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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Recap 4x14 Fringe - The End of All Things

"The End of All Things", Fringe Season 4 Episode 14, Original airdate February 24, 2012

Okay fellow Fringies, sit down and get comfortable because this episode demands our utmost attention. it's a bumpy ride in and out of Observer's minds and emotional turmoil all over the map.
 
The episode opens with a frantic Peter bounding into Olivia's apartment with Lincoln hot on his heels. Peter is checking light fixtures, in cabinets, under things, behind the shower curtain looking for clues to where the hell Olivia has disappeared to.
 
Lincoln chooses this time to throw his two cents in on this whole Olivia/Peter as a couple thing that has been brewing lately. Lincoln shares Walter's assessment of the situation and insists, "She's not your Olivia, Peter."
 
This comment effectively halts Peter's searching and he says "And what if she is?" As Lincoln continues talking about how it was unfair of Peter to allow this Olivia to continue to work on the Westfield case and kind of suggesting that perhaps Peter ignored Olivia's safety to serve his own personal agenda (that was agenda - not vagenda, mind you). Peter starts to stare at the ceiling prompting Lincoln to irritably say, "and that you're not ignoring me right now."
 
Peter assures Lincoln he is not ignoring him and quickly pulls over a small table that he uses as a step stool. He reaches up and pulls Olivia's smoke detector from it's perch on the ceiling. Inside there is a wireless closed circuit camera transmitting to whereabouts unknown. Peter takes the back up memory disc from it and says he is going to try to get information off of it. He tells Lincoln to let Broyles know what he is working on and suggests Lincoln should start trying to figure out how to get Nina to start talking in case he is unable to obtain any information from the chip.
 
The captured Nina and Olivia are talking in the room they are being held in. Nina explains to Olivia that when she was abducted in the middle of the night she saw her doppelganger with the people who were involved saying, "Before they put the bag over my head, I saw her stepping out of the shadows behind them. It was me Olive. She looked exactly like me." She also confirms for Olivia that the Nina who came to her apartment so concerned over her migraines was not her. Nina says she still doesn't know what 'he' wants.


Right on cue there is an ominous click and off camera that familiar voice that is the one nightmares are made of says, "Olivia Dunham, I've waited so long to meet you." The camera swings over and David Robert Jones
is there in all his universe hopping pock-marked glory. Olivia informs him none too gently that they've already met, she's already seen him die before and she is certainly ready to witness that event again.
 
Jones's lackey informs him that the Cortexiphan apparently has confusion as a side effect. (Coming soon: Those lawyer ads - If you or a loved one took Cortexiphan and are now remembering a life that is not your own please call 1-800-LAW-SUIT as you may be entitled to monetary compensation.) Jones says there's actually a lot of that going around seeing as how Olivia is not the only person lately to tell him that he should be dead.

Jones goes on to explain that Olivia has been secretly being dosed with Cortexiphan which explain those god-awful migraines she's been having. He knows that Olivia was involved in the Cortexiphan trials when she was a child. and thanks to Walter's notes from back then he is also privy to the fact that Olivia's abilities are triggered when she suffers intense emotional turmoil.

The henchman prepares a drill with a cylindrical end on it that comes to a point and hands it to Jones. Jones walks over towards Olivia and says, "Every journey begins with a first step," squeezing the trigger of the drill so its whir punctuates his sentence. Nina starts to protest that Jones should leave Olivia alone, which prompts Jones to turn his attention to her.





His cohort takes a knife and slices Nina's right sleeve open to a little below her elbow. He then peels the skin of her forearm back towards her hand, revealing the metallic arm underneath. Jones crosses over to her and lowers the drill bit to the shiny surface, applying pressure as blue currents shoot through her arm causing Nina to scream in pain. Olivia yells and pulls against her restraints and Jones satisfactorily hisses, "Yes, I believe this will work nicely."
 
Break for Fringe opening credits. Someone said on Twitter they thought the credits looked more blue for this episode. I think their color settings must've been off, because it looks the same as it's been all season to me.
 
In Boston Massachusetts, the Observers gather to discuss September. September is now MIA and none of the other Observers know why he ignored the command to erase Peter from this timeline. They also don't know if he's the one who brought Peter back. December says they will wait because September will eventually come out of hiding and when he does he will have to face the consequences for repeatedly "intervening on behalf of this boy." This ends their meeting and they go their separate ways.
 
Broyles enters the room that Nina is waiting in for questioning. When Nina asks Broyles if he has any idea if Olivia is okay, Broyles answers her query with a question of his own, "Do you?" Nina is affronted by this, pointing out that she raised Olivia as though she was her daughter. Broyles tells her "Sit. Down." She follows his orders and sinks into a chair as he sits across from her with a table in between them.
 
Nina claims she had nothing to do with Olivia being dosed with Cortexiphan. She is upset that she is being held for questioning, when she could be using Massive Dynamics resources to help locate Olivia. Lincoln comes into the room showing Broyles a log of entrance access to the Massive Dynamic deep containment facility. She claims that with the exception of the day before with Lincoln she hasn't been there in years. However, the records show that it was accessed twice in the last three months using her biometric entry. Nina denies this saying something must be wrong with the locks. Lincoln counters by saying they have actual witnesses who saw her there.
 
Nina suggests that a shapeshifter must be responsible, but Broyles points out that if it were a shapeshifter then Nina would not be alive and talking to them. Lincoln leans over the table scrutinizing Nina, emphasizing each word with a pause, "What did you do with Olivia?" Nina looks over at Broyles who is wearing the same menacing look. At that point Nina feels that they have already cast her in the role of the guilty party and lawyers up.
 
At the lab Walter has spread what looks like butter on two pieces of bread and then dumps a generous amount of rainbow sprinkles on top. Peter is working on the chip, trying to go deeper than it's 60 minute memory to see if he can find older images that have been previously recorded. Walter expresses his lack of faith in actually coming up with any information from the memory disc. He also brings up that Olivia is not who Peter thinks she is. Then, he starts to talk about how if they (meaning himself and Peter) had kept Olivia at the lab "she wouldn't have been taken and we wouldn't be fishing in the dark, hanging our hopes on a palimpsest out of that chip."

Between Lincoln and Walter I'm sure Peter's about to crack. The poor man erased himself from time to save the life of the woman he loves and hopefully prevent the destruction of two universes, comes back to a reality that he knows but no one knows him, accepts the fact that he is in the wrong timeline, still sticks around and helps solve bizarre, freaky cases all the while having to endure the constant salt in his wounds that he is a stranger to these people, finally starts to see some acceptance from his non-father and the woman who talks, looks and mostly acts like the woman he's in love with, she starts to have memories of their time together, he has a moment of revelation that indeed she is HIS Olivia, they share a happy moment, then she disappears. Now, everyone's trying to make him feel guilty that he allowed this Olivia to think she had feelings for him. I mean, cut the guy some slack people!
 
Peter responds to Walter with tempered agitation saying, "Right now the only thing that matters is finding Olivia. Everything else will work itself out." Astrid thankfully chooses this time to ask what a palimpsest is. Thankfully because it both cuts the tension and also because I didn't know what a palimpsest was either. Walter explains that it is "a manuscript page from a scroll or a book from which the text has been scraped off which means it can be used again." (Almost word for word what Wikipedia said.) Astrid equates this to when you re-record over old cassettes and VHS tapes. (For you young 'uns out there, cassettes and VHS tapes were what came before CD's, MP-3 players and DVDs.) Walter agrees and also mentions that what was underneath the new recording (or writing) bleeds through. **My Fringey senses are tingling. Does that not perfectly sum up what happened with the timelines?**
 
Peter sees something on the chip's memory which turns out to be Olivia walking around in her apartment. He continues to work his magic to see what else he can find.
 
Back in the room that Olivia and Nina are being held in someone comes in and unshackles Nina from her chair and removes her from the room. Jones enters, carrying a red box as Olivia beseeches him to let Nina go. But Jones only comes closer talking animal analogies regarding motivation saying "All creatures need an incentive to perform tasks."
 
The metal curtain behind Olivia rolls up and Jones turns her chair around so through the window she can see Nina is being strapped to a upright metal frame (reminds me of naked box springs), thus rendering her Olivia's proverbial carrot or cheese. Jones says he is going to have Olivia complete some tests. He opens the red box and pulls out a wooden one. I think I know what's coming and I'm right, it's the light box.
 
Before Jones can actually complete his thought, Olivia tells him she knows that he wants her to turn the lights on with her mind. She is aware that it is supposed to activate her abilities to cross between universes. Jones responds with, "Whatever you know, Ms. Dunham, whatever you think you know of your abilities, I assure you your potential is far greater."
 
On the other side of the window Nina screams for Olivia to not give in to Jones's demands. The thugs overseeing her promptly gag her. He tells Olivia to begin and she stares at the box for a few moments, she blinks and shakes her head when nothing happens. Jones says, "Perhaps this will help you get started," and the man on the other side of the window repeatedly taps metal cables to a battery that is connected to the metal frame Nina is attached to. Sparks fly and electricity jolts through the contraption, rocking Nina back and forth in place, until she sags weakly against her restraints.
 
Olivia tries again to engage the light box, but nothing happens. Again Jones gives the signal to fry Nina. Olivia appeals to Jones to stop torturing Nina and he says, "Gladly. You know what you have do, just one light. Then we won't have to hurt her anymore." Olivia tries again, but no dice. She convinces Jones that after she gets some rest she will be able to perform his ridiculous task. He gives her an hour to recuperate.
 
In the lab Peter and Astrid are staring intently at the grainy video before them which shows Olivia sitting on her sofa looking at some papers. Astrid says, "Wait, stop." Which prompts Peter to excitedly ask, "What? What are you seeing?" Astrid replies, "I don't see anything, but I really have to pee and I don't want to miss anything." Walter pipes up and says, "I've had the same issue for the past 10 minutes." If I were Peter I would furnish everyone with Depends because it seems that having to pee is really causing problems in Fringeland lately.
 
Peter informs them that he can't get any deeper into the memory chip so it's not going to be much longer they will have to hold it. Slowly the image of Olivia sitting fades into someone peering up from below into the lens of the camera. Astrid says she will send the picture through to run in the FBI facial recognition database.
 
Peter says the only person he can come up with that would be dosing Olivia with Cortexiphan would be David Robert Jones. He explains that in his timeline that's what happened because he was trying to activate her. Walter asks him why would he do that and Peter answers, "I don't know, we could never figure it out, but maybe it's for the same reason as now."
 
Then out of absolutely nowhere September is standing almost directly in front of Peter. Peter jumps up from his chair in surprise and September says, "Yes, his goal is the same." Then he collapses and we can see the front of his shirt is covered in blood. Peter runs over to him trying to get more information out of him. When he asks about Olivia the Observer says, "She needs you."
 
They get September to a table and Peter deduces that the bullet is still inside him since there is no exit wound. His breathing is shallow and his pulse is weak. Walter pauses in his medical ministrations for a moment because he doesn't know the physiology of these beings. Peter says the Walter of his timeline once told him that Observer's have biology similar to ours. Walter murmurs, "Oh, I suppose I have no reason to doubt myself."
 
Walter has Peter apply pressure to the wound on the Observer's chest while Astrid looks for the needed tools for Walter to work on getting the bullet out. Peter tells them that since Observers only show up when important events are happening his appearance must have something to do with Olivia. Then his phone rings and Astrid takes over his position so he can answer it.
 
It's Lincoln. They are running the image that Peter found through their recognition programs but do not know how long it might take to be scanned fully through. Lincoln also says that Nina is with her lawyer now and it doesn't seem like she will be providing anything helpful in the near future.
 
In Narnia or wherever Jones has them Nina and Olivia are together again. Nina is pale and sweaty and looks incredibly weak. She tries to talk Olivia out of cooperating with Jones. She says, "I know Jones. I know what he's capable of. William fired him because he was unhinged but you cannot give in." Olivia says that there is no way she will continue to let him torture Nina.
 
She kneels down in front of Nina and asks for her help. She wants Nina to help jog her memories of what their relationship was like. The Cortexiphan has caused the time she spent with Nina in her past to be unclear. But her emotions have to be heightened in order for her to be able to trigger her abilities, and even though she cares about Nina and knows they shared a past, she doesn't feel a strong enough bond to do what Jones wants her to. This part was emotional. (Hell, the whole series is emotional, always, all the time.) I felt bad for Nina that Olivia didn't remember their relationship that much. Nina starts to tell the story of when Olivia and Rachel came to live with her. Olivia fills in some small details that she remembers along the way, encouraging Nina to continue. She recalls that she called Nina Ms. Sharp. Nina recounts how that night she told Olivia everything was going to be okay, that they were a family now and when she kissed Olivia Goodnight Olivia called her Nina for the first time. She seems to choke back tears a few times during this story.
 
Olivia quietly thinks for awhile, but even with this information it is not amping up her memory enough to help her call on her abilities. She tells Nina that Peter is the only person that her abilities actually worked for. "Peter Bishop?" Nina says in surprise. Then Nina doubles over and grabs her side as she whimpers in pain. Olivia bangs on the closed door, yelling for someone to come help.
 
A man whose face is familiar appears in the doorway and when Olivia points out that if Nina dies there goes any leverage they thought they had the man calls down the hall for someone to bring a gurney. One appears and they load Nina up on it, leaving Olivia alone in the room.
 
They wheel Nina down the hall but stop after a few feet. Nina rolls herself off the gurney and stands up. While David Robert Jones walks up to her she helps herself to some water from the cooler in the hallway. With annoyance she says, "I know why it's not working. She needs Peter Bishop, apparently she can't be activated unless he's present."
 
Holy Hell! I admit that I was wavering back and forth on Nina this whole episode so far, not knowing what or who to believe and even in the scene when Olivia asked her to tell her about the past I was waiting for Nina to come up empty and reveal herself as not who she was pretending to be. But then she pulled that you called me Nina for the first time story out of her ass and she sold me. But that shifty little minx, I should have known better.
 
At the lab Broyles and Lincoln have joined the gang huddled around September. Broyles lets the cat out of the bag about September coming to Olivia at the Opera House and how he said in all possible futures Olivia's death was imminent. This leaves them all stunned for a moment, until Walter says maybe since the Observers are not confined by time the warning September was giving Olivia about her death was in reference to the events taking place right now. Walter thinks it might be possible that September knows where Olivia is.
 
It turns out though, that September has gone into septic shock and now his own death appears to be imminent. Astrid receives the name of the person that was shown on the camera in Olivia's apartment. It is Leland Spivey and records show that he died in a car accident 3 years ago. She thinks that maybe Jones is bringing people back with him as he jumps universes and the man in Olivia's apartment was Spivey's alternate.
 
Walter and Peter have a moment where they seem to understand each other without so many words. Peter wants Walter to link his consciousness with September's. Walter warns him that "if [September] dies, while you're in his mind - you could well die too." Peter is willing to take that chance.
 
The next scene has Peter in a chair with electrodes attached to his temples. He is injected with something and a monitor shows his brainwaves converging with Mr. X's. When Peter opens his eyes he is standing in a room that a 360 degree view of panoramic windows. Outside the windows dark clouds hover with a few occasional bright spots. Then there is a purplish/blue explosion outside the window that radiates light outward in all directions. I'm a sucker for effects like this and I thought this was awesome. From behind Peter a voice says, "The beginning of all things." It's September. Peter has just witnessed the Big Bang. September reveals that he knows that he is dying, but when Peter asks him who shot him he says, "That is not the relevant question." So Peter asks him if he knows where Olivia is, to which he says "That too is not relevant, not yet." I'm feeling Peter's frustration here as I want to grab September and say "Well, why don't you just tell me what the relevant question is then." (reference to Seinfeld, Kramer and the MovieFone episode, and wasn't there a scene in the Matrix when Neo kept asking a question and that guy kept saying something about it not being the right question? -- Sorry to ruin the moment with my musings.)
 
September says he doesn't have much time and there is quite a lot that he must tell Peter. So Peter asks what must be the relevant question, "Who or what are you?" because September starts talking. He refers to the Observers as a scientific team. Peter asks "From where?" And because it's so damn confusing and I don't want to paraphrase it, here is what September says: "A more apt question would be from when. We are you , were, human, many generations after your lifetime. We are one of countless possible futures for humanity. Our technology has uniquely afforded us the ability to travel within and outside of time so that we may observe our beginnings."
 
When Peter points out that September did much more than just observe, September tells him he was trying to correct a mistake he made. The setting changes to Walternate's lab back in the 80's. It is when he was working on Peter's cure. September wanted only to witness the moment that Walternate discovered the cure, but what actually happened was he drew Walternate's attention away from his work at the precise time the indicator of the cure came to light. When Peter wants to know why September was even there he answers, "It was important, you are important."
 
The lab becomes the limbo room again and behind Peter is him as a child struggling in the water at Reiden Lake. It was because of Peter's importance that September saved him. And even though September was only trying to correct his previous mistake, saving Peter in Reiden Lake only caused more problems in the timeline. He continues to say that because of the war between the universes destinies were changed.
 
As if this wasn't enough knowledge to bestow on someone at one time, he drops the next bombshell. "It brought about a child that was not meant to be."
Peter asks, "What child?"
Behind September an image of a swaddled baby Henry starts to appear. September turns toward it, "Your son. Henry."
"My what?" Peter says in awe as he walks towards the child.
"He was born to the wrong Olivia Dunham due to a series of circumstances that never should have happened. This event would have irrevocably altered everything that was to come."
As September speaks Peter reaches forward as though he could touch his child. He says, "Henry. I have a son," with a little smile in the middle.
"Had," September corrects quietly. "When you made the sacrifice to step into that machine you were not the only one who ceased to exist." Here Peter takes a small step forward. "So would he. I believed at the time that would be the end of it. I cannot explain but it is clear that I was wrong. You have managed to return in physical form. I suspect this will provide an opportunity for you to put things right. She is the one." At this it shows Olivia hugging Peter from the scene at the end of the LSD episode. "The Olivia Dunham from whom your shared future was meant to spring. This must be and everything will be as it was intended. You must find a way."
 
 
Then September says "They" are coming and a series of thuds rocks the room that they are in and it looks like it is breaking apart. With each pound Peter nearly doubles over as though someone is punching him. He presses September for more information on where to find Olivia but all September will say is Peter needs to go home.
 
Peter wakes up with a start back in the lab, Astrid and Walter are working on September who's heartbeat has just spiked. Broyles asks Peter the outcome of his journey into the Observer's mind but Peter says that he didn't find out where Olivia was.
 
As Walter is telling Astrid to get him a certain medication the Observer does the quickest getaway act I've ever seen. At first I thought he just disappeared but it really looks like got zipped or zapped or something out of the room. A table crashes over in his wake.
 
Peter says the only thing he was able to get out of the Observer was that "I needed to get back to my timeline, and my Olivia." Then Lincoln says, "Your Olivia and our Olivia? I thought they were one and the same to you." I like Lincoln, I really do, but I don't think I'd blame Peter for throwing a punch at him right now. Broyles and Lincoln leave so they can try again to get something out of Nina.
 
Walter expresses that Peter was lucky that September didn't disappear while he was still inside his consciousness, but Peter seems to almost wish that had happened because it would've helped him find Olivia. Then he has a thought that perhaps when September told him he needed to go home, there was no deeper meaning, it meant that he needed to go home to the house he is living in at the moment.
 
Walter says, "I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else that's gone on here." Astrid quips, "It doesn't make any sense." Walter agrees, "My point exactly."
 
So Peter leaves to head home and see what or who he might find there. He enters the darkened house and starts to yell for Olivia, asking if she was there. At this point I thought the house would be restored to the way it was in the old timeline, but that wasn't to be so. A small desk lamp flicks on and Leland Spivey is sitting at a table inside the house. Peter advances on him asking where Olivia is but someone thunks him on the head with something from behind before he gets too close. Peter's goes down, out cold on the floor.
 
Next Peter is coming to as he's being drug down a dimly lit hallway with the only lighting being a flickering light overhead. Olivia is in her captivity room when she hears noises coming from the other side of the wall. She goes over to the metal curtain and calls out, banging on it. It begins to roll up. On the other side is Peter, strapped to a chair and Nina bound to the metal frame she was on before. Leland Spivey is walking around.
 
Olivia calls out for Peter and he questions her to see if she's okay. As she assures him she is fine Spivey comes up behind him and holds a knife to his throat. Jones comes in and greets Peter as though he's an old friend. He claims that the conversation that Olivia had earlier with Nina was being listened in on and so now that they know that Peter is what makes her tick, Bada Bing, Bada Boom here he is. Jones tells Olivia to get crackin' on that box and of course Peter tells her not to.
 
Olivia turns around and glares at the offensive object and almost instantly a light comes on then another, then they all light up and Olivia keeps staring. Jones commends her on her performance and Olivia slowly turns her gaze upwards. The overhead lights start to flicker and explode. "What are you doing?" Jones asks nervously. Olivia replies, "I'm doing what you wanted. I'm turning on the lights." This is exactly what I wanted Olivia to do. Well, actually I wanted her to set Jones and Spivey on fire or explode them into a thousand little pieces, but this worked out well also. I love Badass Olivia. ThisTimelineOlivia, OurTimelineOlivia, even the Fauxlivias if they are being badass I want a ticket to the show.
 
Nina starts pleading with her to stop, probably getting worried at all the electricity flying around when she's affixed to a metal backdrop. Olivia looks hard at her and says "You're not Nina." Olivia says it was after her high school graduation that Nina told her that she couldn't call her Ms. Sharp because she was now an adult. Lights are blowing out all around them and Jones and Nina beat a quick retreat out the door. Before Spivey can leave a volt of electricity catches him and down he goes. In the meantime Peter is struggling enough to cause his chair to fall over sideways. I thought at first that Peter got zapped too inadvertently, but that was just because Spivey getting zapped was in the background. I couldn't take it if Peter got electrified by Olivia (or anyone for that matter).
 
After all this destruction Olivia is spent and slides slowly down the wall as her eyes close. She must recover during the commercial because when we come back she is entering the room that Peter is in. She walks past the scorched remains of Leland Spivey. While she cuts Peter loose she tells him she's not really sure how she did what she did but she does remember that when she was a kid she did something similar.
 
After he is free they stumble their way out of the room. Nina and Jones are frantically gathering things together and Jones sends his henchman to go keep Olivia and Peter occupied. As they are running down the hallway Olivia starts to have a seizure and she falls on the floor. Peter is beside her in half a second and trying to calm her. Mr. Keep-Them-Occupied comes up with his gun drawn, Peter gives him time to get close enough and then jumps up and slams him against the wall. They fight for a minute, each getting in some good punches before Olivia yells, "Hey!" and pulls her gun. Peter takes this opportunity to head butt the badie and he and Olivia escape.
 
Jones and Nina have managed to erect a portal and just as Nina starts crossing Peter and Olivia come around the corner. Jones says, "That was quite a display you put on in there, Ms. Dunham. Your love for this man must be something quite profound." Jones ignores Olivia when she tells him to step away from the portal and turns to enter it. She unloads a shot right into his windpipe but other than a bit of hoarseness he remains unaffected, saying, "It would seem there are some fringe benefits to having one's body reassembled on an atomic level." Then he crosses and the portal closes. Olivia almost collapses again and Peter grabs her by the shoulders and helps her down the hallway.
I fully expected Olivia to shoot the device that opened the portal and Jones to be sliced in half again. It would've made a suitable full circle to his little saga. But now he is alive to return another day.
 
Peter and Olivia exit the building they were in as Peter is finishing up a phone call to Lincoln telling him to send an ambulance to Plainfield Memorial with Diazepam for Olivia. After he gets off the phone Olivia assures him that she feels better now and speculates it was all the energy that she used up that wrecked her nervous system. Peter's hypothesis is a bit different. He says, (here comes another block of quotes)"Or maybe it was me. It's by being close to you, like Walter said."
Olivia says, "Walter isn't always right," as she smiles.
Peter's face is all seriousness as he says, "And neither am I." He pauses and looks at the ground before looking back up at her. "At the gas station, just before you got taken, you were ready to come home with me. And I was ready to think that was okay. But it wasn't. It was a mistake. One that I promised myself I'd never make again."
Olivia starts to say, "This isn't the same as what happened when--"
But Peter cuts her off with, "I saw her. I saw my Olivia, the one that I'm supposed to be with. The only one that I'm supposed to be with."
Olivia tries to reason with him, "Peter I don't understand what's happening to me anymore than you do but that doesn't change what I do know or what you know and that if you look at me, if you look at me, if you look into my eyes then you can see that I am her."
"No," Peter says, "No, you have her memories or you have my memories of her or you're projection (?), I don't know, but when I looked into your eyes what I saw was what I wanted to see. I know she's out there. My Olivia, in my timeline, waiting for me and I let myself forget that, so I'm sorry Olivia." He touches her face, "And I'm sure that Walter can fix you up somehow and give you back your life, but for right now I think it's better if I just stay away."
The assistance they called for is beginning to arrive and Olivia starts to plead with him saying, "Okay Peter, I'm in love with you and I can't just turn that off now. I don't want to lose you." Peter starts backing away and Olivia says, "Where are you going?"
"Home, I have to go home." He replies as he turns around and walks off into the rainy night. Olivia stares forlornly after him.
 
WHAT??? No! No! No! No! Fringe, I refuse to accept this. What's that sound you heard when Peter walked off? No that wasn't thunder, that was the sound of all the Polivia shipper's hearts collectively breaking. What the hell? This is what I was afraid of. I can only hope that he's wrong (again) and she is the right Olivia. Good God man, I can't take it. Can't they just be happy in one of the timelines?
 
I don't even have to have ALL Peter and Olivia ALL the time, just a little Polivia here and there between the wacky Walter moments and long-suffering Astrid having to tidy up all the messes emotional and non. All the characters on the show bring something that I love to the table. Even if it's that I'm loving to hate them.
 
Now we have to wait FOUR WEEKS for a new episode.
 
So my follow up observations/wonderings ... Was Olivia playing Nina the whole time? Did she actually remember their time together but needed proof whether it was truly her or not? I personally don't think that Olivia was making up what she said about the events being fuzzy, because she said that in the last episode about getting Walter out of St. Claire's. I'm thinking that maybe she just remembered more clearly that it was after she graduated she stopped addressing Nina so formally.
 
Was the Nina that was being held with her the Nina from Olivia's side or the alternate universe? Because we saw when they were "torturing" Nina that she had what looked like a robotic arm. Unless that was a fake, fake arm.
 
Fringe feels like the fastest hour long show on TV for me and that's without fast forwarding through the commercials. I've come to the conclusion that it's because I'm watching so intently between commercials, then during commercials I'm tweeting thoughts and reactions to what just happened and thanks to the sponsors and before I know it the show is back.
 
Some episodes of Fringe feel like they chew me up, spit me out, brush me off and put me back together and then once I'm feeling cozy obliterate me with the force of an oncoming train. This would be one of those.

Next Fringe recap:  Episode 4x15 - "A Short Story About Love"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent recap as always. I PMed you my initial thoughts already, but now that I've read this there are a few more to add. Not sure if I've said this before, but reading the dialogue somehow makes it clearer for me than watching the scene. I guess I get too distracted by Joshua Jackson to really pay attention what's being said...

So now my working hypothesis for the whole baby conundrum is that they erased Peter from the timeline to make sure this baby would cease to exist. And only September was able to foresee that for some reason it was essential for Peter and BlueOlivia to end up together. Like August, he appears to have a capacity for feelings that the other Observers lack, and he can understand what an incredibly driving force they can be. Even though he didn't turn out to be baby Henry as I said in my fic, I like to think that he's a direct descendant of PO. Another theory is that the Observers need a cross-universe child to set their own evolution in motion, and Henry's parents are both from the Redverse. When they erased Peter they may have thought that any mixed baby would do - hence the beginning romance between our Lincoln and the Faux - and only September realized that it had to be offspring born to Peter and Olivia for it to work.

A little piece of trivia, the dessert Walter was concocting with the sprinkles is a nod to John and Anna's Australian heritage. Down under, a slice of white bread with the crusts cut off with butter and sprinkles is referred to as 'fairy break', and no children's party is complete without it.

I think Olivia only cottoned on to the fake Nina as she was describing their first encounter. Olivia had said in the episode before that her memories of the new timeline were faint, like a dream, but I'm sure she would have remembered an event such as her calling Nina by her first name for the first time. And realizing that she's in the presence of a mole, she sets her plan in motion to get Peter there, because she realizes he's the key to tapping into her superpowers.

As for the fake, fake arm (love that term!), I just read an interview with Blair Brown where she confirmed that AltNina actually allowed to have her arm amputated to perfectly match her double. Such dedication - whatever her and Jones' agenda is, it must be something huge.

Four weeks is WAY too long, I know I'll be on tenterhooks the whole time, wanting to know what's in store.

Thought Provoking Shirts said...

Thanks for the comment. Yes, I understand about getting distracted by JJ. I'm glad it does help to read it written out. I usually try not to do paragraphs of quotes, but this episode deserved it.

September's got my head spinning with his non-explanation of what the Observer's are. I'm wondering if perhaps 'The First People' are Observers in the future, or work along side of them. I guess they are probably not Observer's because they obviously tried to alter events.

I don't know where I think Henry fits into it, your hypothesis is more than anything I've come up with.

Thanks for the heads up about the 'fairy break', I just thought Walter was fulfilling one of his cravings.

That shocks me (it probably shouldn't at this point) that AltNina went that deep into the other Nina's character that she allowed her arm to be removed. Talk about method acting!

I'll PM you back to when you originally PM'd me.