Fringe - "One Night in October" (4.02)

We definitely get a couple of more answers from this episode than we do from the premiere, but we still don't get very many. We learn that the Machine created the Bridge, but that ultimately leads to more questions. How was the Machine capable of that without Peter? Was he not necessary in this timeline? If that's the case, then why was Peter necessary in the first place? The producers said that in this timeline, everything happened the same way except none of it involved Peter; that's why some of this timeline is the same and some is different, but Peter was directly linked to the Machine, so how did any of that happen? How could the Bridge even exist? We didn't learn to whom the new breed of Shapeshifters belong, but it was, at least, mentioned, which makes me happy. We learn that Redverse Olivia was not abused and, in fact, probably didn't even have a stepfather, and I say that based on her asking what happened to the stepfather; to me, the way that she asked suggested that she never had a stepfather. We also learn that Olivia, in this timeline, killed her stepfather instead of leaving him alive. Is this because of Peter?

Basically, we meet two versions of a man named John McClennan; the one from the Blueverse is a professor, and the one from the Redverse is a serial killer. The serial killer is abducting people and then performing a process that involves stealing their happy memories, since he, himself, is unhappy because he was seriously abused by his father when he was younger. The Redverse decides to bring Blueverse John over to the Redverse, not telling him, of course, where he is really going, so that he can go through the household of the Redverse version of himself and conduct a psychological profile. This is where the episode loses a point in my book because it is simply a dumb, terrible idea, especially since photographs and other personal items are not first hidden. Redverse Olivia is kind of funny because she doesn't seem to take anything seriously; everything is a joke to her, such as when Blueverse Olivia tells her to button her jacket, which is especially why it's so funny when Blueverse John realizes that something is wrong, runs out of the house, and encounters Blueverse Olivia, realizing that there are two of them. That lack of seriousness is still detectable, but you can also sense shame.

It does sort of annoy me, too, that John seems to very easily accept the explanation that Blueverse Olivia gives him; don't get me wrong, as it is, obviously, the truth, but what a truth it is. He doesn't tell her that he doesn't believe her, and he doesn't seem to be in denial at all, which is a bit strange. I think that the general consensus is that Redverse Lincoln's father died during a Fringe-related event, so it's really interesting to me to see that he, like Blueverse Astrid, is open-minded; there doesn't seem to be any hostility at all where he is involved, as he and Blueverse Olivia seem to get along just fine. The two Olivias are still hostile toward one another, but I think that even that is calming a bit as they are getting more used to working together; they have a conversation about Blueverse Olivia's stepfather, and Redverse Olivia seems genuinely interested. Granted, that is understandable; if I had the chance to meet an alternate version of myself from a parallel universe, I would want to know how his life was different from mine. I love how Olivia remembers the license plate number on the tractor from the photograph of John's father because we have been seeing that ability since the first season, and Redverse Olivia seems pretty amazed if you ask me.

Another reason that this episode doesn't receive my unconditional love, if you will, is because one scene, in particular, is not realistic at all. In broad daylight, with other people around, Redverse John is able to abduct the woman at the gas station when her daughter uses a bathroom. I am reminded of a similar scene in "Inner Child" (1.15), during which the Artist abducts a woman by stuffing her in his trunk while other people clearly would have seen what he had done. That is annoying, but I try to overlook such issues because what's most important to me is that the writers are telling good stories and answering questions that they ask, and certainly if you count this as an answer, Charlie and Mona "Bug Girl" Foster (now Francis?) are now married, and as I have said before, I am so happy that Mona was not never to be mentioned again because I think that most of us really liked her. I wonder, too, if Redverse Olivia is married, or soon to be married, to Frank, since he asked her to marry him and she said yes, and obviously, she never got pregnant. I'm thinking that she isn't married yet, or else it stands to reason that that would have been mentioned. Blueverse Olivia and Blueverse Astrid definitely seem to be a bit more sisterly, and, of course, Astrid's line that maybe Olivia's type doesn't exist is another stab at Peter.

Another reason why this is certainly not my favorite episode ever is the fact that John Noble is in so very little of it; in fact, Anna Torv and Seth Gabel dominate this episode, and don't get me wrong, they are both fantastic, but we are now two episodes into the season, and we have not seen Walternate. During the small amount of time that we do see Walter, we see that he is covering reflective surfaces, obviously because he fears seeing Peter. We also see that he is listening to the first movement of Mozart's Requiem as he is in some sort of subdued state from which he doesn't awaken until Astrid turns the music off, to which he angrily replies, "Do you have any idea what it cost Mozart to create that movement?" He is referring to Mozart's dwindling sanity and his eventual death, so it's very understandable why he would want to listen to that, as I think that there is an argument to be made that we listen not to music that makes us feel good but to music to which we can relate. I absolutely love how he refers to Lincoln as Kennedy, obviously confusing his presidents. Again, he seems to be getting Astrid's name right, but it's others' names that he is not remembering, such as Lincoln's and Tim's, his night guard. Astrid and Walter obviously don't have the same kind of relationship.

I do love how the case reflects the arc, since now, we are left to wonder how Blueverse John will be different now that he doesn't remember Marjorie, and obviously, people don't remember Peter; Broyles then says that he believes that people leave an indelible mark on your soul that can never be erased. Did anyone else notice the apple on the ground in John's memory of Marjorie? It looked very much like the apple glyph, but I doubt that it had any deep significance other than that. Another Easter Egg that I caught is Broyles telling Olivia that the John on the Other Side killed twenty-three victims, and "23" is one of the LOST numbers. At the very end of the episode, Walter hears Peter shouting for help, saying, "I'm right here." I think that he is "out of phase," if you will, begging to be remembered, which has to be torment. I also want to mention the title, since when I first read what the title was, I thought for sure that we were going to meet a new Observer, and I am disappointed that we didn't, but it seems that the title refers to how "one night in October," John ran away from his father, which had very different results depending on the universe. "One Night in October" is an average episode, and I give it 7.5 Maddening Requiems.

Fringe - "Neither Here nor There" (4.01) - Season Premiere

Finally, the wait is over, and Fringe is back. The fourth season premiere is not, all in all, a bad start to the season. The episode is certainly not boring, as (although probably not as fast-paced as the second season premiere, "A New Day in the Old Town") it is certainly fast-paced. However, as I strongly suspected I would not, I do not like the alternate timeline and want the old timeline to be restored immediately. Too much is different for me to be comfortable with, and technically, the past three years haven't happened. I actually tweeted Joel Wyman very recently (but before the premiere aired) with that concern, and his reply was, "They happened. Trust." I then read an interview a couple of days later in which he assured fans that the past three years did happen, except without Peter, which, to me, means that they didn't happen. Many episodes would have incredibly different causes and effects without Peter. In fact, Olivia tells Lincoln about what transpired in the pilot episode regarding John Scott, and even that happened differently. There are some episodes, in fact, such as "What Lies Below" (2.12), "The Man from the Other Side" (2.18), "Northwest Passage" (2.20), and "Reciprocity" (3.11), that couldn't have possibly happened at all, so the three years that we know could not have possibly happened.

I am, however, comforted by a couple of points. To start, we do know that Peter will be back, but we don't know how, and Josh said something over the summer at ComicCon that I feel is a bit "spoilery," so I won't repeat it in honor of those who wish to stay spoiler-free. Secondly, John Noble said in an interview not too long ago that the fun of the alternate timeline is that it provides a "reset" for new fans but is fun for old fans because we know that the situation will correct itself like it always does, so obviously, that is reassuring. There is much that has changed, as September says to January (CBK?). Additionally, Astrid doesn't babysit Walter as often; she actually does field work, and while I do like seeing Astrid in action, I miss the interaction between her and Walter, something of which there wasn't as much. Instead, someone named Tim watches over Walter, who, mind you, lives at the lab. Without Peter, everyone seems so miserable. Walter is much more bi-polar than he usually is and even causes Olivia to shrink back for a second when he loses his patience with her. It is clear (although my boyfriend doesn't agree with me) that Olivia is not as happy, and I wonder about Charlie. She mentions having lost a partner to Lincoln but is talking about John Scott; she doesn't mention Charlie.

There are a few lines in the script that remind us of Peter's non-existence. For example, Olivia mentions that there has always been a hole in her life for as long as she can remember, which suggests that in this alternate timeline, she has been conscious of something missing. Also, when Lincoln is angry with Olivia for telling him that her division was taking the body of his friend and partner, Robert Danzig (played by Joe Flanigan of Stargate Atlantis) reminds her that Robert was his partner and then says, "Maybe you can't understand that,"and when he demands to talk to someone else, she says, "There is no one else; there's just me." Seth Gabel, by the way, is absolutely fantastic in this scene; Lincoln looks so angry that he is ready to break down in tears, and Seth grasps this perfectly. Later in the episode, Walter says to Lincoln, "People die; it happens, sometimes, they even die twice." This seems to suggest that in this timeline, both Peters died, and Walter either watched Red Peter die through his window, or he still tried to bring him over which either resulted in Peter drowning in the lake (which makes me wonder, however, why Walter didn't die, too, but it is on par with December's comment that "the boy lived to be a man" because of September's intervention), which would explain why Walternate is angry and hungry for revenge.

During the scene in which Walter notices a wedding ring on Robert Danzig's body, he says, "I don't think there's anything sadder than when two people are meant to be together and something intervenes," and this is quite obviously a nod at Peter's non-existence, especially since we see Olivia directly after he says this. Of course, not too long after, he says to Astrid that he isn't wearing any pants, which is confusing, because it looks to me like he is wearing pants. There is, however, a line that was apparently cut from the episode, as it is heard in a promo but is not in the episode itself, which is a bit disappointing. The line, based on the context in which it is spoken in the promo, looks like it should have been said during the scene in which Olivia tells Lincoln why she ultimately decided to release Robert Danzig's body; she says, "We all get pretty good at pretending that the loneliness isn't there, and then, something comes along to remind us." This obviously speaks to a lot, but I wonder if Anna was asked to perform that line merely for the promo, seeing as how given the context of the conversation that she has in the episode, this line would have been a bit out of context, especially given the latter half of it. It is really unfortunate that Walter is the only one who is seeing Peter because until others start seeing him for themselves (Olivia, for example, just misses him), they're going to think that he is hallucinating.

Walter bringing the bird back to life (although he says that that isn't actually what he does, which confuses me) reminds me very much of this past season of True Blood, as there is a scene early in the season in which Marnie, a witch, resurrects her deceased bird; I was instantly reminded of that. I would imagine that Walter attempting to restore energy to a dead bird speaks to something of larger significance, but I'm not sure what it is. The Fringe Podcast has suggested that it merely pays tribute to "Marionette" (3.09), as Walter, having seen what Roland Barrett attempted to do, is now trying to master the art of bringing the dead back to life himself; I do like that, and that could very well be the case. The Fringe Podcast has also suggested that it is a plot device, as it shows Lincoln what kind of chaos to which he is about to get himself. Something that I find odd is that in "Stowaway" (3.17), when we first meet Blue Lincoln, he is welcomed into the fold with open arms, but now, Olivia tries so hard to block him that she is actually terribly mean to him because Fringe Division is classified. Something that my boyfriend suggested is that perhaps, it's because before, it was easier to keep the other universe a secret, whereas now, that is not the case because of the two teams working together due to the Bridge, and that sounds very reasonable to me.

I love Lincoln; I always have, and it's likely that I always will, and I can't decide which Lincoln I like better. I love them both so much, and I am so happy that Seth Gabel has been promoted to a full-time position as a regular cast member, and I'm so glad that Blue Lincoln (who, by the way, is incredibly hot with a gun) is officially a member of the Blue Fringe Division team; it is just unfortunate that it had to happen in an alternate timeline. Much of the episode is from his perspective, which is really cool, but I wonder if Olivia recognizes him when she meets him but doesn't say so because she is "not at liberty" to say so; after all, since she and the other Olivia still switched places, against, of course, this Olivia's will, Olivia should have met Red Lincoln. I love how Lincoln says that "one of these things is not like the other" when he points out the witness (named Olivia) to Olivia, the same line that we heard him say in "Stowaway" (which, by the way, is yet another episode that we know didn't happen the same way). When Olivia finally shows the Bridge to Lincoln, the "red scan," if you will, totally reminds me of Alias, and I noticed on Twitter during the night that the episode aired that other fans were making the exact same observation. It looks, to me, like the other Olivia does recognize Lincoln, although some seem to disagree. I wonder, also, if the code 315-09x means anything; it is a license plate that the camera ensures that we see, and numbers on Fringe often mean something.

I absolutely love the first scene of the episode, when the two Olivias are interacting with one another, leafing through case files, because I have been waiting for another confrontation between those two for over a year, and there is so much hostility between the two of them, and it's hard not to laugh at it; granted, I do feel a bit cheated because now that I have finally seen that confrontation, it doesn't involve Peter, and events haven't happened the same way. However, Red Olivia comments on how lonely Blue Olivia must be, which is yet another line that nods at Peter's non-existence, but also, it suggests that Red Olivia might still be with Frank, since she never got pregnant. I don't know if anyone else noticed, by the way, but in that scene, Blue Olivia is wearing a blue shirt, and Red Olivia is wearing a red shirt. We do have a new orange intro, with new fringe sciences listed, as well, and those are Existence, Quantum Entanglement, Philosopher's Stone, Psychometry, Viral Therapy, Ethereal Plane, Gravitons, Time Paradox, Psychogenesis, Biolocation, Psychic Surgery, and Transgenics. Some of these are rather obvious, but in regards to others, we will have to wait to see if we can piece together how they will fit, and there definitely seems to be a "psych" motif, which is interesting.

I absolutely love September's line in this episode when the shopkeeper asks him what he needs all of those scientific materials for, and he replies by saying, "I need to erase someone from time." I can only imagine what the shopkeeper must have been thinking after he heard that. I also love one of Astrid's lines, which is that "dead people do not use credit cards," definitely a memorable quote. The scene in which the Shapeshifter breaks off a fingernail is utterly disgusting, and during my second viewing of the episode, I had to turn away, knowing that it was coming. There seems to be a new breed of Shapeshifter, which is definitely game-changing. We know that the team recognizes that they're a new breed, so who created these Shapeshifters? Was it Walternate? If so, then maybe that's how Red Olivia is going to be a bit more sympathetic to this side, realizing that Blue Olivia is sensible not to trust the Redverse. Is September turning soft? That's what I think. I think that, as August developed a connection to Christine, September has developed a connection to Walter and now realizes that he can't bear to erase Peter completely, which tells me that he will have something to do with Peter's eventual return. Chris Tilton's score is better than ever, as the "Man in the Mirror" theme is utterly beautiful and captures the mood of the episode so perfectly. The episode is average (I ultimately give it 7.5 Translucent John Sheppards), but I miss the family and want it back immediately.

"Peter and the Machine" (Chapter 1) (Beyond the Fringe Chapter #1A)

I am so happy that there is now a third series of comic books, but I do very much wish that it were available in print, as well, not just digitally, especially since I can't figure out how to actually download the comic to my computer; it would seem that, even after paying for the comic, you can only read it on DC's website, which I don't appreciate. I wish that, at the very least, it were available on iTunes. I do think that comic books are becoming more and more obsolete, but I do fear the day that all literature will only be available digitally, which may be good for the environment but not for humanity's lack of dependence on electronics. Granted, I do wish that I had an iPad or something like it so that I wasn't limited to reading the comic on my computer; at least, then, the comic might feel more like a possession. My intention, however, is not to merely complain about the comic being limited (for the time being, hopefully) to a digital release; my intention is to talk about the comic itself, and I am really thrilled that Josh Jackson wrote the comic. I don't know if he will write all fourteen issues, but I do know that, at the very least, he is writing a couple of them, and that is really exciting.

 

The artist is named Jorge Jimenez, and I have to say that in comparison to most of the previous artists that have done work for Fringe comics, Jimenez did an excellent job of capturing the characters. Previously, Peter has been seen not looking anything like himself, but now, he looks exactly like himself; the art is much, much better than much of what we have seen in the past. I am really excited about this series of comics, because I have a feeling that this is how all of the questions with which "The Day We Died" (3.22) leaves us will be answered. What exactly did Peter do that resulted in his non-existence? How did he and Walter "fix" the timeline so that Olivia wouldn't be dead? It seems that this series is going to answer those questions, as we are going to learn what happened during the time that passed in between Peter and Walter deciding to alter the timeline and Peter returning to the present and consequently disappearing. Because we haven't seen that time period, we don't understand how Peter doesn't exist. It seems to be very likely that, like "White Tulip" (2.17), Peter had to repeatedly jump until he reached his goal, and this most likely created some sort of paradox which resulted in his current non-existence. What is interesting, though, is that Peter seems to be ready to die, but he also wants to be with Olivia, even though he seems to understand that he can't have both.

 

Also interesting is that Walter comments how what they are doing is a part of a loop, so they will unknowingly do this over and over and over again, and I love how he names the Machine "Daisy" simply because he is trying to enlighten the dark times. Walter then says that they will know that the time travel has worked when they both cease to exist, but this doesn't make any sense. Why would Walter not exist? Does this mean that they are stuck in a loop in which they never live past 2026? Both of them ceasing to exist could help support the theory that their intention was to somehow prevent September from saving them from Reiden Lake; however, Walter still exists, even though he fell into the lake with Peter and therefore should have died, too, so that can't be what happened. I am also confused because Walter says that the plan is to first send the Machine back in time and then send Peter, but my understanding was that it was the Machine that made time travel possible, so if they send that back first, how would it be possible to then send Peter back in time? It's interesting how you can see three people watching what is happening from a distance, but I wonder who one of them is. One is Astrid, one is Broyles, but I have no idea who the other one is.

 

Peter then goes back in time to a dinosaur age, which is kind of silly, but this is, after all, a comic book, and I suppose that it would stand to reason that if Peter went back in time far enough, he would run into a few dinosaurs along the way. He continues to travel through time, including to Ancient Greece and Ancient Spain, and Ancient China, and he is keeping a journal in which he stores his thoughts. What is his objective? Well, it seems to be to locate scattered markers so that he knows where to deposit pieces of the Machine. After some time, he starts to feel a bit hopeless, believing that there is nothing that he can do to save Olivia, and he apologizes to her, and the comic leaves us hanging on a cliff, which obviously means that we have to wait to find out more of what happens. Now, unfortunately, I don't think that we will find out when the next comic is released, because from what I understand, there will be seven issues but fourteen releases, as each issue will have an A and a B story; the A story will take place in the Fringeverse with which we are familiar, and the B story, as far as I know, will ask "What if?" questions, so I would say that I am more so looking forward to the A releases, seeing as how it is most likely via those releases that we will be getting answers, but I'm looking forward to the remainder of these comics regardless.

The Fringe Season 3 Survivor Event - Result

The winner of the Fringe Season 3 Survivor Event is -

"The Abducted" (3.07) - In this "over there" episode, which leads to culminating events serving as the climax of the season (episode 3.08, "Entrada"), Colonel Broyles finds himself personally attached to a case when a child is abducted by the same man who once abducted his son Christopher. Olivia, now beginning to realize who she really is, must deal with both trying to find the missing child and with trying to get home, enlisting the help of an old friend in the process. Although I personally don't view this as the best episode of the season, it is a very strong episode with an incredibly intense ending that provoked quite the emotional response from me. Thank you so much to all who voted and participated in the event, as it would not have been possible without you.

The Fringe Season 3 Survivor Event

Throughout the summer, a series of polls (referred to as "rounds") will be posted that will each be a part of the FRINGE SEASON 3 SURVIVOR event. The event is inspired by David Wu's initiation of a similar event last year, which resulted in a Season 2 episode being awarded the winner of the event. Much the same as then, the purpose of the event is to determine, by the conclusion of the summer, a Season 3 episode that you have chosen as your favorite. In order to award an episode with such an honor, each poll that is posted, or round, will ask you to select your least favorite episode of the season, so please, do not vote for your favorite, since by doing so, you would be a catalyst of inaccurate results and would therefore have a hand in defeating the purpose of the event. After the end of each round, the episode with the most number of votes will be eliminated, disqualifying it from the competition. In the event that there are two more episodes tied with one another, a Tiebreaker Poll will be posted instead of a new round, and the event will move on to the next round once the Tiebreaker Poll has ended and settles the tie. However, the more votes, the less likely there is to be ties, so please, get your vote on, and spread the word to other Cortexifans.

Fringe - "The Day We Died" (3.22) - Season Finale

So far, "The Day We Died" has definitely been the most confusing finale yet, and I still don't fully understand it. I had initially come to the conclusion that at the end of the previous episode, "The Last Sam Weiss" (3.21), Peter was not confused because he jumped to the future; he was just disoriented because of the injury that he sustained. However, Ella asks him, "Do you remember what you were saying in the field about the machine and being from the past?" With that being said, I have no idea what to think because near the end of the episode, we learn that Walter is the one who pulled Peter's consciousness from 2011 to the future, but Peter seems to suddenly come into the Peter that he would have been in that future, in 2026. Did the 2011 Peter simply watch all of this just as we did? When did Walter send the machine back, and why? Who created the machine? I wonder if in 2026, this side has very advanced healing, too, because Peter was cut up, and in very little time, we see him completely healed. My guess would be that, based on the conversation that Peter has with Olivia about wanting a child, the Other Side was destroyed before Peter discovered that he had a son, which is really sad. Doesn't he ever wonder, at least, or does he simply prefer not to think about it?

Walternate obviously told the End-of-Dayers what exactly they were doing. He even says to Moreau, "Soon, this world will join mine," so why are they willing to destroy their own world? Did they cross over with him when the Redverse was destroyed? If so, then who are they? Why haven't we seen them before? We learn from this episode that Astrid (whose line, "How come no one respects my desk?" I absolutely love), unless she was adopted, is not Broyles' daughter, because she mentions her father, who is obviously not Broyles. Speaking of Broyles, in 2026, he is a senator, and I would really like to know what happened to his eye. I read that the writers know what happened to it, but they did not say whether or not we are ever going to find out what happened to it, but I have a feeling that we will because I think that this finale is going to end up being far more pivotal than it seems it will be at this point. This episode, in a sense, really reminds me of the pilot episode because in the pilot episode, Olivia, under very different conditions, mind you, approaches Broyles about obtaining Walter's help, and Broyles is very reluctant; the whole idea, in general, of Walter being incarcerated and freeing him to obtain his help is reflective of the pilot episode.

I love how Peter says to Walter in the future that "no matter who's at fault, you're my dad," and I love that scene, because while I do think that what Walter and Elizabeth did in 1985 was terrible (even though it is definitely not that simple), the issue of where Peter belongs comes down to where he wants to be, and I think that that is pretty obvious. I love the conversation between Peter and Walternate; it's something that I would consider epic, and I think that it really speaks for Walternate's character because while Peter wants to negotiate with Walternate and make peace with him, Walternate kills Olivia instead. Walternate was not really sitting in that house; he was using some sort of technology to make himself appear to be there, and that was pretty impressive technology if you ask me. Ella, clearly upset with Walter for doing what he did in 1985, says, "There aren't any happy endings nowadays, are there?" I love this line and really feel that it's worth mentioning because it's definitely an intentional reference to "Brown Betty" (2.19), in which Ella changes Walter's ending to his story by making it happy. It is definitely interesting that we see a future Ella in this episode, and I definitely get the impression that, for whatever reason, in this future, Rachel is not alive.

In 2026, Walter tells Peter that something for which he never accounted is that the two worlds are inextricably linked; if one world dies, then the other will, too. He therefore says that the day that they triggered the machine was essentially "the day we died." I wonder why these two world are linked, though. Why aren't all universes dying (assuming they are not all dying)? Is it because of what Walter did in 1985? Is that why that universe was the one in which he chose to observe a Peter? Was it the easiest to find in a search for a parallel universe? Olivia (who, by the way, doesn't really look fifteen years older) has apparently learned to control her abilities in that particular future, and she stops a box containing fragile material from hitting the floor, which is pretty neat. On the Other Side, apparently, the drawing of Olivia exists there, as well, unless someone somehow made a copy of it here and then sent it over there because we see Walternate with the drawing of Olivia, and he seems to think (or know, I'm not sure which) that the drawing applies to his universe's Olivia. I love what she says to him. "They outsmarted you, didn't they?" she mocks him. "They know you turned the machine on, so they put Peter in theirs, and now, we're the ones that are going to get destroyed." She is basically saying to him, "Look what you did now."

Broyles says, when we come back to 2011, that Peter has been in the machine for sixty seconds, so apparently, time did not pass the same way for him as it did for them. I absolutely love the confrontation scene near the end of the episode because I have been waiting for the two Olivias to confront each other once again for a long time, in hopes that they would now be friends, but unfortunately, they don't say anything to each other. I get the sense, however, that they will be working together because our Olivia definitely wants to be cooperative. She interrupts the quarrel between the two Walters and says that they are all together now, so they need to work on solving their problems, and the other Olivia, based on her facial expression, seems to be in agreement. I have waited even longer for a confrontation between the two Walters (which David Wu has cleverly referred to as "waltercation") because we hadn't even seen that yet, and as far as we all know, this is the first time that these two men have met each other, and obviously, there's bad blood. Now, though, Peter never existed, which definitely has me scratching my head because I can't think of what he did to cause that to happen. He only changed from 2011 on, so how does that affect the past? Precisely as Anna Torv said her reaction was, what does this mean? What does it mean in context of the series thus far and of the series in the future?

I close by saying that I really like the new intro. The "fringe sciences" listed are cellular rejuvenation, thought extraction, cryptozoology, neutral partitioning, brain porting, temporal plasticity, dual maternity, chaos structure, clonal transplantation, biosuspension, water and hope. I put "fringe sciences" in quotes because those last two are obviously not even sciences, and I don't know what to make of them, especially not "water." What significance does "water" have to this episode? Is it maybe that (clean) water is not as easy to come by, since the universe is dying? I appreciated this finale in a lot of ways, but it is not as good as last year's finale, "Over There," and, in my opinion, it's going to be very difficult for them to ever write and film a finale that tops (or is even as good as) "Over There" (a television epic). What primarily makes little sense to me is that the other Olivia stole a piece of the machine on this side so that we couldn't use it, yet we douse it. I'd suggest that the function of Olivia's ability takes the place of the function of that piece of the machine, but the machine is activated before Olivia intervenes, so is it that without that piece, the machine doesn't create but destroys? There are so many questions, and I can't wait until season 4. I give this finale 7.5 Kate Dunhams (NCIS fans surely get the reference).

Fringe - "The Last Sam Weiss" (3.21)

I definitely prefer "6:02 AM EST" to this episode because I feel like a lot of hype was built up for this episode before it aired, and the episode simply doesn't live up to the hype. Yes, we get some answers, but while I expected to discover everything there is to know about Sam Weiss, we don't. For example, am I the only one bothered by the fact that in "6:02 AM EST," Nina tells Olivia that Sam told her that the fate of their universe would depend on which Olivia Peter picks, and then, Olivia never questions him about that in this episode? We still don't understand why Sam said that, or if he was telling the truth, and I have a feeling that if we ever do see Sam again, it won't be for a good while. Sam also did not write the manuscript, which is disappointing. I would not have written Sam's story this way; I would have written it so that Sam was a First Person and found a way to use soul magnets to keep moving from body to body. How do we know that is the last, though? I was really expecting him to die, and although I am glad that he didn't, the episode title is definitely a bit misleading, because as of now, he might not be the last. He is the last as in the most recent but is not the last as in the final, not definitively, anyway.

I also find it interesting how Sam feels guilty for having intervened because apparently, he is not supposed to intervene, which is frustrating. I really was expecting to have all of my questions regarding Sam answered, and they definitely were not answered, and it's frustrating that Olivia doesn't push him when he makes cryptic statements such as this one. Why can't he intervene? Who said that he can't intervene? What consequences does intervention have? It reminds me a lot of the Observers, since they are not supposed to intervene, even though they seemingly do intervene. Also, how does he know where the key would be? Who put that there, and why? Did one of his ancestors put the key there? If all along, Sam knew that that key would be essential, why did he wait so long to take action? Is it because, as he tells Olivia, he is not supposed to intervene? At this point, I have seen the season finale, so I don't want to say too much, because I would rather wait to talk about the finale. All I will say is that while Sam is not in the finale at all, we learn who the First People are, and it completely wrecks my theory regarding the soul magnets, anyway. I don't like how they wrote Sam's story but like how they explained who the First People are, which, interestingly enough, are in conflict with one another.

Regarding the museum scene, though, why would the museum director allow Olivia and Sam to do what they do, go into the museum and take an artifact? Did Olivia simply have to say that what she is doing is classified, and that was that? How is all of this being explained to the public? I wouldn't imagine that the public is aware of the parallel universe, because after all, the public on the Other Side is not aware of the parallel universe, and it's a lot worse over there. How do they explain the amber to the public? I love the scene during which Olivia and Sam need to get out of the museum because the lightning strikes are getting really bad, and Sam intricately stops a gate from closing on them by rolling something to cause a jam, and when Olivia expresses stunned amazement, Sam says, "I work in a bowling alley." That is a great line, and I'm sure that under different circumstances, Olivia may have found it funny (we have previously seen her lighten up around him) but not now. This is definitely a very Olivia-centric episode, but overall, I would still argue that despite what Josh Jackson said at the beginning of the season about this being "the Year of Olivia," I would say that this season has definitely been more about Peter than it has been about Olivia. So far, Season 1 was Olivia's season, for sure.

Now, we know that both Peter and Olivia have a connection to the machine, but why? I really love that in this episode, we see some parallels to season 1. For example, Walter mentions David Robert Jones, and we finally find out what the "lightbox" was and why ZFT was using it on their subjects. Additionally, Olivia is very reluctant to believe that she is capable of getting the typewriter to work, which is consistent, seeing as how Jones does tell her in season 1 that it's expected that Cortexiphan soldiers will be unwilling. However, as much as I love the idea that Olivia, much like Peter, is tied to the machine in some way, we still don't fully understand why, and my fear is that we won't for a good long time because I fear that the series will not explore this for a while. Olivia can apparently bend energy with her mind, which Sam identifies as telekinesis, something that surprisingly, he doesn't seem to have known already. It's really nice, as well, to have more or less discovered how the typewriter works, and I am so glad that the “quantum entanglement” story of “6B” (3.14) has not been dismissed, as I feared that it would be. I love how the writers plant seeds like that, and sooner or later, I think that we are going to realize that many seeds were planted a long time ago, seeds that we didn't even know were being planted.

In this episode, Walter encourages Olivia as she tries to get the typewriter to work, and I love what he says. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you,” he says. “You have no idea how extraordinary you are.” I think that this really helps demonstrate the difference between Walter and Walternate, not that we really need help seeing that difference, and I love how he refers to Astrid as Ostrich, something that I didn't catch until the second time I watched the episode. He is definitely very negative during other scenes of the episode, but I can't really blame him for that because, after all, he doesn't have a whole lot of reason for hope, since the situation isn't looking too swell. I wonder, however, what happened to wanting to reconstruct his missing brain cells. Did he simply give up on that idea when he had Bell as a lab partner? After discovering that Bell's consciousness was inside of Olivia's body, did he figure that, instead of reconstructing his brain cells, he would simply secure Bell's help? If so, then why don't we see very much interaction between Walter and Bell regarding the Machine? I am just kind of disappointed that that story was thrown away because I was expecting Walter to regrow some of his missing brain cells and become more like Walternate, something that would have likely had tragic results, which is not what I wanted, but I think that it would have made a great story.

Peter is confused throughout much of the episode, apparently thinking that he was on the Other Side, and that is a bit confusing. Is it that something caused him to temporarily be the Peter that would have existed “over there” had Walter never taken him, or is it simply that the concussion confused him? He knows that the situation “over there” is worse than it is here, so maybe waking up and seeing the electrical storm caused him to think that he was on the Other Side. I was really expecting the cab driver to be Henry and was kind of disappointed that it was not Henry, but maybe Henry is not a cab driver in the Blueverse, if he even exists at all, for that matter. The electrical storms are pretty epic, and I wonder if they happened “over there.” Vortexes happened “over there,” and so did the Blight, so it stands to reason that severe electrical storms did, as well, or, for that matter, do. I would really like to know more about the Redverse and really hope that we will indeed learn more about it and its problems next season because we definitely do not know as much about life “over there” as we do about life here. Just how severe can the fringe events get, and are they glimpses of what will happen here eventually? I think that that has more or less been confirmed, but I would really like to know if the Other Side experienced such severe electrical storms, and I would really like to know more about the Other Side's history.

When Olivia finally does get the typewriter to work, it seems that it is Olivia having concentrated on the sentence “Be a better man than your father” that gets it to work, and I wonder why that is what gets it to work. Could it have been any phrase, and that's simply the one that happened to work? Why does the typewriter start working when it does, when Olivia is not around it? Is it that it needed Peter and Olivia together in order to work? I remember two years ago, when fans theorized about Peter and Olivia having some sort of connection after having seen “Bad Dreams” (1.17). Olivia, in her mind, is living as Nick Lane, and Walter tells Peter to comfort her. I personally didn't think much of it, but there were fans that suggested that it indicated some sort of connection between them, and now, it's plain to see that they might have been right, since there is a connection between them, and maybe that is what Sam meant when he said that whether or not their universe would survive would depend on which Olivia Peter would choose, since the Machine apparently needed the both of them to operate. What doesn't make any sense about the Machine, though, is that it is operative on this side even though the other Olivia stole a piece of it. I thought that the purpose of stealing that was so that the Blueverse couldn't use theirs, and seemingly, Walternate isn't even taking that into account.

I am so happy that Olivia finally says “I love you” to Peter, but, of course, he doesn't say “I love you” back, which is annoying, and the expression on her face seems to indicate that she is waiting for it, too, which is really sad. When Peter makes his way to the Weapon, I really love how we see the flashback sequence, but it is obviously merely intended for us and is not intended to be something that he is actually seeing, because it shows a glimpse of the scene at the end of “The Plateau” (3.03), during which Peter kisses Olivia while she is “over there” thinking that she is the other Olivia, something that obviously did not actually happen. I love it, though, because it has such great sentimental value to us. It kind of makes sense now why the drawing of Peter depicts him with fire coming out of his eyes, because it was intended to depict him seeing an apocalyptic future, and the drawing of Olivia, which we see for the first time in this episode, was intended to depict her using her ability to bend energy to manipulate the Weapon so that it would allow Peter inside of it. I really like this episode, but because I did not receive some answers that I was expecting to have received, I give the episode 8.5 Lightning Bolts, something that you will recognize as a respectable but not exceptional Bunsen Burner rating if you know me and how I rate Fringe episodes. Obviously, there will be more to talk about discussing the season finale, but until then, stay on the fringe.

Fringe - "6:02 AM EST" (3.20)

The Fringe season 3 finale is approaching (in fact, it's right around the corner), and the pace has picked right back up. I really liked the arc involving Bell inhabiting Olivia's body. It was really funny and was very interesting, but it slowed down the pace of the season and didn't serve much of a purpose, at least not yet. I really love this episode and give it 10 Electrocuted Peters. Near the beginning of this episode, we immediately learn why Walternate wanted the other Olivia's baby's (named Henry, which is awesome) blood sample, and my prediction was correct; he needed it to turn on the machine, which is why he accelerated her pregnancy. Interestingly enough, he seems to be beginning to feel guilty, admitting that it is wrong to be doing what he is doing, destroying an entire universe. He proceeds to say, "May God have mercy on us," which I think is intended to be a parallel to what this Walter says near the end of the episode (a scene to which I refer as the "chapel scene," an incredibly powerful scene that pays tribute to episode 2.17, "White Tulip"). He says, in prayer to God, "I know my crimes are unforgivable. Punish me; do what you want to me, but please spare our world." The crew behind Fringe certainly knows how to deliver powerful television, and this scene is nothing short of exemplary of that fact.

I don't really appreciate the inconsistency of the intro, though. Even though the episode alternates between both universes like "Entrada" (3.08), unlike "Entrada," the intro is only blue instead of alternating between blue and red. I know that it's not really a big deal, but it is inconsistent, which I don't like. I love the scene near the beginning of the episode, however, in which we see a shirtless Peter (always a good thing), and Olivia gets out of bed and runs into a naked Walter, which is so hilarious because she does her absolute best not to look and to keep her cool. Olivia then returns to bed and says that she loves early morning, that it's her favorite time of the day because it's when the world is full of promise, definitely a memorable line. I also think that this episode shows us that at this point, Peter has definitely forgiven Walter for what he did (even though Walter has definitely not forgiven himself), and I think that this is really evident when Walter tries to say something to Peter before Peter attempts to enter the machine and Peter says, "I know," indicating that he was going to tell him that he loves him, which is also probably what Peter was going to ask Astrid to tell Olivia. As I had already known we would, we see Sam Weiss in this episode, and that's a joy (no sarcasm intended).

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but Sam definitely looks older in this episode than he did the last time that we saw him, which was at the end of episode 3.12, "Concentrate and Ask Again" (3.12). Darrell of The Fringe Podcast pointed out that he looked younger when we saw him in "Concentrate and Ask Again," and I think that that is more obvious than ever now because now, he definitely looks a lot older. I'm not sure what to make of that, but even though this theory probably doesn't have anything to do with that simply because it doesn't do much to explain it, I am wondering if Sam's body is just a vessel for the real Sam Weiss, much like Bell used Olivia's body as a vessel. If you think about it, it would totally explain what he means when he tells Olivia in "Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver." (2.16) that he is older and taller than he appears; it could be that he is ancient, since I think it's totally safe to assume at this point that he is one of the First People, and that when he was in his original, "real" body, he was a lot taller than the body that he is currently inhabiting. As I said, though, it doesn't explain why his age seems to fluctuate; that shouldn't have anything to do with it. Whatever the case may be, he has apparently known that some kind of end would be coming.

Firstly, the fact that the bowling balls hit one another without any obvious kind of disturbance causes him to conduct some kind of test at the bowling alley with a device that looks handcrafted. Then, later in the episode, we see him looking through some kind of window, and the window makes the sky really colorful, as a couple notices from their vehicle; he then proceeds to add to an equation on which he is working, and I really want to know what exactly he is doing in that scene, and hopefully, we will find out in the next episode, "The Last Sam Weiss" (3.21). I love how Nina tells Olivia about Sam having told her that the fate of their universe would depend on which Olivia Peter would choose because it's typical Nina. She says that "there's a man" and continues to say that he is a man in whom Bell told her to have confidence because he is very knowledgeable, working her way to saying that Olivia has already met him instead of simply immediately saying that she is talking about Sam. I also didn't realize it until my second viewing of the episode, but in this episode, the typewriter is sort of explained; Walter says that, like the typewriters, the Doomsday Device may have turned on due to quantum entanglement, which means that Walternate would have activated the Doomsday Device "over there" in order to activate the one here; that's apparently how the typewriter works, too, and I do know that the typewriter will come into some kind of play very, very soon.

"Over there," we see Olivia with her son Henry, and I have to say that seeing the two of them together is so beautiful, especially when she sings to him, and I have to say that between that and seeing her rebelling against Walternate, I have really warmed up to her. What I really want to see is the two Olivias meeting again, only this time making peace with one another. I would absolutely love to see that before the end of the season, but I have no indication as to whether or not that is going to happen. I love how she takes control of Brandon, and when he tries to tell her that she isn't going to get away with it, she says, "I did not ask for your opinion." As my boyfriend Ray pointed out, she really reminds me of Ziva on NCIS when she says this. There are some neat parallels in this episode, such as when the other Olivia narrowly escapes gunfire by using the elevator, which is an almost identical scene to one in this season's premiere, "Olivia" (3.01). Also, the other Olivia is imprisoned in the same room as our Olivia was at the very end of the season 2 finale, "Over There, Part 2" (2.22). This last one may not have been an intentional parallel, but near the end of the episode, Olivia running into Sam (for whom she had been looking), who tells her that she needs to trust him because there isn't much time, reminds me of her running into Bell, who says the same, near the end of "Over There, Part 1" (2.21).

I have always loved Lincoln, but I don't really see how anyone has any excuse not to love him now. Near the end of "Bloodline" (3.18), he and Charlie discuss the fact that Broyles went missing right around the same time that their Olivia returned from the other universe, and they therefore suspect that Walternate is corrupt, but for whatever reason, Kirk Acevedo is not in this episode. I did read that Acevedo will be in a new series, so maybe we will not be seeing him on the series anymore, and since there was no death scene (and we know that he is currently alive), perhaps the Redverse will not survive. I don't want that, so don't get me wrong; I want peace, but I'm just saying that that is a pretty "in your face" clue. It's very clear that, like Olivia, Lincoln does not want to destroy the Blueverse, since he is fully aware of what Olivia is up to and supports her. I love how when Walternate tells him over a communication device that they don't need to go to Liberty Island for a Fringe Event, he says, "Understood, Mr. Secretary," and there is a strong tone of sarcasm in his voice. Walternate tells Olivia that if it were anyone else who had done what she did, he or she would be charged with treason, which really makes me worry about Lincoln. For now, though, stay on the fringe until "The Last Sam Weiss" (3.21)!

Fringe - "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" (3.19)

This is the showcase of an episode that we were promised, and I have to say, I am very impressed, ultimately giving the episode 10 Animated Leonard Nimoys. When The Fringe Podcast interviewed Jasika Nicole a few weeks ago, she said that Astrid, in a way, stands up for herself when Walter gets her name wrong, and this episode is obviously what she was talking about because in this episode, Walter, once again, calls Astrid something other than her name, and she then calls him Wally. I love the look on his face, the utter confusion. At the same time, though, it is kind of frustrating, because we are three seasons in, and throughout these three seasons, Walter and Astrid have developed a pretty close relationship, yet he doesn't seem to make much progress when it comes to getting her name right. He has definitely made some progress because it used to be that he almost never got her name right, and he gets it right a lot more often now, but it really annoys me when he still calls her something like Astro, even though I find it amusing, especially when Astrid responds in the various ways that she does. I am really excited for the finale, and one reason for that is because we are supposed to learn something about Astrid's past, but that is all I will say, in order to spare those who try to avoid spoilers.

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 that she is so modest. I read recently that she felt very nervous impersonating 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 awe, 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 see that Bell 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 that Fringe 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 Walter 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.

Fringe - "Bloodline" (3.18)

As promised, "Bloodline," a "red" episode, is quite a stunning episode, dealing with a lot that I was not expecting. Who would have ever guessed that we would be seeing the baby's birth so soon? I certainly hadn't; in fact, Wy-Pi even said that they wouldn't be dealing with the pregnancy until the fourth season, which I am now assuming meant that Peter and this Olivia will not find out about the baby until the fourth season. This episode is definitely very exciting and suspenseful, and I love how it has so many parallels to earlier episodes, too. For example, this episode takes us all the way back to the second episode of the series, "The Same Old Story," an episode in which Olivia seems to have some kind of vision involving what is happening to the victims, only it's happening to her, and that is an accelerated, apparently painful pregnancy. We have to wonder (as some, myself included, wondered shortly before we even received the official confirmation in episode 3.13, "Immortality," that Bolivia was indeed pregnant) if that was some sort of glimpse into a possible future, and I say that because of what September says to Walter in "The Firefly" (3.10), which is that he is capable of observing multiple futures but can't determine which will unfold. Is this the same as seeing multiple universes?

We find out in this episode that the reason that Rachel died giving birth is that she had a disease, and in this episode, we learn that Olivia has the same disease and therefore can't give birth, either (following up on the fact that the Redverse seems to be very prone to disease). At first, I wondered if this helped support David Wu's theory regarding Ella, that Ella was actually Peter and the other Olivia's child and that the Observers somehow intervened, and that was a theory that I was sort of starting to buy into because Wy-Pi said that what we see September do in "The Firefly" (3.10) (moving Roscoe Joyce's son forward in time) planted a seed for something that we will see later down the road; however, that theory has now been disproven because the child is a boy, and I doubt that the Observers have the ability to change someone's sex. We learn in this episode that Lincoln is apparently not happy with the fact that Olivia is pregnant, which doesn't surprise me in the least bit, since I didn't think he would be. He has his sights set on her, and not only does a pregnancy decrease his chances, but even if he does have a chance, being with her would mean raising a child of whom he wouldn't be the father.

Apparently, Charlie is now dating "bug girl" (whose name is actually Mona), and based on what he says to Lincoln, he seems to have really gotten along with her; that was a really happy moment of the episode, seeing as how I really like Mona and wasn't expecting her to ever be mentioned again. Walternate is still refusing to experiment on children (even though he is more than okay with experimenting on and imprisoning adults), and the fact that the other Brandon is still pushing for the child experimentation to take place indicates that Brandon really is a bad, bad guy, and it makes me wonder about the Brandon in the Blueverse; perhaps, as red Brandon is Walternate's right-hand man, blue Brandon is Nina's right-hand man and has had a great deal of involvement in the immoral experimentation that Massive Dynamic has conducted, such as the cloning of the Tylers in "Of Human Action" (2.07). (I recently saw the actor who played Tyler, Cameron Monaghan, in an NCIS episode, by the way.) I spotted blue, red, and yellow on Walternate's wall, which was probably there before, but I didn't notice it until now.

In this episode, Walternate is definitely very driven, and we even see him in tears. As usual, John Noble is amazing, but I won't say much more than that because that has been said over and over and over again; he and Anna both need Emmys. An Observer is seen near the beginning of the episode, and he is watching Olivia enter her apartment complex. What's really interesting, though, is that it definitely doesn't look like September; he looks like he is a bit older than September, so maybe he is October or November? I don't know, but it is odd. At the end of the episode, after Walternate gets his hands on the baby's blood sample, September says into one of those strange communication devices that it's happening, and I was teased a bit beforehand. I read a review that I believe TV Guide had published saying that we would see the Observer and would even hear him speak, saying something that would be incredibly game-changing. I think that it has something to do with getting Peter back to the Redverse and has something to do with what September and December say at the end of "The Firefly" (3.10), but I guess we will see; Wy-Pi recently said that we will find out a lot more about the Observers in Season 4 (which, as you all know by now, is officially happening, so we can take a few breaths and relax), so that is really exciting.

This episode also has a parallel to this season's premiere, "Olivia." In that episode, we start to see the effects of season 2's cliffhanger, which, of course, is the revelation that Olivia (as in Blueverse Olivia) is being held captive in the Redverse, and Bolivia being held captive against her will really reminds me of what Olivia has to endure during the first part of season 3. In fact, for the second time now (the first being the end of episode 3.13, "Immortality"), we have seen Bolivia as a very vulnerable person, a lot like Olivia, and in this episode, she reminds me a lot of Blue Olivia. She tries to reason with the blonde woman, tries to convince her to let her go, and this reminds me of Olivia trying to reason with Colonel Broyles in "Entrada" (3.08). This episode also reminds me of both Alias and LOST in that both shows also deal with a pregnancy, and both of those pregnancies are handled in similar fashions. When I first saw the promo for this episode, in fact, I suspected that the abduction was related to the pregnancy and even said, "How much do you want to bet that they are somehow trying to save her baby?" I just know J.J. too well. One scene even reminds me of Stargate SG-1 (which, by the way, J.J. was not involved with at all), because in episode 5.11, "Desperate Measures," of Stargate SG-1, Samantha Carter is abducted and tries to use a scalpel to free herself from her restraints.

We see Chinatown in this episode yet again, which is probably the fourth or fifth time that we have seen Chinatown in this series. I have to wonder what's up with the creepy masks that Olivia comes across on the streets. Is she hallucinating, or is this some sort of cultural custom? Something that I love about this episode is that we see Henry again, and I am so happy that they haven't just dismissed his character. When we first see him in this episode, he is reading a comic strip on his computer titled Opus, and when I saw that, I knew that there must have been something significant about that, and sure enough, there is, which is that Opus was discontinued here and is no longer published, so it was intended as another differentiation between the universes. It is kind of tragic how Henry still thinks that the Olivia that he has been watching over (which I do not see as creepy; he was concerned) is the same one that he had previously met. Red Olivia says before giving birth, "It's nice to meet you, Henry," and you can see that Henry doesn't understand, which is sad. Lincoln and Charlie confront him, but I'm not sure whether or not they told Walternate, and I hope not because if so, Henry may end up dead, and that would be truly, truly tragic. I sincerely hope that that is not what happens.

I absolutely love the scene near the end of the episode in which Lincoln and Charlie have an epiphany, realizing that Broyles went missing right around the same time that the Olivias switched to their rightful places, consequently wondering what else they have been lied to about. They are getting very close to the truth, if they are not there already. I wonder if this will affect their friendship with Olivia; my guess is that it will, but I am also wondering if they will say anything to her. My thought is that they will not, that they will pretend like they don't know for a while until it somehow comes to fruition. I knew early in the season, when Lincoln and Charlie have that conversation in which Charlie suggests that Olivia was telling the truth about not being who they thought she was, that they would definitely receive official confirmation that she was indeed telling the truth, and now that they have, I wonder if they will become more sympathetic toward the Blueverse. What about Sam Weiss? He obviously knew about Bolivia's pregnancy because he told Nina that she shouldn't be so sure that Peter would choose Blue Olivia. I do know that Sam will have a major role in the season's last two to three episodes; I can't wait, and I'm sure that the finale will have a lot to do with why Walternate wanted the baby's blood sample."Bloodline" is a fantastic episode, and I give it 9 Agonized Alters.