Fringe: "Concentrate and Ask Again"

Once I figure out how I feel about the return of Sam, I'll be able to offer up a review of tonight's episode, after the jump...

When, midway through last season, Fringe began to really expand on its mythology, to deepen its serialized nature and tell more original stories, it was rightly praised for finding its unique voice and taking a big step in the right direction. However, this improvement carried with it a trap, as Fringe could never return to the one-and-done, freak of the week stories that it had been telling. The stories could reflect back on the characters (“White Tulip,” “Marionette.” “The Firefly”) or could be set in the alternate universe (“The Plateau,” “Amber 31422,” those even these are only novel for so long), but they had to go beyond the formula. Sometimes this gives us great episodes; sometimes it gives us “Concentrate and Ask Again.”

The show obviously tried to replicate the emotional resonance formula with tonight's episode, by delving once again into Olivia's broken heart. The problem is that the immediate (and frankly not that interesting) case – that of a blue powder which dissolves bones – obviously has nothing to tells us about Olivia's feeling. So in order to do this, the show introduces another Cortexifan patient (a well I thought the show was done with after both parts of “Over There”) and then through some complicated plotting, have Olivia open up to him. This ultimately led to the patient (named Simon) reading Peter's mind (and I'll get to that in a moment) but despite the show's ending, the writer's had to pull a lot of strings to get there. All of these machinations destroyed any sense of believability in Olivia's storyline.

Nor was the believability helped due to the events of last week. I know I said that I thought Olivia forgiving Peter seemed a little soon, but I accepted that this is where the show is going, and I expected this to be the norm going forward. So I was shocked to learn that Olivia seemed to be regressing on her emotional progress, as she is (still?) hung up of the fact that Peter may or may not have developed actual, specific feelings for Fauxlivia. I don't mind the presence of this plot in and of itself, but after last week, it now seems out of place. The show should have picked one of these developments and stuck with it.

But then there were those final few minutes, which did add some redemption to this otherwise fairly ho-hum episode. After some digging through William Bell's archives, Nina Sharp (who apparently has some unrequited love for Bell, ew) discovered that Sam, the bowling lane guy who helped out Olivia in the beginning of season 2, may in fact be the original author of The First People. While I like Sam as a character, and am glad for him to be back on the show, trying to connect him to that ancient document seems a bit far fetched, just another shoehorned element into tonight's episode. Last week, Ryan McGee over at HitFix noted how Fringe has dropped some mythology in favor of newer, possibly better (or at least more thought out) mythology. Sam feels like one of those “old mythology” elements of the show, so to bring him back into the “new mythology” is jarring.

But then there was that reveal: that The Machine (ha! I knew we shouldn't call it the Doomsday Device) could not only destroy universes, but also create them. (A hat tip to Internet commentators who predicted something like this many months ago. Odds that there will be an Earth-3 are looking pretty good.) At which action it takes depends on which universe's Olivia Peter chooses to save. The problem? He still has feelings for Fauxlivia. Now that is the type of thing the new, improved Fringe should be doing more often.

Next week will be going back Over There for what appears to be mostly a stand alone cases, despite the promises of a shocking reveal THAT WE MUST SEE. If you had asked me last week, I would have said I was excited, based on how much I liked “The Plateau.” But after this week's episode, I'm not so sure.

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts:

Among William Bell's books is one of Dr. Benjamin Spock's child care books. Heh.

Did anybody else think that the Magic 8 Ball was going to be the thing that killed Warren Blake? Cause I did, and I was worried that the show was stealing ideas from the upcoming Magic 8 Ball movie.

“Why would anyone ever kill a scientist? What did we ever do?” “Really?”

Not only did Walter once work for President Nixon, but he was hit on my Mrs. Nixon

Olivia's so badass, she can pull off a head-covering beanie