Once I create my dream cast for the hypothetical 12th season of The West Wing, I’ll offer up a review of tonight’s episode, after the jump…..
The downside of being a TV obsessive is that you get to know TV tropes almost intimately. You become familiar with every iteration of a particular type of storyline, and it sometimes becomes ridiculously easy to predict how an episode will end. Within 15 minutes or so of tonight’s episode, I knew with relative certainty that: 1) both Fauxlivia and her child would survive the birthing process, despite her having VPE, 2) Walternate was behind her abduction, and 3) the procedure Fauxlivia went through was meant to make sure the baby survived.
To the show’s credit, it didn’t make the points (or at least numbers 1& 2; number 3 was deduced based on the previous two) entirely certain – the conversation between Fauxlivia and Lincoln as she was delivering, and the convoluted lead up to the Walternate reveal did plant a little doubt in my mind – nor did the success of this episode hinge entirely on these supposedly mysterious threads.
Yet despite this hiccup in the predictability department, the episode as a whole was pretty great. For starters, the atmosphere of tonight’s episode was spot on, even if it was a little off in terms of what’s normal for Fringe. The science-fiction aspects were kept to a minimum, and the camera work was keep clean and simple, not much action or overly-complex angles, all in an attempt to keep us focused solely on the tension created by Fauxlivia’s kidnapping and pregnancy. (Or maybe this episode was made with a smaller budget. Either way, the end result worked.)
Secondly, all of the plot elements here, while closer to table-setters than plot-movers, did a nice job of setting up dramatic tension both within the episode and for the episodes to come. Though I hadn’t thought about the logistical problems of introducing Fauxlivia's pregnancy this late in the game (and I feel rather stupid for not doing so), by having the pregnancy accelerated (which somehow isn’t the silliest thing Fringe has gotten away with in the past few weeks), the show made certain that Peter’s child would be alive in time for him to make his decision about which universe to save, because if the current debate over abortion has taught us anything, it’s that babies evoke far more sympathy than fetuses. This episode also set up some potential baby experimentation by Walternate (because I’m beginning to think that his stance on not experimenting on children is either a lie or turning into one), and Charlie and Lincoln are primed to become wild cards, soon to throw a monkey wrench or two into Walternate’s grand plan.
And then there are the observers, whose presence is actually becoming more and more mysterious as this show moves along. All we really know about their role in all of this is that they are (supposedly) in place to make sure that events follow the “best” course of action, whatever that means. Tonight that apparently meant a) letting Fauxlivia get kidnapped, which led to b) having her and the baby survive, which will c) in some way affect Peter’s decision/role when it comes time to face The Machine.
Certainly all of this fits the pattern we have seen before: an Observer (specifically, September) distracts Walternate from finding the cure to Peter’s disease, which led to Walter stealing him from the other side; Peter’s live is saved once again by September when he falls through the ice on the other side; and he also conducted the convoluted test in “The Firefly” to make sure that Walter would let Peter go when the appropriate time comes. Yet let’s not forget that September’s distraction of Walternate from the cure was an accident, one which he set out to fix by having Walter kidnap Peter, and that he warned our Fringe Team about the dangers of Peter remaining Over There. So while there is probably a (perhaps not entirely) reasonable explanation for all of this, the current confusion over where The Observers stand is so ambiguous that their role is starting to slide from ‘mysterious’ to ‘erratic.’
“You’re gonna focus on this moment, okay? You and me” – Lincoln
But what really made this episode work – and what generally makes Fringe episodes work – were the small character beats that the episode was able to work in. Since there were so many, and there were enough similarities between that I can work them all into cohesive paragraphs, I’ll have to switch over to list form:
· While Lincoln more or less admitting that he was in love with Fauxlivia doesn’t change much – it was fairly obvious before this episode that that was the case – it did help to give resonance to the scene where he coached her through the delivery (and like I said above, it also made it seemed plausible for a brief while that she was going to die, what with all of that crying he did).
· Elsewhere, we got to see some of that great camaraderie that existed between Charlie and Lincoln, both in the ways that they teased each other and the almost singular mind with which they decided they would be going rogue together.
· We got a most welcome return of the cab driver Henry (played by the excellent Andre Royo), who has been checking on Fauxlivia from time to time (thinking she was Ourlivia), and was hurt when Fauxlivia didn’t recognize him on the street. On the other hand, this also afforded him his own sweet moment during her delivery, as he was able to introduce himself to her all over again (or something like that).
· Though it didn’t really add anything to the episode, I loved all of Alt-Astrid’s little moments, whether it was her almost autistic-like skill at lists and numbers, or the way she delivered the line “Sir, I’m nowhere near that level!” with a slight kind of panic.
· And then there were the parents. Fauxlivia softened at the prospect of being a mom, yet Marilyn’s concern as both mother and grandmother seems to me to go beyond the bonds blood ties. (Hmmmm…) And even though Walternate is no doubt up to no good, somewhere under the manipulative nature rests some true feelings of love for his grandson, which will no doubt complicate things in the upcoming weeks.
All in all this was a great hour for Fringe, though considering the many implications it holds for future episodes, I have a feeling viewer response to this epsiode might change, based on how the rest of the season plays out.
What did everybody else think?
Additional Thoughts:
In case you haven’t heard, Fringe has been renewed for a fourth season. Celebrate or bemoan the news in whatever way you feel most comfortable.
Differences Over There: Doctors office are decorate with calming, animated pictures, a la Harry Potter; Opus, the comic strip character, is a peahen; The West Wing has entered its 12th season; citizens are required to be regular typhoid inoculations; and Taxi Driver is an obscure film.
Charlie is now dating Mona, the Bug Girl. Dawwwww. I hope this means she’ll be making a return appearance.
“Hold on. Did you just saw sir?” “Don’t get used to it.”
The next episode of Fringe will air in 3 weeks time, with the last of 4 episodes, in what appears to be a blatant rip-off of Inception.
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