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| Saturday, October 3, 2009 01:43 PM |
| On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 2, Episode 3 - "Fracture") |
 by Fëanor |
Hey, it's Philly! It always pleases me when my shows are set in Philly.
Aah! Another freaky, disgusting opening! An agent is activated (by ZFT?), and is sent to get a briefcase, but as soon as he touches it, he freezes up and explodes! Nice.
More bowling therapy for Olivia. Not very helpful so far. Although apparently she's had serious enough brain trauma that she's having trouble tying her shoes.
Aww, Walter's so happy when there are bodies to examine.
Walter asking Astrid where she lives underlined for me that we don't really know much about her. I wonder if they'll develop her character a bit further in this season.
(An aside: eating cold pepperoni pizza while watching Walter reassemble an exploded human body is probably not a good idea.)
Those headaches bowling dude keeps talking about sure have started now! Plus Olivia's getting flashes of what happened in the other universe. Cool. Don't tell Charlie about them!
Another person using the mysterious drug is activated, again by someone named Colonel Gordon, who is played by Stephen McHattie, a character actor I've seen many times.
As part of Olivia's transuniversal brain damage therapy, she will now lace up bowling shoes and keep score for a kids' bowling league. Greeeaaat.
It's a bit hard to believe that Walter could have figured out so many details about the serum Gillespie was taking, and how he was taking it, just by examining the fragments of his crystallized body. But hey, Fringe is all about suspending disbelief!
The cow is very upset that Peter is eating a cheeseburger. Heh.
Looks like we've got it now: a secret experimental military project, code named "Tin Man." It all started in Iraq, and there are some doctors there who might know more, so Peter's headed back. This should be interesting! We might dig up some more about Peter's mysterious past. But they're making poor physically and mentally traumatized Olivia accompany Peter to Iraq! D'oh.
Achmed is pretty pissed about something Peter did way back when. Olivia: "You gonna tell me what that was about?" Peter: "No." Okay then! So much for learning more about Peter's mysterious past...
Heh heh. Astrid is getting tired of cleaning up all of Walter's exploding fruit. But he figured out how the serum is activated with radio waves!
Peter makes a toast with a "Red Russian" (red tea and vodka): "To all that's weird." Well said! Cheers!
Tin Man was supposedly an attempt to cure soldiers who had been exposed to a synthetic toxin. The serum is a cure. It just happens to have the side-effect of turning you into a human bomb that can be triggered by radio waves. Oops!
Wow, this Iraqi doctor is handy! He gives them all the information they need.
This episode has a pretty interesting plot when you think about it. It involves Iraq and suicide bombers, but the suicide bombers are American soldiers, acting on American soil.
Walter's in the back of the debriefing, licking a powdered donut. Heh. Gotta love Walter.
Something else that's a bit hard to believe: that a person full of this serum would stop crystallizing and then instantly get better as soon as the radio signal stopped. Something similar happened in an earlier episode, and I didn't really buy it then, either. Still, it does give us a nice happy ending for a change. Broyles even smiled!
Am I wrong, or was there something personal between Peter and Colonel Gordon? Peter really seemed to have it in for the guy, and was beating him savagely. Then this look passed between them. Did Peter already know Gordon from when he was in Iraq?
Oh crap. Great ending. Turns out Gordon was using his human bombs to kill couriers who were passing information to the Observers, who he believes are gathering data on humanity in preparation to destroy it. The particular briefcase that got away this time had photos of Peter and Walter in it. Very cool. Using innocent people as unwitting suicide bombers maybe wasn't the best way to go about it, but it's possible that Gordon was on the right track here. After all, we still don't know for sure whether the Observers are good or bad.
Not my favorite episode ever, but definitely some entertaining moments, and it pushes forward the overarching plot in an interesting way. |
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