Fringe 4.13
Feb. 18th, 2012 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWell now!
What I was most afraid of in this episode did not happen, at least not yet. When Walter and Lincoln Lee headed off to Nina, I thought this was it for poor Lincoln. Obviously the show won't kill off Walter, but to me it smelled like a way of getting rid of Lincoln now that Peter was finally starting to clue in that this Olivia was the genuine article. While it may yet happen in the next episode, it didn't happen in this one, so my first feeling once the episode was over and Lincoln was still standing (next to Walter, no less), was great relief.
Olivia takes the reintegration of her Blueverse memories surprisingly angst-free and easy, which at a guess is because she's about to be hit with the angst hammer of Nina and Cordexiphon related revelations. Although: this episode's revelation just made that easier to deal with for her. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, revealing that experimenting-on-Olivia-Nina is an impersonator/shapeshifter and not the same used-to-be-Blueverse-now-Amberverse Nina who in the altered timeline raised Olivia is good on account of Olivia still having a Nina she can love and trust when the dust is settled, plus it means the character won't be killed off by the end of the season if I recognize my set-ups. I'm all for that. On the other hand, I don't know, it seems a bit... pat? Perhaps because it comes in addition to Alt!Broyles? Also it means we haven't seen real!Nina this entire season until now. And why is she tied up on a chair as if recently captured anyway? I just don't know, fellow viewers. Maybe after the next episode I'll have settled on approval or dislike.
In other news, the most recent variation of the show's scientist & experiments in human form coming to haunt him brings us in Village of the Damned territory, or, if you like "Eve" (after the X-Files) territory, and of course Fringe would do that sooner or later. This particular twist offered Astrid some nice fieldwork scenes, plus I suspect it might come up again in the season finale (this whole communication thing looks like something that Walter, aka our original experimenting on children scientist, might be able to reconstruct or work a variation off, and remember, in the Amberverse a lot more Cortexiphan children are still alive), but the emotional core was the Olivia and Peter development and Walter's discovery that Olivia has been experimented on and is being dosed by cortexiphane again. I'm mildly amused at Peter's attempt not to fail the "Olivia: which one?" test again and screw up his love life even further, but hope the show won't squander my restored good will by making Olivia, now that she has both sets of memories, focused on him the way she was in later s3. Walter figuring out what's being done to Olivia has karmic elegance, though I'm not sure I buy his being so unfazed by being in a mental hospital again earlier, given how this affected him back in s1. Otoh, the Timothy Leary reference was great. Keep giving Walter 60s and 70s names to namedrop as personal buddies, show, keep it up!
Now: I do hope we'll get more explanation about what happened to real!Nina and when, and see her and Olivia team up against Jones & Co. This show is excellent with the self engineered jail breaks, is all I'm saying.
What I was most afraid of in this episode did not happen, at least not yet. When Walter and Lincoln Lee headed off to Nina, I thought this was it for poor Lincoln. Obviously the show won't kill off Walter, but to me it smelled like a way of getting rid of Lincoln now that Peter was finally starting to clue in that this Olivia was the genuine article. While it may yet happen in the next episode, it didn't happen in this one, so my first feeling once the episode was over and Lincoln was still standing (next to Walter, no less), was great relief.
Olivia takes the reintegration of her Blueverse memories surprisingly angst-free and easy, which at a guess is because she's about to be hit with the angst hammer of Nina and Cordexiphon related revelations. Although: this episode's revelation just made that easier to deal with for her. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, revealing that experimenting-on-Olivia-Nina is an impersonator/shapeshifter and not the same used-to-be-Blueverse-now-Amberverse Nina who in the altered timeline raised Olivia is good on account of Olivia still having a Nina she can love and trust when the dust is settled, plus it means the character won't be killed off by the end of the season if I recognize my set-ups. I'm all for that. On the other hand, I don't know, it seems a bit... pat? Perhaps because it comes in addition to Alt!Broyles? Also it means we haven't seen real!Nina this entire season until now. And why is she tied up on a chair as if recently captured anyway? I just don't know, fellow viewers. Maybe after the next episode I'll have settled on approval or dislike.
In other news, the most recent variation of the show's scientist & experiments in human form coming to haunt him brings us in Village of the Damned territory, or, if you like "Eve" (after the X-Files) territory, and of course Fringe would do that sooner or later. This particular twist offered Astrid some nice fieldwork scenes, plus I suspect it might come up again in the season finale (this whole communication thing looks like something that Walter, aka our original experimenting on children scientist, might be able to reconstruct or work a variation off, and remember, in the Amberverse a lot more Cortexiphan children are still alive), but the emotional core was the Olivia and Peter development and Walter's discovery that Olivia has been experimented on and is being dosed by cortexiphane again. I'm mildly amused at Peter's attempt not to fail the "Olivia: which one?" test again and screw up his love life even further, but hope the show won't squander my restored good will by making Olivia, now that she has both sets of memories, focused on him the way she was in later s3. Walter figuring out what's being done to Olivia has karmic elegance, though I'm not sure I buy his being so unfazed by being in a mental hospital again earlier, given how this affected him back in s1. Otoh, the Timothy Leary reference was great. Keep giving Walter 60s and 70s names to namedrop as personal buddies, show, keep it up!
Now: I do hope we'll get more explanation about what happened to real!Nina and when, and see her and Olivia team up against Jones & Co. This show is excellent with the self engineered jail breaks, is all I'm saying.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 04:20 pm (UTC)Same here. I'm still betting a case of high-class Bordeaux on Lincoln dying, and I'd assume it's my Blue boy...
Olivia takes the reintegration of her Blueverse memories surprisingly angst-free and easy, which at a guess is because she's about to be hit with the angst hammer of Nina and Cordexiphon related revelations.
*snerk* I think it's in-character, if perhaps aided by said narrative reason -- Olivia generally doesn't let herself angst, and in this case, she was clearly only at the beginning: Even if Peter wasn't quite swayed yet, he was also very clearly getting there. Getting with her, so to speak.
Although: this episode's revelation just made that easier to deal with for her. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, revealing that experimenting-on-Olivia-Nina is an impersonator/shapeshifter and not the same used-to-be-Blueverse-now-Amberverse Nina who in the altered timeline raised Olivia is good on account of Olivia still having a Nina she can love and trust when the dust is settled, plus it means the character won't be killed off by the end of the season if I recognize my set-ups.
Flawlessly argued -- I too am tentatively hopeful in that department now (unlike in the Lincoln-related one, sniff).
Did you see what Zip suggested as a comment to my first reaction?
(this whole communication thing looks like something that Walter, aka our original experimenting on children scientist, might be able to reconstruct or work a variation off, and remember, in the Amberverse a lot more Cortexiphan children are still alive)
Intriguing speculation! You're right; we haven't tapped out that source of power this side of the timeline yet...
I'm mildly amused at Peter's attempt not to fail the "Olivia: which one?" test again and screw up his love life even further, but hope the show won't squander my restored good will by making Olivia, now that she has both sets of memories, focused on him the way she was in later s3.
Don't think Olivia was the problem so much; the writing, the whole storyline twisted itself too much around Peter then, in my opinion. But yes, I agree.
Otoh, the Timothy Leary reference was great. Keep giving Walter 60s and 70s names to namedrop as personal buddies, show, keep it up!
*g*
no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 05:01 pm (UTC)That's an intriguing theory of Zips and it would make sense, but I'm still sceptical, for Doylist reasons. Making it clear there are two Ninas to me settles they want one of them to do something unforgivable and be killed off without also killing off the character or making it impossible for Olivia to work with her again. Mind you: my beloved Arvin Sloane and Ben have pulled off doing just as bad and worse things without being written out as the result, and still the heroes of their respective shows cooperating with them later was plausible, so - who knows?
no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 05:58 pm (UTC)Agreed, just -- how does that contradict Zip's theory? Having Evil!Nina (down there in the basement with Olivia) force Olivia to activate her cortexiphan powers could be part of such an unforgivable deed, no?
And Nina sure has been written as...ambiguous at various points, to say the least. I'm using "Evil!Nina" as shorthand for the one who's in cohorts with Jones and has been dosing Olivia with cortexiphan; of course she may still have her own agenda and be redeemable if she is her Alt!verse double. If Evil!Nina's a shapeshifter, then this is unlikely...if not impossible; remember the 'shifter with the family, the one who told his adopted de facto son that a monster can love you and be your best friend?