Fringe: "The Firefly"

Tonight Fringe moved to Fridays, and it kicks off the second half of the season with the ominously named “The Firefly.” A review of that episode coming up after the jump...


When Fringe is on top of its game, it is a master of misdirection; it can place many Chekov's guns within an episode, and yet keeps us occupied with other plot points so that we don't see it coming.

The back half of tonight's episode was filled with examples of this. It started with the reveal of the manner of death of Bobby Joyce, son of Violet Sedan Chair (Walter's favorite band) pianist Rosco Joyce. Up until this point, we had been so concerned with what message the time-travelin' Bobby had departed to dear old dad that it hadn't even seemed possible that the car crash the Observer had told Walter about just a few minutes earlier would come into play. This emotional turn of events (something which had finally gotten me invested in the Christopher Lloyd storyline) ends up making us question how we've viewed the world of Fringe all these years. For as Walter begins to reflect on the consequences of his capture of Peter from the other side, he hits on something that I (and I'm sure all of you) haven't thought of before: he didn't just mess up things Over There. He also set things off kilter in our world as well.

But the twists didn't stop there. The Observer's plan, parts of which we had been watching all episode, kicks into gear, and he suddenly changes from the benevolent overseer we all thought he was into an amoral demi-god, throwing the characters lives into danger to suit his own mysterious purposes.

And what was this mysterious purpose? It wasn't to save Walter's life from the dangerous brain mapping serum he had cooked up earlier. It was so the Observer could be sure that at some future date, Waler would be willing to let Peter risk his life. Things have gotten very insidious indeed, my friends.

If the back half of the episode was full of exciting twist and turns, having us guess the Observer's intention along with Waler et. al., then the first half suffered from the necessary evils of setting up such a sequence. While I was of course wondering just what the Observer was up to this time (and the beat down of the thugs at the jewelery store did have me wondering if he had suddenly developed a sense of morality/altruism), I was mostly just stuck waiting for the answers. And waiting, as they say, is the hardest part.

Of course the show did give us some good things with which to fill the time. Despite my general apathy for the storyline involving Lloyd, his presence was still delightful, and I was glad that the show could devote several minutes of screen time to Rosco and Walter just shootin' the breeze down in his lab. I was even more impressed with the shows continued handling of the emotional fallout between Peter and Olivia. It didn't overwhelm the episode, but by giving them a few efficient scenes in which to discuss their emotions with each other, viewers are able to understand that this is still a difficult issue for the two of them.

All in all, this wasn't the strongest re-entry note for Fringe, as it took longer for this episode to get its hooks into me. Also, I have feeling that this is one of those episode that won't play well upon re-watch, and that in itself marks a dip in quality for this very fine season.

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts: 

- Nice choice with having “Munah Munah” to open the episode

- Walter has no qualms about answering the door with his pants around his ankles

- Has the show addressed how old Observers are/how long they can live? Or are they immortal? That seems like something we should know by now, considering how much of this episode was a info-dump vis-a-vis the Observers.

- Walter got his sweet glasses from Dr. Jacoby at Washington State! I don't think of Fringe as a reference-heavy show, but this can't have been the first nod they've made toward other shows, right?

- Rosco lives in a pretty relaxed nursing home, what with them letting him wear all that jewelry and what not

- “Brain Mapping? That's a good name for an album.”