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| Monday, March 14, 2011 01:43 PM |
| On the Viewer - Fringe (Season 3, Episode 14 - "6B") |
 by Fëanor |
As usual, beware spoilers!
We begin with a haunted apartment building, and what I believe is a vanishing balcony. Strangely terrifying!
Walter is singing a song about pancakes and making a fancy breakfast just because Olivia is coming over. Awkward!
Peter tries to convince Walter that his relationship with Olivia is none of his father's concern. Uh, actually, it's of great concern to two whole universes!
Walter: "Breakfast! The most important meal of the day. And I proved it in 1973!"
Yep, Walter's clumsy attempt to fix Peter and Olivia's relationship with breakfast was about as awkward as one could have expected.
Name of the haunted apartment building? Rosencrantz. Walter proceeds to do a coin-flipping test that reminds me of a scene in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Every flip comes up heads.
Walter: "Like the other universe, our world is starting to come apart at the seams."
Oh crap! That's an interesting development.
Walter is super pissy. Man, the guy learns the universe is falling apart and it's like his whole day is ruined.
Also, interestingly enough, Walter wants the case files and notes from one of their first cases together - the one where everybody on a bus got sealed in amber. I wonder why?
Olivia: "Peter, you glimmered. When we kissed, you glimmered."
Awkward! Now Peter should say, "I'm sorry, this has never happened to me before!"
Instead there is gooey relationship talk about how maybe Olivia just can't open up. Blah blah blah, get back to the haunted building. (I'm half kidding. I'm fascinated by how different this Olivia is from Faux-livia - that she's so unable to be vulnerable around people.)
Walter: "There's no such thing as ghosts."
Peter: "That's where you draw the line? Ghosts?"
Heh. Good point.
Walter reveals that William Bell thought it might be possible to capture the energy of dead people using "soul magnets." I thought for a second there he was going to mention traps and containment systems and this was going to be a Ghostbusters reference.
Walter: "He said if he were right he would contact me from the Great Beyond. I haven't gotten the call yet."
Of course! The amber from the bus attack is the same stuff they use to block up holes in the universe on the other side. Now they might have to start using it on this side.
Peter: "Not exactly how you imagined meeting the President, huh?"
Broyles: "I already know him. He doesn't like me - I beat him at golf."
Pretty cool premise this episode. A coin flip decides which member of a couple dies. In one universe, the woman dies. In the other universe, the man dies. Their grief for the other is so great that a soft spot is created between universes and they're able to see through to the version of their significant other that's still alive on the other side. Walter calls it "emotional quantum entanglement." It's also a case of "spooky action at a distance," of course.
Broyles: "You think all of this is because of feelings?"
Heh. Yeah, it sounds pretty lame when you put it that way.
So they have to solve the problem of the universe breaking apart using... grief counseling?
Of course, the episode where Peter is trying to learn to let go of the alternate universe version of the woman he loved, he has to help convince a woman to let go of the alternate universe version of the man she loved. Fringe does love its story parallels.
I like the subplot here: Walter faces the same problem Walternate is faced, realizes that he might have to use Walternate's solution, and comes face to face with the fact that maybe Walternate isn't as evil as he wants to believe. Fringe also loves its moral ambiguity.
Oh lord, the scenes with Olivia and Peter alone together are just agonizing in their awkwardness. (I think I used the word "awkward" in various forms more times in this review than in any other before.) I'm not seeing any real chemistry. It just feels like they're forcing things. I guess we all have to cheer them on, though, because apparently if Peter doesn't get with Olivia, our universe is doomed!
I was wondering whether Fringe Division on the other side was detecting any anomalies; at the end, we briefly jump sides and discover that yes they did, but by the time they get there to check it out, it's all over.
This episode has some cheesy bits, and for whatever reason Olivia and Peter's relationship isn't working so well for me anymore, but still, it's a pretty effective story with some intriguing plot threads, and opens up some new and interesting subjects for future exploration. |
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