Fringe - "Back To Where You've Never Been"

Season 4, Episode 8

“It's not my fight.” 

Welcome back, Fringe fans, and what better way to be greeted by a show but with an episode that should have aired as the fall finale instead airing as the spring premiere? Okay, I see your point. In fact, not only is the ending of “Back to Where You've Never Been” one of those that probably needed more breathing room, and thus time to ramp up anticipation than what it was given, but I think I would have felt better about the season as a whole if this had aired back in the fall before the show abandoned us for over two months.

First a quick recap of all of my criticism of the fourth season, in order to appreciate why I liked this episode so much. With the introduction of EWOP, we were suddenly dropped into a slightly altered version of the show, complete with different version of the characters, and without the emotional connection to these versions, it became very hard to feel involved with the stories, especially when it seemed certain, and was confirmed in “Wallflower”, that all of this would go away eventually anyways. It also didn't help that the show would utilize over-obvious winks to Peter's disappearance, and would have to stop to deliver pilot-level lines of exposition about how this world was different.

At the end of “Back to Where You've Never Been”, I wouldn't say that the status quo has changed all that much – will, the two last problems I've mentioned seemed to have gone away – nor has the show given us a completely satisfactory answer as to why we need to be experiencing this alternate timeline, but at least the season has finally gained some momentum, and that interest alone should be enough to keep the naysayers (myself included) at bay, at least for a couple of weeks.

It's no coincidence, of course, that the the strongest episode of the season was also one that completely eschewed any sort of standalone plot in favor of something more serialized. This is not to say that Fringe should never tell standalone stories – in fact, I often respect it for being able to tell such moving tales, as was evidence by this season's “One Night in October”. But it must be said that the standalone plots – including the season premiere which more or less functioned like one, even as it set the season arcs in motion – haven't really been all that compelling on their own, and that's been detrimental to the season's ability to hold the audience's interest. (Okay, my interest.)

“Back”, however, did so many things right that it ended up serving as a course correction for the season so far. The main improvement was that Peter suddenly found a sense of agency, or at least agency as a character in a Sci-fi genre series can attain. Seeing Peter take action in order to discover any sort of way to return to his own timeline felt like the forward moving action that has been missing from this season – finally, something was happening. What's ironic here is that by embracing the very thing had been such a turnoff for most of the season – that is, the lack of emotional connection to this reality – and making it an essential part of Peter's motivation, everything suddenly started to click into place, and it became unexpectedly interesting.

Of course, none of this would have been possible had it not been for the fact that some of Peter's actions tonight traded in on our understanding of the characters, those fundamental character traits that exist regardless of Peter's presence in their lives. In the case of some characters, like Fauxlivia and Alt-Lincoln, it of course helps that regardless of which timeline the show's dealing with, we've seen them before they met Peter, so the remain fairly similar across realities. (Hey, maybe if we spent more time over there this season, it would have been more interesting. Just a thought.) In the case of Walternate, however, the show used out established perceptions of the character to undermine our expectations, to the point where is was actually surprising that somebody beside Walternate was behind these newfangled shapeshifters. I'm not sure that I can come up with a reason for why the EWOP version of Walternate would somehow be less evil, considering both versions went through the exact same loss (and I assume the same crumbling universe), but at least it made for compelling drama.

And speaking of compelling drama without rhyme or reason: Mr. Jones. Look, I'm excited that Jared Harris is back on the show, because he's an awesome actor, and the introduction of the character back in season one was a major turning point for the show quality wise, and I hope the same thing happens here. (It was also a nice surprise for me, as I somehow missed all the previews that somehow gave it away and his name in the opening credits.) But I'm not entirely sure how Peter's absence would have prevented the rest of the FBI (and Walter) from finding him and stopping him from crossing universes. (Then again, I've only seen the first season one time through, so if you have an idea, please share.)

The fact that Olivia “has to die”, in the words of her vision (?), which equally brings up it's own questions, mostly about why Olivia's having visions, and how her death is going to restore Peter to his own timeline. Luckily, these are the kind of questions that raise interest in the ongoing plot, mostly by providing Peter a way back, and thus meaning we won't see him fucking around in EWOP for too much longer. Of course, this is also the kind of reveal that's so “WTF?” in nature that it probably would have built proper anticipation for next week's episode if it had aired at the end of last year as originally planned. But then again, this episode feels like a reset of sort, as Fringe seems primed to go back to being the intriguing show I fell in love with. And if a new year bring a new Fringe that makes me forget all the wrong turns the show took in 2011, won't it all be worth it?

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

News From TCAs: Fringe is very expensive and it isn't doing FOX any favors where it is, nor would it do any better on any other night. Expect cancellation to come soon. The show's producers say that the season finale could work as a series finale as well.

So either Olivia doesn't have the ability to cross universes in this timeline, or the drugs that Nina keeps delivering via stealth squad are suppressing it. Hmmm.....

Hey, you want to know what the other timeline still had? Product placements.

“I killed a guy like that once – don't worry, he was a bad guy.”