Fringe 4.01
Sep. 27th, 2011 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakGreat season opener, though it also has the probably unintended effect of appealing to the antishipper in me and making me root for the new status quo, she said not so cryptically.
Basically: hooray! Stoic warrior woman Olivia with her own agency and the narrative focus firmly on her is back! Astrid, while still working with Walter, has Peter's sort of job as Olivia's unofficial field partner! Blueverse Lincoln becomes Olivia's new official partner! Olivias being prickly and distrustful yet professional with each other! In conclusion, this new orange Peter-less timeline appeals to me to no end, and I don't miss Peter at all.
Honestly, I had nothing against him and liked him through the first two seasons, until Abramsverse third season shipper illness set in. But I'll try to be fair now. We get a few none too subtle lines about how both Olivia and Walter feel there's a hole in their lives without being able to say what it is, but they are few enough that the not-quite-erased-Peter angst does not dominate the story. In her car conversation, we find out a bit of how Blueverse Olivia's life happened sans Peter, and we also have some hints about "our" Walter. Other than not having Peter around to stabilize him somehwat, I mean. Obviously something still happened to damage the Redverse and both Walter and Walternate have something to hate and blame each other for. Morever, there are two of Walter's lines. "It happens. Sometimes people just die. And sometimes they even die twice." At first I thought in this new timeline both Peters died as children and Walter simply means he saw his son die twice, but the Observers were rather firm on the subject of Peter needing to be erased from time, which would mean he never existed, not just that he died years earlier. So if Walter's line isn't referring to Peter, then maybe... to his wife Elizabeth? Which would also fit with his aside when he spots the engagement ring about the saddest thing being two people who should be together not being together, which otherwise is just an annoying PETER AND OLIVIA ARE DESTINY OMG statement by the show. What I mean is: in the new orange timeline, Walter still crossed over (and thus started the Redverse damage), only he did it for his dead/dying wife, instead of his son. Because Walter and Walternate are the destroyer/creator figures however you spin the timeline, and because this is a tv show and Joshua Jackson is still in the credits, Peter will be back sooner or later. Which will probably be justified by the discovery that in the new Peterless universe the original sin and its follow up still happened, only with another person as Walter's cause, and without Peter to temper both Walters.
Sidenote: though I'm very satisfied to see Blueverse Olivia at least still has her own relationship with Walter, and the way she's handling him reminds me how much I love whenever a scene lets them genuinenly interact.
Meanwhile, we can enjoy Olivia-in-charge without him. Much as Sydney-as-mentor was a development I welcomed in the later season of Alias, not least because it was an honest acknowledgment that she had outgrown her ingenue role and had changed through what happened to her, I love that Blueverse Lincoln in this episode basically is in Olivia's old position as the FBI agent who stumbles across this mysterious division, and Olivia is in Broyles' old position, the experienced figure in charge of the mystery and gatekeeper, handling this situation in her own way, with her unique mixtuere of steel and grace, her quiet sympathy for Lincoln's situation always balanced by her pragmatism. (If he hadn't proved himself a good agent, all the sympathy in the world wouldn't have made her share secrets with him.) I also like this longer take on Blueverse Lincoln, who was around too briefly the last time to make an impression against his Redverse passionate self. Now he turns out to be less of an extrovert but no less determined and strong, matching their respective Olivias, incidentally.
We only saw Redverse Olivia at the beginning and the end, and I can't wait to find out how the Peterless timeline worked out for her. Because in the original timeline she, Charlie and Lincoln had figured out a lot of Walternate's doings and had started to question and go up against him, but a lot of that was triggered by how Redverse Olivia's pregnancy worked out, and no Peter, no pregnancy and miraculously speedy birth. Presumably now Red Olivia never had a child.
And did I mention I dig this new Astrid-and-Lee-flanking-Olivia Blueverse Fringe team? By the end of the third season I had started to be more emotionally invested in the Redverse than the Blueverse because so much of "our" Olivia's scenes revolved around Peter, but no more. Welcome back, focus-of-the-show Agent Dunham!
Basically: hooray! Stoic warrior woman Olivia with her own agency and the narrative focus firmly on her is back! Astrid, while still working with Walter, has Peter's sort of job as Olivia's unofficial field partner! Blueverse Lincoln becomes Olivia's new official partner! Olivias being prickly and distrustful yet professional with each other! In conclusion, this new orange Peter-less timeline appeals to me to no end, and I don't miss Peter at all.
Honestly, I had nothing against him and liked him through the first two seasons, until Abramsverse third season shipper illness set in. But I'll try to be fair now. We get a few none too subtle lines about how both Olivia and Walter feel there's a hole in their lives without being able to say what it is, but they are few enough that the not-quite-erased-Peter angst does not dominate the story. In her car conversation, we find out a bit of how Blueverse Olivia's life happened sans Peter, and we also have some hints about "our" Walter. Other than not having Peter around to stabilize him somehwat, I mean. Obviously something still happened to damage the Redverse and both Walter and Walternate have something to hate and blame each other for. Morever, there are two of Walter's lines. "It happens. Sometimes people just die. And sometimes they even die twice." At first I thought in this new timeline both Peters died as children and Walter simply means he saw his son die twice, but the Observers were rather firm on the subject of Peter needing to be erased from time, which would mean he never existed, not just that he died years earlier. So if Walter's line isn't referring to Peter, then maybe... to his wife Elizabeth? Which would also fit with his aside when he spots the engagement ring about the saddest thing being two people who should be together not being together, which otherwise is just an annoying PETER AND OLIVIA ARE DESTINY OMG statement by the show. What I mean is: in the new orange timeline, Walter still crossed over (and thus started the Redverse damage), only he did it for his dead/dying wife, instead of his son. Because Walter and Walternate are the destroyer/creator figures however you spin the timeline, and because this is a tv show and Joshua Jackson is still in the credits, Peter will be back sooner or later. Which will probably be justified by the discovery that in the new Peterless universe the original sin and its follow up still happened, only with another person as Walter's cause, and without Peter to temper both Walters.
Sidenote: though I'm very satisfied to see Blueverse Olivia at least still has her own relationship with Walter, and the way she's handling him reminds me how much I love whenever a scene lets them genuinenly interact.
Meanwhile, we can enjoy Olivia-in-charge without him. Much as Sydney-as-mentor was a development I welcomed in the later season of Alias, not least because it was an honest acknowledgment that she had outgrown her ingenue role and had changed through what happened to her, I love that Blueverse Lincoln in this episode basically is in Olivia's old position as the FBI agent who stumbles across this mysterious division, and Olivia is in Broyles' old position, the experienced figure in charge of the mystery and gatekeeper, handling this situation in her own way, with her unique mixtuere of steel and grace, her quiet sympathy for Lincoln's situation always balanced by her pragmatism. (If he hadn't proved himself a good agent, all the sympathy in the world wouldn't have made her share secrets with him.) I also like this longer take on Blueverse Lincoln, who was around too briefly the last time to make an impression against his Redverse passionate self. Now he turns out to be less of an extrovert but no less determined and strong, matching their respective Olivias, incidentally.
We only saw Redverse Olivia at the beginning and the end, and I can't wait to find out how the Peterless timeline worked out for her. Because in the original timeline she, Charlie and Lincoln had figured out a lot of Walternate's doings and had started to question and go up against him, but a lot of that was triggered by how Redverse Olivia's pregnancy worked out, and no Peter, no pregnancy and miraculously speedy birth. Presumably now Red Olivia never had a child.
And did I mention I dig this new Astrid-and-Lee-flanking-Olivia Blueverse Fringe team? By the end of the third season I had started to be more emotionally invested in the Redverse than the Blueverse because so much of "our" Olivia's scenes revolved around Peter, but no more. Welcome back, focus-of-the-show Agent Dunham!
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Date: 2011-09-28 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-28 06:08 am (UTC)