Fringe recap: Let's talk about Lincoln Lee

Seth Gabel and Anna Torv in "Everything in Its Right Place."

Two-thirds of the way through last night's sublime installment of Fringe, "Everything in Its Right Place," Lincoln Lee (Seth Gabel) has a moment of connection to the episode's Freak of the Week, a malfunctioning shapeshifter who goes by the name of Canaan. This man, who is broken in more ways than one, tells Lincoln about the woman he loved and her son, to whom he was devoted. She left him, taking the boy, Daniel, and the shapeshifter's voice starts to break when he says, "they just went on living their lives, as if I was never there. As if I meant nothing to them."

Using the current week's case to reflect on the personal trials of the characters is nothing new for Fringe, but there was something special about this week. Much like another stellar season four outing that focused on a secondary character - "Making Angels," which followed the two Astrids - "Everything in Its Right Place" made an emotional impact by focusing on fan favorite Lincoln, and looking at the many small, subtly heartbreaking ways that Peter and Olivia's reunion has affected the people around them.

'Fringe' circles the 'Lost' wormhole

Photo courtesy of thinkhero.com.

It's been noted by a number of people that last week's superb Fringe episode "And Those We Left Behind" made a number of references to Lost. The newspaper showing the Red Sox winning the World Series, the sudden time jumps, Peter complaining that an equation contained too many variables all added up to one hell of a Lost-y vibe to the enterprise, a fact that causes a little bit of post-traumatic stress disorder in those of us who suffered through that other J.J. Abrams sci-fi series' finale.

This episode was in many ways highly reminiscent of my favorite Lost episode of all time, "The Constant." Both hours centered around mysterious time shifts, both featured "special" heroes (Desmond and Peter) who were uniquely able to deal with the time fluctuations, and both were centered around love stories in which one partner was willing to rip apart the universe for love. I'm not going to lie, these similarities got me really worried at the beginning of the episode, because I was sure that I could see a sideways-world type awakening (it pains me even to type those words) coming, where Olivia would somehow stop the time fluctuations by remembering Peter - by becoming his constant, if you will. "The Constant" may have been a magnificent hour television - I still cry every time I watch Desmond and Penny's phone call at the end - but it's hard to look back at it now without thinking about the ultimately unfulfilling place the story ended up.

"And Those We Left Behind," however, completely subverted my expectations. The episode was subtly moving in a way that Lost, which worked best when it was in sweeping-epic mode, could never quite pull off when Terry O'Quinn wasn't onscreen. The writers could have chosen to unsubtly hammer home the parallels between Raymond's destructive attempt to save his Alzheimer's-stricken wife, Kate, and Walter's rescue of Peter - lord knows they've done it before - but they instead chose to focus on the deep bond between husband wife (beautifully played by real-life husband and wife Stephen Root and Romy Rosemont) and the way that bond both drove Raymond to rewrite time while forcing Kate to stop him.

Raymond and Kate's love wasn't Desmond and Penny's earth-shattering passion. It was just the unspoken love that comes with thirty years of marriage, the kind that reminds you to change your dentist appointment, but can also push you to rip a hole in the space-time continuum. The great thing about the relationship was that, unlike so many other relationships on TV, it focused on the way that kind of comfortable married love can be just as important as epic passion, and just as difficult to lose.

It made perfect sense, then, that when Peter came face-to-face with an unbreakable, lived-in love, that he finally realized that Olivia is not his Olivia. She's not the woman he got to know over four years, the woman who slowly built a relationship with him and who finally, grudgingly opened her damaged soul to him. She's not the woman who, in the future, he weathered the apocalypse with, and whose death shattered him. This woman is someone else, and Peter doesn't belong with her, just as he didn't belong with Faulivia. I love the way the Fringe writers managed to take a situation that, on the surface, seemed so perfectly applicable to Walter's life, and instead show the way Raymond and Kate's story resonates with Peter.

After watching this episode, I'm not really worried about Fringe going the way of Lost, because the writers subverted my expectations and delivered an episode that, while it shared many elements with "The Constant," was Fringe all the way down. I thought that "And Those We Left Behind" easily ranked in the top few hours of the series, right up there with "There's More Than One Of Everything," "Peter" and "White Tulip." I'm hoping that tomorrow night's mid-season finale (!) will be address some of the unease that's been building in Peter, and that maybe we'll find out why he's back and what his return is doing to the world. Plus, I'm hearing hints about the return of a certain character who, last time we saw him, was operating at half-capacity. Timeline reboots really have great potential, don't they?

"Fringe" Finale: A Paradox Explains (almost) Everything

Emily Meade, Jasika Nicole, Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv in "The Day We Died." Photo courtesy of fringetelevision.com.

Fringe fans certainly have a reason to be grateful this summer. I'm sure everyone who watched the finale heaved a huge sigh of relief that there will be a fourth season, because while "The Day We Died" was an excellent season finale, it would have been a terrible series finale. (Note: SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven't seen the finale yet, stop reading.)

There was a lot to love about this episode of Fringe, and I want to focus on those. So, I'm going to get my minor quibbles with the episode out of the way first. The biggest problem I had with "The Day We Died" was the explanation for why Walter can't change that he sent the machine back in time, but Peter is perfectly capable of recalling his consciousness to the present and changing his actions. I'm normally okay with the pseudo-science of Fringe - in fact, I find it quite entertaining - but there was something blatantly wrong with Walter's I can't change the time frame, but you can work within the time frame explanation. It seemed too much like the writers just invented it to push the plot along, rather than seeming organic to the Fringe-verse. It also worries me slightly; many other shows have gotten bogged down in time travel storylines (I'm looking at you, Lost), and I hope the writers handle this development well.

My other (much less important) quibble with the episode was the distracting whiteness of Walternate's hair. I know that he was made up to look older (although, with the exception of Ella, everyone else looked the same age), but his hair looked like it had been made into a bio-luminescent trap by a colony of glow worms. I could barely focus on anything he was saying.

Enough complaints. I really, really liked this episode. I really enjoyed Future Earth, and I would love to go back there someday. As I mentioned previously, I was hoping that Fringe would just go for broke and set a good chunk of next season in the future. I knew that wasn't going to happen as soon as Olivia got shot, but I stand by that line of reasoning. There are so many teases of events - like what happened in Detroit, and that shot of the vortex in the Thames - that I would have loved to find out more about, and I really enjoyed the dynamics of the future Fringe team. There were also some great character development moments in the episode; one of my favorites was watching Olivia effortlessly use her telepathic abilities to catch a box that was about to crash to the ground. I wanted to spend more time with that Olivia, a strong, confident woman who is now in charge of Fringe Division and who has honed her powers to the point where she can perform such delicate maneuvers. Anna Torv portrayed Olivia with an effortless confidence that she doesn't usually have, and I loved every second of it.

It was an episode of all-around outstanding performances - besides Torv's portrayal of Olivia, Joshua Jackson did a great job showing Peter's anger and despair at Olivia's death, and Lance Reddick was even more imposing than usual with a badass glass eye - but, as usual, one stood out. John Noble's performance as the imprisoned Walter (a man who, in fifteen years time, is blamed for everything that is going wrong with the world) was a delicate balance between a man who has been completely broken and the old Walter, a man with a childlike sense of wonder and scientist's drive to find all the answers. The scene between Walter and Olivia is a lovely, quiet moment in an action-packed episode, beautifully acted by both Torv and Noble.

Noble also does a great job with Walternate in this episode, and showing the ways in which Walter and Walternate differ. At their core, they are the same broken man; Walter is broken because of his guilt over the destruction of the other universe, while Walternate is broken because he is the only one left from his world. Their reactions to their grief, however, are completely different. While Walter philosophically waits in prison, accepting his punishment, Walternate becomes more calloused, more willing to take the other world down with him at all costs. The scene between Peter and Walternate is wonderful in spite of the bio-luminescent hair, because it shows that Walternate is a man who has lost everything, and is now willing to do absolutely everything in his power to exact his vengeance. This is not a man who would take joy in the long-missed pleasures of a swivel chair.

Of course, while the future storyline was great, the major talking point of the episode was the ending, which I thought was great and promises good things for next season. I really like the idea of the two worlds being forced to work together in order to save both universes, and I look forward to seeing the interactions between Walter and Walternate, Olivia and Fauxlivia next season. In particular, I think that the two Olivias are going to make a great team; they're much less divided than Walter and Walternate to begin with, and we've recently seen Fauxlivia and the rest of the Earth-2 Fringe team becoming suspicious of Walternate's agenda. Plus, the charming and delightful Lincoln Lee (Seth Gabel) was upgraded to series regular for next year, which almost certainly means more involvement for the other Fringe team.

I do have a few questions about the ramifications of Peter's disappearance. (And speaking of the disappearance, I really dug the creepy scene in which the Observers, gathered on Liberty Island, explain that he's gone now. It was well done, eerie and explanatory at the same time.) What reasons do the two Walters have for their conflict now? Does baby Henry still exist? Does Peter's non-existence mean that we will no longer have to deal with the love triangle between the younger Bishop and the two Olivias? (God I hope so). I'm assuming that Peter is going to be found/rematerialized eventually, as I can't imagine that Joshua Jackson would be completely written off the show, so what happens when he comes back? Will the others' memories of him come back as well, or will he be a stranger? Basically, I can't wait for Fringe's return in the fall, and I'm so thankful for it's renewal. Because seriously, how terrible would it have been if that was the note the show left us on?

Romance and SciFi: When is Enough Enough?

Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson share a tender moment

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for those who haven't seen the most recent episodes of Fringe or Doctor Who.

The first three episodes of the new Doctor Who season have been heavy on the romance; in fact, there's more romance in this season than there was even in season two, when Billie Piper's Rose spent most of the season mooning over David Tennant's Doctor. In a mere three episodes we've seen not only sexy (some would say inappropriate for a family show) interactions between the Doctor's current companion Amy (Karen Gillan) and her husband Rory (Arthur Darvill), but some serious flirtation between Alex Kingston's mysterious River Song and the Doctor (Matt Smith). The relationship between Amy and Rory in particular has been milked for plot fodder, via a Rory-is-dying storyline, a few too many times.

Of course, Doctor Who is hardly the only science fiction show that makes time for romantic plotlines in between the time travel and telekinesis. Everyone who watches Fringe knows that, for the past season, much of the time that wasn't spend on possible world-ending cataclysms was spent on a love triangle between Joshua Jackson's Peter, Olivia and alternate-universe Olivia (both played by Anna Torv). Even though I would be terribly upset by Fringe without Peter after he blinked out of existence at the end of the finale (!), it might be nice to have a few episodes where we don't have to worry about whether alt-Olivia's new baby will throw a wrench into Peter and Olivia's relationship. (Also, it's possible that the baby blinked out of existence with Peter, which would serve the same purpose.)

While I certainly like to see some relationships on even my sci-fi shows, and while I enjoy rooting for both Peter and Olivia and Amy and Rory, sometimes it's a little too much. On the most recent episode of Doctor Who, a thoroughly entertaining romp involving pirates and a siren who was actually a medical program, an unnecessary emotional climax was added when Amy had to perform CPR on an unconscious Rory. This moment played extremely over-the-top, to the point where it was reminiscent of the moment in the first season of Lost when Jack pounded Charlie's chest in the rain, while Kate looked on crying, for what seemed like five minutes.

Additionally, while the build-up to the Fringe finale was certainly epic and while I loved all the twists and turns, I was extremely happy when the idea that the home of whichever Olivia Peter chose would be saved, while the other universe would perish. I had a hard time believing that the destruction of a universe could hinge on something so... well, silly, and I didn't like the way that the rather tired love triangle was forced into the main story arc.

So, here's my question for you; when it comes to science fiction, how much romance is too much?

"Fringe" Recap: The Man and the Machine

John Noble as Walternate and Ryan MacDonald as Evil Brandon

For weeks now, Fringe promos for "6:02 AM EST" have been asking us "Where will you be when it happens?" Well, fellow Fringe-philes, I'm happy to report that It. Is. Happening. And that is just awesome.

The hour started with a scene featuring Evil Brandon (I don't know if he has an official nickname, like Walternate or Fauxlivia, so I'm calling him Evil Brandon because, well, he's super evil) telling Walternate that he managed to strip Fauxlivia's chromosomes out of the blood sample that he took from baby Henry, and that the resulting concoction should be enough to start the Machine and destroy our world, once and for all. Evil Brandon is so excited about this prospect that he can barely hold in his pride and joy as Walternate gives a sobering speech where he quotes Oppenheimer saying, at the first nuclear test, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," and talks about how Oppenheimer couldn't bear the nightmares, attempting to impress upon Evil Brandon that this is not a time to rejoice. Well, at least he tried.

We then cut from Earth-2 to our Earth, where two shepherds, one having just driven through a swarm of locusts (because apparently the machine is causing our world to go all Biblical plagues), are observing a flock of extremely unhappy sheep. As one pulls out his walkie talkie to radio for help with the flock and their sudden case of Mad Sheep disease, they both stare into the sky, mesmerized by something extremely bright. Apparently the Machine is working. And, credits.

Post-credits, we get a nice scene where enigmatic bowling alley owner/possible First Person Sam Weiss notices that his bowling balls are knocking together completely of their own accord. Disturbed by this event, he goes into the back room and, in a rather overcomplicated process, retrieves his special Newton's Cradle from a secretive, locked cabinet. Now, Sam Weiss is one of my favorite recurring characters, right up there with the Observer, but I know that they sell those things in every museum and planetarium shop ever, so I'm not sure the secrecy was necessary. Still, it's good to see Sam again.

We then get a bit of comic relief, as Olivia, having slept over at the Bishops' house, gets out of bed and wanders into the path of Walter, who is wearing nothing save a pair of extremely fuzzy slippers since, in his words, "this house can get very chilly." He then walks past Olivia to make another mushroom frittata, and the way that Anna Torv delicately skirts his path to avoid closer contact with Little Walter is just funny.

Of course, Olivia then just has to go ruin everything by going back upstairs and telling Peter than sunrise is her favorite time, because "the world is full of promise," because she apparently wants the world to be destroyed today. And then, right on cue, both their cell phones start ringing. Seriously Olivia, when are you going to learn? You never start talking about how nice the day is, or how anything can happen, or how the morning is full of promise when you know full well that there is a good chance the world is going to start disintegrating at any time.

Walter, Peter, Olivia and Broyles go to the field where we previously saw the sheep, and where there is now nothing left but a wide swath of destruction. Walter, pointing out the obvious, tells everyone that this event is the beginning of our universe breaking down, which I really think everyone had probably figured out. While the Bishop boys and Olivia are checking out the sheep-killing vortex, we get some nice product placement for Sprint as Nina Sharp tells Broyles via video-chat that the machine, which is being housed at Massive Dynamic. Peter and Walter are appropriately disturbed by this, although in the next scene, in which Peter is talking to Olivia about how the machine could have turned on by itself, mostly seems miffed that the machine turned itself on while he was several hundred miles away. That cheating tramp machine!

As Walter tells Peter and Olivia that the machine's magnetic field indicates that it came on as a sympathetic reaction to the activation of the Earth-2 machine (and now it's cheating on Peter with another machine! What nerve!), Astrid comes over with more bad news; four more similar events have been reported, which Olivia quickly names "the blight." The Fringe team realizes that their world is toast, and a serious silence reigns.

One of the things I love most about this episode is that it is a rare hour in which we get storylines in both Earth-1 and Earth-2. As we cut to the Earth-2 storyline, Fauxlivia is interrupted in her fussing over baby Henry (and by the way, I'm so excited that she named him after Henry, another of my favorite recurring characters) to find out that there is a massive energy spike happening on Liberty Island. As she and Lincoln Lee rush to the scene to begin the evacuation, Walternate calls Lincoln to call off the Fringe team. Lincoln wonders what's going on, and Fauxlivia uses her new status as Walternate's sort-of daughter-in-law to head up to the State of Liberty and gets some answers.

Fauxlivia is horrified to find out that Walternate is planning to destroy Earth-1, home of his son and the father of her child. I really like the way that this character has become more sympathetic over the course of the season; at the end of last season and the beginning of this one, I despised her and her duplicitous agenda, but as we've gotten to see her struggling, first to reintegrate herself into her old life after her affair with Peter, and then being forced to come to terms with her pregnancy and motherhood, I've really come to love her. There is nothing I would like to see more than Fauxlivia starting a family with Lincoln and Henry, and living out the rest of their lives in peace. However, given that this is Fringe, I doubt that will happen, particularly given Fauxlivia's treasonous mission in this episode.

We then go back to Earth-1, where Olivia is heading off to Massive Dynamic to help with a detection and quarantine protocol based on her experiences in Earth-2. Meanwhile, Peter has accepted that the only way to stop the Machine is for him to get in it and stop it somehow. This leads to a lovely scene with Walter and Peter, in which Walter finally realizes that when the Observer told him to "give him the keys and save the girl," he was preparing him for this eventuality. I know that many people will prefer the later scene in the hospital chapel - and I can't deny that John Noble plays that scene brilliantly - but I love the way Noble conveys Walter's quiet despair and resignation in this scene. John Noble should just win every Emmy.

Meanwhile, at Massive Dynamic, Nina Sharp is telling Olivia that, while the detection protocols are in place, there is only enough amber to quarantine eight to ten Fringe events. As Olivia struggles to take in this news, Nina tells her about Sam Weiss, his relationship to the First People, and the fact that he has inconveniently gone missing just when they need him. Olivia vows to find the possibly immortal bowling guru, who is, at that moment, looking through one of those nifty cross-universe flat screens and solving some complicated-looking equations, which ominously equal zero.

Just to demonstrate again how much Fauxlivia has changed since we first met her, in the next scene we see her rocking baby Henry and singing him an out-of-tune lullaby. She then puts him to sleep and goes to share some (somewhat forced) banter with Lincoln, who tells her that she "can't do this alone," and then is left in her apartment to take care of Henry. The sadness and longing on Lincoln's face made me really wish he would just go for it and kiss her, but I guess that would have been inappropriate, particularly considering that she is currently heading to Liberty Island to somehow cross into Earth-2 and bring back Peter.

And now we get Fauxlivia's stone-cold badass side, as she threatens Evil Brandon and sees through all his bluffs, which is just great because he is the worst. She demands that Evil Brandon provide her with the means to travel between universes. Her general badassery makes it even worse when Evil Brandon provides her with two cylinders that we the viewers know are not any sort of technology that will enable her to get to our world. She leaves with them, but just for good measure she punches Evil Brandon in the face. I was hoping she'd shoot him, but you take what you can get.

Fauxlivia is then chased through the bowels of Liberty Island by armed guards, and after yelling at her for thirty seconds to just use the cylinders already (I guess I was hoping they would be real), she finally does, and realizes that Brandon has played her. Now she's trapped, and pissed about it.

Back in Earth-1, Olivia manages to find Sam Weiss' apartment, only to realize that he has completely vacated it. She's disappointed, but not as disappointed as Peter's about to be (well, would be, if he was conscious). He's at Massive Dynamic, being given a spiffy jumpsuit, because apparently the man who can save the universe can only do it dressed as a mechanic. Walter has another stellar scene, as he talks to Broyles about the chances that this will work, and the possibility that Peter will die.

Now suited up in his jumpsuit, Peter prepares to get into the machine. He shares a series of nice moments with Astrid, Walter and Broyles, and even gets an adorably hug from Astrid. He then gets ready to enter the machine, accompanied by some suspenseful music. This entire process takes so long, and the build-up has been so dramatic, that it is a really great, really shocking fake-out when Peter finally gets to the top of the machine, touches it, and is immediately zapped into oblivion and falls a story or two onto the cement floor (you'd think that Massive Dynamic techs could have put down some mattresses or something). I really enjoyed this twist, as I was getting kind of tired of the Peter, Savior of the Universe storyline.

Peter, unconscious and accompanied by Astrid and a hysterical Walter, is taken to the hospital. Olivia shows up some unspecified amount of time later, and is so worried about Peter that she doesn't even have time to be royally pissed that no one told her about this plan. I'm sure the anger is coming though.

Now we cut to the Walter in the chapel scene I mentioned earlier, and it is just a lovely performance on the part of John Noble. He has to play it completely by himself, with no one to react to or even make eye contact with, and he just knocks it out of the park. Seriously, how does this man not have an Emmy, or even a nomination, to his name?

Olivia goes outside to look at the sunset, which resonates a bit obviously with the earlier sunrise discussion but I'll let it slide. She is joined by Sam Weiss, who needs her help to stop the destruction of our Universe. After looking back into the hospital for a moment, she leaves with Sam. Meanwhile, on Earth-2, Walternate goes down to the holding cells in Liberty Island (to, if I am not mistaken, the same cell where Olivia was held at the beginning of this season) to tell Fauxlivia that she's lucky Henry is his grandson, and that he's going to keep her alive, but hold her here until everything has gone down. Personally, I don't trust him not to just kill her and take Henry for himself, but even Walternate has softened a bit over the course of the season, so I'll keep hoping.

This was a great set-up episode, and I can't wait for the presumably balls-out awesome of the final two episodes of the season. Personally I'm hoping that Olivia and Fauxlivia unite to save the world, and although I'm worried that one of them isn't going to make it to the end, I would really like to see Olivia end up with Peter and Fauxlivia end up with Lincoln. They could even share custody of baby Henry, although I'm not entirely sure how a cross-universe shared-custody system would work. Also, speaking of Henry, I'm also really hoping that Andre Royo's Henry comes back and saves the day by doing something awesome. After all, he's already gone on the run from Fringe Division and delivered a baby; I'm sure he has some more tricks up his sleeve.