Fringe - "Night of Desirable Objects" (2.02)


The second episode of the new season is a major letdown after the premiere which really disappoints me. I don't understand why, considering the fact that this is only the second episode into the new season, it was decided to air a "stand-alone" episode like this that has absolutely nothing to do with the overarching story, but at the same time, it is an incredibly entertaining episode, and I do have to give it some credit for that. Admittedly, however, throughout some of the episode, I thought that it was doing the big "no-no" in my book and recycling anX-Files idea, but, as I was happy to see, it goes in a much different direction, which I will discuss later in this entry. As I always do, though, I warn you that if you have not seen this episode yet but would like to see it, then please, don't read any further, as this entry does contain a fair amount of spoilers.

"Night of Desirable Objects" opens in a much similar fashion as typical "monster-of-the-week" shows do, such as The X-Files (not that I'm drawing comparisons, because trust me, if you're trying to tell me that the two are very different shows and to therefore stop reaching for comparisons, then you're preaching to the choir) or even House (except a House episode can't exactly be given the title "monster-of-the-week" unless you want to consider whatever the bacteria, virus, etc. of the episode is as a "monster"). It opens with people that we don't know, people that we've never seen before on the show. We don't see Olivia or Peter or Walter or anyone else, just these people, and after the show's title sequence ends, then we see how our beloved team becomes involved in what we see happen before the title sequence began. Like I said, I was very disappointed. There are no shape-shifters (except for a little bit of Charlie's doppelganger), and there is almost nothing relating to the Other Side (again, except for a little bit of Charlie's doppelganger, and also for us seeing a little bit of Olivia's side effects of having crossed over).

Again, this is something that I don't quite appreciate, because after the mythology-infested premiere that we got last week, this didn't give us much to follow up on, and for that reason, I'm not going to talk much about the episode's primary plot line, which involves a man who fused scorpion DNA with the DNA of his unborn son in order to protect it from the mother's Lupus, which would have otherwise attacked the child and killed it. Ultimately, what happened is the baby clawed its way out of its casket and lived underground, attacking and thereby killing its "prey" with a blue liquid which paralyzes it. What I was referring to earlier in regards to my initial fear is that when the paralyzing substance is mentioned, I immediately thought of The X-Files episode 6.21 titled "Field Trip," in which some sort of underground plant life poisons and paralyzes its prey and then devours them while they are in a dream state. Fortunately, it doesn't go down that road, not even close. The road that it does go down involves some pretty interesting stuff, but there are two reasons why it disappointed me, one of which I already talked about.

The other reason why it disappointed me is because it kind of reminded me of "The No-Brainer" last season, because in "The No-Brainer," Paul Dempsey seemingly has no affiliation with ZFT; the computer "virus" which he develops which basically hypnotizes people and then turns their brains into liquid goo is developed, because Dempsey feels that he was wronged when he was fired from his job, so he therefore kills his former boss's loved ones. It was personal and had nothing to do with the show's mythology. However, I forgave that episode, because it needed to be shown that science and technology has become so "out of control" that you don't need to be some criminal mastermind such as a member of ZFT in order to develop something like this; virtually anyone can. Dempsey was able to exact revenge on those close to the man who fired him by using a very technologically advanced weapon, a computer virus that kills, and although it cannot be ruled out, there is no evidence to support a theory that he was affiliated with ZFT.

However, with this episode, even though I suppose you could make that same argument, that argument is going to get old after a while if there are too many episodes like that, but since I'm pretty sure that this was the only one besides "The No-Brainer," I suppose that I can forgive it one more time. I suppose that there does need to be episodes like this occasionally not only to show what I just talked about but also to show that as FBI agents (which I suppose Peter technically is now), the Fringe Division isn't only going to be investigating matters that pertain to ZFT and William Bell, etc. As I just said, science and technology has progressed to a point where it cannot be stopped, and the show does need to show that this applies in the "real world," as well, that your average but smart criminal can accomplish a great deal with science and technology since it is so monstrously out of control.

I do think that the episode delivers some mythology, though. I was really happy to see that Olivia is not out of the hospital, all better for now with what happened to her seemingly off her mind until it's convenient for the writers to have it bother her again like X so frequently did. The fact that she can't remember what happened to her is still weighing her down, and I really like how we see her check out of the hospital, and then at the end, see her seemingly desperate to hunt down answers. This is what I don't understand, though. Why can't she remember meeting William Bell? Now, obviously, that's part of the mythology, and we're not supposed to know at the moment, but that's not what I mean. I might have this wrong, but I seem to recall her remembering going to visit someone before she switched realities, so you would think that she would remember the few days before it happened and therefore remember her obsession with trying to find William Bell and thus put two and two together.

This question goes along with the scene in which Olivia and Nina meet for the first time since her "accident," as Nina suspiciously calls it with a slight hesitation. I was expecting Olivia to say something to the effect of, "What happened to me? You know! You were supposed to be at that restaurant, and you weren't there!" but she didn't, which leads me to believe that she doesn't even remember Nina making the appointment with her, but again, as I said, I could have sworn that she said that she remembers up to when the car "almost" hit her (even though it really did in "our" universe), but maybe that's what I'm getting wrong. Maybe I should watch the scene in the premiere episode during which she first wakes up again, just to make sure. It seems to me like Olivia would remember Nina setting up that meeting and would therefore be suspicious of her.

What really bothers me about Nina in this episode is that she obviously knows who Olivia went to see. She's the one who fulfilled her promise to arrange the meeting, so why isn't she telling her this? Why is she keeping her in the dark, arranging for her to see this Sam Weiss guy when she could just fill her in herself, and who exactly is not a psychologist," which makes me wonder who exactly he is, what he did for Nina ("put me back together" is what Nina says, potentially loosely paraphrased) and what he plans to do for Olivia. What does Nina's cancer have to do with Olivia's "condition," and most importantly, what is Olivia's "condition," and what does Weiss mean when he tells her that she will eventually be experiencing headaches? I wish I had theories for all of these questions to help make this entry a bit more interesting, but I really don't; nothing comes to mind, and this is one of the reasons why Fringe is so amazing; it consistently keeps you guessing.

Walter is behaving a bit suspiciously too. Well, he's behaving a bit more suspiciously than usual, shall we say? He knows something about Olivia, as well, something that he's not telling her. When he tells her that sometimes moving from one reality to another has its consequences, she instantly shows concern, and Walter moves on to another subject, almost as if he feels that he has already said too much, telling her that he is sure that she will be fine, but the look on his face is unmistakable; he is drastically worried, and I would imagine that his worry has something to do with Olivia's strange new "ability" to hear things with extreme precision and volume. I am wondering whether or not he knows that she is experiencing this. That scene near the end in which Olivia is taking a bath, and she hears arguing, traffic outside, a fly in the room and the bubbles in the tub popping, I was starting to become vehemently annoyed and was wondering how she isn't screaming to make it stop; that has to get under your skin.

I don't know if anyone else noticed this either, but even though we see Olivia trying to find answers, she seems a lot more cheery than usual in this episode. She smiles a lot more often, seems a lot more friendlier and warmer with Walter, cracks jokes (such as the "What's your name?" line when the doctor asks her how her short term memory is), etc. She just seems a lot happier, and I'm not sure what to make of it, but I do have one theory. I think that the "real" Olivia is the Olivia that we see at the beginning of the pilot episode when she is all smiles and laughs with John Scott, and then after he "betrays" her and dies, she is crushed, and we see the effects of that trauma for quite some time. I think that she is slowly coming out of that shell and learning that in Peter and Walter, she has friends that will help her pull through when she needs them, especially Peter. I am just so worried, though, because she is going to be torn apart when she finds out about Charlie. He is her partner and ultimately her best friend, and she won't even have a body to mourn.

Next week's episode is called "Fracture," but I can't really say too much about it, because to be completely honest, I don't really know that much about it. The week after "Fracture," however, we will be seeing an episode titled "Momentum Deferred," which was either originally titled "This Is the Night Mail" or "This Is the Night Mail" is the name of the fifth episode, since the first eight episodes have been given titles except for that one, which is strange. All I have to say about "Momentum Deferred" is that I am really looking forward to that episode; it looks like it's going to be mythology-heavy with possibly some real, concrete answers. It really does look like it's going to be epic. It won't be a seemingly unnecessary (but admittedly entertaining) "stand-alone" like this one, to which I give 6 naked mole-babies.

Fringe - "A New Day in the Old Town" (2.01) - Season Premiere


Fringe opens its new season with an amazing premiere, and I honestly think that it is better than the finale last spring, and that's saying a lot because the finale really left a mark on me, despite my utter disappointment that Jones was killed off so dismissively (he had better be back; there is still an alter-Jones, after all). As much as I may love this episode, though, and as epic as it may be, there are definitely problems that I have with it, as well. For starters, when I read a vague synopsis a while back, I was immediately fearful that this would not be very original, but I will discuss more at a later point in regards to that. Like I said, though, for the most part, this really impressed me. I was expecting an excellent season premiere because it's Fringe, but this is even better than I was expecting. Anyway, before I begin discussing the episode, I do warn you that this entry does contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen this yet but would like to see it, then please, do not read any further.

What I mainly like about this episode is the development that we get out of Olivia's character. Anna Torv's acting in this episode is beyond superb; in my opinion, she is right up there with John Noble in this episode. She really impressed me. There are a lot of emotional scenes between her and Peter, and there is a lot of hinting that there will most likely eventually be a bit more than a friendship between them, at least from my perspective, anyway. For example, when Peter and Rachel are talking in the hallway of the hospital when they're under the impression that they're losing Olivia, Rachel tells Peter that "she always liked you," and my interpretation of that was that she meant as more than just a friend. These scenes would definitely not be as emotional, though, without Anna's stunning acting ability. Needless to say, I think that if there were ever anyone saying that Olivia's bland, one-dimensional character throughout the first season is due to Anna Torv's acting, I think that Anna definitely disproved them. She even had the best line of the episode ("Go get that bitch!"), in my opinion, even in comparison to Walter's "I want to see the look on her face when she eats my pudding," and I don't think that that is ever the case in the first season.

There are two scenes that really surprised me in this episode. Firstly, there is the kiss between Nina and Broyles, and I was not expecting that, not even in the slightest. I never, in a million years, would have seen that coming, and I don't think that anyone could have. I don't really know what to think of it, but Nina does say something rather mysterious. After she kisses him, she says, "Do what you always used to do, Phillip; save the day." This was obviously mysterious, because what is she talking about? In what way did he "save the day" for her? I am really hoping that that is explored further later in the season. You see, my theory regarding Nina is that she had a prior relationship with Walter and that she is Peter's mother, and if I turn out to be right about that and she also has had a prior relationship with Broyles, then I suppose that that really complicates things, especially since we don't know if anything happened between her and Bell, either.

The other scene that really surprised me is obviously the ending. Then again, I really shouldn't say obviously, because when I talked about this with some fellow Fringe fans in The Fringe Podcast chat last night, some people said that they found it to be relatively predictable, which surprised me, because it shocked me. Obviously, what I'm talking about is the scene in which it is revealed that the shapeshifting soldier has killed Charlie and is now impersonating him, consequently throwing his body into a furnace. This scene is extremely dark and even disturbing in a way, because I still can't believe Charlie is dead. What is it with J.J.'s shows being condemned to their Charlies dying? Then again, I don't think that Alias's Charlie died. Anyway, Charlie was Olivia's best friend; she trusted him and told him everything, and I am not looking forward to the scene in which she finds out about this. It's really going to break her, which is definitely not what she needs right now.
 
As I said previously, I do have some complaints about the episode, as amazing as I thought it was. For starters, I feel that on some levels, it really did lack a bit of originality, which is something that I feared when I first found out that it would involve a man who could shapeshift. To me, the whole idea of a shapeshifting soldier seems to be a combination of the two primary conflicts in The X-Files, but I'm not sure what to think, because first of all, according to what someone said in The Fringe Podcast chat last night, this is commonly used in science fiction, the concept of the "bad guy" being able to mold his body into any appearance he chooses, and plus, the concept is a bit different from X. With The X-Files, the shapeshifters are alien bounty hunters, and they can willingly become anyone they want to at any time they want to. Apparently, the guy in Fringe needs a victim, so he is more like a "body snatcher," if you will. Still, the similarity kind of bothers me. Then again, it could have been intentional. Jeff Pinkner said shortly before the episode premiered that there would be an X homage, possibly two, in the premiere episode and that it would be "obvious." Obviously, there is the scene near the beginning of the episode in which we see Mulder and Scully on the television, but perhaps, he was talking about this, too.

Something else that disappointed me about this episode is that I was under the impression that Bell was going to be in it. I recently saw a promo in which Olivia asks him for answers, and he says something to the effect of, "It's too late for that, my child." I had a theory very early on in the show that Bell is her biological father or possibly even the stepfather that she shot twice, but I don't think it's the latter, because it seems to me that when she sees him in the season one finale, she would recognize him, even considering that it has been quite a few years. There is definitely, however, some sort of relationship between the two of them, even if it's not biological. Don't forget what he says to her when she visits him in the finale. He says something like, "I have been waiting a very long time for this." Anyway, I really like Bell, even though we only see him for a few seconds in the finale. I'm assuming that what I saw in the clip will be in an episode in the very near future, but I thought that the deal was that Bell was going to be in the finale and the first few episodes of the second season (hopefully more, eventually).

Lastly, I'm not so sure how I feel about this Amy Jessup character. As David Wu (the Fringemunks) said, it seems like her role in the show could be filled by Astrid's character, and I agree with him. Astrid desperately needs some character development, so why push her to the side and bring in a new female character? It just doesn't make any sense to me. My guess is that she was brought in to replace Charlie when the mole is compromised, and this is actually hinted at near the beginning of the episode when Peter is expecting to talk to Charlie and instead gets her, as if she has replaced him. I just feel as if her purpose on the show needs to be made clear quickly, or else I'm honestly not going to feel anything for her anytime soon. One question I still have in my mind even after watching the episode twice is what is going on in the scene at the end where she is seemingly leafing through Fringe Division files on the computer while consulting the Bible; that didn't make any sense to me, and I feel as if I must have missed something. Maybe it's something that wasn't supposed to make any sense?

It is quite obvious to me that Walter is feeling guilty about something. He knows something, quite possibly a lot of somethings, that he's hiding. One way in which I know this is that at the beginning of the episode, it seems as if he knows how to bring Olivia back. He fools with the car a little bit and then voila, Olivia comes flying out of the front window, and while he is fooling with the car, he awkwardly says, "Oh, my" to himself. Additionally, he sees her while she is in the hospital and apologizes to her for something. Plus, we already know that he most likely had something to do with Peter's death at a young age and then either cloned him or brought alter-Peter over to his reality, and he's expressing guilt about that. There is the scene at the beginning when he tells Peter that he is going to make him custard, and when Peter says something like, "I don't like custard; I have never liked custard," Walter responds by saying that he did when he was a young boy but that he had forgotten, and the look on his face after saying that is quite obviously an expression of guilty knowledge. Finally, there is the scene in which Walter is about to present the video of the blonde woman talking about the soldiers who "can look like any one of us," when beforehand, Peter says that Walter has been looking at pictures of Peter as a young boy a lot lately and that he has also been frequently making sure that he's not dead when he's asleep, which is "creepy," and Walter then immediately changes the subject.

All right, so I do have some hopes and expectations for this season, and firstly, I want more Jones. I still can't believe that they killed him off in the season one finale, so I am really hoping that we get to at least see alter-Jones this season. I'm sorry, but Jones is a very cool bad guy, and I'm hoping that we haven't seen the end of him. There is also someone in The Fringe Podcast chat who speculated that these super-soldiers are ZFT, but I really doubt this, and this is why; unless this one particular soldier is rogue (which I doubt, because as Peter and Jessup discuss, soldiers have a mission that they need to carry out, which gives me the impression of a collective motivation), their goals don't add up. If you recall, in episode 1.14, "Ability," Jones tells Olivia that she is very important, and he actually seems somewhat protective of her, which leads me to believe that ZFT's goal is not to kill Olivia but instead to possibly recruit her, unless, of course, Jones is the one who is rogue, which is a lot more plausible.

Secondly, as stated previously, I would really like for Peter's past to be explored further, because I would really like to know exactly what happened to him. He obviously died, and even though I'm sure it was at Walter's hands, we don't know what happened yet. My guess is that he was experimenting on him, since it is heavily hinted at throughout the first season, and the experiment went very terribly wrong. However, something else tells me that it seems as if the writers would be more likely to come up with something more elaborate and more shocking than that, because at this point, I don't think that I'm really discussing anything profound here because I'm pretty sure that this is what just about everyone is thinking. For now, however, I think I have covered just about everything that I wanted to cover. As I said, this episode blows me away, and it gets a well-deserved score of 10 flying olives. Be sure to watch the second episode of the new season next Thursday at the same time, "Night of Desirable Objects."