The opening of this episode is pretty powerful if you ask me, because Bell faints and then says in the hospital that if he is shocked again, he and Olivia will both die. Anna is, as usual, beyond amazing in this scene, and I love her, because she is so modest. I read recently that she felt very nervous happening to impersonate Nimoy's character, and she went into it not really knowing what she was doing and is still unsure of the results. That is definitely modesty, because even Nimoy has said that she is wonderful, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. This scene has a fantastic line in it, or a double-line, I guess, would be the best way of putting it. Peter says that Olivia is his girlfriend at the exact same time that Walter says that he (referring to Bell) is his partner; it's definitely some comic relief much needed during a pretty intense scene. I love the reference to the pilot episode, when Walter says that they have sort of done this before when they linked Olivia to John Scott's consciousness, and I absolutely love the look on Bell's face when he takes the LSD; it is one of pure mischief, and it just another scene in this episode that exemplifies Anna's incredible acting ability. It's too bad that no one captured any of it on camera to show Olivia when she returned.
Then, of course, you have Peter's reaction to the LSD first taking effect. He tries to touch Broyles' head and says, "You're bald." Then, to Astrid, he says, "I think he's an Observer." What doesn't make any sense to me, though, is why he would be so spaced out and "out of it" like that when he is "awake," but then, inside Olivia's consciousness, he is completely himself and seems to be thinking completely clearly. Maybe it's just that I don't know that much about drugs and how they work, especially not something like LSD, but it just doesn't make any sense. When we do see Peter and Walter enter Olivia's consciousness, we see that Walter is sitting on top of a bus and says, "I think you'll want to help me down!" What an awesome scene to see before a commercial break; it certainly gives us a good idea of just how crazy the episode is going to be. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the episode, though, is Broyles' behavior after he accidentally takes some LSD. Broyles, as we all know, is usually incredibly stoic, but he certainly is not in this episode, and I love the expression on his face throughout most of the episode, that open-mouthed expression of brainless confusion, and the scene in which he sees an animated bird land on Walter's shoulder is probably the funniest scene in this episode. This episode certainly exemplifies Lance Reddick's acting ability, too. He says that he he saw death, which makes me wonder if he is eventually going to die.
I experienced a pretty major revelation during my second viewing of this episode, and that is that if Walter remembers Olivia's stepfather, then it would stand to reason that he remembers Peter and Olivia having met when they were children, and that helps support my theory that his tendency to ship Polivia so strongly has meaning to it. Further insight that this episode provides is that it would appear as if Olivia definitely doesn't trust Nina; after all, Nina tries to kill Peter and Walter in Olivia's consciousness. It isn't too long before we find see that Leonard Nimoy is animated and so are Peter and Walter, and then we see a speech bubble above Walter that says, "How wonderful!" I laughed so hard when I first saw this, because just when you think thatFringe can't possibly do any more to thrill you and surprise you, it does something like that. This has been hinted at, too. Last season, Wy-Pi were asked in an interview if there would ever be an animated episode, and they responded by saying to ask them that again near the end of the third season, so obviously, they have been planning this for quite some time, and that is simply awesome. In my opinion, they certainly pulled it off, just like they pulled "Brown Betty" off, also a fantastic episode in my opinion, although not as good as this episode.
It would make sense that Olivia would think that everyone is trying to kill her, which is why everyone tries to kill Walter and Peter. I also love how the zombies are Brandon look-alikes, because obviously, she had a very traumatic experience while she was on the Other Side, and she is probably well-aware that he was behind a lot of what happened to her. What I don't understand, however, is why she would have an image of the man that she says is going to try to kill her if she has never met him before. Is it that she briefly saw him while she was on the Other Side and had some sort of reason to believe that he would eventually try to kill her? If that were the case, you would think that given Olivia's track record involving her good memory, she would remember the man's face, yet she says that she has never seen him before, but then again, I have to take into account that for a long time, she thought that she was the other Olivia, and that would probably be enough to confuse her. Also, we learn from this episode that Olivia does remember her biological father, since she apparently told Peter that her father painted the door to the house red even though it was against regulations. That means that since she obviously remembers her biological father, my theory that her biological father is David Robert Jones has unfortunately been shot down.
I didn't notice the green-green-green-red sequence on the doors at first, but it's definitely there. After Olivia and Peter began dating, the two of them obviously shared a lot with each other, something of which I wish we would see more. One scene that I both love and hate at the same time is the scene in which Peter recognizes that who he is talking to is not really Olivia. I don't mean to be playing a double-standard here, but even though I'm sure that I would have been able to tell that the other Olivia was not my Olivia, the "fake" Olivia in this episode definitely had me fooled. I don't really see anything that would have given it away, and I think that it's just an effort on the part of the writers to show that Peter has completely come around since "Marionette" (3.09), especially since he even says that he can see in her eyes that she is not her. I love the scene in which Peter and hug; that is incredibly powerful (I think that it's safe to assume that Peter has done a great job of coming around to trusting Walter again), and Walter's wanting to be alone after finding out that Bell is gone for good is definitely indicative of his journey to find independence. I absolutely love this episode, but I still don't understand why Nina wasn't involved at all. Did they, for some reason, choose not to tell Nina about this? Next is the beginning of the end, on episode 3.20, "6:02 AM EST," and I am so excited.
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