Fringe Fodder

Fringe: Over There, Part 1 Review

Preview:

Task Force Cortexiphan (huh?) in the 23 ½ Century Dimension Whatever.

Key Points in this week’s mystery:

• Fringe springs into action. There’s an anomaly in Brooklyn! Agent Charlie! Alive! Bald as John Locke! And Olivia? With long red hair? And Broyles! Amazingly casual but just as intense.
• The team is chasing a “class 1 dissolution with molecular cohesions failure”. Their van stops and they rush into an old concert hall. In mid-air there’s some wibbley, wobbley time-like stuff. It’s bad.
• One agent holds up a silver dollar – one of the last ones issued in 1976, with the moon-landing commemorative obverse and Richard Nixon on the face side??? Wait a minute – we’re in alternate world! The dollar floats in a glass of water and the agent reports back to Broyles on the radio that gravity has been compromised.
• Agent Farnsworth is working on a computer right next to Broyles and is apparently some kind of tech – she calculates that ‘quarantine would result in ten thousand casualties’. Broyles turns up the pressure for a recommendation and Farnsworth reports the event is terminating and no quarantine will be necessary.
• The team finds a tumor ridden corpse in the balcony of the theater – just like the ones we were seeing five episodes ago in “Olivia. In The Lab. With The Revolver.” The corpse has a twenty dollar bill in his wallet, with the picture of Andrew Jackson. “Who the Hell is Jackson?” the team wonders.
• Meanwhile in a higher balcony, a blonde haired Olivia whispers “Keep down” to a man and woman and they crawl away trying to keep out of sight. Overhead a zeppelin can be seen through a skylight, flying over the World Trade Center.
• Reviewers Note: identifying people gets very confusing when alternate worlds are added to the story-telling. Hence, I am going to plant ”a-“ in front of the names of alternate world people that we already know in this world. I refuse to plant “a-“ in front of Peter even if he did originate on the other side, however, and since there’s only one of him, it shouldn’t lead to confusion.
• Flash back 36 hours to Harvard. Olivia and Walter watch a motel security tape (with sound?) showing a-Walter inviting Peter to the other side, but telling him he can never return. Peter doesn’t hesitate “Let’s go.” And they instantly vanish in a flash of light. Hey, technology must have really advanced – none of the elaborate equipment ‘the secretary’ needed two weeks ago to come over. Maybe going back is easier. Walter is staggered by the sight. Olivia needs a drink.
• An Observer passes Olivia’s barstool and leaves a cryptic drawing. It looks like a code page with a drawing of Peter with flames shooting out of his eyes overlaying the code, and above it a strange machine with a man in the middle of it. Walter calls to say that some years ago an Observer came to him and told him that he could never let Peter return to the other side or Peter would be responsible for the “end of the world.” [Which one?]
• Olivia won’t let Walter dither and demands he find a way to cross over and retrieve Peter.
• Broyles strides into Massive Dynamic blowing right past protesting security guards with Olivia, Walter, and a number of agents in tow. He bursts into Nina Sharp’s office demanding information – he thinks they’re manufacturing weapons for the other side.
• Shown the drawing, she says it’s William’s (Bell’s) technology, but they’ve never built it – on this side at least. Olivia demands Massive Dynamic’s help in crossing over, so off to the chief geek in MD labs.
• The geek says objects that cross over become molecularly unstable, in proportion to the number of transitions they make, and that’s probably why Bell hasn’t come back – afraid of disintegrating. Nina Sharp admits she can ‘send communications’ over the gap, but has no idea if they’re received.
• Walter says he can’t cross over again the same way he did when he took Peter, because that one expedition drastically weakened the fabric between the words and he’s afraid of destroying one or both if he tries it again.
• However, there’s one hope - Cortexifan Kids, the ones Bell and Walter experimented on, can cross over safely – and a group of them would be safer still – if only James Heath hadn’t killed most of them off several eps ago leaving only Olivia. Broyles reveals that’s not exactly true – they’ve located others in anticipation of a need.
• They have five ready to go, but for some reason use only three. One is that same James Heath, who’s been rehabilitated to cure disease instead of cause it. Sally Clark is a firestarter [Wasn’t Olivia one too, back in the day?] Nick Lane can now project emotions to other people controllably. Olivia enters the room where they are training and Nick is delighted to see her “Olive!” projecting his emotions to everyone around him, including Broyles who breaks out in a giggle. Even his giggles seem menacing. [Oh, Lance Reddick, how wasted you were on LOST!]
• Task Force Cortexiphan walks into a new lab set up in Boston FBI headquarters. Walter is there and there’s a tense moment as Heath recognizes Walter as “that man who experimented on us,” and says he wants to kill him. Walter apologizes so humbly and sincerely that Heath’s anger is mollified, and Walter says that “today is the day for which you were created” to save both universes – and his son.
• Broyles tells them they’re moving out tomorrow in Brooklyn at 0800. Heath says they need a night off first – what no briefing, training, formulation of objectives, planning, training? – just… hop over and save the world(s). Broyles is all “whatever”.
• Heath visits a sick girl in a hospital bed – without explanation.
• Clark and Lane share another kind of bed. Sex with an empath – sounds like fun. Hope she doesn’t burn the room down.
• Walter does laundry in preparation.
• Olivia visits her niece and sister, giving the young girl a cross her mother gave to her. Olivia tells her sister she’ll be home in time for dinner. [Optimist!]
• Nina Sharp has sent a message to William Bell asking for his support, but with no way to tell if it was received. He’s to meet them in Central Park.
• At the last minute, Walter says he’s going with them. Broyles objects but allows it.
• Walter’s method seems more like a séance than science. Meditation and memory regression as they form a circle around him. It’s the powers of their minds he’s using, not a machine. They’re in the same theater we saw in the opening.
• They arrive, dirigibles overhead, but Heath is coming down with tumors just like his victims a few eps ago. Cosmic justice? Clark is reeling. Only Olivia and Lane seem to have come through normally. They hide in the upper balcony as the opening scenes repeat themselves below.
• The a-Fringe team is summonsed to the a-Department of Defense headquarters which is not in the Pentagon in Washington D.C, but on Ellis Island around the Statue of Liberty, which appears to have been kept polished and untarnished, not all green with verdigris. That’s the military mindset, all right. The team is being led to the Secretary of Defense’s office, who is, naturally, a-Walter. The team leader is a-Lee, along with a-Olivia, and a-agent Charlie Francis.
• A-Walter tells them that the man they found at the theater is from another world, and that all the ‘natural and environmental disasters’ that a-Fringe was formed to fight are not in fact natural as they had been led to believe, but results of probes from the other universe that began in 1985 (With Walter’s trip to retrieve and cure Peter.) He tells them there are invaders from that other world here, and that they have to be found.
• Task Force Cortexiphan idles at a bus stop under a poster announcing that “West Wing” has been renewed. Clark is ailing, burning up. The bus arrives but an S-2 problem arises – bus travel on this side requires ID papers (wonder how they were planning on handling the fares – have they been doing a little mugging off camera? – or planning on paying with “Jacksons”?)
• Clark, nearing collapse, seems to revert to childhood and wants Nick Lane to buy her a Beanie Baby. She says she likes it here and wants to stay.
• Peter looks at drawings of weapons from Walter’s study.
• The team arrives at Central park but no William Bell. Police cruisers instead. Betrayed? They run in different directions. A-Lee halts Lane and Clark with gun drawn. She starts to throw a fireball but stops when a-Lee shoots Lane. Walter and Olivia are hiding in the bushes which are being sprayed with automatic weapons fire. Olivia responds with her pistol and drops an attacker.
• A-Lee, gun drawn, approaches Clark, kneeling over the wounded Lane. She kisses him and he dies. A-Lee tells her to step away. Clark responds “Screw you” and flashes a fireball that incinerates herself, Lane, and a-Lee. A-Olivia snaps off a shot at a fleeing Walter then is distracted by a ’man down’ call on her radio and responds to see the charred bodies. Olivia makes her way through the woods.
• Walter, wounded, stumbles to an emergency room and collapses.
• Olivia wanders the streets, dodging police cars. She finds a computerized phone directory and looks up ‘her’ address.
• a-Olivia come home to a lover/husband/main squeeze? She tells him that a-Lee has third degree burns over 90% of his body but he’ll live (that would be fatal on our side, so their medical technology is ahead of ours). This Olivia doesn’t drink alcohol. He’s going to give her a back rub/massage. She partially undresses. (woo!) They’ve got matching back tattoos (aw!)
• Our Olivia watches this proto-sex in silhouette on the curtains. She’s wearing a hoodie Charlie Pace style. William Bell walks up and startles her (and found her, how?). he says he got Nina’s message too late to get to the park before the police. He says she’ll have to trust him because Walter is in trouble and they don’t have much time.
• A-Walter strides into an office and looks at a drawing just like the one the Observer gave Olivia. Then he lifts his eyes to the actual machine (sans human operator) depicted in the drawing. He lifts some device out of a box and takes it from the room

Key points in the ongoing story arc:

• The FBI’s mission planning is the pits.
• No Grant Hotel in this world.

Key points in Personal Stories:

• Peter wakes at ‘home’. His mother is making breakfast and says he’s been asleep for three days. She asks if he still likes bacon – as he did when a boy. He says he still does even though his mom – oops, his other mom - was a vegetarian and never gave him any, but he remembered liking it.
• Peter’s mom says coffee is hard to come by here but Walter, being a high muckety muck, has connections.
• Peter tells his mom that her counterpart was wonderful but not very strong and committed suicide ten years ago.

Tonight’s Secret Glyph Code: WEAPON

I’m guessing this means Peter, in some way we’ll learn maybe next week.

Best Quotes
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a-Charlie: Oh, I was thinking, "Hey, maybe a slow day, it being Saturday and all." No rest for the wicked.
a-Olivia: Oh, you're not wicked, Charlie. You just pretend very, very well.
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a-Olivia: So exactly how big would the worms get if you stopped dosing yourself.
a-Charlie: They're not worms.
His a-Teammates: They're arachnids!
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Walter: So... horrible as is it so say, today is the day for which you were created. What I could never have imagined is that I would be asking you to help me save my son. I'm so sorry. Well, if none of you are gonna kill me... I think I'll go and have a bit of a cry.
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Walter: Now, I want you to think back to when you were just young children. Back to when you were just young boys and girls. Think back to when your imagination could--could take you wherever you wanted to go. Imagine this universe slipping away, opening like a curtain. Allow the universe to pass right through you. Allow your imagination to take you to the other side.
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a-Lincoln: Yeah, you don't want to leak worms all over the guy. Makes a bad first impression.
a-Charlie: They're not worms.
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Analysis:

If the two timelines diverged in as big a way as having a different president 190 years ago, especially one as significant as Andrew Jackson, I’d expect significantly more differences in the society than we actually see.

The zeppelin shot near the beginning looks to be taken from New Jersey, not Brooklyn, where the theater supposedly is.

Just a quibble, but a change in gravity wouldn’t make any difference as to whether a given object would float – since both the object and the water would change weight in the same proportion. Better they should have said something about surface tension being different.

Remains to be answered:

1. Is Peter the key to the mysterious weapon? Was it designed specifically to be operated by him

Next Episode: "Over There, Part 2" (Finale) Thursday, May, 20!

A-Walter appears to be telling a-Olivia that “Our doubles are monsters in our skin. They can’t be trusted.” Or maybe it’s our Walter and Olivia.

William Bell tells Walter that he’s trying to stop a chain of events that was set in motion the day “YOU STOLE PETER.”

Peter says “He told me I could heal the problems of this world.”

A-Walter tells a-Broyles he wants him to find a fugitive. “Who,” says a-Broyles. “Me,” says a-Olivia.

Which side will survive?

Two Olivias fight.

Walter: “I never meant for any of this to happen”

Fringe Poll:

Regular Cast:

Anna Torv _________ Agent Olivia Dunham (also a-Fringe)
Joshua Jackson _____ Peter Bishop
John Noble ________ Dr. Walter Bishop (also a-DOD Secretary)
Lance Reddick ______ Agent Phillip Broyles (also a-Fringe)
Jasika Nicole _______ Agent Astrid Farnsworth (also a-Fringe)
Blair Brown ________ Nina Sharp

Guest cast:

David Call _______ Nick Lane – Force Cortexiphan
Pascale Hutton ___ Sally Clark – Force Cortexiphan
Omar Metwally ___ James Heath – Force Cortexiphan
Orla Brady ______ a-Elizabeth Bishop a-mom
Seth Gabel ______ a-Lincoln Lee - a-Fringe
Philip Winchester _ Frank Stanton – MD geek
Colin Banner _____ Bus Driver
Michael Denis ____ Witness/Jogger
Heather Doerksen _ Assistant
Erin Lacourciere ___ Dying Woman
Miguelito Macario _ Tech
Diana Pavlovska ___ Nurse
Pablo Silveira _____ Pedestrian