This episode showed us some incredibly amazing acting out of people from whom we haven't really seen it yet. In my opinion, John Noble and Anna Torv have always been incredibly astounding with their acting skills. However, I have never been all that impressed with Josh Jackson. His cool, slick attitude hasn't always come off as authentic to me. For example, in Season 1, Walter says to Peter that he may have finally found his calling after all, working with him, and Peter replies by saying, "I certainly hope not." Seriously, Peter? You couldn't come up with something better than that? I just find his attitude to be artificial sometimes, and I also find that his lines are a little lame. However, he has made two major impressions on me so far, the first being episode 2.20, "Northwest Passage," and the other being this one. Josh Jackson is right up there with Anna and John in this episode, and I say that based on a few scenes, the first being the scene after he finds out that Olivia is trapped on the Other Side, and he just lays his head down and looks like he is going to cry. Another is when he is looking out the window of the car, looking completely torn apart, and yet another is the very end of the episode, and it is clear that he has been crying. The poor guy has been betrayed twice now; he is falling apart.
Right after Peter finds out that Olivia is trapped in the other universe and looks like he is going to cry, his bedside clock shows us that he has lied wide awake for nearly two hours, not knowing what he should do. I can only imagine how painful that must have been, the thoughts that must have gone through his mind. When he finally gets up, he seems to want to find proof so that he can bring what the woman said on the phone to light, and I love how we get references to earlier cases, such as the parasite in episode 1.07, "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones," and the slugs in episode 1.11, "Bound." Man, he is a quick thinker, though, saying that he is emailing a friend in Greece which then gives him the ability to bring in what Olivia said when she woke up from her coma in episode 2.01, "A New Day in the Old Town." Obviously, Olivia would have known what that meant, but Bolivia doesn't know it, and she says as much, quickly realizing immediately afterward that she slipped, and I absolutely love the series of lines that follow. Bolivia says, "You going to kill me?" and Peter replies, "No, I'm going to get answers, and if I find out you did anything to Olivia, then I'm going to kill you." Then, we get the intro, which, as I suspected it would be, goes back and forth between blue and red, which I find to be incredibly cool.
I didn't realize that Broyles wasn't aware that Peter and Bolivia (who he obviously thought was Olivia) had been dating, and it is difficult to discern what he thinks of it. I don't think that he cares so much about the fact that they had been dating; I think it's more that he is upset that he wasn't told (although it is understood why he wouldn't have been told, since it is probably against the rules for them to be dating). Over there, alter-Brandon hands Walternate a printed out sheet of what Bolivia had sent them via the typewriter ("Cover blown. Extraction needed."), which I think confirms that it is not Walternate who is on the other side of the typewriter, which I had a feeling was the case, anyway. However, I am not so sure that it is alter-Brandon, either. My theory is that it is alter-Nina. Here, she is now technically working for Walter, since Walter owns Massive Dynamic, and also, we have seen her communicating with William Bell, who was on the Other Side, using an old computer at the end of episode 2.07, "Of Human Action." I think that at some point, we are going to meet alter-Nina, and it is going to be a huge pay-off. Walter owning Massive Dynamic here and our already having seen Nina communicating with the Other Side using an old piece of equipment will be parallels to our discovery.
Walternate indirectly refers to Henry, saying that someone obviously assisted Olivia and that whoever the traitor is obviously does not understand their cause. My hope is that they leave Henry alone; I really don't want him to be harmed in any way. Olivia promised him that there wouldn't be any trouble, and even though it wouldn't be her fault if there will be, the poor guy may not see it that way. It is clear that Walternate just wants revenge. He has some sort of hidden agenda (not vagenda, just agenda) behind wanting to know how Olivia can cross between universes, and I think that it is pure revenge. That is why he lied to Peter in the season 2 finale, and that is why, as I said, his plan all along was to do away with Olivia once he got what he needed from her. What I don't understand, though, is why they need to remove Olivia's brain and study it when apparently, they already have Cortexiphan ready to administer. I just hope that we don't see them giving it to people like Bolivia because it would be in contradiction to what we already know to be true, that (a) it only works when given to children, and (b) it doesn't work on everyone. It would be a major plot-hole, and I really don't want that. What I want is for them to try it and for it to not work, since they wouldn't be aware of those two rules.
I love the reference to "Brown Betty" (2.19) in this episode. Before he makes the ridiculously funny "vagenda" comment, Walter says that he has tried many methods to try to think of a way to cross over to retrieve Olivia and says that he even tried a dose of Brown Betty. I guess that from now on, that will be his drug of choice when during times of crisis. In this episode, the team finally discovers the use of the typewriter in the shopkeeper's shop, but we still don't learn much about it. Walter says that it would make perfect sense that they would be able to use it to communicate with the Other Side, but why? How? How does it work? I really want to know, and I want to know who the shopkeeper is. He tells Bolivia that that is what they do; they make you wait, that they have been making him wait for seven years but that her kind has it easy. Is he a Shapeshifter? Why did the Other Side promise him new legs? Is the guy who administers some sort of dosage to him at the end, the guy in possession of the missing piece of the device that Walternate needs, a Shapeshifter? If so, how is he going to get it to Walternate now that Bolivia is back home? We learned in this episode that the Shapeshifters, once they are here, cannot go back.
I absolutely love the conversation between Olivia and Colonel Broyles in her prison cell. The line "If you let me die, then we will strike back, and we will fight" is so epic. This scene is so sad, though, because Colonel Broyles says that he is sorry, implying that he isn't going to help her, and Olivia cries, begging him to help her. She thinks that she is going to die, and it is so difficult to watch. I do really like Colonel Broyles, though, and it is so sad that he sacrificed his life to make sure that Olivia could cross over, all with the hope (very key word in this episode) that she would fulfill her promise and ensure the safety of both worlds. Is this Olivia's destiny, to bring balance to the universes? I theorized quite some time ago that Colonel Broyles would help Olivia. In the season premiere, "Olivia," he questions Walternate, asking him why it is necessary to convince Olivia that she is their Olivia, and he doesn't seem to like Walternate's methods. Even then, he wasn't fully on board, and I had a feeling that he would end up helping her. I did not, however, expect that he would die. I love the scene during which Broyles puts his alter-self to rest by closing his eyes; it is a very beautiful, heartbreaking scene. I expected that the two men would actually get the chance to meet each other, but I didn't expect that it would be like this.
I love how Bolivia grabs one last cup of coffee before going home, since coffee is so rare on the Other Side. However, on the Other Side, we have seen Charlie drinking what appears to be coffee, so maybe, occasionally, they are awarded coffee for their being heroes. The Shapeshifter tells Bolivia that she has approximately twenty-three minutes until the transfer is to take place, and this, of course, is an Easter Egg, since "23" is a LOST number. I absolutely love the scene in which Peter shoots the Shapeshifter right in the head, and then, the look on Bolivia's face is classic. However, Bolivia was holding on to photos of the two of them together, the same photos that Peter takes a look at at the beginning of the episode, so it was obviously real for her, as she tells him that it was, but that doesn't make a difference to me. Watermelon, you have a man over on the Other Side, and Peter already has a woman; he isn't yours. I absolutely love the scene during which Olivia crosses over. Astrid is in the lab, and I just find it absolutely hilarious that all of a sudden, Olivia appears from the tank, and Astrid, completely alarmed, drops what she has in her hands, and I just find that scene to be hilarious - up until she faints, that is, and don't get me wrong; it is a very happy scene, as well. Finally, Olivia is home.
Over there, Bolivia returns to work, and Lincoln Lee (who I love) enthusiastically runs up to her and says that all of his burns are gone, "just like nothing ever happened." Bolivia agrees, and at first, I thought that Lee had been filled in on what had happened, that this was his way of saying hello to their Olivia, but no, he is just randomly saying that he is now fully healed. Eventually, he and Charlie are going to have to discover the truth because Charlie was suspicious, thinking that perhaps, Olivia had been telling the truth about her not being who she was supposed to believe she was, and that has to come to some sort of head. I do know, based on a recent article that was in the TV Guide magazine, that we will not be returning "over there" for quite some time, and the only reason that I care about that is that I like Lincoln Lee, but I'm sure that going back there will be a huge pay-off. Now, hopefully, the space is cleared for us to learn more about the First People, and hopefully, with Olivia suffering from PTSD (how could she not?), she will be visiting Sam Weiss, who I can't wait to see again. Like I said, I absolutely love this episode, and I give it 10 Alarmed Astrids. Next week's episode is titled "Marionette," and expect another callback to "Brown Betty" (2.19).
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