ziparumpazoo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ziparumpazoo) wrote2011-10-15 02:07 pm
ziparumpazoo) wrote2011-10-15 02:07 pm
Fringe 4.04
How can we be at episode 4 already?!
This is one of those episodes, like 'Peter' and 'Subject 13', where, watching it at face value, I'm left going "Huh, well that happened", but I'm not terribly blown away by it.
To summarize: Olivia's apartment is haunted, Walter leaves the lab to make contact with another (or maybe in this 'verse, the first) Cortexiphan Kid, Nina is full of snark and short on morals, Astrid wins a fabulous work-cation to New York city, and Peter comes back.
There's a whole lot more than that going on if you're paying attention. Which you are, because it's Fringe and if you don't, you'll miss important things. Like the picture on the table beside Olivia's bed is of Rachel (I think) and Ella. (Phew! I had fears there) Or that Olivia ran away from the drug trials, which it's implied that her step-father signed her up for to get the stipend, sometime later in the program... so we know that the program wasn't stopped when she first set the room on fire at age 3. One thing that is definitely the same about blue!Olivia and this one, is they both play their cards very close. In S1, she told Peter that her stepfather used to hurt her mother, but we don't find out until much later that he was doing much worse. We only found out last episode that Olivia was also seeing the man who was haunting Walter, even though it's been going on since the bridge room was opened. She may seem much more open on the surface, but she holds her secrets just as tight.
mrspollifax noted in the last review that we hadn't seen or heard from Nina, but she's back in this episode, with a vengence. I think they were saving her up to spring her on us, because this is definitely not the softer, gentler CEO of Massive Dynamic. Except when it comes to Olivia. What's with that? Apparently she's had a more direct involvement in her life, even before Fringe Division came along. (and Olivia went to the prom?! This is a real shift from the woman who claimed to have no best friend and no social life in the blueverse. Killing ones abusive stepfather is good for the self confidence? Interesting that one act brought her to the same emotional point as three seasons worth of angst, but then again, the whole point of this season's narrative (or at least one of them) is that some things will still happen, they just happen differently.)
The Nina/Walter dynamics. Loved it. She has absolutely no patience or tolerance for him. I think she hasn't forgiven him for taking both Red!Peter, and her arm, and then having nothing to show for it because Peter died anyhow, depriving both sets of parents of their child. Not only did Walter kidnap Peter, but in essence, he committed murder too.
Astrid, how I love to see you snark back at Walter, who I'm now sure is teasing her with the names at this point. And again acting more as Olivia's friend than as just a co-worker. She's very much filling in the space previously taken up by Peter. If she could kick in doors I'd be saying "Peter who?" ;)
I could gush about the Walter/Olivia moments, about how the root beer floats were both a nod, and the complete opposite to the "driveby in the pastry shop" when Olivia confronted him about the Cortexiphan trials in season 1, but what interested me the most is how she was really trying to keep the relationship between them professional, but failing miserably. Plus, taking agoraphobic Walter on B&E adventures, not once, but twice. I suspect teenage Olivia was more of a badass is this 'verse.
Of course there was the MOW plot line, and in true Fringe fashion, it's told from our protagonists' pov, and inevitably they are wrong or mislead. Entertaining, none-the-less, but I wasn't fooled into this being another Cortexiphan subject at the root of it. Even if you'd been completely spoiler free, the storytelling was leaning towards bringing Walter's mystery ghost out into the open very soon. What did surprise me was how (and when!) Peter returned: alone and naked in the middle of Reiden Lake.tafkarfanfic likened it to rebirth, which seems appropriate since this is the spot where red!Peter died. The rest of the episode, while anticlimactic, was a setup for what's to come. And to be honest, I'm glad all was not reset as soon as Peter met Olivia. That would have been cheating.
No Lincoln this week, and while I did miss him, it was right that he wasn't a part of this episode. The structure for this season has been something like this: 4.01)Welcome to Fringe Division, 4.02)Welcome to the Other Side, 4.03)This is Walter, This is Walter on drugs - not much difference, 4.04)The Strange Little Family Unit, Revisited. This set of episodes was about getting back to the core of what Fringe was in the first couple of seasons, making sure we the viewers are on the same page and up to speed, and asking us to toe up to the ledge, ready to make the leap fully into season 4. The writers went smoothly from 'telling' us about this new 'verse, to 'showing' us, to 'giving us enough information to connect the dots on our own'. While I'm sure Lincoln will be part of what's to come (possible falling into the role that BlueCharlie had, only more so because he's assigned to be there), this episode wasn't *his* story as 4.01 and 4.03 were.
*eta: random stray thought while cooking supper: In Marionnette, Peter tells Olivia "you asked me to come back for you, and so I did." Speculate that we're going to come around to this again from a different angle. Olivia's life seems...better? (no, it's too soon to say this with complete comfidence) More, whole, I guess, because circumstances played out differently without Peter existing. And again, Peter "came back for her", but now there isn't room in her life? And will she or somebody else pose the question of what right does he have to set things back? What right does he have to make changes that could very well have an ill-effect on everyone else. Which Peter knows is the truth if he has those memories of a previous life? Food for thought... Aka, SOMEBODY WRITE ME THIS FIC!
So, yes, so much more than meets the eye.
This is one of those episodes, like 'Peter' and 'Subject 13', where, watching it at face value, I'm left going "Huh, well that happened", but I'm not terribly blown away by it.
To summarize: Olivia's apartment is haunted, Walter leaves the lab to make contact with another (or maybe in this 'verse, the first) Cortexiphan Kid, Nina is full of snark and short on morals, Astrid wins a fabulous work-cation to New York city, and Peter comes back.
There's a whole lot more than that going on if you're paying attention. Which you are, because it's Fringe and if you don't, you'll miss important things. Like the picture on the table beside Olivia's bed is of Rachel (I think) and Ella. (Phew! I had fears there) Or that Olivia ran away from the drug trials, which it's implied that her step-father signed her up for to get the stipend, sometime later in the program... so we know that the program wasn't stopped when she first set the room on fire at age 3. One thing that is definitely the same about blue!Olivia and this one, is they both play their cards very close. In S1, she told Peter that her stepfather used to hurt her mother, but we don't find out until much later that he was doing much worse. We only found out last episode that Olivia was also seeing the man who was haunting Walter, even though it's been going on since the bridge room was opened. She may seem much more open on the surface, but she holds her secrets just as tight.
mrspollifax noted in the last review that we hadn't seen or heard from Nina, but she's back in this episode, with a vengence. I think they were saving her up to spring her on us, because this is definitely not the softer, gentler CEO of Massive Dynamic. Except when it comes to Olivia. What's with that? Apparently she's had a more direct involvement in her life, even before Fringe Division came along. (and Olivia went to the prom?! This is a real shift from the woman who claimed to have no best friend and no social life in the blueverse. Killing ones abusive stepfather is good for the self confidence? Interesting that one act brought her to the same emotional point as three seasons worth of angst, but then again, the whole point of this season's narrative (or at least one of them) is that some things will still happen, they just happen differently.)The Nina/Walter dynamics. Loved it. She has absolutely no patience or tolerance for him. I think she hasn't forgiven him for taking both Red!Peter, and her arm, and then having nothing to show for it because Peter died anyhow, depriving both sets of parents of their child. Not only did Walter kidnap Peter, but in essence, he committed murder too.
Astrid, how I love to see you snark back at Walter, who I'm now sure is teasing her with the names at this point. And again acting more as Olivia's friend than as just a co-worker. She's very much filling in the space previously taken up by Peter. If she could kick in doors I'd be saying "Peter who?" ;)
I could gush about the Walter/Olivia moments, about how the root beer floats were both a nod, and the complete opposite to the "driveby in the pastry shop" when Olivia confronted him about the Cortexiphan trials in season 1, but what interested me the most is how she was really trying to keep the relationship between them professional, but failing miserably. Plus, taking agoraphobic Walter on B&E adventures, not once, but twice. I suspect teenage Olivia was more of a badass is this 'verse.
Of course there was the MOW plot line, and in true Fringe fashion, it's told from our protagonists' pov, and inevitably they are wrong or mislead. Entertaining, none-the-less, but I wasn't fooled into this being another Cortexiphan subject at the root of it. Even if you'd been completely spoiler free, the storytelling was leaning towards bringing Walter's mystery ghost out into the open very soon. What did surprise me was how (and when!) Peter returned: alone and naked in the middle of Reiden Lake.
tafkarfanfic likened it to rebirth, which seems appropriate since this is the spot where red!Peter died. The rest of the episode, while anticlimactic, was a setup for what's to come. And to be honest, I'm glad all was not reset as soon as Peter met Olivia. That would have been cheating.No Lincoln this week, and while I did miss him, it was right that he wasn't a part of this episode. The structure for this season has been something like this: 4.01)Welcome to Fringe Division, 4.02)Welcome to the Other Side, 4.03)This is Walter, This is Walter on drugs - not much difference, 4.04)The Strange Little Family Unit, Revisited. This set of episodes was about getting back to the core of what Fringe was in the first couple of seasons, making sure we the viewers are on the same page and up to speed, and asking us to toe up to the ledge, ready to make the leap fully into season 4. The writers went smoothly from 'telling' us about this new 'verse, to 'showing' us, to 'giving us enough information to connect the dots on our own'. While I'm sure Lincoln will be part of what's to come (possible falling into the role that BlueCharlie had, only more so because he's assigned to be there), this episode wasn't *his* story as 4.01 and 4.03 were.
*eta: random stray thought while cooking supper: In Marionnette, Peter tells Olivia "you asked me to come back for you, and so I did." Speculate that we're going to come around to this again from a different angle. Olivia's life seems...better? (no, it's too soon to say this with complete comfidence) More, whole, I guess, because circumstances played out differently without Peter existing. And again, Peter "came back for her", but now there isn't room in her life? And will she or somebody else pose the question of what right does he have to set things back? What right does he have to make changes that could very well have an ill-effect on everyone else. Which Peter knows is the truth if he has those memories of a previous life? Food for thought... Aka, SOMEBODY WRITE ME THIS FIC!
So, yes, so much more than meets the eye.