FRINGE: A New Day in the Old Town
September 18, 2009 by Gretchen
Hey FRINGE fans – it’s Gretchen here and I’m super excited to let you know that I’ll be tackling Fringe this season for GMMR! I’m a huge J.J. Abrams fan and had high hopes for Fringe last season, but, like many of you, I was lukewarm on the first few episodes. Thankfully, I stuck with it and I was absolutely blown away by the back half of the first season. I can’t claim to be 100% caught up on all of the many theories and speculations about the show — but I’ll give you my take each week and I hope that you’ll share yours with me in the comments section below.
Fringe Science – The Cliff Notes Version
With a little help from one of Walter’s old lab experiment videos, we learned from a very tripped out woman about “soldiers from another universe” who are shape shifters. They can shift by pushing up a machine into the soft palette of the roof of their mouth, leaving three holes.
One of these soldiers was tasked to prevent Olivia from having her meeting with William Bell (remember the seemingly pointless car collision Olivia had on the way to her meeting with Bell during the season finale…not so pointless after all!!). The soldier flees the crash site, assuming that Olivia is dead, and shifts into a nearby body. Later, via a typewriter in the backroom of a repair shop, he learns that Olivia is not dead and that his new orders are to interrogate and kill her. He shape shifts into Olivia’s nurse and helps Olivia to remember all that she can. She remembers that she met with someone who told her about something that is hidden, but she cannot remember what or where. The soldier/shifter attempts to kill Olivia. Fortunately, Peter and team show up just in time to save her. Not so fortunately for Charlie, the shifter kills him and then shifts into his body!!!
Here and “Over There”
Previously, we saw Olivia narrowly avoid a serious car collision on her way to meet with William Bell. Now it seems that she did get into that car accident (planned and executed by the soldier who was trying to prevent her from meeting with Bell) but “after” she had already had her meeting. So, in addition to returning from the alternate reality, did she also return slightly back in time?
Things That Made Me Go Eewwwwwwww
An episode of Fringe is not complete without making me want to lose my lunch at some point. Tonight had two of those moments – first when the shifter broke his face (was that really necessary??) and then shoved the outlet into his mouth – yuck! Second was when Walter was enjoying a snack while still wearing gloves soaked in blood from the autopsy he was performing (not to mention the body with the completely exposed chest cavity just hanging wide open in the background) – double yuck!!
I Was Not Expecting That!!!
- The end of Fringe Division! Will Peter’s plan work to save it?
- Nina and Broyles — I guess I sort of saw that coming…but not really.
- Bad Charlie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let the Speculation Begin
- What did William Bell tell Olivia?
- What is hidden and where?
- Who wanted to prevent the meeting between Olivia and Bell and why?
- How did the new FBI agent get the code to obtain access to the classified Fringe Division files?
- How do the events of The Pattern relate to The Bible?
- For all you code crackers – tonight’s word was TOWER.
So what did you think? Is Olivia’s mission a little too “save the cheerleader/save the world”-ish for you? Will you miss Charlie or is the idea of Bad Charlie good enough to soften the blow? And where was Baldo…did I miss him?
BTW, if you haven’t yet seen the gorgeous picture of Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv on the cover of Entertainment Weekly you should definitely check it out. And if you’re into scoop and spoilers, pick up the EW Fall Preview issues on stands now.
Gretchen is a stay-at-home mom of two awesome little girls who has the good fortune of being married to a husband who is completely cool with her slightly out of control television addiction. During her precious few sleeping hours, Gretchen frequently finds herself ridding the world of pesky vampires and demons, as well as taking down fake secret branches of the CIA.
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Hi Gretchen! So glad that you’re going to be leading the Fringe discussions this season! I love that GMMR covers so many shows, and it gives a lonely TV addict like myself somewhere to discuss what I’ve seen, and what I’ve made from it.
First a quick question … thanks to what I assume is Fox going over the alloted 1 hour for Fringe, my tape cut off JUST as the ending was near! So all I caught was the Peter Party in the lab, and nothing further. Since I gathered somehow the “super soldier” had killed Charlie (perhaps thrown his body in the incinerator), I figured I missed something. Was I on the right path? Is that what “Bad Charlie” means?? Thanks!
This ep was stellar, and gross (eating licorice with bloody gloves and an open chest cavity? C’mon Walter!), and hilarious (“Astrix” … I’ll never tire of those!), and kind of creepy all together. I’m excited to see where the season will be going, what it all means, and if the Fringe Division can manage to stick around!
Yay! I’m glad Fringe will be covered this season! Just finished watching the ep and after an uneven first season, Fringe certainly started with a bang! Loved the scene of Olivia coming through the windshield — great SFX there. And the typewriter thing was truly awesome. Also, so glad that Peter was given more to do. He really stepped up into a team leader role this week, and I definitely love the protective side of Peter. I also loved Gene in the birthday hat, although the party was bittersweet for me. Walter was so excited to make custard for Peter for his birthday, but THIS Peter doesn’t like pudding. I think it reminded Walter all too much of what he had done in stealing Peter from another universe. And speaking of other universes, while the existence of infinite universes has been a scientific point in the show, I’m glad that so far we appear to only be dealing with two universities and thus two realities — the “real” one and the one Olivia visited in the season finale.
I do have two (comparatively minor) quibbles. I’m not too fond of the new Agent Jessup character. Before we add any more new female agents, let’s get to know Astrid better! I think there could be a great character there and not just a lab assistant for Walter. Also, I didn’t at all buy the scene where Olivia was being questioned by the shapeshifter nurse. No way would Olivia tell all that very important stuff to a nurse!
I’m exicted to see where the Bad!Charlie storyline takes it. It really can’t be long until they realize that they are short one nurse body. It’s clear that the body we saw on the floor was the body of the real nurse, and not that of the shapeshifter. Since the shapeshifter (in Charlie form) burned real Charlie’s body, we’re missing a body. I would only assume that if Walter does a postmortem on the nurse body he won’t find a regular human form.
Although they never gave Charlie a lot to do, I will miss his camaraderie with Olivia. They made a good team. I really hope that Olivia isn’t too traumatized by the reveal that Charlie isn’t really Charlie. JJ Abrams certainly likes his doubles, doesn’t he? It’s Francie/ Allison Doren/ Project Helix all over again!
Hey Kimber — Your guess about the last minute or so was correct — we saw BadCharlie dumping Charlie’s body into the incinerator. So it looks like the Charlie that we know is gone — but another GoodCharlie may appear if AltCharlie crosses to the other side. Yikes — that’s confusing! Which makes me totally agree with you, Kelly, about being happy that it seems we need only worry about two universes, rather than an infinite number.
We do seem to be missing a nurse’s body but perhaps that is why the shifter left the shifting device on the nurse’s body…will a postmortem be done if they already think they know the cause of death? Without the shifting device, the shifter is now presumably trapped in Charlie’s body so I can’t think of any other explanation as to why he would leave it on the nurse.
I agree that I’d like to get to know Asterisk/Asteroid/Astrid better and I’m not too wild about Agent Jessup at all — in fact, I’m still not 100% sold on Olivia! I don’t know about you guys, but Sydney Bristow set the bar so high for me as far as female leads go that everyone else can’t help but fall short!
I just noticed that I wrote “I’m glad that so far we appear to only be dealing with two universities,” instead of “universes.” HA! And I’m so with you, Gretchen, about Sydney Bristow. Alias is my all-time favorite TV show and nobody will ever live up to the brilliance that is Sydney Bristow.
The season premiere was soo good! I LOVE this show! In the beginning it was so adorable and sad when Peter and Walter thought Olivia was dead. I’m sad Charlie’s gone but it’s going to be interesting where this goes and how Olivia find out. I have no problem with Olivia and I think she’s awesome. I’m sooo excited for next week!!!
I just caught the premiere last night, so I’ll have to catch up on the second episode this weekend, but I had to share my thoughts:
1. I agree that it was great to see Peter step into a leadership role with Fringe Division – and to see that he’s not going to remain Agent Dunham’s sidekick forever. I like that he and Broyles are working together too.
2. Speaking of Broyles, I totally didn’t see the kiss coming! Have they hinted at that in the past, or was it as out of left field as it seemed??
3. Kelly, you are so right on with the need to use the Astrid character more before introducing more female agents. Why is this woman essentially Walter’s permanent babysitter? I’d love for her to go out in the field more with Peter and Olivia. She’s a great character with so much potential – why are they letting her sit in that lab all day?
4. I could not focus on anything the entire time that Walter was holding that licorice in his hand. My thoughts were…omg, he’s eating with one hand while digging around in the body with the other…omg, now the hand he’s eating with is covered in blood!…OMG HE’S ABOUT TO DIP HIS BLOOD COVERED HAND INTO THE CUSTARD!!!. I honestly have no recollection about what else was happening in that scene, lol.
5. Once again Kelly, I’m totally with you on the nurse interrogation scene – I kept thinking “no way is Olivia not going to realize that this person is trying to get information from her”. I was waiting for her to start punching…but no. I guess we chalk it up to the fact that she’s still a little out of it from all the trauma.
Glad you’re covering the show Gretchen! There’s so much to it, so I’m glad to have a place to discuss theories/questions/etc.