Fringe: "The Last Sam Weiss"

Season 3, Episode 21

Who remembers Milo Rambaldi?

“You have no idea how extraordinary you are.”

-Walter

A quick poll: Who’s seen Alias? Like, the whole thing? Your response to tonight’s episode will likely hinge on whether you sat through the entirety of J.J. Abrams’ first attempt at genre fiction. For the uninitiated, Alias’ mythology revolved around the prophecies of Milo Rambaldi, a Da Vinci-like character whose predications centered on the protagonist, Sydney Bristow. While serving as an intriguing plot device for the first two seasons, it began to wear down during the third and fourth season, as the prophecies seemed to converge with every single action on screen. And even in the fifth season, when the show attempted to “simplify” everything, it still hung around, become instrumental once again as the show used it to close out the series.

When I saw Olivia’s face on a newly discovered piece of prophecy, I began worry that Fringe might suffer the same fate. Much like its appearance “Subject 13,” the reveal that Peter and Olivia have been fated to be with one another came across as hokey and contrived, an unnecessary bit of retconning that adds much less to the story than the show thinks it does. While I usually like shows that deal in conversation of the dueling nature of fate vs. choice, I’m never a big fan of fate itself as a plot device. Whether it’s the character succumbing to fate or overcoming it, it becomes an obvious contrivance meant to move the story forward.

Now, according to the producers, most/the entire ongoing plotline was actually charted out from the beginning, meaning that everything we’ve seen here (or most of it) has been in the cards the whole time, just that all of these reveals are being sped up much faster than originally intended. (Or at least I’m assuming so, given how slow the first season was when it came to filling in the show’s mythology). And it’s this speed that seems to be giving Fringe this “silly” atmosphere that it’s had for the past few months. The more plot elements that the show piles on in the shortest amount of time, the sillier and sillier the show seems to get, as if the writers are throwing a bunch of ridiculous bullshit out in a desperate attempt to see what sticks. And while I get that Fringe has always been a bit of a silly show, and that suspension of belief comes with the territory of watching it, the amount of silly elements that we’ve been subjected to lately threaten to undo the show’s already fantastical universe.

Luckily the reveal of Olivia’s fate in the grand scheme of things was a small part of the episode, because the rest of the episode was quite good. As Ryan McGee noted in his review of last week’s episode, these last three episodes are meant to function as a trilogy of sorts, a multi-part finale that’s meant to close out the season. (This helps to explain why last week’s episode was so slow to take off.) The other parts of Olivia’s story tonight – her sudden telekinesis powers – were much better, mostly because despite the fact that this plot rested on the existence of fate, her powers of the mind were established back in the first season (such simple times), and thus they seem to have much more legitimacy than the idea of fate.

What’s perhaps the most interesting element of “The Last Sam Weiss” is how little Sam actually got to do. Upon first discovering the title, I was positive that Sam would be dead by the end of the hour. (Though such thought may have also been influenced by next week’s title, which I won’t ruin for you in case you’re the kind of person who cares about that sort of thing.) Instead, outside of a few choice lines, Sam was just kind of there tonight, functioning as some sort of plot device/exposition mouth piece hybrid. I recognize that Sam isn’t really a fully fleshed out character, and for the show to rely too much on him in this hour probably would have left the whole episode feeling hollow. Yet for being the titular character – and someone who seemed so important just a few episodes ago – it is a bit of a letdown that he wasn’t featured more prominently here.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

-Sam Weiss

The strongest part of tonight’s episode though was the focus on Peter, who’s become the real narrative drive of the past few episodes. The closer we’ve come to the end, the more importance the Machine and Peter have commanded. Tonight that was in full force, as Peter – have dazed, half in the alternative universe – stumbled around, driven by impulse (or was it some of that freaky lightening), trying to find “home.” But where is “home,” exactly? Unless it takes place in The Attic (how trippy would that crossover be?), it takes place 15 years in the future (thanks, promos), after Armageddon. For me to place final judgment on this twist before it’s over would be premature, I can’t help but feel some concern. Such a time skip was employed at the end of Alias’ second season, and for most fans it marked the beginning of the show’s slow and ever-worsening decline.

Now, clearly Fringe isn’t Alias, and I want to believe that the show can recover from such a game-changer, that it will be able to return to some state of ‘normalcy.’ But from where I’m sitting (that is, my couch), there are only two ways out of this: A) All of these future events will become null by some altering of the timeline or B) The show actually pulls a Dollhouse, using the knowledge of the inevitable to pull us forward, as we watch and see just how it was the Armageddon came to pass. The problem is that Option A feels like a cheat, and I don’t think Fringe is deft enough in its long term storytelling to pull off Option B.

Hopefully next week will pull out a last minute win, and all of these problems will just sort of retroactively disappear. Fingers crossed.

Quotes, Etc.:

The worst part about the Ford Focus plug? That it reminded me that I’ve seen far worse instances of product integration.

So maybe it was a bit too on the nose, but I have to give the show props for being able to get the rights to The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm.”

“The power to create and destroy worlds shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

“Sam Weiss, Patron Member since ’82.”

“I work at a bowling alley.”

“I know you’re not the secretary of defense. The sweater’s a dead giveaway.”