Summer of Fringe Rewatch: #221 "Northwest Passage"

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

Northwest Passage is another one of my favorite Fringe episodes. As a fan of The X-Files, I adored the Pacific forest feel throughout the episode. Plus, the characters of Mathis and Ferguson reminded me (intentionally) of role-reversed versions of Mulder and Scully. The guitar music from Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready was icing on the cake. But it was Peter’s role in this episode that stole my heart.

Peter from Boston

Poor Peter… His life was all a lie. He had opened his heart, trusted and loved, only to feel like he was betrayed.

So, he resorted back to his old modus operandi and ran as far from Boston as possible, stopping for pie (Twin Peaks homage) and possibly some long overdue physical attention along the way. Sadly, Peter’s choice of a potential one-night-stand ended up dead… possibly because of him.

Peter told the café waitress, Krista, “Technically, I’m from no place that you ever heard of.” Of course, he was talking about Over There, but maybe it really is more technical. Is Peter Bishop really from a place that has not yet been revealed?

There was something about Peter’s character that really showed how much he had changed since the first season. Peter, by all rights, could have just kept on driving by the police that were at the Hilltop Café. But Peter genuinely cares for people, so he became involved. Even when his world was turned upside down, he took the time to help others. Unfortunately, when he heard that part of the girl’s brain was missing, like in Grey Matters, he became convinced that he was at fault. That Newton was after him.

It seems a common thing for Peter to be placed into situations that make him feel guilty. He learned that many people died Over There as a result of what Walter did to save his life. He believed that his mother committed suicide because she knew the truth about him. His forced action to destroy the other universe in The Last Sam Weiss had to weigh terribly on him as time passed, and his adopted world was still dying. Olivia did not want to have children because of the state of the world. But Peter always tried to stay hopeful. Will the worlds still be falling apart without his “existence?”

Peter echoed Walter’s past words about how amazing the human brain is at recording every detail a person observes. Something else that he said to Mathis stuck out to me: “If you can imagine it, it’s possible.” A conversation between young Peter and his mother in Subject 13:

ELIZABETH BISHOP: A professor who was working here missed them, so he imagined a tulip that would grow in this climate, and he invented it. He used his brain and his imagination to turn the world into what he wanted it to be. How would you change the world if you could, Peter? What would you wish for?

YOUNG PETER: I wouldn't make stupid flowers grow. 

ELIZABETH BISHOP: (laughs) What would you do? 

YOUNG PETER: I'd go home.

Yikes, what if Peter does “go home” in Season Four? But where is home?

Man of Many Talents

Peter was able to use his skills of persuasion in order to purchase guns and ammunition.

Peter also calmed upset Mathis with a touch of his hand.

Peter has often been shown finding locations on maps using different data like he did to find the dairy farm killing location in this episode.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Mathis asked Peter when she thought that her partner was taken to get information about Peter:

“What is it that makes you so special?”

Peter sought answers one again in this episode. He had previously told Walter in August about his frustration in seeking answers. In The Arrival, Peter told Olivia that he wasn’t going anywhere until he could explain what was going on. But the answer that he received in this episode, only led to more questions. Walternate’s appearance in his hotel room shocked Peter into a state of awe and fear.

Peter showed great empathy with Mathis, upset and feeling powerless over her missing partner:

“What if he's alive? What if he's out there somewhere, thinking I am doing everything in my power, including calling the F.B.I. to save him?”

Poor Peter had to be feeling just as helpless when he found out about being deceived by the other Olivia in Entrada.

When they went to look for the missing partner, Peter walked across a bridge, while in deep thought. Bridges are somewhat a common background in the series.

• In The Same Old Story, an image of bridge was used to find a kidnapped victim.
• 
  

• In The Man From the Other Side, a bridge was used to bring Walternate Over Here, and helped Peter to deduce that he was not from here.

• In Over There, Nick Lane and Sally Clark died on a bridge, after Clark had sent a fireball into Lincoln Lee.

• In The Day We Died, Peter built a bridge between the two universes.

Many Fringe fans picked up Mark Helprin’s Winter's Tale to read after young Olivia was shown reading it in Subject 13. It soon became apparent that the some elements in the show were inspired by the book. Fringe producer Akiva Goldman is even making a film adaptation of the book. One of the characters is a mechanic named Peter Lake. Bridges play a significant role in the book.

Mathis told Peter that she wondered if he was not completely off his rocker. Having his sanity questioned must have been unnerving for Peter. Walter faced such accusations all the time, and Peter would completely agree. Though Peter asked Mathis why she’d listen to an insane man. Peter said she was desperate. Of course, he had seen that level of desperation before - in Olivia. For the same reason as Mathis.

“Ferguson is more than just your partner, isn’t he?”

This in a way also mirrors what Nina Sharp told Olivia about recognizing the look in her eyes, letting Olivia know that Nina knew about her feelings for Peter.

The desperation would cause Olivia crossing universes to save Peter. Peter’s love for her caused him to jump into her mind and to go back and make a different choice in the machine in order to save her life.

You Can’t Get There from Here.

This was of course referring to Peter’s home universe of origin, but maybe the real meaning is a bit deeper. Peter wanted to find his place - to find out who he really was.

Peter was very sharp and on edge. He had suspicions that Mathis might have been replaced by a shape shifter when he saw blood on her wrist, and thoroughly questioned her at gunpoint. In Entrada, he asked Fauxlivia’s hostage a question that showed she was really a shape-shifter.

Watching Mathis walk to the second unknown body, thinking that it could be her partner was heartbreaking. I’d hate to imagine Peter’s reaction to seeing Olivia’s body in The Day We Died.
.

Walter Falls Apart


“Do you know what you are putting in our bodies? Death! Delicious strawberry flavored death!”


Walter was broken without Peter. After all, it was Peter that always helped him. His home was wrecked and he could barely function. Is this a glimpse at Walter in season four? Will Astrid and Olivia be as caring or indifferent to “crazy” Walter?

Walter spoke to Astrid while they cleaned the Bishop home. While listening to Violet Sedan Chair’s She’s Doing Fine, he said:

Thank you, Astrid. You're a Federal Agent. I doubt, during your years of training, that you had dreams of babysitting a helpless old man.

In The Day We Died, Walter asked about Astrid when he was allowed to set up the lab to help Fringe Division’s investigation.

Walter: Will Astrid be here?

Peter: No. Astrid's a Fringe Agent now. We need her out in the field. 

Walter: Oh. I suppose since she's no longer caring for me, she's able to (realizes his hands are chained) -- spread her wings.

What will become of Astrid in the fourth season since Peter has gone missing?

Walter set up a spectrograph to be attuned to Peter’s energy signature as a way to find him. Could this possibly be employed to find Peter in season four?

Find the Crack

“In the darkness, there's always a crack. It's how the light gets in.”

There are a lot of scenes that I love in Fringe, and it’s hard to rank them. I always enjoy the scene where Mathis talks to Peter and tells him, “I wish that there was something that I could do for you.” These two are both people that have deep hurt in their individual journeys. Peter was “looking for meaning in things that have no meaning.” Particularly in the reason why the secret was kept from him. Peter was looking for his place, and Mathis was right, he’d find it. And have it all fall apart in front of him.

Unanswered Questions

What was the deal with the phone calls that Peter received in the hotel?

Did Peter really see Newton at the Hilltop Café and in the woods?

Was Peter attuned to a specific frequency or energy that only he could hear because he was from the other side?

What happened to the pen that Mathis gave Peter?

If Peter was Removed from the Equation

Krista might have escaped being kidnapped and killed since she wouldn’t have taken extra time to burn a CD for Peter.

Deputy Ferguson would have probably been killed, leaving behind a devastated Sheriff Mathis.

Fringe - All New Season 4 Promo

Here's a new promo of Fringe, aired today. Enjoy.

Fringe - First Season 4 Promo *UPDATE*

Here's a better quality promo. Enjoy.

Fox has just released the first season 4 promo for Fringe. Am going to try to recorded with better quality because there's a glimps of Peter from season 1 at 0:09 that doesn't appear on this video.

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #220 "Brown Betty"

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.

(Oops! Somehow episodes 219 and 220 got out of order in our queue. Sorry about that.)

This Rewatch brought to you by fringeobsessed & SamSpade.

The Setup

Olivia is asked to watch her niece, Ella while Rachel is in Chicago. Olivia brings Ella to the lab for Astrid to look after her while she goes looking for Peter Bishop. At the lab, Walter has already smoked something which he calls “Brown Betty” and decides (with Astrid and Ella’s instance) to tell Ella a story with a mixture of a musical. It begins with a Detective Dunham that is closing her doors only to get one last case in, from Rachel. Rachel tells Detective Dunham that her fiance, Peter Bishop, has gone missing and she’s in love with him. Detective Dunham tells her, "You know, most times when someone comes in here worried that their sweetheart's gone missing, or worse...by the time they find out what I usually find out, they wind up wishing he really were dead." Rahcel insists that Peter is not like that and Detective Dunham accepts the case.

I remember the first time this episode aired. Many fans were complaining on the fringetelevision.com live chat right afterwards that 'Brown Betty' was weird, bad, a WTF episode. But you know, my mouth was still hanging open afterwards in awe. 'Brown Betty' is a multi-faceted gem. Even after that initial viewing I sensed there was a TON of foreshadowing of future episodes. If you haven't rewatched 'Brown Betty' since it first aired I encourage you to get out your DVD's or find it on your TIVO and watch it again post-Season 3. The foreshadowing will stick out like a sore thumb and some things will make you smile. Take a look at our "Foreshadowing" section further down in this post.

New Tech Juxtapositioned Next To Old Tech

One of the things that's fun about this episode is the coexistence of old and new tech that is so trademark of Fringe. I can't remember who commented on it in an older interview, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the executive producers saying how he loved it too. There's the old
rotary phones complete with their tinny rings on Nina and Astrid's desks, next to their state-of-the-art computers! And Detective Dunham has a cell phone? IN the 1940's? And Nina was talking to what looked like William Bell's head on a screen that looked alot like Walter's that he showed the Red Verse to government heads in the 1980's. Not as much fun a Donlad the Observer hitman's wireless, portable dot matrix printer, but close.

One Of The Must-See Episodes Of Season 2

There is a website right now that has listed the 5 must see episodes to catch-up new Fringe viewers. If I had to list must-see Season 2 episodes, 'Brown Betty' would be the third, after 'Momentum Deferred,' and 'Peter.' Why? There's so much information in 'Brown Betty,' it almost makes your head hurt.

Colors
I promised I'd report any significant colors in the episodes as we go along in our scheduled rewatch. All I could find in this one are 2 examples:1)Walter's labelmaker had a blue and a red button, and 2)poor Gene the cow in the fictional Harvard lab has red, blue, and yellow spots all
over her fur. On first viewing it made me think of the mat that comes with the game Twister, but seeing this Gene post-Season 3 reminds me of all the red/blue/yellow references that were thrown at us in Season 3.

The Watchers
If you haven't already read Count Screwloose's recent piece in this blog titled "The Sign Of The Four, Why You Can't See Peter Bishop, And The Last Great Storm Revealed," click here, you should. In it he talks about comic book characters called "The Watchers" who are "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 “Brown Betty” these “Watchers” are very much engaged in battle with Peter and Olivia, and it's an interesting change from their usual passivity.

The Singing
If you recall, “Brown Betty” originally aired during a FOX network theme week. All the weekly shows had singing in them that week in homage to FOX's GLEE, and “Brown Betty” was no exception.

Lance Reddick did a lovely job on the first few lines of Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys by Traffic, with piano accompaniment to boot. Jasika Nicole was outstanding with her piece to impress Nurse Mikita(they might as well have changed the namepin to Nurse Wrachet, as she looked identical to that character from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.”) And Anna Torv was very touching singing Stevie Wonder's For Once In My Life to a dying Peter Bishop.

And let's not forget that surprising bit of harmony from Dr. Walter Bishop's 'Singing Corpses,' that felt straight out of a Monty Python episode. (Now if that is foreshadowing of Season 4, that is spooky!)

Walter's Book Of Creations
In this episode Walter Bishop tells us he is responsible for making all things wonderful in the world.

Besides the hug, rainbows, teddy bears, matching pajamas, and the beacon from episode 104, 'The Arrival,' there is a drawing of what looks like a white horse. If you've been reading the book young Olivia is reading in “Subject 13,” Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, you might be wondering as I am if that horse is Peter's Lake's horse, Athansor.

Unanswered Questions That Arise In 'Brown Betty”

Walter says “ Oh no, no, no. I couldn’t possibly look after anyone else. I’m well into Phase One.” What is Phase One? How many phases are there?(The only other reference to phrases is in '6955 mHz' when FauxLiv types that they have found all the parts of the machine, and she's told to start Phase 2.)

The observers intervene a lot in the story that Walter tells Ella. He refers to them as “The Watchers.” Why do they intervene so much in the story? Is it because it’s from Walters POV and they saved him and Peter and he’s had more contact with them? “Don’t stick your heart out where it doesn’t belong,” Mr. Gemini tells Detective Dunham. Is this foreshadowing for Season four?

Why dows Bell refer to Peter as “the boy?” (Remember the Observers have called Peter “The Boy' a few times as well as Walter in “The Transformation.”)

A hundred and forty-seven pins represent the number of children hurt by Walter Bishop. Where did they come up with that number? Does that include just the Cortexiphan subjects from both trials? And which Walter Bishop are we talking about? Depending on the timeline here we could be talking about Walternate Bishop, because we have no idea how many people he's experimented on with the amber he made or the cortexiphan Brandonate found in our Olivia's brain.

In the story, Peter believes The Watchers work for Nina Sharp. Is this because Walter believes the same thing? In the episode Peter, we see that Nina and Carla leave Reiden Lake after Nina’s arm gets messed up in the portal. Walter and Peter slip through the ice and September saves them. September then tells Walter that Nina is getting her arm fixed and that the boy is important, he must live. In Walter’s mind, does he think that Nina sent the Observers there to look after him and Peter coming through the portal?


If fictional Peter Bishop stole Walter Bishop's heart how come his thumbprint opened the high tech case?

Examples Of Foreshadowing In “Brown Betty”

Fictional Rachel comes to Detective Dunham and tells her, “My boyfriend has gone missing” which is foresahdowing of Peter disappearing at the end of episode 322.

Walter tells Ella “As with all good stories, things aren't always what they seem,” which pretty sums up the entire Fringe series and reminds us of the issue of perception in episode 212, 'Johari Window.'

Walter tells Ella, “She took this case to see if true love really existed.” Is this foreshadowing of Season 4?

In fictional Rachel's apartment there is a poster that says “The Glass Man.” Is this foreshadowing of Peter?

When Walter describes that fictional Rachel has been killed, Ella tells him, “She can't die. She's in love. True love.” I believe this is foreshadowing of Olivia dying in the future in episode 322, 'The Day We Died.'

In this episode fictional Rachel is murdered and discovered to have a different identity. Is this foreshadowing of Olivia's sister Rachel?

There is a Dunham/Broyles confrontation in this episode. Will this happen in Season 4?

Olivia in the floating casket is similar to Olivia’s death scene and her in the floating casket in episode 322, 'The Day We Died.'

Walter says in the story to Ella, “Kind of. Slightly less handsome than your Uncle Walter."
Is this foreshadowing of his alternate self, ie. Walternate?


Astrid says to Olivia, "You're always looking for something that doesn't even exist."
Could this be foreshadowing of Peter no longer existing in Season 4? "

William Bell in the screen says, "By utilizing the heart's power we'll be able to create a stable door between universes.” In 'The Day We Died', episode 322, we see the Bridge that Peter created.

The singing corpses sing the 1970's hit “The Candy Man.” We meet, on the other side, the killer known as The Candy Man in 'The Abducted,' episode 307.

The glass heart in the story is 'a power source.' This is foreshadowing of Walternate mentioning a power source as part of the Wave Sink device AKA the machine that is discussed in 'Reciprocity.' We know from Season 3 that Peter combined with the machine is also a power source.

Fictional Astrid speaks about William Bell, “….here is the interesting part. In the past few years, no one has seen him. No press conferences, no public appearances. It's like he just disappeared off the face of the Earth.” Then Detective Dunham replies with, “Okay, so what's that got to do with Peter Bishop?” and Fictional Astrid responds, “I don't know. But that's weird, right?” Again another clue about Peter vanishing!

Peter talks about how Fictional Walter steals children’s dreams and replaces them with nightmares. We see something similar in episode 205, ' Dream Logic' (but with adults, not children).

Fictional Peter tells Olivia, “It must be nice to know who you are, to know your place in the world. I thought I knew who I was but I was wrong.” I think that's all foreshadowing of Season 4.

Ella wants a happy ending to the story and retells it her own way to Walter. We see in episode 322, ' The Day We Died,' Ella saying there are no happy endings anymore. Also, young Ella tells Olivia, “His ending was bad, but I fixed it for him.” If Ella Dunham is a First Person, will she have any influence on how this series ends?

Which Walter Bishop?
When I started thinking about what to write here a particular bit of dialogue bothered me. Dr. Walter Bishop is describing how the glass heart came to be to Detective Dunham. He says, “I had a bad heart, so I invented the glass heart.” As far as we know our Walter has no history of a bad heart, unless you mean his personality before Belly removed parts of his brain. Walternate may not have had a bad heart before our Walter snatched his Peter away. It has often been said that the 2 Walters are 2 sides of the same coin. So truly, which Walter Bishop is the one that had a bad heart and has a lot of good left in them? At the moment I'm leaning toward our Walter, because he also told Olivia he and Peter had the same last name but he wasn't his son.

Other Interesting Stuff
There was one mystery she couldn't solve, how to men a broken heart, as Olivia dumps a picture of her real life ex into a box. That's sad. Nice of Anna to be a good sport about that.

Fictional Olivia (to fictional Peter), “I take it you don't live here.”
Peter to Olivia: “No, but nobody else does either.” Hmm. Do they meet (again) in that yellow universe?

The third use of Charlie Francis's line to Olivia, “You're gonna be fine.” The first was when Liv told Peter that story in episode 205, 'Dream Logic.' The second was when she jumbled the phrase at Sam Weiss's request at the end of that episode.

Walter's drawing of the Beacon reminds us of the same item in episode 104, 'The Arrival.' Above it in the book it says Iridium capsule which we learn more about in episode 322.

“It's too late, Walter. There are things you can't undo.” Pretty much what Walter told Peter when Peter told him to go back in time and not send the machine back, and Walter said it had been done and he couldn't undo it.

Fictional Olivia makes an awfully good shot and hits one of the Watchers. Is Olympic sharpshooter, FauxLivia-in-Liv's-head responsible for that?

“You ever play that game Operation?” The third reference to the popular Milton-Bradley game.
The first was in 212 “Johira Window,” then earlier in “Brown Betty” when Ella complained that Walter was killing the guy trying to take out his heart.

Ella's ending ends with “And together they made good and lived happily ever after."
Will the Fringe series have a happy ending?

If Peter Bishop Never Existed
If Walter told Ella a story, it would in fact be different since this one is about Peter. Who would Rachel have said was her boyfriend and had gone missing? Technically though, there should be no story since Olivia is out looking for Peter instead of spending the day with her niece, Ella.

Who would have rescued Olivia from the floating casket in the story? Simply put, this is another episode where without Peter's intervention it is quite likely she would have died.

Walter probably still would have smoked his Brown Betty marijuana hybrid, but not to get his mind off his missing 'son.'

During the telling of his tale, Walter stops and tells young Ella, “I'm not sure you want me to go on.” Ella replies,”Does it have to do with Peter?” to which Walter answers, “It just might.” If there was no Peter, there may not have been any wonderful tale of the adventures of Detective Dunham.

Observerational Ponderings - Questions! Questions That Need Answers!

A collection of food for thought questions for the upcoming season.

1) Why was Peter the only one affected by the creation of the Universe Bridge Room?

2) If the answer to question 1 is NOT because of some time/reality paradox then what was the cause of Peter’s removal from existence?

3) Could the Observer’s statement that Peter had served his purpose meant the Observers deem Peter no longer necessary and hence did not save him when Peter and Walter fell through the ice in Season 2's, 'Peter?'

4) Did Peter never exist? Or did he die as a boy in both universes?  Imagine the grief Walter would have been subject to if he had to watch Peter die not once, but twice!

5) Will Olivia be the ‘lever’ that joins the timeline of Season 4 with the one from the previous seasons?

6) How can Peter be brought back into existence without the ripple effects a la Season 3's, ‘The Firefly?’

7) Will Olivia and Peter re-do the brain wave synchronization experiment from Season 1’s, ‘The Dreamscape,’ and, ‘The Transformation,’ that will allow Olivia and Peter to share their memories?

8) Will question 7 be the way that Peter and Olivia discover they met before in, ‘Subject 13?’

9) Will Olivia experience the same memory flashes we saw when Peter went into the Machine in, ‘The Last Sam Weiss?’

10)  Will the Observers discover that Peter is still ‘important’ and must return him to existence because without him in Walter and Olivia’s lives they are no longer properly equipped emotionally to resolve the impending collapse of the two universes?

Are the Observers The Survivors of a Similar Bi-Universe Annihilation?

Finally,  the Observers:

1) What is the Observers’s ultimate goal?  

2) Do they come from a reality where their two universes have already destroyed each other?  

3) Are they studying ours in the hope of finding a way to go back and avert the destruction of their reality(ies)?

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.