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| Thursday, May 20, 2010 10:26 PM |
| (Last updated on Friday, May 21, 2010 03:48 PM) | | On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 2, Episode 23 - "Over There, Part 2") |
 by Fëanor |
Beware spoilers!
I love seeing Walter meet up with Bell again finally. They just trash each other. A couple of grumpy old men. It's great.
Peter gets an autopilot zeppelin tour of Alt-New York. The town's a bit of a mess, especially Madison Square Garden! A wormhole they couldn't close? A bunch of people trapped in amber??
The alt universe technology is great. I also love that the Rocky Horror theme plays on Olivia's video phone when Broyles calls.
It's interesting that, despite the fact that the alternate universe seems so much more advanced, there are still technical and engineering break-throughs made on our side that they haven't made here yet.
Walternate is painting an unfair picture of people from our side for Alt-Olivia, describing them as "monsters in our skin." He's looking more and more villainous all the time.
Walter reveals that in the 1980s he identified the last of KFC's 11 secret herbs and spices. Ha!
Bell tells Walter they achieved a lot together, but he thinks Olivia may be their greatest achievement. Walter seems to agree.
There's a Red Lantern and Red Arrow comic book cover hanging on the wall of Peter's room! There's a Batman cover, too, but I can't tell how that's different, except that it also appears to be red. I love all these clever little differences between the universes they're sticking into the background and hiding in all the corners. (UPDATE: Here are all the alternate universe DC comics covers that appeared in the episode. Awesome.)
When Peter references the Lindbergh baby, Alt-Olivia doesn't know what he's talking about. You can see this moment really underlines for him how different this world is, and how alien it is to him.
Walter [looking out at the devastation]: "Am I responsible for this?"
William Bell: "Yes, Walter. I'm afraid you are."
William Bell likes red vines, too, just like Walter. Heh.
There's a "Neither Dead Nor Forgotten" plaque right outside Harvard University, where there are a bunch of people trapped in amber - people who had to be quarantined by Fringe Division. Crazy.
Walter accuses Bell of having created the shape-shifters, and Bell admits it's true - to keep tabs on Walternate, he had to remain useful to him. Wow! It also turns out that the Bell in this world was killed in a car crash when he was young.
Walter finally gets to go off on Bell, and demands that Bell explain why he did what he did to him. It's a powerful moment - but Bell doesn't explain.
There was something weird in the background of Walternate's old lab that I suspect is some kind of clue or Easter Egg - his blackboard had this phrase written on it: "a demon's twist rusts." Is it an anagram for something? (UPDATE: Somebody else seems to have already figured this out! The phrase is an anagram for "Don't trust Sam Weiss." I wouldn't have known who Sam Weiss is, but apparently that's the name of the bowling alley guru. Woah!!)
Walternate's doomsday machine, as I suspected, is meant to be run by Peter. Only Peter can activate the power source. I think Walternate already knew that when he gave Peter the power source, but he wanted Peter to figure it out for himself for some reason.
There's an interesting moment when Olivia comes face to face with Alt-Charlie and has to keep a straight face. Then a sweet moment between Olivia and Peter in which she finally really opens up to him. It's a little corny, but it works.
William Bell is seriously awesome. He pulls a gun out of the back of his car and shows it to Olivia: "I gave Fringe Division the 76 model." He fires - BOOM. "This is the 77." Excellent. Then he gives Olivia some grenades, but tells her to be careful - they're prototypes and not particularly stable. She demands clarification, and he says, don't jostle them too much. Ha!
Bell reveals it was Walter himself who asked him to take out parts of his brain - because Walter was afraid of what he was becoming. Interesting.
Bell sacrifices himself to get them back! Damn, I was beginning to really like him. Still, that was a cool moment. Only one problem: he sent back the wrong Olivia! Which is a pretty great plot twist. But unfortunately it doesn't make all that much sense to me. They've already explained that Olivia is pretty instrumental in opening the doorway between universes, and it seems like it must take some active effort on her part. But would Alt-Olivia have the same powers as our Olivia? Surely Alt-Olivia wasn't treated with Cortexiphan when she was a kid; that wouldn't make sense. The only reason Olivia got dosed with the drug is because Walter and Bell wanted her to be a soldier in a future war with the alternate universe. So how was Alt-Olivia able to open the doorway, with no power, and no training as to how to do it? I'm hoping they'll explain that eventually, but I have a bad feeling they won't.
For now, everyone's back home and happy. Astrid's feeding Peter pie. Everything is not okay again yet between Peter and Walter, but Peter's giving him the benefit of the doubt. And he knows now that Walternate only wanted to use him to destroy the other universe, not to heal this one, like he said.
Alt-Olivia uses the magic typewriter to send messages back to the other side. She gets her orders, but we don't get to see them. Damn it! Meanwhile, Walternate's keeping our Olivia locked up in a lightless box in the basement. Brutal.
Argh! What a horrific cliffhanger. Clearly Peter's going to have to go back over to save his Olivia, and Walternate will have another go at trying to plug his son into the doomsday machine. I foresee some awkward scenes between Alt-Olivia and Olivia's sister, not to mention her niece.
Well, this episode was a lot better than the previous one - it was really thrilling, with some great ideas, and some really funny and emotionally effective moments - but there were still some flaws in the logic of the story that seemed to come out of pure carelessness on the part of the writers. It's disappointing.
Don't get me wrong, though: I'll definitely be back for episode one of season three. |
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