What's it about?
In the prime universe, James Van Horn, a U.S. senator and personal friend of Broyles is gravely injured in a car accident. He is admitted to a hospital because he is still breathing, even though he lacks a pulse. Newton breaks into the hospital in an attempt to extract the unconscious senator, but after a brief shootout with Newton simply shoots the senator in the face and runs. The senator bleeds mercury, revealing that he was a shape-shifter. Van Horn, a senior executive shape-shifter, had been collecting data on the Fringe team for two years, supplying Newton with information about Olivia's personal life, which he used to create 'Bolivia's' cover. Walter takes advantage of his new lab at Massive Dynamic and attempts to extract data from Van Horn using it's state of the art equipment. To prevent the fringe team from discovering any more about the senator's mission details or history, Newton activates a "sleeper agent" shapeshifter - a policeman named Ray Duffy who has been living for five years with a wife and son - to infiltrate Massive Dynamic and retrieve the senator's data storage unit. He tells Ray to take on a new form after the mission, and eliminate any traces of his past identity by killing his cover family. Walter discovers that shapeshifters have the capacity for normal emotional connections as a result of a flaw in their programming, and attempts to map the senator's memories using Van Horn's wife. However, his attempt is foiled by Ray, who manages to extract the senator's "brain" without shifting. However, Ray is not willing to murder his cover family, having developed an attachment to them, and dies as a result (his family is spared.) Alter-Olivia and Peter find Newton and pursue him in a car chase which eventually ends when Newton's car crashes in a tunnel. Olivia removes the senator's memory drive from Newton before taking him into custody. She later visits Newton in a detention facility and gives him a suicide pill which causes him to convulse and eventually "bleed out" his mercury, presumably killing him. The episode concludes with Alter-Olivia inviting Peter over and sleeping with him, in an apparent attempt to draw his attention away from his growing suspicion that something is not right with her.
Review
Please note that this week we are over here and not over there, it does get a little confusing at times. But the shape shifters are back and that's always a good sign. I like the idea that the foot soldiers of the other side are well integrated in to our universe totally unbeknownst to us and this episode is basically about just that.
I was a little let down that it was revealed the Senator had been replaced for a short time, I think there was a lot of room for development of the infiltration story line if it had turned out that members of the government had been replaced decades ago, it certainly would have put a dire twist on the events taking place in our universe.
There's a lot of time over here being dedicated to the will-he-won't-he-realise story between Peter and Altlivia and that is clearly keeping some viewers hooked but I find that some of the obvious lengthly shots of Anna Torv pulling that 'I'm evil but hiding it' face can get a bit tedious. Although sometimes I panic that maybe nobody will realise and the two separate Olivia's will end up staying in the universes which they are currently inhabiting and never return to their true homes, I say this because Altlivia clearly clicks with Peter and our Olivia has the mother she has missed for so long over there.
Walter takes over as the head of Massive Dynamic this week, it's interesting to see him suddenly have a huge playground of new toys to play with but at the same time it seems a crying shame to take him out of the lab which has done so much to ground his character over the course of the first two seasons.
The lab at Harvard has so much history for the character, not even including Jean the Cow, so to remove him and put him in an alien environment seems like it could take some of the character away even when he has all of his usual supporting characters around him. Hopefully the Harvard lab is not gone forever but only time will tell.
At the same time basing the show within the belly of the beast could provide the opportunity for some serious plot development and of course the opportunity to get hold of some tech which might help either identify Altlivia or bring back our Olivia from over there.
A note to the writers: I don't like seeing Walter bleed or get hurt, please don't do it again!
I feel like I should perhaps write an obituary for the character of Newton this week. He's been a great villain and its a shame that he has been written out of the show - although this could be good news for the reappearance of his character on 'Supernatural' - but it's understandable that the writers needed to portray a stronger sense of the duty that the over there army feels towards their cause.
As of now we're beginning to see them portrayed more like terrorists who are more than happy to die for their cause, perhaps they're getting desperate now that the lines between the universes are blurring but their actions are becoming increasingly more violent as the weeks go on
There is an undeniable sense of escalation to this season as we are clearly heading for the clash of worlds which has been foreshadowed right back to the first season. I don't doubt for a second that when it gets here it will be kick ass awesome!
There's a little bit of the season one spark which seems to be lacking in 'Fringe' at the moment. I'm putting it down to the fact that our proper core trio is currently split up and so much has taken place in between that things just aren't as cohesive as they used to be.
Once Olivia returns to our universe, as long as the consequences aren't too apocalyptic, I'm hoping that some of the cinematic glory of those early episodes returns to the screen.
It's worrying me greatly that the ratings for this show are still not great and I need to stop looking at the cancellation index chart on SpoilerTV but lets hope that one the show returns from its three week break that the viewers will come back, the universe hopping will decrease and maybe things will pick up.
Next week...
No new episodes until November 4th sadly.
Overall
Story 3.5
Character 3.0
Science 3.5
Overall 3.5
No comments:
Post a Comment