Another problem that I have with this episode is that we discover that Jones simply wants to cross over to exact revenge on Bell because he was an employee of Massive Dynamic, now disgruntled at having been fired. Jones was clever. He was very smart, in fact, so it doesn't seem the least bit believable to me that that's all he wanted. It seems to me like he would have had some sort of darker or more complex agenda. The first season builds up to Jones wanting revenge for having been fired? I can't believe that, and I don't believe that. Speaking of Massive Dynamic, though, I do have quite a bit of speculation to share regarding Nina Sharp. First of all, why does she have such bad teeth in this episode? I just find it odd, because if you look at photographs of Nina Sharp, even recent ones, she has very beautiful teeth, yet in this episode, her teeth seem to be rotting out of her skull. More importantly, though, a question is raised in this episode that to date has yet to be answered. Nina promises Olivia that she will arrange for Olivia and Bell to meet, even after telling Olivia that Bell is in the other universe, so did she talk to Bell with her dinosaur computer and tell him to pull Olivia out of this universe? She had to have been involved somehow, and I am very disappointed with the fact that Olivia never mentions this to Nina throughout the second season.
There is quite a bit about this episode that confuses me, too. I am assuming that Massive Dynamic is not standing where the World Trade Center once stood, so how is it that Olivia moves back and forth between realities in the elevator, with the elevator looking exactly the same? Olivia obviously did not knowingly enter the World Trade Center, since she couldn't have; it doesn't exist on our side anymore, so how did Bell yank her into the World Trade Center? Obviously, she didn't just dimension-hop; she teleported, but why did the elevator look the same? It should have been a completely different elevator. Another aspect of this episode that still confuses me is what exactly happens to someone who uses Walter's teleportation device. In "Ability," Walter tells Astrid that "it does something unthinkable, but it doesn't kill you," yet in this episode, it definitely seems to be killing Jones. He even confirms as much when he says to Olivia that "the teleporter, it may be killing me, but in the meantime, it's made me something rather special." So, his statement raises two questions. First of all, why is it killing him if Walter says that it doesn't kill, and secondly, how has it made him "special"? What exactly had he been capable of? How was he able to blast through his hospital room in "Ability"? Most importantly, how did he acquire the technology to cross dimensions?
Assuming that we will never see him again (since I am keeping in mind that alter-Jones is a possibility), Jones will be missed. Sure, he was a son of a bitch (pardon my French), but he was crafty, and right along with John Noble, I think that Jared Harris deserves an Emmy nomination for his performance as Jones. He brought a lot of charisma to the screen, and I really miss him. I really hope that we haven't seen the last of him, but I have a very unwelcome feeling that we unfortunately have. I am enraged that he was killed off because questions were left unanswered, and he had such potential. Now, this episode leaves us with two major cliffhangers. The first is that Peter Bishop died in 1985, and the second is that Olivia is in the other universe, where the World Trade Center is still standing. I think that the first cliffhanger that was left was much more drastic, and at first, I didn't immediately register the fact that he is from the other universe. My jaw dropped, but I didn't say, "He is from the parallel universe!" I now find that odd, since there are so many clues. For example, in this episode, Walter explains to Peter why he built the door to the Other Side, and he tells him that he figured that he "could take from there what I lost here." I, however, somehow allowed that to pass me by, and while I did consider the possibility that Peter was from the Other Side, I also considered the possibility that he had been cloned, using the fact that Walter had conducted experiments on Peter as a child as supporting evidence.
Walter is really struggling with knowing that Peter is from the Other Side, but this raises questions, too, questions that are still not clear and may never be clear. In this episode, he seems to be just now remembering what happened, so if his memory was so fuzzy, then how is it that he knows everything in such vivid detail in "Peter" (2.15)? Granted, I don't think that what we see in that episode is precisely what he tells Olivia. For example, in the account that we see, Walter identifies alter-Walter as Walternate, but when Bell identifies him as Walternate in "Over There, Part 2" (2.22), Olivia is confused. Also, we see a scene between Nina and Carla Warren, and that obviously isn't Walter's memory, since he wasn't there. However, Walter still seems to remember quite a bit, and I wonder what sparks his memory. I don't really think that he was hiding his knowledge throughout the first season; I think that he sincerely didn't remember. For example, in "The Road Not Taken," he definitely would have recalled what he knew considering the way that Olivia was grilling him, but, in tears, he says that he doesn't remember, and I believe him. Is that why September, despite his saying that he isn't supposed to, got involved and did something to spark Walter's memory? Did taking him to Peter's grave help him remember, and if so, then why was Walter so worried about Peter's medical history at the end of "The Same Old Story" (1.02)? Peter says that he remembers being at the lake house with his mother while Walter worked in the city, but that most likely didn't happen on this side, because otherwise, he probably wouldn't remember that; plus, Walter working in the city while Peter stays at home with his mother sounds more like the Other Side.
Walter tells Peter that the Other Side contains "slightly different versions of ourselves," but from what we have seen in the second season finale, they are very different versions. They have led very different lives and are therefore very different people, but maybe Walter doesn't realize this, or didn't, anyway. Anyway, I find it funny how Peter recognizes that Walter is hiding something, so he asks him what else Walter is hiding, and Walter says, "Lots, I'm sure, but none of it is relevant." That could go one of two ways; either he is outwardly lying, since it is important, or he is implying that he had food or something unimportant like it on his mind. Then, not too long after, is one of my all-time favorite Fringe quotes. At Reiden Lake, Olivia runs into Walter and Peter and asks them what they're doing there, and Walter replies by saying, "We're trying to plug a hole in the universe. What are you doing here?" I find that line so funny because he says it as if plugging a hole in the universe is your everyday, mundane task. Another aspect of this episode that initially bothered me (although I now love Nimoy as Bell and am going to miss him, too) is that although the one and only episode of the official podcast stated about halfway through the first season that an actor was already playing Bell but didn't know it, Nimoy had obviously never been on the series before, which makes me think it was most likely a ploy to draw attention to the wrong place. However, at the time, I was disappointed because I was expecting some major revelation involving a character having hidden his identity. Anyway, I do enjoy this episode, but it simply has some points about which I am not happy, and the first season as a whole, although I think that the second season is much better, is excellent.
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