Fringe - "Wallflower"

Season 4, Episode 7

“You know, I’ve been investigating fringe events for three years. I never thought I’d become one.”

As you might have noticed from these reviews, I never been a fan of discussing the standalone cases of the week, unless perhaps they have some sort of emotional connection or impact, and even then I rarely discuss the actual plot itself. It’s not that I’m prejudiced against standalone plots – I can recognize when one is well executed, though that seems to be a bit of rarity these days – but rather I think the serialized elements of any show make for better discussion. Standalone plots are meant to be disposable, and discussing them always seems like an exercise in futility, and they kind of make reviewing a show week to week a bit pointless. So what is one to do when an episode is almost entirely a standalone plot, and not much else, and to top it all off, the standalone plot is even that good? Shake your head mostly, and then just scrounge for whatever discussion points you can.

But before I do that, I want to bring up one more thing about tonight’s Freak of the Week, because I have a feeling if I don’t, someone else will attempt to use it to prove the quality of this episode. I get that there was supposed to be an element of love to Eugene’s (the aforementioned Freak) story, since apparently his attempts to become opaque or absorb light or whatever you want to call it were all in the name of being able to talk to his neighbor Julie. (Or was it Julia? It’s not like the show had me in rapt attention by the time that we learned her name.) However, there are three reason why I am unable to buy into this love, which is sad considering that the show has done such a good job of incorporating that emotion into past standalone cases.

First, and least important, is the fact that Eugene was just creepy. He snuck into Julie’s apartment – naked, I presume – just to watch her, and that’s not the kind of activity that makes you root for him to talk to her, or that makes you sad when he dies after achieving his goal. (And seriously, what kind of ending was that? Not only does it make the Fringe Division once again fairly passive participants in this fringe event, but aren’t they going to at least make sure that he’s dead. It’s just like that he would die, and that’s the last that we saw of that.)

Secondly, there’s a weird disconnect between Eugene’s goal – the gentle act of loving someone – and his means – the violent killing of other in order to take their pigment. (Or whatever; again, this was not an episode that held my interest.) While other Freaks have caused destruction in the name of love – like in last week’s episode – it’s usually not as direct and conscious an action, and more of a side effect. And even when there is direct and violent action – and there was in the awesome “Marionette” – it at least feels necessitated in order to reach a complex and complicated goal, like cutting out body parts to reanimate your dead lover. However, killing people just so that you talk to someone? Those aren’t exactly even stakes.

But third, and most important, is the fact that the show seems to be returning to the well of love a bit too often these days. I get that some of the show’s best episodes have used this theme to great effect – the first I believe being “White Tulip”, though I could be wrong on that – but it feel likes the show is turning to this conceit because it’s worked in the past, not because it’s proper for the episode at hand. But I think the biggest problem is that love used to be such a rare occurrence in the world of Fringe, so that its presence in a world of selfish corporations and bloodthirsty monsters felt like a shock in and of itself. The more the show included love, the softer the show’s universe feels, and the less impact love as a concept has. (Even last week, which used the motivation of love fairly effectively, didn’t feel as powerful as previous efforts had.)

As for the serialized elements, which usually makes up the meat of these reviews…Well, there wasn’t that much of it tonight, and even the stuff that was there feels like a retread of last week, where all I did was speculate on those elements. (It’s now become sad how much I’ve had to reference the review for “And Those We’ve Left Behind” in order to inform this one.) Peter, for whatever reason (I assume because the story demands it) continues his belief that he can and should return to his own timeline, and now he’s decided that maybe he’s going to use the machine that caused this mess in the first place, because that’s a good idea. (Speaking of which, how does this timeline know about that machine? Didn’t that have to exist as prophecy in the other timeline for the present one to have been created? It seems like a paradox to me.)

Elsewhere, Peter doesn’t seem to care that Lincoln is in love with Amberlivia, because apparently now he capable of telling his ‘Livias apart, and he’s so cool with it that he’s actually playing matchmaker between the two of them. And speaking of Amberlivia (credit where it’s due: I picked that name up from Noel Murray), apparently she’s having migraines because every once in a while Nina gases her apartment and injects her with what I can only assume is anti-cortexifan. And this means she missed her second dated with Lincoln! Oh noes!

In truth, I can’t be bothered to care for the same reason I haven’t been able to care this whole season: the show has yet to prove that the events of this timeline actually matter, and that there not just pulling a fifth-season-of-Lost on us. Now, I appreciate that there’s actually some mystery going forward for this timeline that’s not about Peter, and maybe that will make things interesting come January, but for now, we’ve just got a lackluster episodes to hold our interest until then, and frankly I’m not sure it’s capable of doing the job.

When we return in January:  Peter visits Over There, possibly leaves EWOP. We all hope that this actually leads somewhere.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

You’ve probably already figured this out, but this episode wasn’t supposed to air as the winter finale, though it did so thanks to the World Series. That means that when we come back in January, the first episode will probably end on a big cliffhanger, and then we'll  just roll right into the next episode the week after without enough time to really cherish the cliffhanger for all it’s worth. Expect me to talk about that some more next year.

Okay, okay. Amberlivia and Linc’s timid courtship is actually kind of cute, especially since I apparently don’t have to worry about Peter getting upset about it.

Eugene’s is Patient #64595, he lives on the 14^th numbers, and the Fringe Division cornered him on the 23^rd. No, these numbers aren’t important, and I wish the show would stop throwing them around as if they were.

Okay, this review went on a whole lot longer than I expected.

“Sir? I’m moving up in the world.”

“It’s possible. Of course, leprechauns are possible.”

“Is ‘repygmentize’ a word?” No. But apparently ‘pygmentize’ is. The more you know.