scientific genius with salt and pepper hair. What was it?

Then they showed us the Four. And I remembered. Are there any sci-fi or comic book fans who don’t recognize this four?


I can’t imagine there are, especially with the film versions having come out. It’s the logo of the Fantastic Four, the flagship title for Marvel Comics and “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” if one was to believe the banner that appeared at the top of each issue’s cover.

The FF set the tone for the revolution Marvel was about to visit upon the comic book industry, something they called “superheroes with human problems.” As the series went on and more titles appeared, the template became clear. Marvel Comics would be as much soap operas as super sagas, continuing storylines from issue to issue and loading their characters down with everyday problems just as much as cosmic ones. To readers who had grown up with DC Comics, whose stories had neat beginnings, middles, and ends and usually tied things up unambiguously in favor of the good guys, this was a huge shock to the system.

More than most, the FF were an actual dysfunctional family of sorts who had to juggle their emotional relationships inbetween tussling with villains of the month intent on their destruction. Linked together by the strange powers they returned to Earth with after a mission in outer space, they were:

Reed Richards (“Mr. Fantastic”), team leader possessed of salt and pepper hair and an almost unchartable intellect that allowed him to conduct experiments in the furthest regions of science. His ability consisted of being able to stretch his body like a rubber band.

Sue Storm (“The Invisible Girl”), now a telekinetic prodigy with the ability to project protective force fields as well as the ability to turn invisible, Sue would eventually marry Reed and become Sue Richards (as well as change her professional name to the long overdue “Invisible Woman”) and was the sister of…

Johnny Storm (“The Human Torch”), the young hotheaded member of the team who (after shouting his traditional “Flame On!”) could become, well, an actual human torch who could fly and manipulate fire and whose favorite party trick was creating a flaming “4” in the sky.

Ben Grimm (“The Thing”), whose powers of tremendous strength were offset by the fact that he was now fated to live in a body that resembled nothing so much as a cobbled together collection of orange rock. Luckily for Ben, he found himself a girlfriend who was a blind sculptress and who loved him for the person he was inside.

So not to put too fine a point on it, but Reed makes as good a Walter as Sue and Johnny Storm make an Olivia and Peter, setting aside the obviously different personal relationships. The important thing is that we are, in both cases, discussing a family dynamic. What, however, should we make of the lack of a Ben Grimm, or is that trying too hard?


“Apparently, you have the ability to turn off the force field that’s keeping Peter out…” – Walter Bishop

So do I think the FF refs are intentional? Well, consider this: there wasn’t an article about FRINGE early on that, when broaching the subject of The Observer, didn’t bring up this fellow:


As any loyal comic fan knows, this is The Watcher, fated to ever observe the machinations of humanity and the universe, but forever forbidden to meddle in our affairs (much like The Observers, too, that rule seemed to become more and more elastic as time went by). In fact, it seemed to become an accepted truth from the first few episodes that The Observer was an homage to The Watcher, so why in the world wouldn’t there be other similarities waiting to be discovered?

So what does it all mean?

Well, you take these things with a pinch of salt and use according to taste, I suppose, depending on the viewer. FRINGE is, of course, telling its own story and its occasional homages may mean nothing more than a wink to the audience. But I do think there’s a case to be made for some borrowings being more important than that and possibly becoming the warp and woof of the story under construction.

For example, the FF has two characters named Storm. Now read this line in light of that:

There is a storm coming…

Now the family relationships are obviously very different, but we’ve already determined that Peter and Olivia together are much greater than the sum of their individual selves. So what if the storm that’s coming isn’t The War Between The Universes at all? What if it’s the single force created when FRINGE’s analogues of Sue and Johnny Storm pool their powers together? What if they’re The Last Great Storm(s)?


“You’re going to need him by your side.” – William Bell

Want more?

Between Sue and Johnny, we have three remarkable abilities, more or less: the ability to move things with the mind, the ability to manipulate fire, and the ability to turn invisible.

They’ve given Olivia two of these already. That leaves one.

Why can’t you see Peter Bishop?

He’s invisible.

Just how he is invisible has to do with time, I think, and how he now moves within it. I say this partly because I think the room he's created is a nod to another famous sci-fi program.

Not the one it owes the most to, but another one. More on this later.

Oh, one other thing. Remember who said this?

“Well, I didn't say I didn't get my bell rung.”

More to come.

"Wigner’s Friend is a variant on the (Schrödinger) experiment with two external observers: the first opens and inspects the box and then communicates his observations to a second observer. The issue here is, does the wave function "collapse" when the first observer opens the box, or only when the second observer is informed of the first observer's observations?"
- Wikipedia

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #211 "Unearthed"

By Xindilini       Email Post       8/17/2011 02:50:00 AM      

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.

Life after death has been an obsession of mine. Specifically in what happens to a person after they die. So this episode was especially appealing, even if it was not memorable.

Seventeen-year-old Lisa Donovan was brain-dead as a result of a cerebral aneurysm. Just when she was about to have her organ extracted, she revives. She sits up repeating an alpha-neumeric sequence. It immediately reminds me of Olivia waking up suddenly in "A New Day In The Old Town".

The real mystery to investigate here is how a teenage girl could have access to classified military codes. The Navy provided information on Petty Officer Andrew Rusk, who was last assigned to a nuclear submarine. This was his personal identification number. Not only that. Lisa also knew Rusk's Russian pet name for his wife.

One explanation was that Lisa and Rusk shared a psychic link. It was only inconceivable since they have never met. Lisa's aneurysm occurred in her left frontal lobe. Specifically her Broca's Area, the part of the brain that processes language, which Walter proved had the most dramatic effect on a person's ability to create psychic bonds.

Lisa's continued visions of Andrew Rusk lead to the discovery of his murder. The relative time of Rusk's death and Lisa's rebirth was enough to convince Walter that Rusk's sudden dispatched energy was what brought Lisa back to life along with his memories and consciousness. Not that unlike Olivia carrying John Scott's memory.

Lisa's mother reluctantly allowed Walter to 'exorcise' Rusk from her daughter. Through the procedure they learned how Rusk died. Unfortunately, this gave Rusk the opportunity to take possession of Lisa momentarily in an attempt to exact revenge. I don't know what everybody thought. It was not clear to me who it was Peter reached. Rusk or Lisa?

Whatever the reason why this episode did not air in the first season aside, a lot of recurring themes stand out.

Faith and Second Chances:

Lisa's mother got her daughter back.

I never thought that I would... get a chance to tell her how much I loved her again. -- God gave her back to me.

Much in the way Walter told Peck in "White Tulip", that he never believed in God until he took Peter from the other side.

Walter was always an advocate for talking to the dead, as seen in the Pilot and "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones".

Peter contextualized Tibetan philosophy even when he did not truly believed it, despite his experiences. (Leads me to think this episode was shot earlier in season 1.)

The near-death experiencer can often converse with those who have already died.

Innermost subtle consciousness is ever present. It never leaves the body even in death.

If Peter Bishop Never Existed...

Perhaps Walter would have better luck in talking Andrew Rusk out of his unfinished business.

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #210 "Grey Matters"

By Unknown       Email Post       8/16/2011 12:25:00 AM      

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.

Walter’s Remedy for Insanity

Those familiar with Shakespeare know how Walter’s journey is similar to that of King Lear. Much like the play’s monarch, Walter made a decision which he would live to regret, one that would cause a descent into madness, and to a major, unbearable loss. This episode signaled that Walter’s storm was coming.

Walter was still uncomfortable with mental institutions. It makes his fate in The Day We Died so much more heartbreaking. Walter remarked to Peter that he did not have any visitors the whole time that he was in St. Claire’s, and Peter was ashamed. In TDWD, Peter could not visit Walter, as much as he wanted to, without congressional involvement.

Walter remarked that he had thought long and hard about a remedy for insanity. We know that Bell told him that Walter asked for part of his brain to removed because he was afraid of what “he was becoming.” But this is the very process that made him insane? Walter was in Saint Claire’s for 17 years. Paris (Bell) performed the operations after Walter had already been sent there.

A foreshadowing exchange between Astrid and Walter:

Astrid: Why would someone do that, Walter -- make someone crazy?

Walter: Any number of reasons. It would make them insusceptible to interrogation.

Walter received that interrogation in what I consider one of the most powerful scenes in the series.

At the time this episode aired, there was still some murkiness about exactly what was the deal with Peter. Walter’s tears at remembering Peter’s death told of an untold story.

The information concerning the doorway that Newton sought would later explain the tale of how one Walter Bishop, with the best intentions, tried to save the life of a boy, only to have everything go wrong. This event was always the blame for the damage in the other universe. Peter heavily felt that burden. However, at the end of The Day We Died, Peter blinked out of the equation, and the universes were still at war.

Walter’s concern for Peter’s safety in season three led him to the belief that Walternate was his intellectual superior. He wanted to undo the damage done to his brain so that he could protect Peter. But a damaged Walter seemed just as capable because his motivation was love, not revenge.

Once again, the theme of memory association is discussed. Peter knew how to find kidnapped Walter:

Memory is all about -- it's all about context, all about association. Every time Walter asks for a piece of food or music or art, he's trying to recreate a moment in time to help him remember.

I feel that physical objects in several episodes show this, such as Christine Hollis’ teddy bear in August or Peter’s silver coin through several episodes throughout the series.

In Season Four, will a physical object, such as a silver coin, act as a trigger for Walter to know that someone is missing from his life?

When Walter was reconnected with the missing pieces from his brain, he became belligerent and taunting, very unlike himself. When Walternate was fully introduced in Over There, it showed just how similar both men could have been, but their paths were different.

After seeing this episode the first time, I was pretty sure that Peter was not from our world. So the Jacksonville reveal wasn’t that surprising, but the way it occurred broke my heart.

The Man Who Fell to Earth

I sometimes hate to admit it, but I love the character of Thomas Jerome Newton. He is a "gentleman" villain, much like David Robert Jones. In this episode, he was very apologetic to Mr. Slater when he was forced to leave without closing up the man’s skull. He could have just killed him. But at other times, Newton was very cold to innocents. For example, he had AltLivia kill the deaf man in The Box. He also had no problem in giving the wave sink box to the homeless man at the train station, knowing that the temptation to open it would be too great.

I suppose that one might think that in Slater’s case, the shape-shifter was simply showing mercy. But all of these examples show a cold, calculating brute. Newton talked like he was concerned in order to put people at ease. He left Slater alive because he wanted the Fringe team to investigate. He purposely looked at the camera as he left the hospital. He wanted to test Altlivia’s mettle by having her kill the man in The Box. Newton wanted to get Peter interested in the machine.

Olivia's Weakness is a Strength

Frustration developed for Olivia because she was having a hard time in understanding the motivations behind Newton and his group. Part of the reason for this was Walter’s garbled memory. Walter knew some things, such as Peter’s origin, but not enough to connect that fact with everything else. In Subject 13, he expressed that he knew “they’d” come for Peter someday.

Peter told Olivia in the SUV:

Olivia, I know you think you're alone in this. Maybe that's because of what Bell told you. Maybe that's just your personality. But this isn't just your fight.

Bell confirmed this when he told Olivia in Momentum Deferred:

Remember this -- Einai kalytero... Anthropo apo toy... Patera toy. Tell that to Peter. You're going to need him by your side. Tell it to him. He'll know what it means

Olivia did have a lot of information from Bell when she met him, but she seemed shook-up by Peter’s statement that he was in this with her. I’ve previously mentioned that it seems that Olivia needs Peter by her side in order to use her telepathic abilities, and nothing illustrated this more than their cooperative deactivation/activation of the machine in The Last Sam Weiss.

Olivia was upset because she allowed emotions to cloud her professional judgment. However, when she tried to save John Scott’s life, her main motivation was emotional. At this point, Olivia seemed scared of becoming attached to Walter and Peter. And with good reason. Newton’s taunt “Now I know how weak you are” may be bigger than it initially sounded. I’ve always wondered that if part of Walternate’s reasons for talking Peter into coming back to the other side was because he knew Olivia would come to rescue him -that maybe Walternate wanted our Olivia just as much as Peter.

I feel that Olivia’s willingness to do what it takes for the people that she cares about is her greatest strength. It is what made me love the character in the pilot, and it is what I continue to admire the most about her. The fact that Peter was on the same wavelength in this matter is also endearing. Peter would go all out to save the person who deserved it the most - Olivia.

Peter Cares for Walter

Peter showed his concern for Walter by calming him down at the hospital as Walter waited to start MRI scans. Peter has always had a gift for making people relaxed. Maybe this is why he was a conman for awhile. I still wonder that if he were able to sit in a room with Walternate, and not with a hologram like in TDWD, that he’d be able to possibly talk some sense into him.

Peter told Olivia that he thought about if Walter wondered what it would be like to “turn back the clock before he want crazy.” In the fourth season, will Walter still go through madness, and not have Peter to help him weather the storm?

I absolutely love how this episode showed the progression of Peter and Walter’s relationship. Peter’s concern for Walter’s well-being is such a powerful change, that I still cry a bit at the scene when Peter thought Walter was dying, and he begged Olivia to help him.

One interesting exchange that may lead to something:

Peter: I should have visited you, Walter, While you were in St. Claire's.

Walter: Oh, that's okay, Peter. If you had, I probably wouldn't have remembered anyway.

If Walter somehow is in the institution in season four, I wonder if he’ll have “visits” from Peter? Like Roscoe Joyce received visits from his son Bobby in The Firefly, and Olivia saw projections of Peter while trapped Over There.

I just hope that at the end of the series, that we do not get the King Lear ending which signifies that love only leads to insanity, chaos and death. I hope that love conquers all.


Small Matters

Is it just me, or did the pen that Newton and his associate used to close the incisions look like the Observer's pen-laser using in Brown Betty?

This episode is the first in which the band Violet Sedan Chair was mentioned. A former band member, Roscoe Joyce, would play a pivotal role in the third season episode, The Firefly. As a creation of J.J. Abrams, there was promotional pressing of the album with copies sent to independent record stores. It is said that the songs contain spoilers, and many of the songs seem relative to the Fringe characters.

Unanswered Questions

Newton is different from the other shape-shifters. Why did he have to be retrieved in order to extract information from Walter? What is so “special” about him?

Walter recognized Newton. He asked him about the other side. How does Walter know Newton?

How did Newton know about the brain pieces? Bell told Walter that what he accomplished was too dangerous. He assured Walter that he’d store the brain pieces only where he could find them. We know that Bell designed the shape-shifters. But I can’t make sense of why Bell might have told Walternate about his knowledge.

If Peter Bishop Did Not Exist?

Would “Dr. Paris” still remove parts of Walter’s brain at some point?

Would Newton still have needed to obtain the information from Walter about opening a door to the other side?

Would Olivia have chosen to save Walter’s life?

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #209 "Snakehead"

By oranfly       Email Post       8/15/2011 12:01:00 AM      

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.


"Mother Nature has a real sick sense of humor." - Walter Bishop


The opening scene takes place in China town when a Chinese man is searching for someone who can help him as he is clearly in a lot of pain as he stumbles down the street. Eventually he is given directions to a shop where he finds the man he's been looking for. The man offers him a bed and shelter and tells him that it'll all pass. Unfortunately for him, it does not pass and a octopus/snake/worm thingy pulls itself from the man's mouth. On a scale of hybrid monsters, melting people, goo-ifying brains, and porcupine people an octopus/snake/worm thingy - not too bad in the realm of Fringe. It is slightly disturbing the method of which this creature make it's appearance. Moving on! We then switch to a crime scene where Olivia is waiting for the Bishop's to arrive and is curious when Peter shows up before Walter who has taken a taxi. Walter has finally gotten to a place in his life where he wants to be more independent and make more decisions on his own without consulting Peter. In short; he's tired of being the child in the father/son duo. Then comes one of my favorite Peter/Olivia banter scenes on the show:

“So how many are there? Is it bad?” - Peter

“Have you eaten?” –Olivia

“Yeah.” – Peter

“Well that’s unfortunate.” - Olivia

Pretty much explains the scene they find when they arrive down by the water side to see a surprising number of people dead on the shore with varying degree in stages of the creature breaking free from their bodies. Their inspection of the bodies and creatures is both disgusting and humorous, but they manage to find a woman still alive and she is rushed to the hospital. We learn when Olivia and Peter go to interview her at the hospital that she never took a pill given to everyone else for "sea sickness" and also that Peter can speak Cantonese. Walter and Peter later pose that the pill was hosting the larva that later grew into the creatures they have now by using the human body as an incubator.

They manage to get a triad member into custody and make the link that the triad is using immigrants to smuggle in the worm. Back at the lab, Walter and Astrid are doing tests on the worms when one latches onto Walter and Broyles sees it all. His lack of surprise speaks volumes. Olivia and Peter then run off to explore a financial lead to the suburbs to find a single mom to a teenage boy and what seems to be a dead end. Walter makes the leap after testing his own blood after the worms bite that the drug is in fact medicinal and not recreational uses. This leads Walter to want to explore China town to gather a few samples from herbal shops to compare to. Peter tries to persuade Walter into letting him do it, but this only upsets Walter and he is obstinate on going alone. Astrid is easily coaxed by Peter to keep an eye on Walter as he practices his "self actualization" in China town.


While they're off in China town, Peter and Olivia go back to the suburban house to talk to Matt (the teenager) in hopes of getting him to talk. Peter opens up about his past and how he was raised by his mother and knows Matt is just trying to protect his own mother. We learn that it is actually Matt who has an immune deficiency and he's been receiving treatments for awhile now. In China town, Walter catches Astrid following him and instead of being completely offended he invites her to tag along with him as a friend. Unfortunately Astrid loses Walter while they were buying refreshments and after consulting Peter, Astrid decides to head back to the lab to see if he'd headed back already. What she walks in on though is definitely not Walter, but a couple triad gang members who render her unconscious while they steal the worms from the lab. Walter is still in China town and uses all his money to try and call Peter, whose number he's forgotten, when an elderly Chinese woman takes pity on him and takes him home to use her phone to try and get a hold of Peter.


Astrid is later discovered by Peter and Olivia who finally return to the lab and she tells them about the big Asian guys with tattoos that took her out. They deduce that she must've been followed back from China town. Peter then gets a phone call from the Chinese woman who found Walter and he breaks off from the group to pick him up. Walter then tells Peter about bragging to an herbalist about the worms they had back at the lab. Peter calls Olivia to tell her about the herbalist shop while she is already at a raid that is in motion. The raid on the boat is a bust though and they find they are too late. Lucky for team Fringe and the boat load of Chinese people, Peter has spotted them being loaded into the herbalist shop and relays the information to Olivia. Deciding that he can't wait, Peter picks the lock of the shop and goes in without any backup. Meanwhile, Walter is singing his Lion's Den song back in the car, which is the second time in the Fringe series. Not sure if it means anything, but it seems he only sings it when they're in a hostile situation.


Peter, in typical Peter fashion, manages to get himself caught while trying to save a woman from being opened up. The Chinese men, in an attempt to get Peter to spill information forces a larva into his mouth. Olivia is right on time though and shoots Peter's captors. At the risk of sounding like an idiot girl, the way Olivia immediately rushes to Peter in the meelie of people says more than "meh, we're friends". On a side note, I thought it was interesting that they used the exact same location for Henry the second's debut via fauxlivia later on in season three.


The episode finishes up with a touching Walter/Peter scene where Walter informs Peter that he has implanted a tracking chip into his neck and gives the tracker to Peter so that he can always find him even during his moments of independence.


If Peter Bishop Never Existed...
Seeing as he played a VERY large role in this we may just have to break it down into points.

• The connection between the sterile suburban house and the drug ring would never have been made which would've seriously delayed the investigation.


• Olivia wouldn't have been able to get any answers from Matt about being the immune deficient person in the family and about how it was done.


• They never would've found the Chinese immigrants after they were unloaded from the boat since they were spotted by Peter in China town.

Fringe T-Shirt: Bishop & Son LTD

By Dennis       Email Post       8/14/2011 02:25:00 PM      

T-Shirt-of-the-week site OtherTees has a Fringe themed t-shirt available until August 17th .

The shirt titled "Bishop & Son LTD" features a drawing of the Wave Sink Device (aka Doomsday machine), with the names Walter and Peter with the description  "physicists scientists engineers"

The t-shirt is $13 but our readers can save $1 using the code "fringetelevision.com" at checkout.

Summer of Fringe Rewatch: #208 "August"

By Unknown       Email Post       8/14/2011 12:11:00 AM      

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.

The Observers played a significant role in the later part of season three, setting up events in an experiment to determine if Walter would be willing to let go of Peter. The producers have stated that they will play a significant role in season four. Bits and pieces about “The Observer” (September) were dropped in The Arrival, The Road Not Taken, and There is More Than One of Everything.

In the second season, the Fringe team finds out that there is more than one of everything… including Observers. And that they do more than Observe.

My Own Observing

As August waited for Christine Hollis, there were several things of note. Of particular interest was the black notebook that he used to take notes in a strange, cryptic language. He was taken aback when a veteran engaged him in friendly conversation, starting with a compliment concerning his binocular-like gadget. He told the veteran that the object is “from far way.” With as little as we still know about the Observers, what does this mean? Far is word for a measure of distance. Or does August just use this as simple explanation for an idea that is very complicated? The veteran gave him a flag pin, and August looked like he did’t know what to make of a kind gesture. Humans and our quirks must have been interesting to him.


They Just Watch?

In physics, there is a well-known principle called the “observer effect.” This states that the results of an experiment are affected by the act of observation.

So, while the Observers claim to not get involved, they still can change events by merely watching. This was taken to the literal extreme when September interrupted Walternate, keeping him from seeing that he was successful in finding a cure for his dying son. Hence, a whole new chain of events was started.

In this episode, August left his notebook on a park bench, knowing that Walter Bishop would eventually break the code and help him. Thus, setting a new path into motion. The Observers have weapons, which means that they get involved more often then they’d like, I’m sure. As a security guard fired his weapon, it didn’t seem to phase August, and we later learn that he caught the bullets in mid-air. September was able to do this in The Firefly. Both can start vehicles using electrical impulses from their fingers. The Observers appear to be able to slightly bend the laws of physics.

While investigating, Olivia and Peter enlist the help of Massive Dynamic’s Brandon Fayette, who happens to have a geeky interest in the Observer’s appearances and the origin of their writing. He explains the fluid nature of time; how everything occurs at once. Yet the Observers can sit back and watch it at any point. But time is not linear in one direction, it branches like a tree with new possibilities for every new decision path.

September told Walter in The Firefly:

Various possible futures are happening simultaneously. I can tell you all of them, but I cannot tell you which one of them will come to pass. Because every action causes ripples, consequences both obvious and... unforeseen.

Memory and Objects

After all these years, August kept Christine’s teddy bear. Just like Walter kept his Peter’s silver coin. A reminder of someone they love. Humans use physical objects in order to help them remember. Walter even used food in order to jog his memories and make connections. For instance, Walter was on a quest for the perfect strawberry milkshake in this episode. But after season 3, there is no reminder of Peter. As far as we know, anyway. However, Walter once called the human brain an amazing organ, and it never forgets experiences. When Olivia was trapped Over There in The Plateau, her projection of Peter told her that he was a part of her that she had to hold on to. That she could not forget him. Walter also said that if anything went wrong when Peter chose to go back to our current time with knowledge of the future, that Olivia would be their fail safe. I’m counting on one or the other to “remember” Peter somehow in season 4. As a fan of Dune, I’d like to think that memory transcends life-times. So maybe it can transverse time-lines as well.


No One Special

Fringe often questions the nature of “special.”

Agent Broyles briefed Olivia about Christine’s background, saying that “As far as we can tell, she’s no one special.”

Peter asked about Christine Hollis: “What is so special about her? Why save her?"

Olivia also found nothing “special about her” when she was reviewing information about the girl.

One could ask what is so special about Olivia? To Peter, she was his everything.

To Walter, Olive was special to him (Subject 13.)

August explained that he had observed Christine for all of her life, and that she was unique. At the Asian restaurant in the episode, September reminded August that humans “are all unique.” This fact alone was not enough to keep her from her fate, that she was meant to die in an airplane crash.

Is there a difference between “special” and “important?” The Observers might say that they see no future for someone, but one change in a decision from someone else could alter things toward a new outcome. It could cause those ripples that September spoke about. In The Plateau, we saw Milo Stanfield literally get away with murder, as he set up a string of events that just seemed random. But Olivia acted in a manner that he did account for in his calculations. Peter had remarked early in season one that random events happen all the time that seem linked, but that doesn’t mean that there is any significance to them. Then he changed his tune by the time of The Arrival. One could say that Olivia had no future when she was killed, but Peter would not accept that fate.

August chose to meet with Walter because Walter would not accept no for an answer. He chose to do whatever it took to bring his son back. Walter’s advice:

Well, in that case, if you cannot persuade the others of your conviction, then you must do something to prove it. You must make her important. And of course whatever you do, you must be prepared to face the consequences.

• Walter’s consequences were the destruction of two universes, plus the pain of watching his son crumble.
• August’s consequence was dying for a woman that he fell in love with. September said,“You made her important. She is responsible for the death of one of us."
• Peter’s consequence was to erase himself from existence so that his love, Olivia, would live.
  
  

All of this falls nicely into one of Fringe’s core themes: How far would you go to save someone you love?


Peter Searches for Answers

What are they looking for? We're looking for them, but they're looking for something too. That's why they keep on showing up. So what are they looking for? - Peter

August made it a point to hand Peter his gun, and it appeared as if he communicated telepathically to Peter. Peter was astounded that he was able to fire the weapon. Peter once stated that he could “bring anything mechanical back from the dead.” Is his ability to easily use and fix technology more than just because of his IQ?

Peter asked Walter if the Observer ever told him why he saved them both. Walter’s face suggested that he knew more than he was telling. Of course, Peter did not know where he came from at this point. At some point, Walter must have spoken in detail with September. We do know that Walter was warned to never allow Peter to return to the other side. Did Walter know why? Walter also begged August when they met to not take his son. Over several interactions with Observers, Walter is very frightened about them taking Peter from him. He told August that he had made “an arrangement” with September. Did he tell Walter that his time with Peter was limited?

Peter: They have the answers. I know they do.

Walter: Don't worry, son. You will get your answer.

So maybe in Season 4, we’ll finally get the answer Peter has been seeking.

At the end of this scene, Walter cups Peter’s face, just like he did when they decided to cheat time in The Day We Died…

Olivia’s Life

It was nice to see Olivia laughing and trying to live a normal life, as she took care of her niece, Ella. Ella was not afraid of roller-coasters, and she giggled because her brave aunt was frightened of them. When they had to put their plans on hold, Ella said, “It’s OK, Aunt Liv. I know that you have an important job.” I never would have guessed that Ella would be doing that job in the future, and that she’d be one of the First People.

At this point in the series, I now know that Observers standing around at the end of an episode can only mean bad things for our heroes. As they observed Olivia and Ella on a roller-coaster, December remarked to September:

It is a shame things are going to get so hard for her.

The first time I saw this episode, I remember perking up on the edge of my seat and saying “What? No, you bald @#$*% had better leave poor Livy alone!”

Just as Olivia went out on a limb and went out of her comfort zone, everything went crazy. Metaphorically, Olivia’s life became an emotional roller-coaster from this point out. In Grey Matters, she found that she had become very attached to the Bishops. In What Lies Below, I think we get the first glimpse of the fact that she had confused feelings for Peter, as she was shaken-up over the thought of him dying from the virus. The discovery of her ability to see objects from the other side in Jacksonville, led to her seeing Peter glimmer, and to hearing Walter’s story of his grand deception in Peter. Then she had the terrible secret she was keeping from Peter, which he found out any way, and he left this universe in a hurt and confused state of mind.

Risking life and limb to get him back, she told him how much he meant to her. But then she became trapped and her alternate slipped into her life back home, and Peter bought into the alt’s deception. I felt so bad for the both of them in Marionette. Peter loved Olivia for so long, and really thought she was opening up to him, only to have to crush his Olivia with the news that he was deceived. Olivia came to see herself as her own person, that her alternate is not better, and to live her life with the people that she loves. So, she and Peter marry, but their world was still disintegrating and children are out of the question for her because of this bleak future. Walternate eventually kills her. Very hard for her indeed. Luckily, Walter and Peter stepped in:

“Give Him the keys and save the girl.”

So now, we get to see life without the ripples caused by Peter. Will it be better? Maybe in some ways. But I have a feeling life without Peter will be much worse than the future we saw in The Day We Died.

Unanswered Questions

Where are the Observers from, and why do they care about events in the world, but distance themselves from individual humans?

Why could Walter decipher the Observer’s language?

Just how much does Walter know about the Observers and their plan for Peter?

Why can Peter use the Observer’s gun?

Who was Donald Long? He did not appear to be an Observer, but he had some interesting capabilities, especially when he found August’s hotel hideout in the phonebook.


If Peter Did Not Exist

August was emboldened by Walter’s act of love in saving Peter. Without Peter, he probably wouldn’t have tried to save Christine Hollis.

Donald Long may have killed Olivia since Peter would not have been there to stop him.

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #207 "Of Human Action"

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       8/13/2011 12:01:00 AM      

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 episode starts out swinging, and in that regard it reminds me of "Safe" from Season 1.

It looks like three cops from Queens are dealing with two kidnappers and their teen-aged victim. But "Of Human Action" is an episode about perspective(and that makes it foreshadowing of "Johari Window"), and if you walk away with anything from it, it should be that things are not always as they appear-a very good thing to keep in mind if you're caught up with 'Fringe' through episode 322. For at least the first 15 minutes of this episode, it seems that the men are the kidnappers, and the teen is the victim, not the other way around. The two actors who play the used car salesmen are well-casted, and even though they are well-dressed, there's a slightly sinister air about them.

It's not until Peter Bishop is unwillingly stopped dead in his tracks that we realize Tyler Carson is the mind control master, with his endless dispenser of medicine-in-a-Pez. Cameron Monaghan does a great job as Tyler Carson, a troubled youth desperately looking to reunite with his birth mother(more on that shortly). Tyler takes Peter hostage as his driver, dragging him along for the ride of his not-thought-through plan. At first Peter tries to fight the youth's control, to no avail. Then Peter tries to acquire information from him, like how far a distance Tyler can utiltize his mind control power. But Tyler's pretty sharp and refuses to give Peter any information.

Things get a little dicey when they get pulled over by a cop for speeding. Tyler almost looks like he's enjoying himself, as he makes the cop put his revolver on the Vista Cruiser's roof. Peter's hand is visibly shaking as Tyler makes him pick it up. In a very smart move, Peter yells to Tyler,"Do not force me to shoot this man." For some reason, Tyler changes his plan from having Peter kill the officer, to making Peter just knock him out. (Peter's words will come in handy when the poor man wakes up and alerts the authorities.)

I believe this is only the second case in which our Olivia Dunham is emotionally vested. The first, of course, was involving her lover, John Scott, in the pilot. Olivia seems off balance as soon as she realizes Peter is the crazy kid's hostage. You can hear it in her voice and see it in her body language.

Walter Bishop is also off balance as soon as he realizes Peter is gone from the crime scene.There's a beautiful scene where Olivia goes to Walter in a room at Massive Dynamic's New York headquarters, and tried to comfort him. Let me post that conversation:
Walter: I can't lose him again.
Olivia: Walter... I know you're worried. We all are. But we can get Peter back. We just need you to find a way to disable Tyler.
Walter: Peter always helps me. I don't know what to do. How do I do this without Peter? He always helps me.
Olivia: He helps me too. But you can do this.
Nina: Walter...I know you're scared. But you're the only one that can help him.
Walter: Maybe I could use an EMF scrambler to disrupt his beta wave transmissions.
Nina: Sounds like a good place to start.

It's very interesting to me how it is Nina Sharp here, who is able to get Walter to clam down and move into a thinking mode, and not Olivia. Will that be what happens in Season 4 when Peter's not there to help Walter?

Meanwhile, crazy kid is hungry and wants to look at girls, so he makes Peter take him into a strip joint for dinner. This is a very interesting scene, and makes me think of something Akiva Goldsman would write in. I noticed in the credits of this episode that he's listed as 'consulting producer.' There's alot of conversation and emotion going on at the dinner table of the two unlikely diners, as a scantily-clad body dances above the men. Peter tries to chip away at the kid's master plan by boldly needling him. Regarding his dad, Tyler tells Peter "He lied to me my entire life." Again, doesn't sound like much in Season 1, but if you've seen "The Man From The Other Side" this is true foreshadowing of what truths lie ahead for Peter Bishop.

Peter answers Tyler saying, "Let's not get dramatic." The youth continues to tell Peter further that his father told him his mother was dead. This could also be foreshadowing of Peter's alternate mother, Elizabeth, who we're told killed herself years ago after Peter went to Europe.
(What if Blue Verse Liz is not dead, interesting, yes?) Tyler tells Peter he found his birth certificate with his mom's name on it and tracked her down, and is going to see her. "She was never really dead at all."

Meanwhile, Walter has picked up his pace, and Olivia walks in on he and Astrid wearing aluminum foil hats in one of Massive Dynamic's labs. Olivia tells him nervously she hopes he has something better to stop Tyler with than what he's wearing. Walter tells her "I don't trust them here. I think they are trying to read my thoughts." And who knows, he could be correct. What don't they do? Astrid, who's also donning an aluminum foil chapeau, offers Walter mutual support. "Massive Dynamic gives me the creeps too." (That makes 3 of us.) Walter tries to explain to Olivia what the modified electromagnetic pulse(more foreshadowing of "Johari Window") will do. She doesn't get it, and Peter's not around. Fortunately, Astrid's getting better at Walterese and tells Liv "Where gonna crash his brain." And I'll tell ya, folks, I think that's what somebody's going to do to Peter in Season 4. To summarize, the writers have painstakingly painted some similarities between Tyler Carson and Peter Bishop in this episode. We learn toward the end that Tyler Carson is Tyler Carson #3, as in one of many "Tyler Carsons" in an experiment. Does that mean Peter Bishop is an experiment also?

Tyler and Peter get to Tyler's mother's house in Maryland, and of course she's very shocked to see him. Inside Tyler tells her he doesn't blame her for leaving, that he thinks his dad didn't want him to be with his mother. Renee Davies says, "Oh no, Tyler, it wassn't like that." My guess is that she donated her eggs to Massive Dynamic for money, but there is no proof of that.

They are interrupted by the arrival of Renee's husband, and Tyler gets mad, seeing this man as the reason for his mom's departure from his life. Tyler has Peter pick up his gun and point it at Renee's husband. Just then Broyles bursts in and tasers Tyler, but all it does is anger him. He has Peter move his gun hand and shoot Broyles, then Tyler again takes off in Walter's car with Peter as his hostage.

Minutes later, Olivia arrives, and joins Walter and Astrid in her car with Walter's contraption.
Conveniently Walter spots the Vista Crusier and Liv's practically screaming for Walter to get close enough to use his machine. Peter sees Tyler momentarily out of it, and crashes the poor station wagon into a pole. Walter is bending over Peter, passed out on the ground, as he regains consciousness, telling him "You always prove to be more resourceful than I give you credit for." More foreshadowing, perhaps?

Peter looks in Olivia's direction, and all she does is nod toward him. For as crazy worried as Olivia was about Peter in this episode, I found that simple nod a bit understated.

The second to last scene is the Bishop men in their Cambridge home. Peter gets off the phone with Olivia and Walter guesses he was correct that the mind control stopped when the Pezes left Tyler's system. Walter asks Peter how many crepes he wants. A bandaged and subdued Peter tells him he's not hungry and doesn't need any crepes. Walter replies" You were abducted. Of course you need crepes!" which is one of my favorite Season 1 Walterisms. Then for possibly the third time this episode, Walter brings up Peter's mother again. "Whenever your mother made them you called them 'creeps'...drove her batty. She was a strong woman, your mother."
In response, Peter swallows hard, which we've come to know means he's upset by Walter's words.

In "The Dreamscape" the timely death of Georges Morales makes you think Nina Sharp is a dark, controlling character with secrets. The last scene of "Of Human Action," cinches it.
Nina Sharp is typing a note to William Bell on an old computer, and it's the content that makes the hairs on your neck stand up:

"William, I don't know if you've been receiving these messages, but I continue to hope. I wanted to update you on the status of the Penrose-Carson experiments. One of the Tylers did, in fact, display a rather dramatic ability for mind control. But before we became aware of his ability, there were some unintended consequences. Among them, he was able to locate records of his surrogate mother, and, unfortunately, made a misguided attempt to reunite with her. In light of this, I am suspending the experiments indefinitely. You were right -- mind control is possible, given the right conditions. So despite the unfortunate circumstances, we can consider the project a success. As always, I hope this finds you in good health. Warmest Regards, Nina."

Wow, remind me to not completely trust Nina Sharp ever again! Penrose, you will remember was the doctor from 102, "The Same Old Story," who adopted the age-generated experiment guy as his son, and helped him acquire people's pituitaries to stay alive. If you remember, Christopher Penrose told Olivia someone paid Penrose-we must assume to keep those experiments going. Now we know it was Massive Dynamic who Dr. Penrose worked for.

Questions That Arise From "Of Human Action"
As Peter and Olivia try to figure out how the used car salesman fit into the kidnapping, Peter says "Maybe they're hiding out in plain sight?" Is that foreshadowing of what "Peter" will do in Season 4? On the same subject, this is the second episode to have car salesmen in it(they were also in "The No-Brainer." Of the car sales profession, Peter says, "There's certainly nothing more mundane than being a used car saleman." Will they bring Peter back as one in Season 4?

The only person under Tyler Carson #3's mind control who was able to alter it in any way was Peter. Is that because he's from another unvierse, or is it because he is a "mutant" of some kind as Walter hinted in "Night Of Desirable Objects?"

Why did Peter drive the Vista Cruiser into the tree? On the surface it seems he did it to stop Tyler Carson from using his mind control, but is there another reason? Is it possible Peter knew he wouldn't die?

So Tyler Carson numbers 3, 4, and 5 are being kept alive(or animated) at Massive Dynamic Headquarters. How many Tyler Carson's were made? And what happened to the others?

If Peter Bishop Never Existed
Who would have pushed Nina Sharp to reveal more information to the feds?

Who would have streamlined the informational session with the SWAT team guys and given Walter the microphone to talk with them?

Would Olivia have become Tyler Carson #3's next kidnappig victim? If so, would she have survived the ordeal? Is this then the 4th example of "Give him the keys, and save the girl" in this series? By Peter's being kidnapped to become Tyler's driver, did he save Olivia's life?

If Peter didn't exist, would Phillip Broyles have died?

FRINGE Season 4 Teaser: 'Where Is Peter Bishop?' Part 3

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       8/12/2011 08:33:00 PM      

FRINGE Season 4 Teaser: ‘Where Is Peter Bishop?’ Part 3

August 12, 2011 by Marisa Roffman

(AKA Fox wants in on the network-endorsed shipper videos!)

Another Friday, another glorious FRINGE season 4 teaser. Can we please get a new one of these every Friday, powers that be?

While past promos have centered more on the overall disappearance of Peter versus a specific aspect of what his absence will mean, this 30-second spot focused in on Peter and Olivia’s convoluted romance. The teaser showed a scene from “The Plateau,” where Peter “appeared” to Olivia (as she was trapped in the alt-universe and brainwashed to believe she was Fauxlivia) and told her, “Real is just a matter of perception. I am here. And I’m a part of you that you have to hold on to. You can’t forget who you are, Olivia. You can’t forget where you’re from. You can’t forget this.”

Pretty fitting, given that in season four, it certainly appears Olivia will have no memory of Peter ever existing. Will we have a repeat of Peter trying to remind Olivia of his place in her life?

Take a look at the promo and then read on for my speculation on one of the season four tidbits in the spot…

(Note:The video is the same one J. Dunham posted in the previous post)

“I don’t think there is anything sadder than when two people are meant to be together and something else intervenes.” – Walter

Walter Bishop, you kill me a little. I don’t think this is specifically about Peter and Olivia (since as far as our characters know, Peter probably died when he was a kid), but I wonder if Walter is reflecting on his own life? A case they’re working on? A movie he’s watching? With Walter, it could be practically anything.

Share your theories below! Source:givememyremote.com