Fringe Rerun: Last 4 Episodes of Season 3

As we know, season 4 of Fringe premieres September 23 and Fox will rerun the last 4 episodes of Season 3 begining this Friday at 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT.

Here's the schedule:

26/08: 3x19 "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide - LSD"

02/09: 3x20 "6:02 AM EST"

09/09: 3x21 "The Last Sam Weiss"

16/09: 3x22 "The Day We Died"

23/09: 4X01 "Neither Here Nor There"

Summer of Fringe Rewatch: #218 "White Tulip"

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.


Even after all these amazing episodes, I find that White Tulip is still my absolute favorite overall episode of Fringe. To me, it embodies the essence of the show. I make no apologies for the fact that I am a sucker for epic love stories, and Alistair's quest to undo the event that killed his fiancée really struck a chord with me. Looking deeper into this episode, we might even see a blueprint for season four.

The first thing I noticed at the start of the episode is that the digital clock at train station shows 5:48. The transit authority slogan is the aptly named, “Be There in No Time.”

Secondly, there is the boy at the station that tried to guilt people into giving him change. His sign said, “God could be watching.” Most people have an immense sense of shame. Many of us have been raised with the concept of an omnipotent God that has the power to judge our actions, and we are either damned or forgiven of our sins. Many that claim to be agnostic or atheist later in life often still feel the power of this concept from youth. This idea is crucial to the story of this episode.

As this episode played out, I noticed that there are so many variants of the music piece that would eventually morph and become known to fans as “Peter and Olivia’s theme.”

White Lies

At the end of Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver, Olivia found herself in the uncomfortable position of knowing Walter’s story about Peter, but she promised Walter she’d give him time to prepare to tell him. Walter struggled with the secret he was keeping from Peter, and chose to write a letter of confession. Peter noticed Walter acting differently, but usually perceptive Olivia denied that she noticed any differences. Peter looked surprised, but he trusted Olivia, so he didn’t think anymore of it. One could say that he also trusted “Olivia” in episode 3.04 when he questioned the changes he noticed.

Peter bluntly asked Walter in the lab if there was anything bothering him that he might want to talk about. Walter denied and said “everything is fine.” Peter has heard that enough from Olivia by now to have to think that Walter too was also not telling the truth.

The story of Walter's struggle to tell Peter the truth was just so heart-tugging. Walter set out to write Peter an explanatory letter. There were several missed opportunities for Peter to have seen Walter’s letter. Walter reacted terribly to the possibility that Peter might have picked up the letter. I’m not certain if Walter ever intended to give Peter the letter in any of the time-line scenarios that played. Especially since he burned the letter immediately after writing it the last time.

(Since one theme of Fringe is ripples/consequences, maybe never meeting Alistair in the final time-line is what prevented Walter from telling Peter. If he had actually “met” him, maybe he would have given the letter to Peter. But now I’m getting into the constant circle of “maybe” and this is discussed further.)

All the Faith We Need

Fringe has long had a theme of science meshed with questions of religion.

In the first run through in the train, Walter takes a moment to look at a cross necklace around a deceased passenger’s neck.

When he was able to speak with him, Walter explained a secret to Dr. Peck:

Until I took my son from the other side, I had never believed in God. But it occurred to me... that my actions had betrayed him and that everything that had happened to me since was God punishing me. So now I'm looking for a sign of forgiveness. I've asked God for a sign of forgiveness. A specific one, a white tulip.

Pretty steep change of heart from the man that told his colleague, Carla Warren, that there was only room for one God in his lab. (Peter.)

The largest change came in 6:02 AM EST after Peter was rejected by the machine and severely injured.

I asked you for a sign, and you sent it to me. A white tulip. And I was so grateful. Since then, in moments of deep despair, I have found solace in believing that you had forgiven me.

I was willing to let him go. I was willing to let Peter die. I've changed. That should matter

God, I know my crimes are unforgivable. So punish me. Do what you want to me. But I beg you, spare our world.

Peck reminded Walter that God is science. That science helps to perform miracles every day. Later in Subject 13, we’d see that science can even create white tulips that can grow in places they should not. Elizabeth Bishop told young Peter that that “he used his brain and his imagination to turn the world into what he wanted it to be.”


Walter tried to persuade Peck to not try and go back to save Arlette.

There will be repercussions if you pull Arlette from that car. You don't know how things will be changed by your actions, but they will. It's not our place to adjust the universe.

I admit, I always cry when Alistair chooses to die with Arlette… And of course Alistair leaves the white tulip for Walter, who thinks that another human soul have never heard about his hope for God’s forgiveness - and Peter’s.

Machine Man

It seems that Peter may have a lot in common with Alastair Peck. Peck cast machine parts and embedded them in his body so that he could travel through time and stop events that led to his fiancée’s death.

Peter would become part of a machine, to see through time and use the knowledge obtained in order to save Olivia.

I'm sorry you have to go through this again

For their first encounter with Peck, Olivia found his address via a credit card receipt from a café. This time around the team uses prints to find Dr. Peck’s location. While there this time, Olivia feels - odd.

Olivia: Wow, I'm having déjà vu.

Peter: Yeah, I read that déjà vu is fate's way of telling you that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. That's why you feel like you've been there before. You are right in line with you're own destiny.

Olivia: Well, do you believe that?

Peter: Mmm... no. It's a bit mystical for my taste. I never get them, myself. Maybe that's 'cause I'm not on track with my own destiny.

Walter’s knowing look at Peter’s joking remarks is just so… painful.

 I find a parallel that probably has nothing to do with the overall mythology of the series, but nice regardless. Peter found a photo album belonging to Dr. Peck’s fiancée, Arlette. He also pointed out a photo album to Olivia in Concentrate and Ask Again. Once again, pictures are important in Fringe, reminding us that “soon, there will be nothing left but pictures.” (The Bishop Revival)
 
Gobbledy Gook

Walter read Alistair’s work and made adjustments to his equations. In the past, we were told about Walter’s time travel device, the Dis-e-re. I wonder if Walter used his prior knowledge, coupled with Peck’s work, and some additional research to create the machine? He said:

In another twenty years, with the assistance of some other great minds, I will have absorbed this information.

Olivia: What if Alistair Peck is going back to save her?

Peter looks contemplative.

Walter: Grief can drive people to extraordinary lengths.

Walter said that Peck’s 10 month jump might have killed hundreds of people. However, Walter risked the world for Peter. Peter destroyed the other universe when forced to use the machine, because he loved Olivia and Walter.

Consequences Unforeseen

Peck’s conversation with Walter about his situation carries great emotional weight regarding what-ifs. He told Walter:

If I'd have simply done what she asked me, if I'd have said, 'sure, I'll go with you', I know it wouldn't have happened.

In The Day We Died, there is a scene in which Peter found the lake-house key, left there as a calling card by Walternate. Peter chose to keep this fact secret from Olivia, and he visited the lake-house alone. Fooled by Walternate’s hologram, Peter left Olivia vulnerable. Walternate was able to shoot and kill her. Over the course of his mourning, I’m sure he told himself that she would be alive if only…

Olivia may have once questioned herself and wondered …“If only” she had told Peter about the secret, he may have never ended up going Over There.

The “if only” can go on and on, never stopping. That’s the point of this entire episode and maybe even the series. Actions have unforeseeable consequences. We can’t beat ourselves up over every choice that we make that goes wrong. But it’s hard, especially for Walter.

Yet, Walter assumed that taking Peter was the root cause of all the terrible things in his life. But the Cortexiphan trials would still occur without Peter. And it may be the case in season four as well. Walter crossed into the universe anyway, as seen at the end of The Day We Died. Did Walter go mad as well? The action of taking Peter has been attributed to the damage done Over There, for Peter’s mother’s suicide, and for Walter’s insanity. This is the danger of what-ifs. Things may happen anyway, no matter what we think may have caused them.

Even the Observer, September, knew this. In The Firefly he told Walter:

There are things that I know. But there are things that I do not. 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.

As We Head into Season Four…

The game of “what-if” may be deadly to play since saving Olivia was Peter’s noble goal. Will she die anyway? After all, we still have “the man who is going to kill her” from Lysergic Acid Diethylamide at large…

How far would you go to save someone you love? Cross realities into a hostile alternate universe? Enter one’s thoughts in a daring risk to pull their consciousness back?

What if the choice involved the possible death of many others?

Olivia: What did you do to the people on that train? Twelve innocent people.

Alistair: Those people aren't dead, Miss. Not permanently. 

Olivia: Of course they're dead. 

Alistair: But they soon won't be. Although, others soon will be, I'm afraid.

Or the choice had repercussions that can not be foretold? 

Walter told Peter in The Day We Died:

Walter: Peter, I was wrong. It's not too late. You can save both worlds. We can do it all over again. This time, you -- you simply need to make a different choice, and should something go wrong, then Olivia will be our fail-safe.

Peter: Walter, stop. Olivia is dead. 

Walter: But she won't be... Not then.

And…

Walter: We can fix everything. We can cheat the rules of time.

Peter: Imagine the repercussions. 

Walter: There's no way of telling what the cost might be. But it can't be worse than this. 

In a world without Peter, Bishop, there are many gaping holes that can not even begin to be explained by what-ifs.

Fringe Science

Could White Tulip actually be bigger than we thought with all the talk about mitochondria as cell batteries just giving out? Is the Blight Over There possibly caused by the chloroplasts in plant cells not being able to make energy?

When plants die off, it causes issues with oxygen, because it is a bi-product of photosynthesis. So that may be why the other side has issues. The trees dead = reduced oxygen. We need oxygen to use glucose and form ATP energy in the mitochondria.

Something Cool

The song playing in Alastair’s MIT lab is Are "Friends" Electric? by Gary Numan and Tubeway Army. Gary Numan was one of the late seventies androgynous stars, almost new wave in sound with heavy synthesizer use. It was surprising to find out that the album (Replicas) and song are both tributes to Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the Bladerunner film adaptation. (Source)

Unanswered Questions

Peck told Walter that he had read his work in New Frontiers In Genetic Hybridization. What work was Walter doing in that field?

Why did Walter specifically want a white tulip as his sign of God’s forgiveness?

If Peter Bishop was removed from the equation

Walter would have never had a heart-to-heart talk with Alistair because he would not have shared the same experience of immense loss.

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

Here is the fourth "Where Is Peter Bishop?" teaser from Fox.

"We all get really good at pretending that the loneliness isn't there and then something comes along to remind us. I know what it's like to have a hole in my life. It's been there as long as I can remember." - Olivia Dunham

Fringe Summer Rewatch #217: "Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver."

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.

By now, and pretty much from here to the end of the season, we're firmly entrenched in the larger mythos of the series. With the arguable exception of Northwest Passage, we're done with Mystery of the Week episodes, and hanging on for dear life as we ride the jaw-dropping, heartbreaking, and completely exhilarating roller coaster of story that has at last filled us in on why these two worlds are on a collision course. We'll spend the rest of the season examining the increasingly catastrophic fallout of Walter's meddling. Fanfrikkingtastic. If you're not hanging anxiously on every episode by his point, this is probably not be the show for you.

We have two plots here, and while James Heath and his tragic murders are certainly important, and will come into play again later, in this episode the Fringe investigation really takes a back seat to the other storyline – the immediate consequences of Walter's confession to Olivia. As we know now, the cracks appearing between the universes are Walter's fault.And Olivia is roiling inside, the secret she agreed to keep eating away at her, twisting her guts every time she looks at Peter. She can't be alone with him, afraid that he'll see the secret in her eyes, afraid of what he'll do if she tells him, afraid of what she'll be if she doesn't. Unable to sleep, she visits Sam, hoping for some kind of Jedi sagacity. And although Sam can see immediately that she's not sleeping because something is eating her, he proves ultimately disappointing, telling her that she's beyond the scope of his expertise. But before he lets her go he tells her “You're a good person, you know. One of the few I know. If you agreed to keep this secret I'm sure you had a good reason.” Trust yourself, he's telling her, your heart is true. Maybe he's not entirely out of wisdom after all.

Investigating the string of gruesome deaths is an almost welcome distraction from the guilt and doubt gnawing away at her insides.

Walter is also in a state of high anxiety. His relationship with Olivia has taken a lot of hits recently, and he's afraid the damage may be so great she won't be able to forgive him. He's awkward around her, nervous, afraid of her judgement, and knowing that it's justified. His secret is out, and he's terrified of Peter finding out as well. He comforts himself with plans to take his son away, to keep him to himself, away from Olivia, who is plainly struggling with her promise. But since they're on a case, he settles for making the taffy Peter loved as a boy. Anything, anything to make his son happy. To make Peter love him. And when Olivia tells him that she can't do it, she has to tell Peter, Walter panics. She's as gentle with him as she can be, despite all the things he's done – to her, to Peter, to the universe – she still cares for him, and tries to reassure him that the truth won't cost him his son. But Walter is adamant.

“I'm begging you,” he says, desperately “Not yet please. Give me time to prepare. Please.” Reluctantly, Olivia agrees. How differently things might have turned out if she hadn't.

Despite her best efforts to conceal her turmoil, Peter knows Olivia well, and he's well aware that something's bothering her. And given that she's actively avoiding being alone with him, he thinks he knows what it is. He's loved her for a while now, the slow realization of it finally clenching painfully when he thought she was dead. But he knows who she is. He knows she walls away her vulnerability, and he'd rather have her honest friendship than risk driving her deeper into herself by pushing for something more. It has to be her dance to lead - maybe someday she will. On their way to investigate another death, he carefully broaches the subject.

“That trip down to Jacksonville was crazy. We were both exhausted, we were both emotional, and you know if something had happened between the two of us, I mean if we had actually kissed, then we'd have to deal with that, but we didn't...You know this past year this is the longest I've ever stayed in one place, so this thing we have, you, me, Walter, this...this...odd little family unit we've got going - I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that.”

Poor Olivia, he's got it wrong, but she's not ready for the real explanation. What if Walter's right after all? Miserably, she keeps her silence, letting him have his assumption.

Oh thank God, murders to solve.

There have been five of these deaths, all from the same rapid onset cancer. For some reason she can't explain, Olivia recognizes one off the victims. Grateful for the distraction, she heads home to mull it over, the scotch dulling the ceaseless gnawing at the back of her mind. A midnight knock at the door announces Sam, who absurdly wants to play Clue. Or maybe he wants to give her a clue. Whatever his motivations for showing up at midnight, his “taller than I seem” remark clicks the tumblers into place and Olivia is off to the Bishop's, where Walter is baking the skin from Miranda's arm in the oven. When Peter tells him the killer is targeting Cortexiphan subjects, he flinches. More deaths on his head, and Olivia may be a target as well. All of his sins, coming home to roost.

Failing to get a list of Cortexiphan kids from Walter, Olivia pays a visit to Nina Sharp. She comes on strong, full of righteous anger at the secrets Nina always seems to keep, but the names are just a pretext. Olivia is angry about other things, and Nina is someone she can take it out on. It doesn't take her long to get around to the real reason for her visit. “I know about Peter,” she grates, “I know the whole story.” Nina is suddenly concerned, wanting to know if she's told Peter. When Olivia says no, not yet, things suddenly click for Nina too. She's a veteran at many things; love, weirdness, and Bishops not least among them. “I'm fairly certain that you're not prepared to lose him,” she says knowingly, “You didn't come here to ask me about a list you already know I don't have, and you didn't come here to announce that you're going to tell Peter who he really is. You came here to have me talk you out of it.”

The circle of skin cut from Miranda's arm looks queasily like a painted hamburger patty as Walter places it on a scanner. Ever the Scully, Peter watches doubtfully as the scanner looks for a fingerprint. When it finds one, he circles around to give his father an affectionate hug, oblivious to the pained look that passes between Walter and Olivia. The fingerprint finds no match however, and Walter moves away, deeply disturbed.

At home, Olivia has finally put the pieces together – the killer is James Heath, cancer victim. He and his sister Julie were both in the Jacksonville Cortexiphan trials, and Julie was the first to die. Olivia is on her way out the door to pay a visit to the hospital where Heath was being treated, when she finds him standing in the hallway outside her apartment. She doesn't manage to get the door closed before he's on her, and she's fighting for her life, kicking frantically to keep him from touching her. Grabbing her phone she instinctively calls Peter, yelling desperately for him to help her. She's able to take her attacker down on her own however, clocking him with the appropriate candlestick just before the cavalry arrives. Heath sees his sister's photograph on the floor and begins to weep pathetically. He tells Olivia about a man who came to see him in the hospital, telling him that he'd been experimented on as a child, and that because of the experiments, the man could teach him how to fight his cancer. It worked, sort of. Whatever the man taught him gave him the ability to stave off his disease by transferring it to others. At first he killed accidentally, first his sister, and then Timothy Ober before he realized what was happening. “I think,” he chokes “if that man had never come to see me, I would have died the way I was supposed to. And my sister would still be alive. They'd all still be alive.”

Afterward, Peter teases Olivia about being number one on her speed dial. She denies it with a flippant joke, and then starts to say something else. But she can't. She knows that now, and the knowledge that she will keep Walter's secret is weighty on her. Still misreading her pain, Peter smiles to hide his own.

Later that night, Olivia stops by the Bishop house, relieved when she finds Walter there alone, it's him she wants to talk to. She tells him that she's decided he may be right, that some truths are better left unsaid. But Walter surprises her. “Thank you Olivia,” he says heavily, “but the truth is, I've done enough damage.” Nancy Lewis and her sister, Susan Pratt. Nick Lane. Julie and James Heath. Timothy Ober, Lloyd Becker, Miranda Greene, Alan DeRosa. Others. Olivia. Peter. “It's time to start to put things right, whatever the consequences. And that starts with telling Peter the truth. I have to tell him who he really is.”

Unnameable emotions warring in her face, Olivia can only stare at him.

Interesting tidbits:

 “Time is just a matter of semantics.” - Sam Weiss

Walter is convinced at first that Peter will never forgive him if he finds out the truth, possibly because he and Elizabeth worked so hard, and so systematically to brain wash him as a boy, when he knew the truth.

Miranda Greene was preparing a lawsuit against INtREPUS Pharmaceuticals, the same company run by David Esterbrooke in the Season one episode “The Cure.”

Sam points out Olivia's “uniform” and refers to her as a soldier. This is eerily reminiscent of Nick Lane's distraught outburst in Bad Dreams: “I did what they told us. I waited Olive. For the soldier to come who was both natural and unnatural. Stay fit, stay focused, stay ready. I wore the blacks and grays! I blended in, but the call never came.It never came.”

Nick's aunt is working a jigsaw puzzle detail of Michelangelo's “The Creation of Adam,” visually referencing Olivia's efforts to make sense of her new knowledge of Peter as well as the more mundane puzzle of solving the murders. The painting also touches on the overarching theme of faith vs.science, and Carla Warren's belief that some things belong to God alone.

This episode hints again at a possible sexual history between Nina and Walter and/or Bell: “I recognize the look in your eyes. I know that working closely with someone can bring about...feelings.”

Olivia can say whatever she wants, Peter is totally number one on her speed dial.

Unanswered questions:

Sam demonstrates some more of his uncanny ability to read minds/auras/emotions – whatever it is he reads. How does he do that? He's older than he looks, and taller than he appears - what exactly is he?

Nina seems genuinely concerned when asking if Peter knew his own origin. But why? Is she worried about something in particular resulting from his knowledge, or just concerned for her old friend, and the boy she once knew?

Who is the man who keeps trying to activate the Cortexiphan subjects? If he's still trying after the death of Sanford Harris, who is he working for?

If Peter Bishop didn't exist:

Walter may never have punched a hole between universes in the first place. It seems apparent that something would have caused the clash eventually, but would it have been Walter? Walternate? Some other, unknown force? This may be a question we see answered in season four.

Someone else would have had to collect the pus sample.

There would have been less coffee, and probably no taffee.

There would have been no agonizing tension between Olivia and Walter.

Olivia would have been alone in the car, alone in her investigation. She would have had to call someone else for help, or maybe no one at all. Despite the weirdness between him and Olivia, he's actually pretty happy right now. If Olivia wants to be his sister, I think he's ready to accept that with only a little regret. He loves her, and he loves her enough to accept whatever she's willing to give him. And for Peter, his relationship with Walter is only deepening. He has a family, for the first time in many, many years, and he loves them all. But I think what he doesn't realize is that he's the one who draws them together – without Peter, there is no family.

And that brings me once again to the conclusion that without Peter, Walter would never have been released from St. Claire's, and again this case, any of the cases, might never have been solved. And a lot more people might be dead.

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #216 "Peter"

I'm a real boy! Right?

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

Before I discuss this landmark episode, "Peter," here are my Fringemunks recapping the show via a parody of "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi:

Without delay, I will examine key topics that have effectivity for the here and now, as we approach Season 4 (which, as of this point, begins in a month).


IF PETER NEVER EXISTED

Whereas this "what if" section usually appears at the end of the re-watch write-ups, I will bring this idea to the forefront now.

First off, "never existed" implies that Peter was never born in the first place, in the new reset timeline, and he's neither Here nor There. No funeral. No tombstone. No kidnapping. No coin tricks. The name "Peter" is derived from a word that means "rock" - and Walter has no such rock as his foundation. But whereas the idea of saving Peter was Walter's primary motivation to cross universes, it wasn't the only motivation. The absence of Peter would require Walter to have a fundamentally different primary motivation.

Some of the possible motivations have been implied since "Pilot" - mostly focusing on the brilliant-though-reckless partnership of Bell/Bishop, and in later episodes we heard more about how they proactively explored the idea of an alternate universe.

With the 2011 machine event (depicted in the Season 3 finale, "The Day We Died"), Peter has been cancelled out of time and existence. But the following items could be created independently of Peter, when given a different motivation: the window to the other side, the thingamajig that Walter used to walk between universes in 1985, and even the machine.

If the events in this episode were re-broadcast in a Peter-less environment, then we would see the motivations come to light. We wouldn't hear any Peter discussions, but perhaps we would hear more exposition from Walter's wife, Elizabeth, and even his ill-fated lab assistant, Ms. Warren. There would be no kidnapping, and yet years later, Walternate is still upset at Walter even without Peter factoring into the equation. So in a Peter-less "Peter" episode, Walter will perhaps have had to steal something else from Walternate, even if "that was an accident" (as Walter bluntly proclaimed to Walternate in "The Day We Died").

Let me throw this idea into the mix: the machine event of 2011 seems to be a diversion from the "Peter exists" timeline we're familiar with. But what if Peter himself was the diversion from another timeline? And if so, who planted him in this timeline? Who moved him into the picture, thereby creating a new set of Peter-infused possibilities? Only the Observers have the capability of doing that.


THE OBSERVERS: "THE BOY IS IMPORTANT"

Let's just hypothetically consider the idea that the Observers were the ones who planted Peter into the timeline we're familiar with. That isn't saying that I totally believe this happened, but let's just consider it, in order to consider other impossibilities.

If so, then 1) it is their absolute agenda to save both universes, and 2) they would have needed to "pluck" Peter's being from another time/place, as I don't think they have the power to create a person out of thin air.

As we gaze through the window at Walternate's lab, we see September disrupting his timeline, altering history. September intervenes to save Walter and Peter from drowning. So it is not inconceivable that any of the Observers (September included) would have had the capability of shaking history into their own liking (while still having the time to watch "Back to the Future" in a cinema).

In the Fringe universe, the Observers exist, and yet so does God. Who are the Observers, in relationship with God - are they working for His agenda, or against it? And why?


CARLA WARREN

This brings us to Walter's assistant, Carla Warren, who we are introduced to for the very first time, in this episode. Carla, of course, plays a huge part in the overall mythology of Fringe, as it is her death that leads to Walter being locked a mental institution for 17 years.

Her religious convictions compel her to criticize Walter for wanting to "play God." Logic indicates that her agenda is different from that of the Observers, who want Walter's disruption to happen. And, back to the "if Peter didn't exist" frame of mind, would she still be around today, or would she have died (perhaps killed?) in the same fashion, for the same reason, whatever reason that may be?


"YOU CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LOSE A CHILD..."

... and yet, what you can imagine, is this: what it's like to gain a child. Think outside the episode now, and outside of Fringe. Think real life. People around you exist; and yet, there are ideas of people who were never born that you can make-believe. The son you never had. The best friend that exists only in the mind.

What if they were once real? What if they ARE real? How would your life change? How are you worse off, knowing that reality overrides any of those thoughts? Would you be a better person? Would the world be a better place? Is there an alternate side of you that works against you (not in an alter-universe, but within your own mind)?

That is Fringe in a nutshell.

In the final "Peter" scene, Walter wraps up his 1985 story, with a dejected/confused Olivia listening. In a Peter-less timeline, these two people will be having similar conversations, full of anger, remorse, sadness, and regret. Both are at a loss, and out of balance. And even more so, now that they never had a "Peter" in their lives.

And in your own personal lives, think of those around you, perhaps people you may take for granted. They're always around, but no need to get closer, right? Well what if they never existed?

Embrace them, and appreciate them, for they help make you what you are.

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #215 "Jacksonville"

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 episode begins with what appears as a typo “Manhatan” which is really the other side. We quickly learn that coffee is a rarity on the other side and that New York has been getting microquakes. It’s then that both universes appear to have collided Manhatan and Manhattan, leaving Ted Pratchet and a few others their victims. It is Walter that realizes that universes must be in balance and as one building came over from their side – another building of equal mass must disappear over to their side. Walter recalls that Olivia once had the ability to see a "glimmer" and that going to Jacksonville and recreating the experiment might again trigger her ability. Once in Jacksonville, Olivia undergoes another round of Cortexiphan but her ability doesn't seem to get activated. Walter realizes she's changed -- no longer afraid and that fear was the one thing that seemed to activate the drug in her body. They head back to Massive Dynamic in an effort to determine which building will vanish over there. Coming closer to the deadline, Olivia now fearing her own failure she goes to Peter to admit she's afraid -- and an almost kiss happens -- when she confesses her fear. It's then she realizes she is afraid and her ability should be activated. She rushes outside, overlooking the city and finds the glimmer that Walter had been talking about.

Unanswered Questions:

Sixteen items in the daycare room in Jacksonville were from the other side – did one of those items include Peter or would he have been number seventeen?

Why can’t Olivia remember her time in Jacksonville at the Daycare facility?

When preparing to administer the IV of Cortexiphan – right arm, left arm, left arm -- what happens if it’s the wrong arm?

We meet young Olive within Olivia's Cortexiphan drug trip. Is this what she experienced as a child to trigger her ability? What's with the demon looking eyes?

We hear a whisper of "Olivia" while Olivia is in the forest. The transcript reads that it's possessed Olivia saying her name but are we sure of that. Could it in fact be Peter? There is some speculation it's his voice.

Things of interest:

We see a height chart at the daycare center. We find out later Olivia wrote down all the initials which comes in handy in "Olivia in the Lab with the Revolver."

If Peter Bishop didn't exist...

Peter remembered what Walter had said about the two items having to be of the same mass for crossing over. That helped them narrow down the buildings that it could be and he also helped in running the calculations and shutting down non-essential functions with the computers.

It was Olivia that came to Peter and confessed she was scared---scared of failing and possibly even scared of taking the next step and kissing Peter? It was her fear that trigged the ability to see the building, locate it and help in its evacuation.

It is also her ability that allows her in the end to see Peter is from over there. If he hadn’t existed, she wouldn’t carry the burden of knowing he was stolen from the other side.

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #214 "The Bishop Revival"

Join us for our Fringe Summer Rewatch, 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 is one that still perplexes to this day. Many might write it off as a mere stand-alone that gave some insight into the Bishop family past. However, I hope that in Season Four we will find out some answers to some of the “mysteries that are destined to remain unsolved."

Purple Never Goes Out of Style

When Walter and Peter arrived at the Staller wedding crime scene, Walter spoke to Peter about when he married his mother. In a way, I found this very sweet, even as Peter was scared for his life with Walter driving. Walter spoke fondly of Elizabeth:

She was so beautiful, Peter. So beautiful in white. I won't deny I was never happier

But he had been hostile about her before. In The Arrival he told Peter:

Must you always be so small-minded? Damn it, don't be like her. Like your mother. Questioning my judgment. I am not a child. I will not be babied.

More insight into the nature of the relationship between Elizabeth and Walter is given in Peter and Subject 13.

Walter's question about Olivia has new relevance: “Do you think she’ll call me Dad?" Although she later married Peter, she was never shown calling Walter by the term. But the scene in The Day We Died in which Walter gave her “an appropriate welcome to the family” was very touching, and one of my favorites.

Walter told Peter “She’s just what you need. Someone who can see right through you.” I wonder if Olivia will be able to see through whatever way Peter returns in season four?

She saw through him in this episode. Olivia shook her head and let out a small disapproving laugh at Markams’s bookstore. Peter sensed this, and Olivia called him out on his real motivation for selling the books. Peter showed shame as he explained the sale was more of a way to get back at Walter for abandoning the family, by selling his most prized possessions. Peter’s discomfort is another small mile-marker in his relationship with Walter. It is also noteworthy that he did not want Olivia to think any less of him.

Tick-Tock

The Nazi scientist, Alfred Hoffman, made small conversation as he unleashed the toxin in a cafe, via a cup of tea. He said something that perked my attention:

These days are precious. Soon all you will have... are pictures.

(Tea in the Fringe universe seems synonymous with bad things going down... Bell used tea to have Olivia (and maybe Peter) ingest a soul magnet. The world Over There is so bad off, that tea is the hot beverage of choice due to coffee scarcity.)

Of course he was referring to the immediate situation with the mother and child in the café. However, as the series progresses, the audience is shown just how precarious life can be. Especially as we learn more about the conditions and life Over There. Pictures are very meaningful in Fringe, and many examples of this importance abound.

Olivia kept one of herself and Charlie.

Walter keeps family pictures with his own son that died, but he also keeps pictures with the adult Peter he cured.

Altlivia kept the photo booth pictures of herself with Peter.

Henry Higgins prominently displayed his family’s photo in his taxi cab.

Olivia admired a childhood picture of Peter in 6:02 AM EST. In the same episode, Lincoln Lee was shown looking at a photograph taken of him and Altlivia.

I think that the ultimate expression of this sentiment is found in The Day We Died, as Peter mourned the death of Olivia, and he saw the child’s drawing of their never-to-be family on the refrigerator. At the end of The Bishop Revival, Walter showed Peter a picture of Robert Bishop, but did not show him the one with Alfred Hoffman, a man that had not aged a day.

At the café crime scene, Walter offered to drive back to the lab. His key-chain was shown as a white rabbit’s foot. The white rabbit is one of the characters from Alice in Wonderland, known as a favorite book of J.J. Abrams. The White Rabbit was always obsessed with being on time. Walter mentioned to Peter in There is More than One of Everything that he did not know the consequences of not being on time. Plus, the Observers are always seen marking time as they write notes. There are digital clocks in many episodes, and an episode named 6:02 AM EST.

Also, misunderstood artist Eric Franco described one of Walter’s father’s books as “Alice in Wonderland Meets the Evil Nazi Experiment.”


Das Seepferdchen

Walter said that his father, Robert Bishop, came to the US in 1943. Robert’s gravestone in The Arrival lists his date of death as December 11, 1944. However, it has been stated that Walter was born in 1946...

I wrote an article some time ago about the importance of books in Fringe. Of relevance to this episode:

In The Bishop Revival, we learn that Walter’s father, Robert Bischoff, left his library of books to Walter. Walter reveals that his father was actually a spy for the Allies, as he worked for the Nazis in Germany. His father hid important notes about his work among his books so that they could be smuggled to America and kept safe from the wrong hands. As Walter searches for them, we learn that Peter sold the books ten years before because, “he needed money.” This brings out the angry side of Walter that insists the books were HIS and that his father entrusted them to him to keep safe. Walter lashes out to Peter that because Walter had failed to protect them, his father’s work was killing people. This is of interest because Peter was concerned about Walter’s work hurting people.

Another sweet Bishop father/son moment occurs when Peter returns what was left of the books he had retrieved. Walter was clearly thankful, and finds a group picture that had Robert pictured. Walter tells Peter, that he wished that he and his grandfather could have met, and that they “share the same noble brow.”

(Am I the only one that feels this is an allusion to Josh Jackson’s trademark forehead?)

Walter exhibited a single minded mentality when he set out to kill Albert Hoffman, instead of allowing for him to be captured. Walter stated that he would do anything for family, then he glanced over at an unknowing Peter, leaned up against a wall and chatting on the phone. Later, it would be revealed that yes, Walter did quite literally anything to save another version of his dying son, including risking the stability of the fabric of reality.

This offers an interesting parallel in Walternate. He also will do anything to achieve what he sets his mind to. However, his motivation switched from his son (family) to revenge for taking that son away from him.

Show and Tell

Alfred Hoffman was shown in his own basement lab, complete with phonograph and an antique typewriter, along with modern computer and lab equipment.

Some might wonder why Peter was not affected by the toxin in Hoffman’s lab. Hoffman must used a hair from Walter’s sweater to make the toxin specifically to target Walter, not just any Bishop.

Maybe the same “Cellular rejuvenation” listed in the 2026 Fringe opening was the same process that kept Albert Hoffman looking young? Walter had also mentioned that the Nazis were seeking a biological “fountain of youth.”

Parallels in History

The Nazis used humans as unwilling test subjects, including children.

It has often been noted that the men responsible for these atrocities thought that they were doing the right thing for their country and the betterment of humanity. They were mostly normal men, with families. Some people, like the artist character, Eric Franco, are not amused with showing “history’s tyrants, as these regular smucks.” Peter sarcastically quipped to Franco, “That’s deep.” But really, it is exactly that.

Walter often tried to justify the Cortexiphan trials. He told Olivia that that he and Bell were trying to prepare them. To make them more capable. At other times, Walter insisted that “they were Belly’s trials.”

The Nazis perceived the Jews and other “undesirables” as a detriment to their country and persecuted them. They questioned the humanity of these people. German citizens were brainwashed into believing the propaganda, and as such, many did terrible things to those chosen to be eliminated by the State.

Walternate explained to AltLivia that the people in the blue universe were “monsters in our own skin.“ He said that although they may look like “us,“ to not be fooled. In season three, the war between universes escalated. Peter saw things differently from his biological father. He explained his feelings to AltLivia in 6955 kHz:

There are billions of innocent people over there... just like here... people with jobs, families, lives. I got to believe there's another way. And whatever my part in all of this is... I got to believe there's another way. There's always hope, right?

In The Day We Died, it was revealed that Walter received his own trial. He became the scapegoat for the destruction of one world and the problems of another. To the people in 2026, Walter’s face was the face of evil.

Unanswered questions

Who was Alfred Hoffman?

Was Hoffman’s statement about Walter looking just like his father literal?

How did Robert Bishop die at such a young age?

Why was Walter supposedly born after Robert’s death?

If Peter was Removed From the Equation

Peter really didn't seem to have a direct influence on this episode, which was mainly concerned with Walter and his father's work. However, Walter’s books may have never been sold.

Happy Birthday, John Noble!

A huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY wish to the man who makes our favorite mad scientist(s), the
Walter Bishops, come to life. If the imdb website is correct, John turns 63 today.

And for those of you who don't already know, John is narrating a new show, Dark Matters, that begins airing on Wednesday, August 31st, at 10PM e/p on the Science Channel.
Catch 3 sneak peeks of Dark Matters here: http://science.discovery.com/search/results.html?focus=site&query=Dark+Matters&search=

From all of us here at Fringe Television we wish you a bacon, coffee cake, red vines, cotton candy(blue, not pink), fruit cup, root beer float, blueberry pancakes, strawberry milk shake, Violet Sedan Chair, LSD, and Brown Betty-filled special day!

Title Change For Season 4 Premiere Episode #401

Our favorite Fringe Media Master, Ari Margolis, sent this photo via Twitter
earlier today with his usual Fringe Friday tweet to fans. http://instagr.am/p/Ks-AX/
You can follow Ari on Twitter at: @jonxproductions.

The title of episode 401, previously "A Sort Of Homecoming" has been changed to
"Neither Here Nor There."

Post your comments below:

Fringe:Joshua Jackson on the "Super Cool" Turn of Events with Peter

Fringe: Joshua Jackson on the "Super Cool" Turn of Events with Peter
Jackson on why he's so excited by what happened to Peter last season.
August 15, 2011 August 16, 2011 August 15, 2011
Level 8.by Eric Goldman

Joshua Jackson knows better than to reveal any of the secrets about what's to come on Fringe this season and how the show will deal with last season's jaw-dropping finale, in which it seemed his character, Peter Bishop, ceased to exist. Of course we do know that Jackson is still considered a cast member on Fringe, and is promoting the series – and when I was among a group of journalists to speak to him recently, Jackson spoke about the oddity of his current situation on the show.

Moments before we began our conversation at a FOX party, I'd seen Jackson encounter his co-star, John Noble, and give him a warm embrace – a far more "How have you been?!" reaction than you'd normally have with someone you were working day-to-day with, considering Fringe is now back in production for Season 4 in Vancouver.

And that's where our conversation begins…




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question: If I was going to hyper-analyze, I'd say you and Mr. Noble had a very nice hug just now, almost as if you hadn't seen him in a while…
Joshua Jackson: Yeah, I think that's a fair analysis. It's been odd for the beginning of this season. I enjoy working with John so much. So to have that all going on and to have me here [in Los Angeles] is a strange feeling.


- FOXQ: How much of a heads up did they give you at the end of last season on what was going to happen?

Jackson: Well, the broader script, none at all. But the cliffhanger, what was going to happen, we actually kind of built that together. There was a lot of debate about what degree to take it to, and I was a huge proponent of that cliffhanger. I just thought it was a great thing to do because the stakes are so high. When we look back on Fringe, I think probably the iconic image of Fringe is going to be the Season 1 cliffhanger when you pull back from the Twin Towers. But my hope is that the iconic, dramatic cliffhanger that we're going to have had will be the last three months - of everybody going, "What does that mean, he didn't exist? Where did this guy go? If he wasn't there, then how does everybody know each other? And why is the bridge still there? And what does the machine mean?" So, I was a part of building that, and I just think it's great that Fringe has the cojones to go after something like that. Instead of doing it halfway and then having me be in the first scene of the next episode go, "Don't worry, it's all okay!" or wake up in the shower like, "Woo! That was a crazy dream." I just think it's good that we still are still creatively ballsy enough to go after things like that.

Q: You showed up at Comic-Con dressed as an observer. You must be well aware of the theories that the fans are floating that Peter has been transformed into an Observer…

Jackson: Well, I was pro-Observer theory. The guys told me that that was wrong, so I guess that was my one chance to get all Observer dressed up and try it out.

Q: So we can at least say that Peter is not an Observer?

Jackson: [Laughs] You can say whatever you like, and I can say whatever I like. They don't tell me those things. So as far as I know today, I'm not an Observer. But who knows tomorrow? I thought it would have been really cool. I had a whole theory. Everybody has their theories. I had a whole theory that the Observers became Observers because they had messed with the timeline and got themselves basically stuck outside of time. The Fringe world was kind of working on a time loop, and each of the Observers was Peter from a different time the loop had gone around... But that was wrong!

Q: But we do know that you are going to be a cast member on Fringe this season...

Jackson: I will at least be a cast member on some Warner Brothers show on FOX. [Laughs] That's all I know right now.

Q: [Laughs] Right, so maybe Alcatraz, or...?

Jackson: That could work! That's Bad Robot. Maybe, we'll see.

Q: Last season, you were only in about half the episodes.

Jackson: Clearly, somebody likes me!

Q: And this season, you don't exist.

Jackson: Or somebody hates me. [Laughs] Either they're telling me a message in a very unsubtle way, or somebody's being very kind to me and leaving me inside the Bad Robot world.

Q: Are you in more episodes than last season or less episodes?

Jackson: Currently? That would be less. But I don't make those decisions. Our show is not a star-driven show, it's a character-driven show. I mean, I'm assuming since they want me here, I'm going to be a part of Fringe. In fact, I know they want me to be a part of Fringe, but I know they also want to tell the story in the best possible way to tell the story. That's why I think it's ballsy, precisely because it's so unusual to take one of the three leads in your show and to break them out of the show. And then show what it's like when he's not there. It's just something that you don't really do that often. Particularly on network television where a lot of it really is personality-driven. There's a lot of nervousness about upsetting the apple cart. To have, like I said, the balls to really honor that… That cliffhanger was so big that if they half-assed it in the beginning of Season 4, I think our audience, who has been so good with that, would kind of smell the suck on that. They'd be kind of disappointed that we gave them this big thing, and then we didn't actually go after it. And we went after it. I think that's super cool.

Q: Have you had some memorable fan encounters with this show?

Jackson: Well, the Comic-Con experience… I mean, it's not a single moment but the experience being at Comic-Con. For us, the panel discussion is the coolest moment of each Comic-Con. Just the passion and the knowledge and the general good feeling in that room is such an unbelievable thing to be a part of. It's so unusual for an actor to get to be a part of, and it doesn't really happen in film… It really doesn't happen in TV either! To get to be a part of a discussion with people who really love whatever it is your working on while you're working on it. Normally, that's something that comes afterwards. Only after everybody watches do you get to have the interaction. But Comic-Con, while the show is on the air, provides you an opportunity to go back year after year and check in with your audience to gauge their level of engagement.

Q: Right now I know it's an impossibility, but eventually are you excited to hopefully get to show Peter finding out he has a kid? That's obviously a huge reveal.

Jackson: I think Peter already knew. I think at the end of last year when we were fast-forwarding to 2026, that Peter had lived all of those years in between. He had made the decision to destroy the other universe, and it strikes me as unlikely that while he was making that decision nobody said, "And by the way, you're killing your lover [and kid] on the other side." So I actually think that he's aware of that. Because the only guy that we saw when he came back was just that glimpse, and he had to get like, "There's a bridge here. Don't kill each other while I'm gone," before he disappears. So, I think he's keenly aware of that.



- FOXQ: Early in Season 3, you theorized that perhaps the real connection was between Peter and the other Olivia, because they were from the same universe. Since then, Peter and Olivia, "our" Olivia, have gotten together. But do you still think that maybe at the core it is "Fauxlivia" that he truly loves?

Jackson: I would revise my opinion now given the story that we've told last year. I think he has a more natural attraction for the other Olivia. But the fact that he was willing not only to kill her but to sacrifice himself ultimately for his love for Walter and Olivia, I think that speaks to the depth of his commitment. So I think over the course of last year, in the way that they wrote those scenes where Peter tells Olivia and the pain that she goes through, I thought they wrote those scenes really well because he dealt with it in a very menschy way. As opposed to getting defensive or being pissed off or being self-pitying, he just sort of took it, and that, to me, was the first time I saw that Peter really cared about Olivia in a romantic way rather than just a big brotherly sort of way.

Q: How much input do you have on upcoming storylines?

Jackson: Well, sometimes a lot, and a lot of times none at all. [Laughs] The finale last year, I was intimately involved with that, but the guys are pretty tight with their information. It is a Bad Robot show. The vault is kept close at all times. So there are some things that they're open about and we get to play with together. But mostly the way that I have an influence over the character-- and John will tell you the same thing, and he and I do this a lot-- we take the things that they've written and try to figure out, particularly for that father/son relationship, how to make all that stuff real and human in the center of this really big, over-the-top, science-fiction show. So I guess on set is where I have most of my influence.


- FOXQ: Is the lack of Emmy love for a show that's so deserving frustrate you, or you tend to brush it off?

Jackson: I don't know if you can be frustrated by extension, but yeah, I think it's ridiculous that John didn't get nominated for an Emmy. I thought it was ridiculous that he didn't get nominated last year. If it wasn't for his performance in the first season of our show, I firmly believe we would have been cancelled. It took the show, like it takes a lot of shows, some time to figure out what it was going to be. We had some concepts that were great, but it just took it awhile to gain traction. And I don't know if you guys have been watching from the very beginning, but those first six episodes are bumpy. They were uneven and we couldn't tell how procedural the show was going to be. It was still trying to find its format. And TV is a cutthroat business. If you don't deliver right then and there, then you're in deep trouble.

But he was so compelling that first year, and that character was so interesting to watch, that he became the through line. While the show was trying to find its form and its footing, he was the thing that gave the thing shape episode after episode after episode. And the Emmys, they don't... Whatever, it's a sci-fi show, it's a mad scientist role. Whatever. For whatever reason, they don't give the love. Just personally, if there's an MPV award for a television show, I can't think of another actor -- maybe Hugh Laurie -- who's more valuable on a network show to his show's survival than John.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fringe returns Friday, September 23rd.

Source:tv.ign.com

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.