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| Monday, May 17, 2010 10:46 AM |
| (Last updated on Monday, May 17, 2010 01:39 PM) | | On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 2, Episode 22 - "Over There, Part 1") |
 by Fëanor |
Beware spoilers!
Woah! Alternate-Charlie and Alternate-Olivia! They're kind of sexy. I like the long hair on Olivia. In this universe, Charlie has to keep taking drugs to keep down the parasite that's still inside him. And Olivia is working under a Captain - sort of a Peter substitute? Plus, Broyles wears a tight black T-shirt and looks all ripped. They're used to tracking down and dealing with tears in the fabric of the universe. They sometimes have to "quarantine" an area, which seems to mean they blow it up and everybody dies. It's all very militaristic. Astrid is wearing a beret and might be some kind of android.
This universe never had Andrew Jackson as president. And Olivia, Walter, and some others are already here! I'm guessing we're going to jump back in time now and explain how we got here.
The opening title sequence is red. Isn't it usually blue? Hmm...
Yep, we've now jumped back 36 hours.
Walter's watching surveillance footage of Peter leaving with Walternate. This brings up for me a nagging issue that seems to be getting more and more serious as the series goes on. They seem to be constantly changing how big a deal it is when someone crosses between universes. They can't seem to settle down and decide how difficult it is and how much damage it does. Wasn't Newton trying to do it for ages and they were worried if he succeeded it would destroy all existence? And then sometimes people just seem to flash back and forth like it's nothing. It's a disappointing flaw in the consistency of the story.
The Observer takes a hand again, this time leaving a piece of paper for Olivia to find. The Observers are starting to seem a lot less like Observers and a lot more like Adjusters.
Walter suddenly remembers that years after he decided to keep the Peter from the other side, an Observer came and made him promise never to put Peter back, because it would destroy the world. This feels a lot like a retcon to me. They're just inserting extra story into the past so they can make the present plot make more sense. More disappointing finagling.
Heh. Broyles can be seriously bad-ass when he wants to be. A security guard says, "Sorry, sir, I can't let you go in there," and he responds, "Don't even think about it," and just keeps walking.
I'm pretty sure in a recent episode, the lab geek at Massive Dynamic didn't know a damn thing about there being another universe, but now it's revealed that he's been able to send stuff back and forth between universes for some time, but what he sends comes back so delicate, if you touch it, it explodes. William Bell seems to have gotten around this problem, at least a few times, but now he might be staying on the other side because if he comes back, he'll blow up. And now, Walter says he doesn't want to open a door between universes again like he did years ago, because he's afraid it'll blow up the world. But... we just watched lab geek send a coffee cup over! And you just said Bell made it over okay! The world didn't explode those times! What's the big deal? I just don't get it.
Now they're claiming that it's because of Cortexiphan that Olivia didn't blow up crossing between universes. And that the more Cortexiphan kids we could get together, the easier it would be to cross over. I don't know, this all feels really hacked together to me.
And now it's revealed that all the Cortexiphan kids that we met in previous episodes are suddenly magically okay and have various, fully functioning super powers. This is ridiculous. One of these guys used to be so dangerous that they were afraid to wake him up because he made people want to kill themselves just by being near them. But now it turns out they did wake him up and just... made him better? That is very hard to swallow.
Woah. Hearing Broyles laugh was very disturbing.
Walter has another heartbreaking scene. He's doing Peter's laundry. He smells the clothes and says, "Please God." Meanwhile, Olivia gives her cross away to her niece. So, she's living with her sister and her niece again? I got the sense from the last couple episodes that that wasn't true anymore. But maybe that's just a subplot they've been ignoring. It's pretty funny how her sister asks if she'll be home for dinner. "I'll give you a call when I get back from the parallel universe!"
I'm getting the strong sense that a different team of writers worked on this episode than has been working on previous episodes. A team that's not as good. From what I can tell, looking back through the credits of recent episodes on IMDB, I seem to be right.
Suddenly Olivia trusts William Bell? What brought that on? She knows almost nothing about him, and what she does know is not particularly trustworthy. And by the way, last time she crossed between universes, she needed months of therapy with the guy from the bowling alley to get over it. I'm getting the strong feeling that's not going to be true this time. For no particular reason. And how the hell does Walter just know how to open a door between universes now? Hadn't he forgotten how to do that for years and years? It just conveniently came back to him? Ugh.
Walter's dialog is pretty damn corny in this episode. Looking around an old abandoned theater, he says, "It was lovely wasn't it. Now faded and broken. Just like me."
Olivia: "So how does this work, Walter?"
Walter: "Remember your Shakespeare, dear. All the world's a stage! Or in this case, both worlds."
First of all, yuck. Second of all, that's not an explanation at all. They're doing this with zero equipment? Just using their minds? Seriously? How many different ways are there to cross between universes? The first time Walter crossed over, he had a series of gadgets that he used to open up a doorway. Then one time Bell yanked Olivia over and threw her back in some way that was never entirely explained. Then more recently, Newton had to use three posts to triangulate an area, then wait until the universes were in sync, then swap items from one universe to the other. And now we're just going to think about it and it happens? Man, this episode is pissing me off.
I'm glad to see that jumping between universes did have a negative physical effect on some of our heroes, at least.
In the other universe, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is on the $20 bill. I was at first surprised that the Fringe team didn't immediately recognize that the Andrew Jackson $20 bill must be from the other universe, but they explain this later by revealing that Walternate has been covering up the secret of there being another universe.
It turns out Walternate is called "the Secretary" here because he's actually the Secretary of Defense. Walternate made out a lot better than our Walter!
The Captain of the Alternate Fringe team is named Lincoln Lee. Walter tells him he's sorry about his father and that he was a good man. Should I know who his father is? Who do I know named Lee? Hmm...
Now it's easier to understand the perspective of the people in this other universe. Walter's original invasion has caused horrible strife in their world. Of course they would see us as the enemy.
Peter also was not immune to the effects of crossing between worlds. Wow. His Mom is still alive here. It's an awkward and emotional meeting.
Apparently Cabbage Patch Kids are still big in the other universe.
It looks like William Bell may have betrayed them, but it could be some kind of coincidence...
An impressive and dramatic end for empath and fire girl. What a fiasco! The whole team is dead except for Walter and Olivia, but they've been split up, and Walter's been shot.
I thought for sure fire girl had taken out the mysterious Lee, but medical science is a bit more advanced here.
Alternate Olivia has a hot boyfriend, and doesn't drink. Weird!
William Bell finally shows up, but it's still not clear whether he can be trusted. Meanwhile, it looks like Walternate has the Doomsday Machine all ready and waiting to plug Peter into.
I was disappointed by this episode in a lot of ways. The phrase "jumping the shark" even came to mind. They just threw a lot of things at us at once that seemed to come out of nowhere, were hard to believe, and that in some cases even seemed to contradict things they'd already told us. The plotting felt clumsy and slapdash. It's too bad, because there are some cool ideas here. I really would have liked the idea of a team of super-powered Cortexiphan kids jumping to the other universe using only their minds if it weren't for the fact that the kids and their superpowers essentially came out of nowhere, and they've already set various precedents for traveling between universes that they just seem to ignore the next time they need to do it. My only hope is that Part 2 will be a lot stronger. |
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