'Fringe' recap: Don’t eat my pudding

For the last few weeks, I've been heaping praise on "Fringe." Rightfully so. It's been firing on all cylinders all season. I'd say all the episodes so far easily make the "Fringe" top 10 of all time. But I have a bone to pick with "Fringe" this week. Well, that might be a little severe. It's more of a warning: Be careful with your promos. 

Now, I love "Fringe" promos as much as the next guy. I watch them very carefully, in fact. Mostly to see if I got quoted in them. Watching promos that closely is a double-edged sword. I can't help but feel that the opening sequence would have been much more dramatic if I hadn't known Sen. Van Horn was going to turn out to be a shapeshifting super soldier from another dimension. As far as bones to pick go, a small one. 

This week, we flip back to our universe, or the Bluniverse, as I like to call it. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was our universe. The kids running a lemonade stand threw me for a minute. Does that still happen over here? Even though we're once again on our side of the looking glass, this week's "Fringe" focuses on the enemy. Those living among us. Spies. Sleeper agents. Monsters, if you will. Each dealing with the question of how far will you go in the line of duty.

First, we have Bolivia contemplating literally "how far" she will go to complete her mission. Bolivia has been trying to get close to Peter without him figuring out she's not his Olivia, but it doesn't help that the real Olivia professed her love to Peter in order to get him to return from the other universe. Bolivia needs to figure out if she's ready to be intimate with Peter to keep up her charade, and he's not making it any easier on her. I mean, talking about his understanding of an old rich guy bagging a young girlfriend and then transition it into knowing they haven't slept together based on body language? Not the greatest come-on ever, but I guess when you're Joshua Jackson, you don't to work as hard impressing the ladies.

Then we have Thomas Newton. He doesn't even have to contemplate how far he'll go for the mission. He shoots up a hospital trying to retrieve one of his fellow shapeshifting super soldiers, and when Broyles gets him locked down, Newton puts a bullet in the eye of his operative and then jumps down a stairwell. That's dedication.

Last, there's the sleeper agent shapeshifter who's been living the life of a random police office for the last five years. He's eating dinner with his family, getting his son to eat vegetables with promises of smelly urine, and overall living what the beer company ads call "the good life." That is until Newton shows up and tells him to drop everything to stop Walter and then vanish into the night  -- after, you know, killing the wife and kid so there isn't any evidence. (Newton is one hard-core bad guy).

Ultimately they all decide where the line must be drawn. The sleeper agent can't give up the cop's family. He's been programmed so well to mimic emotions that he won't leave the wife and kid, which takes shooting them right off the table. 

Newton shows that no life is more important than the mission. Not the sleeper agent. Newton gives him a bullet to the head and a seat in the trunk for refusing to follow orders. And when Newton himself is captured by Fringe Division, he swallows the cyanide microchip and makes his final transformation into a corpse. 

And Bolivia decides to go all the way for the mission as well. In order to quell all doubts that Peter didn’t really seem to be having, Bolivia sleeps with him. "Fringe" didn’t show that, of course, but Bolivia's general shirtlessness and the swelling music strongly implied it. 

The episode wasn't completely about "them." Walter began to embrace his new role as majority shareholder in Massive Dynamic, staring with an LCD-fueled board meeting full of elaborate imagery, shouting and George W. Bush-style uncomfortable back rubs. I'm excited to see Walter move into the Massive Dynamic lab to do his investigating. Sure, it's sad to see him leave the Harvard basement, but that place never felt the same to me since production moved to Canada. It'll make me all that more appreciative when they go back. I mean, they have to go back eventually, right?

Overall, "Fringe" continues its hot streak known as Season 3. This episode loses a few points because I'm still not buying into the Peter/Olivia romance quite yet. I know that it's Bolivia pretending to be Olivia and that she spent the entire episode afraid of being discovered as a spy, but I keep thinking that Peter has to pick up on that. Where are his con man skills? Too late now. I'm guessing after they took their relationship to a more intimate level, Peter will be wearing even bigger blinders to Bolivia's inconsistencies. We'll have to wait until Nov. 4 to find out.

Astrid Action -- Like "Fringe" itself, Astrid has been on a streak this season. Our Astrid is more of a confidante of Walter this year, and she even mentions how she's less grossed out by the bizarre experiments she walks in on. But also like "Fringe," Astrid stumbles occasionally. Letting Walter leave the cafeteria by himself after he's had a "eureka" moment? Astrid should know better than that. Though I'll forgive her this once. The stegosaurus was my favorite dinosaur too.

Spot the Observer -– Apparently the Observer was observing when Olivia, Peter, Broyles and Walter met in the lobby of Massive Dynamic to swap information. I didn't catch him this time. Luckily the Internet did it for me. Though I did spot something else ...

Most Obscure Reference –- I used to do this for my old "Cleveland Show"/"Family Guy"/"American Dad!" Show Tracker, picking out the most obscure reference. Believe me, they had plenty to choose from. This week, "Fringe" had a few. The episode's title, "Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep" is a reference to the Phillip K. Dick story that became the movie "Blade Runner." Near the end, Peter drinks in a bar where "Forbidden Planet" is playing on the TV. I'm willing to bet that anyone reading this knows the name of that robot (prove me right in the comments). But the most obscure reference had to be Walter saying "Ownership has its privileges." I'd say few viewers know which company had a slogan similar to that (prove me wrong on that one).

-- Andrew Hanson

RELATED:

"Fringe" recap: That wasn't supposed to happen

"Fringe" recap: Over Here

Complete "Fringe" coverage on Show Tracker

Photo: John Noble as Walter Bishop. Credit: Fox

 

 

Comments

[const]

ownership has its privileges. isn't that from american express, except its membership has its privileges.

George W. Bush-style uncomfortable back rubs? What does that exactly mean?

[J]

I would've bet money Peter was gonna notice something this week. Bolivia pretty much had to have sex with him because there was no way he would've went another week without picking something up. I really thought Walter noticed that she was dyeing her hair but only made blond reference. I do have to say that I'm liking the new MD lab. I also assumed they would have to go back at some point, but do they? After seeing how nice the DoD is on the other world maybe the stylish new lab will help attract more viewers anyway. And any more chances we can have to get Nina Sharp on the screen is a good thing. I was surprised they killed off our world bad guy but guess the shapeshifting is on the back burner with so many other plots in the air. Baseball really hurts a show like this so it'll be hard to have to wait weeks for the next installment. The preview teased about our Olivia coming back already but seems like winter finale story, though I'd be more than happy to see it on Nov. return.

[NickDe]

Hmm. I'm pretty sure sure Walter was on LSD. Pretty sure that was Robby the Robot in the "Invisible Boy" Oh yeah, Olivia-B's a shapeshifter.

[Please stop using Bolivia]

She is not a country in South America. It's the stupidest, lamest nickname possible. Join the other TV blogs in protest- jsut becuas ethe producers of the show dubbed her tht doesn't mean we have to. it's the one thing the public gets to do- dub a character's nickname via internet consensus. FAUXLIVIA FOREVER!

[shawn]

I think the George Bush style back rubs is a reference to W giving walking up behind Angela Merkel, the German Prime Minister, and preceding to rub her shoulders for her. the look on her face was priceless.

Walter got a little too close to some of the scientists and you could see their uneasiness with the invasion of personal space.

I liked, the episode, but the product placements were a little too much for me. I don't need to see the car brand nameplate as they speed away in a car chase. But if it is needed to keep the show on the air, I don't mind if they add the Geico Gecko.

[Chelsea]

I am adoring this season of Fringe. The careening Ford Taurus moment definitely brought back memories of Mulder and Scully.

My main question: When Peter checked the security tapes to identify the FakeCop's face (and ultimately lead them to his home/car chase) why did he not see that Olivia did not chase the FakeCop at ALL?!?! I thought "surely, Peter will catch her now!" but he didn't. SADNESS.

[Wil F]

American Express: Membership has its privileges. My wife and I both immediately noticed that one, and laughed. I said 'I wonder if Walter even has an AmEx, and how would he know about it? Maybe he watched a lot of television in the hospital."

[Mikey]

Now the question is: who's going to put things together and realize how "off" Fauxlivia is (and not just "changed")? I would have said Peter, but he's been successfully distracted. However, Walter has been showing signs that he's becoming less scatterbrained (I thought he might be onto something when he studying her hair), so I think it'll be him.

On the other hand, I thought she understood her mission was based on defense of her "side" from this one. Is she coming to the realization that Walternate appears to have an entirely different motivation? Between the doubts she may develop based on this and the emotional involvement that Newton warned her about, I'm guessing she may not be the good, unquestioning soldier for much longer.

Speaking of Newton, if developing the emotional ties and traits of the mark is a side-effect of mimicing a real human (as both the senator and the cop exhibited), given the purposes that shape-shifters must have been originally developed for, this seems like a fairly serious design flaw.

One final thing: If you have issues with the promo, you can't blame the show for that - that's Fox's marketing department, which, just like every other network, always finds creative ways to give things away before we even watch an episode of our favorite shows. Personally, I know what shows I'm going to watch and I know when and on what channel they come on, so I make every effort I can to not watch any promos before I watch the show. Of course, this also means I haven't watched Entertainment Tonight for probably 10 years or more because their "previews" sometimes give even more away.

[KarenJ]

Thank you so much for mentioning "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". I was having a darn hard time remembering where I knew it from! Robby the Robot, (or just 'Robot') how fun was that to see. Also loved Walter's musing on Lewis Carroll and the Mad Hatter/mercury.

This season is so complex and fun! I do miss the truly awesome special effects from Season 2 though.

I'll miss the old lab terribly if they don't go back. I really wanted to see Walter get that cow to produce chocolate milk. Isn't that every kids dream?

Also wanted to mention that I'll miss Sebastian Roche - Thomas Newton. They kept him around for a while and he's such an interesting bad guy. (Mr Roche was excellant in Supernatural last week as weel - yet another fun bad/good guy).

Looking forward to Nov 4th!

[Susan]

You didn't really comment on the cop's desire to keep his family life - that even if he was a shapeshifter, he had done something no other shapeshifter has done before: closeness in contact with humans, made him pretend to himself he was human. And he couldn't cross the line back to being a shapeshifter. I think this episode was about lines being crossed that can't go back over. Walter moves into his new lab (and it's beautiful, isn't it?); Newton dies, the shapeshifter can't go back to his mission (and is killed as a result). And Peter and AltLiv sleep together. I can't help but wonder what crossing these lines means for our characters (even Astrid's not getting so grossed out is a line crossed too!), because Walter seizing the reigns of MD is going to change things and himself, and Peter is going to have problems going back to Our Olivia (a nickname coined by a friend of mine and me as we discuss Fringe, to tell the Olivias apart).

I think what Peter says about Patricia the Senators' wife is also about him and is important to understanding how he has been lying to himself: "Maybe she notice, she just made excuses for herself in order to not to have to deal with it. Or she came up with ways to explain it to herself." I don't think he can go back to Our Olivia, and what he has done is far worse than Olivia not telling him the truth about himself. After all, he lied to himself about that for years and years also. Peter is very good at ignoring the truth when it's uncomfortable for him. It makes me wonder where his integrity is. And what people do for convenience. It makes me think that he doesn't deserve Our Olivia, who does have integrity in spades. Peter brings up finally that he does have doubts about the Olivia he is with, and then lets himself be sidetracked because it's easier. So who would have the integrity to confront AltLiv and ask who she is, to see through to the truth?

In some ways, this was a very uncomfortable episode because it was dealing with morality. In a weird way, I admired Newton because he didn't swerve from his mission, and it's made me start to wonder how much his unswerving loyalty is a small view into what is going on with Walternate and the destruction of their world, and 'war' that might already be incurring between the two sides. Since we don't know what AltLiv's real mission is, we can't see (or I can't anyway) how successful she is being on it. Certainly Newton doesn't think highly of her! I think that Newton's last words to AltLiv (this is my nickname for her, since I agree that naming Over There Olivia after a South American country isn't really fair or nice) are going to be key in later episodes: "words like integrity and self-respect, they aren't you. They form a line that you are unwilling to cross. And that will be your undoing." It's very interesting that a machine is telling this to her, a machine who couldn't be diverted from his path by any time spent in our world. It does make me wonder: was Newton questioning her loyalty to her world? what she would do to ensure it survives? Was he afraid she would like our world too much? Or is that the real hope in Fringe, that people from both universes can learn to leave the path of destruction, 'the mission', if they find a better way to work together? Is Newton afraid that the war he was fighting a losing battle because the two universes do have a way to survive if they can find it? Is AltLiv's questioning herself going to be what saves her, in the same way that Newton's words to Olivia in The Bishop Revival - "now I know your weakness" - that she would chose saving Walter over capturing Newton - were actually what saves Olivia and our world? Fringe as always, raised some very interesting questions to pass the next break with!

[Danyne]

Ugh, do we really have to wait so long for the next new show? So uninterested in baseball, can't even tell you...

I thought Peter was hinting to Fauxlivia that he's on to her. I'm not convinced just yet he really slept with her...maybe that will be her undoing, something that was very un-Olivia like, to make that aggressive advance on him. I'd love it if the show Over Here would begin with them in the midst of beginning the tryst, but he stops her. But he's a man, so maybe that's wishful thinking. :-)

I finally spotted the Observer during the show! Just glad I stayed alert, I get so absorbed in the drama...

[jacksprat]

Hope they remember to feed the cow.