Season 4, Episode 12
"So you just click your heels and think of home?"
In the past few reviews, I have essentially broken Fringe's standalone episodes into tow categories, those that have a strong emotional connection to the larger arcs and those that don't, and I have basically held the former in reverence while displaying some contempt for the latter. It's been unfair of me to do so, especially considering that such discussions also usually involve me saying that I have nothing against the procedural format in theory, just that few shows ever manage to tell standalone stories that work as well as they could.
What's even more unfair of me was the fact that I've left out a third option for the standalone episodes, one that I haven't even thought of in relation to this show in a long,long time: it's the standalone cases that works to further the overall season arc, even as it provides a satisfactory conclusion for the events of this hour. It's a formula perfected by Alias, and continued on show's like Justified, and Fringe even did some in it's earlier seasons, though specific episodes now escape me. It's to that end that I want to say that I enjoyed “Welcome to Westfield” quite a bit, and I consider it to be one of the best hours of the seasons.
What's even more unfair of me was the fact that I've left out a third option for the standalone episodes, one that I haven't even thought of in relation to this show in a long,long time: it's the standalone cases that works to further the overall season arc, even as it provides a satisfactory conclusion for the events of this hour. It's a formula perfected by Alias, and continued on show's like Justified, and Fringe even did some in it's earlier seasons, though specific episodes now escape me. It's to that end that I want to say that I enjoyed “Welcome to Westfield” quite a bit, and I consider it to be one of the best hours of the seasons.
First, the bad, if only to provide context for why I found this episode enjoyable: it was quite predictable. As Walter note's about halfway through this episode, the central conceit of this episode – a town where no one can leave – is lifted from Brigadoon, or more likely the many pieces of science-fiction that have used the same conceit in the interim. Knowing this quickly limits the surprises that we can't expect the Fringe Team to encounter. Similarly, the twist of the case – that the Westfield from Earth-2 is merging with the Westfield-1, and that's what's causing all the destructions and causing people to go crazy – was something that the show has done before (specifically in the cold open of season two's “Jacksonville”), so it's not like the episode could pretend that this was particularly shocking to anyone. Especially not when the opening credits reminded us that David Robert Jones had a machine that could cause such a phenomenon, are when got a shot of a guy with double pupils before the end of the second act.
However, if these were the only drags on the episode (and they were), the fact that the show managed to overcome them speaks to the strength of the overall hour. What impressed me about the show's use of such a tired premise was that it was able to make it its own. Usually when there's a backwoods town with something paranormal going on with it, the town's folk are usually sinister themselves, or at least reluctantly complicit with the secret. Not so in “Westfield”; no, here the town is sparsely populated by a few survivors, and those that are left are trying to stave off the towns destruction as well as their own insanity. It's a situation that pits the Fringe Team against a far more external (and for the purposes of this hour, unseen) foe than they normally face, and it does the show good to allow these characters to breathe a little in the face of imminent death. There time spent fighting for their lives does well to distract us from the obvious twists.
Even as we see the twists coming from a mile away, I'm happy that it ultimately connects to whatever plan David Robert Jones is currently working on, even if we miss the opportunity to see Jared Harris on the screen. Like I stated at the start, a large part of what makes this case work is that it has a real, tenable connection to the overarching narrative, even as it tells a story that can be easily wrapped by the end of the hour. Much like with “Enemy of Me Enemy”, making that connection Jones – a singular objective for the Fringe Team – gives the show much needed momentum after the fairly sleepy state of the first half of the season, and knowing Jones eventual plan only helps to ramp up that part of the story.
But it wasn't all action and adventure this episode, and apart from the case of Westfield, there were other, stronger links to the season arc within the hour. Now, last minute twists that happen separate of the case are nothing new to Fringe – or any show that walks that line between procedural and serialization – so I'm not going to pretend that these fit within the main thesis for why I like this episode. But there were developments that were well done, and they did contribute to my overall enjoyment, so they are worth mentioning.
Existing as two sides of the same coin, we see “gains” made by both Olivia and Walter, in that they both have become more like their Prime Timeline selves, and it's obvious in at least one case that it's due to Peter's presence. He has managed to open up Walter to become a happier, more adventurous, and much more agreeable person – just like we saw over the course of the first two seasons. Olivia's change, however, seem to happened much more rapidly, as she went from dreaming/remembering a really a good round of lovemaking with Peter at the top of the episode to actually acting and thinking like Ourlivia by the end. The obvious upside to this is that we got to spend an hour with some people who were pretty damn similar to those that we've grown to love over the previous three seasons, and that gave this episode the feelings of being – in the words of one FOX executive - “Fringe classic”.
However, if these were the only drags on the episode (and they were), the fact that the show managed to overcome them speaks to the strength of the overall hour. What impressed me about the show's use of such a tired premise was that it was able to make it its own. Usually when there's a backwoods town with something paranormal going on with it, the town's folk are usually sinister themselves, or at least reluctantly complicit with the secret. Not so in “Westfield”; no, here the town is sparsely populated by a few survivors, and those that are left are trying to stave off the towns destruction as well as their own insanity. It's a situation that pits the Fringe Team against a far more external (and for the purposes of this hour, unseen) foe than they normally face, and it does the show good to allow these characters to breathe a little in the face of imminent death. There time spent fighting for their lives does well to distract us from the obvious twists.
Even as we see the twists coming from a mile away, I'm happy that it ultimately connects to whatever plan David Robert Jones is currently working on, even if we miss the opportunity to see Jared Harris on the screen. Like I stated at the start, a large part of what makes this case work is that it has a real, tenable connection to the overarching narrative, even as it tells a story that can be easily wrapped by the end of the hour. Much like with “Enemy of Me Enemy”, making that connection Jones – a singular objective for the Fringe Team – gives the show much needed momentum after the fairly sleepy state of the first half of the season, and knowing Jones eventual plan only helps to ramp up that part of the story.
But it wasn't all action and adventure this episode, and apart from the case of Westfield, there were other, stronger links to the season arc within the hour. Now, last minute twists that happen separate of the case are nothing new to Fringe – or any show that walks that line between procedural and serialization – so I'm not going to pretend that these fit within the main thesis for why I like this episode. But there were developments that were well done, and they did contribute to my overall enjoyment, so they are worth mentioning.
Existing as two sides of the same coin, we see “gains” made by both Olivia and Walter, in that they both have become more like their Prime Timeline selves, and it's obvious in at least one case that it's due to Peter's presence. He has managed to open up Walter to become a happier, more adventurous, and much more agreeable person – just like we saw over the course of the first two seasons. Olivia's change, however, seem to happened much more rapidly, as she went from dreaming/remembering a really a good round of lovemaking with Peter at the top of the episode to actually acting and thinking like Ourlivia by the end. The obvious upside to this is that we got to spend an hour with some people who were pretty damn similar to those that we've grown to love over the previous three seasons, and that gave this episode the feelings of being – in the words of one FOX executive - “Fringe classic”.
However, there's still some questions that need to be answered in the light of these revelations. The last twist would seem to indicate that the “waking up everybody up” theory is in fact in full play now, and while I have no problem with it theoretically, I am a bit bothered by how it was deployed. Why did it take this long to kick in? Why has Walter's change been so gradual, and Olivia's so sudden? And are we in fact in another timeline, or having we been watching the same timeline this whole time, only an altered version of it? I'm sure these are questions that will be answered in due time, I just hope that time is sooner rather than later, and that the show can keep riding the high set by this episode.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
Also among the important list of questions: Does this mean that Amber-Olivia and Ourlivia are in fact the same person, and that Peter can go ahead and start hitting that? Because he already learned not to sleep with the wrong 'Livia the hard way the first time around.
“It's mostly cinnamon schnapps and butter. But right now it's mostly butter.” “Needs more butter.”
“Will Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop please report to the biology lab at once. Olivia and Peter to the biology lab, thank you.”
“No, Olivia's blood was fine...Did I fail to mention that?”
“Breakfast for dinner: the second most important meal of the day.”
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