FRINGE: Jacksonville

When I saw last week’s preview, I got all caught up in the excitement of the “Winter Finale”. Winter Finale = big exiting episode with major happenings = good thing!! Right? Not entirely. Not when it means that there is not going to be another new episode until APRIL!!!! Forgive my rant, but I long for the days when shows had just “season finales” and not “fall finales”, “winter finales”, etc. I don’t need to get all geared up multiple times a season. I have this problem with forgetting to breath during critical segments and I end up breathless by the time a commercial break rolls around. (For real.) So one finale per season is quite enough for me, thank you very much. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy tonight’s episode – I completely did. I just hate having to have the “momentum deferred” all the way until April Fool’s Day – is that some kind of a sick joke?

Glimmer Man

MANHATAN [sic] — The opening event is what at first appears to be some sort of quantum tectonic event, which causes a building to collapse, killing everyone in it except for one man. He ultimately dies, but not before he answers a few questions for Walter, including “which buildings were attacked on 9/11” – the Pentagon and the White House. This information and the fact that the man has his own duplicated head protruding from his chest (not to mention various extraneous limbs), lead Walter to deduce that something far worse than a seismic disaster is afoot. What has actually happened is that a building from the other reality has collided with itself in this reality. Based on the properties of alternate reality item exchange, Walter predicts that a building from this reality will have to get sent to the other reality to counter balance the arrival of this building.

To figure out which building is in danger of vanishing, Walter needs Olivia to return to Jacksonville with him, to the sight where he and William Bell performed experiments on her, or, more accurately, on young “Olive”. Olivia, much to Peter’s dismay, agrees to be Walter’s lab rat once again. This particular experiment, as per the usual, involves an IV infusion of drugs (Cortexiphan, maybe others) and various wires hooked up to the brain. The goal is to get Olivia into a highly emotional state and then pull her back into consciousness. She should then be able to identify otherworldly objects because they will have a “glimmer” to them. That ability will be transported back to NYC where Olivia can take a peak around the city and find a glimmering building which can then be safely evacuated before it goes poof.

All seems to be going reasonably well as Olivia enters her dream state where she ends up in a forest with a scared young Olive. Olivia achieves a highly emotional state, but it is not the state of fear that young Olive had experienced. The experiment only succeeds in getting Olivia really ticked off once again at Walter for experimenting on children in general, and her in particular. Words are exchanged and a breakthrough occurs – the experiment did not work because Olivia has no fear! She has figured out a way, likely because of what was done to her by Walter and Bell, to channel her fear into anger. Unless she can find a way to make herself be afraid, there will be no glimmering buildings to save.

The team heads back to NYC to report the failure of their mission to Broyles who is working with Nina and the Massive Dynamic crew, trying to use regular old science to predict when/where the building might vanish. When it becomes clear that they aren’t going to be able to do so, a devastated Olivia turns to Peter for comfort. He is completely ready to give her some comfort and moves in for a kiss (NOOOOO!!!!!), just as she realizes that she is feeling genuinely scared. WHAT???!!! Seriously, if Peter had been about to kiss me, I would have sacrificed that building full of people in a heartbeat. (Who says that the alternate reality is a bad place anyway?). I guess that’s why no one would ever mistake me for a heroine. But, since Olivia is the chosen one of sorts, she resists the dreaminess that is Peter Bishop and runs out of the room to the nearest balcony, finds the glimmering building, and is able to have it evacuated before it disappears off the face of the/this Earth.

At this point, I’m wondering why Olivia was able to see the glimmering building, but not a glimmering Peter. Were the producers afraid to make Peter glimmer for fear that he would look stupid like lame sparkling Edward in “Twilight”? Not so. After saving the building full of people, everyone settles in for a fun night. Walter and Astrid plan a game night, both eager to play Monopoly, while Olivia lets her hair down and gets set to have drinks with Peter, who is looking beyond adorable. Even though I don’t really see these two together, I’m getting caught up in the romance of the moment (and Peter’s supreme adorableness) and I just want it to end without incident. But it doesn’t….

Be Careful What You Wish For

When Peter answers the door it is immediately clear by the look on her face that Olivia knows and that Walter, who is looking on from the next room, knows that she knows. For clarification, we see a glimmering (or actually, more of a flickering, if you ask me) Peter. Olivia looks crushed and so does Walter, as he comes to her and whispers, “Please don’t tell him.”

As much as I’ve spent the entire season looking forward to the reveal about Peter’s death and the fact that our Peter is actually alt-Peter, I really wanted to put the brakes on it tonight. Having Astrid get clued in to it two weeks ago was a nice start, and a pace that I could handle. Having Olivia in on the secret is a little too much for me to take. This is going to take such a toll on all of the relationships on the show. The way that it is playing out so far is sweet torture, but the aftermath of it all is going to be tough to watch.

The Little Things

• The “Raiders of the Lost Ark” reference was completely lost on me. It’s not that I haven’t seen the movie countless times (I live with a man who has, on more than one occasion, suggested that Indiana is a viable naming option for a boy if we ever happen to have one), but for some reason I just can’t retain the details of it.

• The combination for the lock on the day care center was 5-20-10. Walter said that the numbers were significant, but that he couldn’t remember why. The date of the season finale, perhaps?

• Two of the objects in the classroom were an apple and a butterfly.

• In the Jacksonville facility, did anyone else notice the chair that looked like an early version of the “Dollhouse” mind wipe chair?

P.S. For all you code crackers – tonight’s word was REVE.AL

Gretchen is a stay-at-home mom of two awesome little girls who has the good fortune of being married to a husband who is completely cool with her slightly out of control television addiction. During her precious few sleeping hours, Gretchen frequently finds herself ridding the world of pesky vampires and demons, as well as taking down fake secret branches of the CIA.