FRINGE: Past + Present + Future #3 "A Tale Of Two Walters"

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       9/12/2011 04:24:00 PM       Categories: , ,



Here is the third installment of the twelve-part Fringe web series Past + Present + Future, titled "A Tale Of Two Walters".
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Fringe Summer Rewatch: #314 "6B"

By birdandbear       Email Post       9/12/2011 07:30:00 AM       Categories: , ,



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.


Fringe is a love story

At its heart, Fringe has always been a love story. Surprise! Did you think you were watching a sci-fi show? You are of course, and like all good science fiction, Fringe shines most brightly when it reflects our image back at us through the lens of the bizarre. Whether it's the future, the past, another universe, or outer space, science fiction has a unique capability to show us who we are, endlessly illuminating our humanity against the backdrop of the weird, telling us the story of ourselves through metaphor. Fringe has become one of the most compelling sci-fi stories I've ever seen, because it never forgets that it's about love. Why is this universe worth fighting for? Why is that one worth saving? Because of the people who inhabit them: the complicated, flawed, glorious humanity that is capable of love. Of all the things humans have ever done, or will ever do, love is the finest, and the only one worth saving. Fringe is a story about a man who loved a boy so much he broke the universe to save him, and it's about that boy learning to love a man he grew up hating. It's about two people drawn together by forces that transcend worlds, and falling in love. It's a story about love strong enough to break the world, and strong enough to heal it.

6B is the story of Alice Merchant and her heartbreak at losing her husband after a lifetime spent together. It's also the story of Olivia, finally moving past her obstacles and daring to take that first step with Peter. It's the continuing story of Walter, and the consequences of his actions. It's one of Fringe's finest hours, a beautiful parable on the power and tragedy of love, and the ways in which we bear its cost.



Bookends

Alice and Olivia mirror each other like bookends across time and possibility. Olivia stands at the beginning of a frightening and uncertain road, unsure if she's capable of making the journey before her, unsure if she wants to. Alice stands at the other end, love's journey completed and paying the price, her grand affair over with at last. Between the two points lie the detritus of a shared lifetime: the arguments and adventures, the darkness and uncertainty, the laughter and strength that make the most ordinary seeming relationships epic in their own right. Alice's home is littered with the evidence of abiding love, a wonderland of memories Olivia has yet to make.

At the beginning of the episode, she's not ready. After Walter's adorable attempt to set them up, Olivia's defensive with Peter, still trying to pretend that it's him she's angry with, him she doesn't trust. But in the secret places of her mind she's already aware that she's only seeking the easy path, avoiding confrontation with that part of herself that believes she's too damaged to love. Peter has been amazingly patient with her, giving her as much space as she needs to work through her emotional trauma. But he hasn't been hiding his love for her; he holds it like a torch, bright and ready for her to take up if she chooses. When she confronts him with her belief that he's been hiding things from her, he answers honestly that she's right; he's been hiding the depth of his desire for a life with her, a thing he thought he caught a glimpse of before it was taken from him too. It's a reminder that Olivia wasn't the only victim in their tragedy, and when he asks her who's stopping them now, she's forced to accept that it's only herself.

This acceptance is the beginning of a conscious struggle with herself that lasts for the rest of the episode. He's got her thinking now, and although she has no answer right away, Olivia takes the first opportunity to pursue the conversation further. On seismograph duty in the bar, she brings it up again, telling Peter that she wants to know what the beauty he described feels like. She kisses him hesitantly, for the first time since she crossed universes to bring him back to her. Olivia is an astonishingly strong woman, possessed of rare courage and determination, risking her life time after time to protect other people. Love, however, requires a different kind of courage, and when she opens her eyes the glimmer surrounding him informs her that she hasn't found it yet. She retreats in confusion, and when he follows her out it's her turn to come clean – she's afraid.

It's not about Peter; she knows she can trust him, and she's no longer afraid of any lingering feelings he might have for her deceptive doppelganger. She's afraid of herself, afraid that she's lost the ability to be vulnerable, that she's become too closed to love, and the shutters may be rusted shut. Walter and Bell intended to make soldiers out of the children they experimented on, human weapons to guard their world. What if they succeeded too well? What if the reintroduction of Cortexiphan into her system and the resulting activation of her abilities, combined with the psychological trauma she's endured, has somehow numbed her to the point that she's no longer capable of letting anyone in? She's afraid that she's fallen too far down the slope of isolation to be able to pull herself back up, no matter how badly she wants to.

And she does want to. Peter loves her, simply and unequivocally. He's waiting for her lead, but his love is proffered, extended like a hand ready to pull her out of the darkness. All she has to do is take it, but first she has to remember how to reach out. Ironically, it's the inevitable pain love brings that reminds her.

….

Love always ends in grief. As inevitably as time, pain follows love like night follows day. It's the price we pay for the most precious thing we have. The cost is high, unbearably so, but we pay it because we can't help ourselves. We're made to love, and the knowledge that love and grief are inextricably connected reminds us to treasure it while we can, because sooner or later it has to end. Whether we're given a few days or a lifetime, we remain mortal, and even if we weather all the other slings and arrows that can break us apart, death will separate us in the end. There is no light without darkness, and if there was the light would have no meaning.

Alice Merchant is paying the price of a lifetime of love and happiness. She tells Olivia that after Derek died, she couldn't get out of bed. They'd been together for nearly forty-five years, and he was part of her. When he was gone her life was so empty that she wanted to die too, and when he came back to her it was a miracle she didn't question. She hurries home just to see him again, glimmering spectrally in her living room. She ignores the strange happenings around her, guarding her secret, willing to stay while the world falls down around her if she can only look at him for awhile longer. Her pain is devastating to watch, as are Derek's attempts to communicate across the vastness of loss. “There's so much more to tell you,” he says, “things I never got a chance to say."

Time catches us all out in the end. Even after forty-five years, there's never enough time.

Alice and Derek were two halves of a whole, their connection so strong that their grief for each other threatens the weakened fabric of the worlds. When Olivia tells Alice that the man she sees is not her husband and she must let him go, she cannot accept the loss, clinging desperately to love like a woman drowning. In the penultimate moments of the episode, Peter intervenes, telling Alice with utter sincerity that "you've already had what most of us only dream of: a lifetime with the person that you love. Look around you, your entire house is filled with mementos, ticket stubs, evidence of a life shared with somebody. Proof that what you and Derek had was true and real. And I know that when you have something so real you'll do anything to keep from losing it, but please, you have to let him go." Even so, it's only when Derek mentions the daughters they never had that the truth penetrates, and Alice is forced to admit that her Love is really gone, severing the connection and closing the vortex that threatens to swallow them all.

Peter's words are exactly what Olivia needed to hear. His conviction that Alice's life with Derek was worth the pain of losing him is the final blow to the walls she's built around herself, shattering the ice inside her soul. This is what he wants with her: newspapers and coffee and ticket stubs and photographs, mornings and nights and memories and life. He wants to share it with her, and she's been the one stopping him. But he's thawed her frozen self, and she's aware that she wants those things too, with him, because she is capable of love, and she's in love with Peter. And if it breaks her heart in the end, she'll have had him for a little while. It's all anyone can ask.

Later that night she's made peace with herself, and is ready at last to make peace with him. When she kisses him it's deliberate, and he can't help but sigh with relief. When the doubt tries to surface she quashes it firmly. Love is risk made certain, but life is meaningless without it, and she's kept him waiting long enough. She breaks the kiss before he's ready, and steps back a little to look at him. When he asks if he's glowing she smiles wistfully and answers no. He's filled with a different light, made of love and hope and possibility, and she's awestruck and humbled in its presence. She offers him her hand, and they climb up out of her darkness together.



Walter

Walter starts out the episode happy and singing about blueberry pancakes. He's missed Olivia the last couple of weeks, and he hates seeing her and Peter unhappy. His romantic breakfast trap is absolutely endearing, to the two of them as well as to us. When he realizes the nature of the disturbances at the Rosencrantz, he becomes agitated and uncharacteristically waspish, snapping at everyone except Olivia. In her current emotional state, she's as ephemeral as a wisp of smoke and he doesn't want her to drift away from them; he lowers his voice when he speaks to her. His distress is caused by the knowledge that this side is beginning to decay as rapidly as the other, and he has no better answer than Walternate. He's facing having to unleash amber on his world just to hold it together for a little while longer. Overriding Broyles' objections about public reaction, Walter is the one to point out that the reaction will be much worse if half of Brooklyn is swallowed up by an inter-dimensional vortex. It's a grimly sane observation. He's already showing signs of the change September was looking for. He watches without objection as Olivia and Peter enter the Rosencrantz to talk to Alice, and although he can't bring himself to do it, he's willing to tell Broyles how to activate the amber, despite the fact that his children are inside.
He's beginning to see a world worth saving beyond Peter. Only trouble is, he doesn't know how to save it. When Nina tells him that he'd better start learning, he takes her hand and holds it wordlessly against his heart.



Literary References

  • Shakespeare: The Rosencrantz building is named after the character from Hamlet. Alice 's last name is Merchant, a reference to The Merchant of Venice. Derek Jacobi is an internationally renowned classical actor. Among his many Shakespearean roles was that of the treasonous Claudius in Kenneth Branagh's 1996 Hamlet.
  • Rosencrantz: In Stoppard's play, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, Rosencrantz wins ninety-two coin tosses in a row, each of them coming up heads, leading Gildenstern to speculate that there may be “un, sub, or supernatural” forces at work. The title characters are portrayed as powerless over the events that sweep them along, yet sentient enough to realize that they are pawns of fate. Their memories are faulty and incomplete. At the end of the play (and occurring offstage in Hamlet itself,) Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are betrayed by Hamlet and left holding a letter that orders the execution of it's bearers. Awaiting execution for no crime, Gildenstern wonders why they must die: “Was it all for this? Who are we that so much should converge on our little deaths?” Answers the Tragedian: “You are Rosencrantz and Gildenstern and that is enough.”
  • Alice: another among many references to Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.



Music

  • There's a lot of music in this one. Walter's idea of mood music is Feelings. The consummation song is Lou Reed's lovely Pale Blue Eyes. Peter tells Olivia a hilariously disturbing story about Walter's clothing optional rendition of Never Gonna Give You Up, to which she responds that she loves Barry White. Peter told Fauxlivia that he'd never heard her express any interest in music.
  • At the bar, Peter plays For Once in My Life, the song sung by Olivia in Brown Betty.
  • Violet Sedan Chair: (She's Doing Fine) She really does look a LOT like Alice. Alice Merchant could easily be Olivia in forty years.
  • Walter refers to the idea of emotional quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance.”In physics, action at a distance refers to the interaction of separate objects with no observable means of interacting. As Peter puts it: “Two objects interacting with each other even though they're separated by a great distance.” “Action at a distance” is a line from Seven Suns (Rising).


Odds and Ends

  • The awning outside the Rosencrantz building says Tulip Food, and there's a vase full of White Tulips on Alice's end table.
  • Mrs. Marcello is leaving the Rosencrantz for less haunted territory. Her destination is the Schrödinger Hotel.
  • The concept of Soul Magnets is introduced here. Walter says that used to argue with William Bell about what happened to the energy of the body after death. Bell theorized that the energy could be captured. He said if he were right he'd contact Walter from the great beyond, but Walter hasn't gotten the call. Yet.
  • Walter demonstrates the impending vortex by tapping a piece of glass with a hammer. The fracture pattern is nearly identical to the pattern of Fringe events around the soft spots in New York and Providence, shown in There's More Than One of Everything. As if to make certain we notice this, there's a monitor showing both cities with their surrounding patterns in the office where Peter, Walter and Olivia are discussing the possibility of emotional quantum entanglement.
  • Olivia's fear that she's lost the ability to love reminds me strongly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy periodically worries that the burden and isolation of being the slayer is making her too hard to form normal bonds with people.
  • The initialization sequence on the amber canister blinks GGGR.

  • February eighteenth is officially second guess everything Walter does day, so sayeth me.



If Peter didn't exist...

Peter was instrumental in preventing the vortex at the Rosencrantz. Again, he refuses to accept the accelerating entropy and insists that “There's gotta be another way.” It was Peter who insisted on finding a reason for the incidents, rather than simply ambering the place over. He's the one who questioned why Alice could see the other side, and why she could only see Derek. And it was he who guessed that it must have been the other Alice who lost the coin toss, leading directly to the conclusion that it was human emotion causing a rift between worlds. And even before Derek mentioned his daughters, Alice was listening to him. If it hadn't been for Peter, our side would have either seen its first amber quarantine, or its first gaping wound.






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By Dennis       Email Post       9/11/2011 10:58:00 PM      

Here is a new commercial for the Fringe season 4 premiere episode "Neither Here Nor There", airing Friday, Sept. 23. Only 12 more days!
3 Comments     

Fringe Summer Rewatch: #313 "Immortality"

By Xindilini       Email Post       9/11/2011 10:00:00 AM       Categories: , ,

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.

Frank's return from North Texas means Olivia's life can get back to normal. Or so it would seem. She still has Peter Bishop on her mind. Frank finds her distant, which she attributes to stress at work.

The Fringe team adjusts to the mysterious disappearance of their leader Broyles, as they deal with a case of skelter beetle infestation in people. These extinct parasitic insects that only lived in sheep have been re-engineered to live in human hosts. The investigation lead them to one Armand Silva, a scientist who was infecting people to develop a vaccine for the avian flu. During the course of the case, Frank discovers Olivia became pregnant while he was away and leaves her.

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Fringe Summer Rewatch: #312 "Concentrate and Ask Again"

By birdandbear       Email Post       9/10/2011 05:35:00 AM      



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


"Do you know how it feels to be burdened with something that makes it impossible to relate to another person? It makes you feel completely alone in the world."

There are many things afoot in Concentrate and Ask Again. Loosely woven threads of story are beginning to tighten into a pattern I still can't see all of. It begins with Nina Sharp, unlocking William Bell's personal safe at Massive Dynamic. Inside is a red toy car, a sketch of the Massive Dynamic logo, a couple of interesting photos, and a book: Die Ersten Menschen, by M. Weiselauss. Nina takes the book, muttering wryly about William and his secrets, and calls Olivia to show her.

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FRINGE: Past + Present + Future #2 "A Tragic Past"

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       9/09/2011 09:03:00 PM       Categories: , ,



Here is the second installment of the twelve-part Fringe web series Past + Present + Future, titled "A Tragic Past"
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FRINGE: Past + Present + Future #1

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       9/09/2011 08:24:00 PM       Categories: , ,



Here is the first installment of a twelve-part Fringe web series Past + Present + Future, created by Ari Margolis.
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'Fringe' Friday:Fox launches Web series 'Past+Present+Future' to recap the sci-fi epic

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       9/09/2011 07:53:00 PM       Categories: ,




Sep. 9, 2011
11:51 AM ET

'Fringe' Friday: Fox launches Web series 'Past + Present + Future' to recap the sci-fi epic by Jeff Jensen

As mind-boggling as Fringe can be, devoted fans of the Fox TV series probably have no need for a refresher course about the show’s now-elaborate mythology. Yet “Past + Present + Future” – a new series of recap videos that launches today at Fox.com – is worth checking out for longtime viewers (and is a must for newbies curious to check out the sci-fi drama in the wake of its acclaimed third season), especially with Dr. Walter Bishop himself doing the narration. The first installment provides a big picture overview of the series. The second installment – called “A Tragic Past” – begins the deep dive exploration of the saga.
John Noble makes for an engrossing, entertaining guide, his sonorous voice finding the right balance of gravity and wink. “Bishop and Bell were once the Lennon and McCartney of science, lab partners intent on pushing the boundaries and blurring the perceptions of reality,” Noble narrates, just ahead of a memorably hilarious clip from the show in which the actor’s mad scientist character explains, with grave seriousness: “When Belly and I were younger men, we regularly ingested large quantities of LSD.” (Cut to: Joshua Jackson’s droll reaction shot. “You don’t say?”) The recap series is a compressed, chronological summary of Fringeverse history, providing a clear, coherent picture of Fringe’s epic puzzle narrative. “It’s like a condensed Reader’s Digest version of Fringe,” Noble tells EW via email. “It will tantalize and entice Fringe fans, new and old, with the rich and extraordinary story we’ve been telling for 66 episodes, and prepare them for the ongoing adventures in Season 4.”

Which, by the way, begins Sept. 23.

Tech: Get the latest news, photos, and more

As for my theory that the title “Past + Present + Future” is a cryptic clue to the newly created jumbled-up Dr. Manhattan-meets-Minkowski spacetime nature of the Fringeverse in the wake of Peter’s reality-rebooting quantum leap in the season 3 finale – and that the mysteries of Fringe can be explained either as a mash-up of C.S. Lewis’ unfinished final novel The Dark Tower and Stephen King’s cycle of Dark Tower novels… or as a fancifully odd adaptation of the two-part album series “Past:Present:Future” by the Dutch pop band Ch!pz — no sane individual associated with the show, including Noble, cared to comment.

The countdown to Fringe Friday has begun.

Twitter: EWDocJensen
Source:popwatch.ew.com
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Fringe Summer Rewatch: #311 "Reciprocity"

By Unknown       Email Post       9/09/2011 01:08:00 AM       Categories: ,


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

This episode confused many viewers, and made some feel that it was out of character for Peter to act as he did. However, I ate this episode up, as I loved seeing Peter take matters into his own hands.

Truly, Fauxlivia ruined U2 for me at least. I can’t help but not laugh when I hear a certain song. Fringe producer/writer Joel Wyman confirmed that Even Better than the Real Thing was the U2 song lyric used as Fauxlivia’s computer password. Curious, since she was deceiving a man whose projection-self told Olivia that “real is just a matter of perception” in The Plateau. This choice also seems to fall in line with a theme for season four: What is Reality?

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Fringe Summer Rewatch: #310 "The Firefly"

By fringeobsessed       Email Post       9/08/2011 12:01:00 AM       Categories: , ,


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.

If I was asked the most important episodes of Fringe, I would definitely include 310, "The Firefly." It is the 4th episode to include more than just a passing glance of an Observer. In fact, it's safe to say that "The Firefly" is Observer-centric(or more specifically, September-centric).

If you've watched "The Firefly" in chronological order during the Season 3 airings only, you will need to go back and watch this episode again after having viewed all the way through 322. Why? Like most of the Season 3 episodes of Fringe, they make more sense if you rewatch them after you've seen the complete season set. Do you remember that word "gestault" in school? It means, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I think that definitely applies to the Season 3 set of Fringe, and "The Firefly" in particular.
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Best Buy Offers Exclusive Lenticular Cover For Season 3 Box

By Count Screwloose       Email Post       9/07/2011 10:04:00 AM      







If you've not already bought one or are near a Best Buy that hasn't yet sold out, you'll want to know that Best Buy is offering an exclusive package for FRINGE's Season Three Box Set.

At first glance a 3-D cover providing an added dimension to the shot seen on the regular box, a slight tilt reveals a lenticular surprise as Walter becomes Walternate, Olivia becomes AltLivia, and Peter becomes, well, another Peter (Shouldn't they have had him disappear?). The background behind them subtly changes to a red universe as well.

They'll be available while supplies last and are available for both the DVD and Blu-Ray Sets. The shops I visited yesterday seemed to have about 2 3-D boxes for every regular one, so the odds are in your favor but they'll probably disappear soon.
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Fringe Summer Rewatch: #309 "Marionette"

By oranfly       Email Post       9/07/2011 12:00:00 AM       Categories: , ,






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 understand the facts. I know that she had reams of information about me and about my life and about the people that were close to me. And I understand that if she slipped up that she would have a completely reasonable explanation for it. And I guess to expect you to have seen past that is perhaps asking a bit too much. But when I was Over There, I thought about you and you were just a figment of my imagination. But I held onto you and it wasn’t reasonable, and it wasn’t logical, but I did it, so… why didn’t you? She wasn’t me. How could you not see that? Now she’s everywhere. She’s in my house, my job, my bed, and I don’t want to wear my clothes anymore and I don’t want to live in my apartment, and I don’t want to be with you. She’s taken everything.” - Olivia





The scene opens up at a train station; a place much used by Fringe incidents and we follow a man following another man. Sounds simple enough, right? Until the man being stalked grows dizzy and passes out and he wakes up in the middle of his own surgery and the stalker calling an ambulance . The stalker apologies, stating that there was no other way and presses a needle into his neck and he passes out again. Two EMTs arrive on the scene a short while later to the scene of a bloodied plastic screen put up in the house and beneath the surgical sheet, an opened chest with the heart removed. EMT one shouts out to his partner just as the man who’s chest is open takes a deep breath and begs the EMT to not let him die and then he breathes his last.




In Boston, Olivia is waiting for Broyles in his office and he is startled to see her smiling in wait. They get to talking about the other side and Walternate’s progress with crossing over safely. She explains that Walternate is driven and only sees this war in black in white; his world or theirs. When the machine is brought up, Olivia seems anxious to see it and Broyles gives her permission once she is clear for duty. Olivia pleads with him to let her start work immediately, stating that she promised a good friend she would work to fix both of their worlds and prevent this war. Broyles picks up pretty quickly that it is his alternate they are discussing and he asks her questions about him and his family.




At the Bishop Residence, Walter and Peter are readying themselves for a field trip. Walter gives Peter a lecture about being honest with Olivia and Peter is adamant that he intends to tell Olivia everything, despite how awkward he knows it will be. Walter is proud and tells Peter he is a better man than himself. They arrive on the scene and watch as Broyles pulls up and gets out. Peter freezes for a moment when Olivia also gets out of the vehicle, looking rather cheerful and upbeat. He covers for himself by asking if she should be in bed resting, but Broyles explains that she is clear for cases now.




Walter and Peter are looking into the body and determine that the man who had his heart removed has had heart surgery before. Peter soon discovers that the man has a medicine cabinet filled with meds all prescribed by a specific doctor and Broyles sends Olivia and Peter to go talk to him. While waiting for him to be out of heart surgery, Olivia shares a bit of how she feels about being back and her things lived in by someone else. She describes it as disconcerting, but otherwise doesn’t seem down about it until Peter admits that there are things he needs to tell her about her alternate self.

He starts off stating that he did notice changes when they’d gotten back; small ones, but definite changes. I’m not sure if anyone else felt the same but I was definitely telling the TV to shut up when Peter began his speech. We all know he meant well, but it sounded like he was digging his own grave. Some of the changes he listed were that she was much quicker with a smile, less intense, and she seemed determined to be happier now that she’d seen the “other” her. Olivia looks slightly confused and the hurt settles in for a few seconds before she’s brushing off his concern, and telling him it was alright and that it didn’t matter because she was back. Peter needed to be sure that she understood though, and continued stating that when she had asked him to come back so they could be together that he did come back to be with her and that’s when it begins to sink in for Olivia as Peter explains that he and her alternate had dated and were together. Peter states clearly that he really thought it was her he was dating. Olivia gets flustered especially when he admits that everyone else knew about their relationship and begins to build up a defense both for her and him when she begins talking about her alternate’s life on the other side. Her alternate was loved by friends and family and had a caring boyfriend that who knows what would’ve happened had he been in town and because no one there knew it was actually her and so she says she doesn’t blame Peter for also not noticing. Lucky or not for Peter the nurse comes out and informs them that the doctor is now out of surgery and able to talk. Olivia is the first to leave the table and Peter follows. The doctor explains that the man has had a heart transplant just recently after being on the donor recipient list for over a year.




In the baddy’s lair there’s a young woman with many stitches and the man who stole the heart is telling her that soon she will be ready.




Back at the lab, Astrid is packing up for the day as Peter walks in looking happy. Walter convinces Peter to smell the body and when Peter isn’t vomiting he concludes with Walter that something is off. The body has slowed to almost zero degradation and has yet to show normal signs of decaying. Walter, noticing Peter’s chipper mood and comment on the lack of sleep asks him about Olivia and if they’d talked about what had happened. Peter tells him that he has and that she took it surprising well and Walter poses the idea of her having been replaced with a robot.




At Olivia’s place she is going through her closet and eyeing her clothes carefully, glancing sideways at her reflection in the mirror and getting annoyed with the bangs. She caches sight of the tattoo on the back of her neck when brushing her hair back and grows more agitated. Olivia removes all the clothes from their hangers and then strips the sheets from her bed to wash. When she makes it to washer and dryer she notices a load already in there and begins pulling the clothing out; her eyes getting stuck on what shirt in particular that could only be Peter’s MIT one. Olivia tears up at this and finally gives in to her emotional turmoil and crumbles to the ground to cry.




The next day Olivia and Astrid meet in the break room at the federal building and discuss the other her and Peter and the relationship they shared. When Astrid seems hesitant to answer her questions Olivia tries to make a quick escape but Astrid stops her. She tells Olivia that Peter fell for her and not her alternate and that he still has feelings for Olivia. Olivia seems to take this to heart and thanks Astrid before they both head off to the meeting Broyles has set up.




Broyles brings them up to speed on a spree of stolen organs in five different states with the same MO. He goes on to explain that all of the organs stolen were donor parts and from the same donor. They notice that the girl who had her organs donated has also donated her eyes and those weren't in any pictures. Broyles makes the call to find out who got the girl's eyes. They get a lead that the girl's name is Amanda Walsh and Broyles, Olivia, and Peter go to a warehouse in hopes of finding the man who received her eyes. After hearing some noises Olivia finds a man with no eyes. They were to late. After talking to the family they discover that Amanda committed suicide after joining a help group with other depressed people. After discovering hat her ashes aren't her ashes, Walter poses that someone is trying to Amanda back together again and has her body along with her organs.




We get a glimpse at one the man is up to when he strings Amanda up into a marionette set and strings her along to perform ballet to keep her body moving and "healthy". He is very emotional as he makes her perform a ballet routine.




At the lab Peter and Olivia are holed up in an office going over people Amanda knew and Peer gets frustrated when Olivia shoots down all of Peter's ideas for suspects. He asks her why she keeps shooting them down and she says that whoever it is out there putting Amanda together is doing it because he loved her. This makes Peter freeze up for a second before the tension builds and they go back to work. Finally Peter finds a Roland David Barrett who seems to fit the bill.




At the hideout, Roland is able to reanimate Amanda but soon discovers that what he has brought back isn't his Amanda. He hears the FBI break into his place and he leaves Amanda to escape, but Olivia tackles him to the ground before he can get too far. Peter, Walter, and Bishop are already in the basement when they discover Amanda and Olivia stays upstairs to interview Roland. He confesses that he only wanted to give her a second chance, but what he saw in her eyes when she was back, he knew it wasn't her. When they do find Amanda, she is dead and we're not sure how she got that way - if it was natural or something Roland did out of guilt.




While everything is getting packed up, Peter finds Olivia in the back, looking upset and lost. When Peter asks her what is wrong she finally tells him how she really feels; leaving nothing out this time and Peter gets the reaction he probably assumed he'd get.










At the very end we see an Observer watching Peter and Walter at a diner while they get the promised strawberry milkshake and he opens his phone saying that he has arrived and that "he" is still alive. Though they never say who "he" is, it is safe to deduce after a few more episodes that it is Peter they are talking about.


Unanswered Questions Raised In "Marionette"

  • If it wasn't Amanda that came back, who or what was it?



  • If Olivia was all about telling the truth why did she lie for so long through the episode before caving? Was she also lying to herself?



      • If Peter Bishop never existed...
      Honestly, he didn't do all too much case related stuff in this episode, but he did contribute a good 50% of the emotional drama that made this the rich episode it was.













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