Fringe 4x09 (also random thoughts on the season)

[sholio]

Aaaaaand I finished the Fringe post.

I'm so glad Fringe is back! I look forward to it every week. Truly excellent writing, great acting (how hard must it be for the characters to play multiple versions of themselves in the same episode?), and the final scene between Walter and Peter in this episode, a;lskdjfads;lkajfds, oh my heart. Walter and Peter's relationship is the heart of the show for me, not that I don't enjoy the other characters, but that awkward, broken connection between them is what my heart latched onto (even if it took a couple of seasons for me to get there), and oh, I've missed it. ♥

One thing I've always loved about Walter is how Walter vs. Walternate provide such a fascinating demonstration of the way that one person can become someone different under different circumstances -- that the potential to be good or bad is in each of us, and the person we become is defined by the choices we make. And alt!Walternate is yet another variation on that theme -- it was utterly fascinating to me in last night's episode to discover how a much more awful tragedy ended up turning him into a better person: his son being killed, rather than his son being kidnapped, meant that he was able to find closure and move on and focus on other things, rather than developing the single-minded obsession and hatred that turned him into such an awful person in the original universe.

I'm also intrigued by Peter's lack of visible affect -- actually, many of the characters in Fringe are low-affect people (Olivia in particular), but I suppose I've been noticing it a lot with Peter this season because it makes his reactions appear slightly off, leading me to come up with random conspiracy theories (PETER IS A SHAPESHIFTER! No, wait, he's just being Peter ...) and then feel faintly guilty for thinking that he's a liar/traitor/imposter because he's not visibly reacting to things around him, but dammit, it's a valid question on a show where you have to pay attention to the little nuances just in case they're supposed to be indicating that a character is a shapeshifter or traitor.

But the fact that this means I'm hyper-suspicious of Peter this season, and paying very close attention to his body language, made me realize just how low his visible emotions are tuned. But just because he doesn't show it doesn't mean it's not there; in the glimpses that you get, he's obviously feeling his isolation quite deeply, and missing the people he left behind -- it's just that his default state is not to show it on the outside. Which is an interesting realization about him, that I hadn't had before, and makes me like him better than I did in previous seasons. I think Peter is actually a more caring and sympathetic person than I'd ever realized. He's just an incredibly unemotive person.

Oh, oh, speaking of that sort of thing, one thing I absolutely loved this episode was the interplay between Peter and alt!Astrid, especially when Peter noticed her reaction to his accidentally touching her, and took his hand away. (Astrid! ♥)

Anyway, this season's role reversal with Peter is really interesting, because always before he's been the one pushing people away, especially Walter, but now he's in a universe where he's the one who has to reach out instead, because no one here knows him or likes him. Classic case of not realizing what you have until you lose it all.

... oh, and I gotta say, I totally love the show not going to the "Peter and Lincoln fight over Olivia" place. THANK YOU SHOW. PLEASE KEEP IT UP! Admittedly I have never been much of a Peter/Olivia fan, so perhaps this is colored by the fact that I'm a lot happier with them in awkward-truce mode than will-they-or-won't-they mode. But I really love Peter's willingness to accept that this isn't "his" Olivia and that her relationships are no business of his, then becoming friendly with Lincoln and vice versa. "Potential rivals become friends instead" is a one of my big buttons that almost NEVER gets pushed, and while it tends to hit me harder with women than men, I am still all over this. (And I kinda actually like Lincoln now. I'm as surprised as anyone, believe me. *g*)

I'm still trying to figure out how they're going to resolve the timeline shift, though. Either they don't plan to reset the timeline, which means that the previous three seasons were completely pointless (at the moment, seasons 1-3 basically exist as backstory for Peter); or they do plan to reset the timeline and thus the current season is completely pointless and will cease to matter (except as backstory for Peter). Nrrgh. I'm desperately looking forward to a reunion between Peter and original!Walter (I would love to see Peter go back to his father with some of the insights that he's gained here), but I'm not sure if we're going to get it. If we don't get it, though, that means that we may as well have started watching with 4x01, and as a viewer, that would piss me off. But if we do get it, then this entire season has pretty much been nothing but a vehicle for Peter to grow as a person, and that would piss me off too! Augh.

I hope that whatever they have in mind is more interesting than a strict either/or thing. I'm starting to worry a tad that there is no master plan and we're being led into another Lost-style labyrinth. I suppose time will tell ...


... also, somewhat randomly, speaking as a White Collar fan, the fact that on Fringe, Peter's mother is named Elizabeth NEVER STOPS BEING WEIRD. There are more than just 5 names in the world, TV writers! Please use them!

Comments

[monanotlisa]

Truly excellent writing, great acting (how hard must it be for the characters to play multiple versions of themselves in the same episode?)

I think they love it. But overachievers tend to love hard work, so. ;)

how a much more awful tragedy ended up turning him into a better person: his son being killed, rather than his son being kidnapped, meant that he was able to find closure and move on and focus on other things, rather than developing the single-minded obsession and hatred that turned him into such an awful person in the original universe.

Yes and no; we see him move past his grievances here, and I do think it's a genuine turn. But a turn it is -- this is still the same guy who did send the shapeshifters v.1 into the Blueverse, presumably with at the very least "collateral" damage.

I'm also intrigued by Peter's lack of visible affect -- actually, many of the characters in Fringe are low-affect people (Olivia in particular), but I suppose I've been noticing it a lot with Peter this season because it makes his reactions appear slightly off, leading me to come up with random conspiracy theories (PETER IS A SHAPESHIFTER! No, wait, he's just being Peter ...) and then feel faintly guilty for thinking that he's a liar/traitor/imposter because he's not visibly reacting to things around him, but dammit, it's a valid question on a show where you have to pay attention to the little nuances just in case they're supposed to be indicating that a character is a shapeshifter or traitor.

All of this; thanks for sorting out the mess in my mind when it comes to Peter's portrayal. I've attempted to rationalise why my connection with Peter as a character is usually so tenuous, but you lay it out here. Part of it is personal preference, clearly -- I love Lincoln Lee in every 'verse because of Seth's fabulously mobile little face, and John Noble's Walter too. I've loved James Marster's Spike, every emotion painted into his features, and the responses Jen Garner gave us as Sydney Bristow, and of course while no one has a clue about what exactly Joe Flanigan wanted to tell us, his John Sheppard is obviously a forever-favourite of mine.

The last bit -- okay, I wouldn't call the Flan a master thespian per se, but I think he's a good example of an actor originally cast to project a sort of stoic, manly-man facade: low-affect, in any case. What they ended up with is this guy who does not have the range of the Fringe actors but still emotes, even though it's predominantly feelings of confusion, discomfort, and being in love with his teammate/s.

What I wonder about with Fringe is, therefore, if this is also incidental or whether they made a conscious choice to have Peter's external responses thus parsed down. I do not know Joshua Jackson, mind you; the dialogue in Dawson's Creek always made me snort and zap away. Perhaps it's in the text, in stage directions.

[sholio]

Yeah - I think that of the main characters, Peter is the one who took me the longest to connect with ('til season two, at least) and I think this is a big part of why - his flattened emotional responses. Olivia is fairly flat in affect as well, but it's offset by getting to see other versions of her, and flashbacks and so forth. We're in her head enough to have a pretty good idea of how she actually feels about things and who she is as a person. Whereas Peter ... I think this might be the first season where I've felt like I started to have a good handle on how Peter feels about the people around him.

What I wonder about with Fringe is, therefore, if this is also incidental or whether they made a conscious choice to have Peter's external responses thus parsed down.

I don't know, and there's no way to be sure since Joshua Jackson's character, unlike the others, doesn't have alt-selves to demonstrate the actor's range (or lack of it). I'm inclined to think it's a deliberate choice because he's so emotionally flat, and yet, when it's called for he is actually capable of doing emotional scenes and selling them quite well (like at the end of the last episode) -- also, his emotional reactions are slightly off (laughing inappropriately, say), in a way that makes me think it's deliberate rather than a side effect of poor acting. I think it works quite well for the character. But there's no way to be sure without having something to contrast it with.

[monanotlisa]

I think this is a big part of why - his flattened emotional responses.

*nod* It's fanwankable, clearly; it's just not something that appeals to me on a personal level. As a character sketch I do like Peter Bishop.

Olivia is fairly flat in affect as well, but it's offset by getting to see other versions of her, and flashbacks and so forth. We're in her head enough to have a pretty good idea of how she actually feels about things and who she is as a person.

I don't even think Anna Torv is flat at all; there's almost so much going on under the surface, and we get glimpses of most of these reactions. Less so in Season Four, admittedly, which however is clearly deliberate and a choice on part of everybody involved.

yet, when it's called for he is actually capable of doing emotional scenes and selling them quite well (like at the end of the last episode)

Oh, absolutely; that was so well-done, and especially with Walter and Astrid I have always adored him.

It's not, I think, necessarily about ability as much as inclination, I guess I meant to say? Any good actor will obviously do what the director demands when she or he demands it, up the emotion, or tone it down. But what if it's not explicitly called for?

[sholio]

Yes and no; we see him move past his grievances here, and I do think it's a genuine turn. But a turn it is -- this is still the same guy who did send the shapeshifters v.1 into the Blueverse, presumably with at the very least "collateral" damage.

Was it him, though? Or have we been assuming that alt!Walternate is the mastermind behind everything because the other one was? Actually, this is a genuine question; I don't remember a lot of the plot specifics from earlier in the season.

It's also possible that nice-guy-Walternate is, to some extent, a ruse -- that playing nice with Peter is Walternate's way of getting him out of his hair before things unravel even worse than they already have. Just because they've ended up accidentally on the same side of the current shapeshifter problem doesn't mean that Walternate is playing them entirely straight ...

[monanotlisa]

Or have we been assuming that alt!Walternate is the mastermind behind everything because the other one was?

We definitely have, if by that you mean me and some fans I talked to -- but you raise a valid point! I guess I found it too unlikely that the exact same -- old-school -- shapeshifters were plagueing the Blue!verse but had in fact been created the same way and with the same features by somebody else.

The extent of their damage or desctruction of life Over Here is unknown -- the Blue!Team's discussions and Olivia's vehement responses in the Bridge hint at similar situations as in our old timeline, though. And Peter's knowledge of their tech seemed to mesh perfectly with what the Blue Fringe Division knew.

Occam's Razor, basically: Walternate having created the shapeshifters v.1 seems the most likely solution.

that playing nice with Peter is Walternate's way of getting him out of his hair before things unravel even worse than they already have. Just because they've ended up accidentally on the same side of the current shapeshifter problem doesn't mean that Walternate is playing them entirely straight ...

Now that in turn I have no trouble believing. "Enemy of my enemy", after all. Once said enemy is vanquished...

[sholio]

Occam's Razor, basically: Walternate having created the shapeshifters v.1 seems the most likely solution.

That's what I'm wondering, though. I had been assuming so -- I think everyone did, I think we were supposed to, especially since a lot of the canon details from the previous timeline seemed to match up. But the last episode suggests that this may have been misdirection. At this point, we really don't know for sure whether Walternate was behind it at first, and then it got out of his control, or whether he was never behind it and the whole thing was developed by someone else. One rather clever thing that I think they're using to great advantage is that if they hint at something that happened in the current timeline, but don't come right out and explain, the viewer's natural assumption is that most of what they aren't saying is similar to what happened before. But there is absolutely no reason why it has to be.

However, I can't remember if there were any bits of canon that made Walternate's connection to the shapeshifters explicit. Or if he's even done something genuinely bad in this universe, as opposed to a lot of half-glimpsed partial scenes (Walternate on the phone, Walternate in a meeting) that could be construed as "Walternate is an evil mastermind" since we've already been led to think of him that way, but don't necessarily have to mean that. After all, if we've already concluded that Walternate is as dangerous and manipulative as his old timeline counterpart (which I certainly had), then, say, Walternate looking sinister and ordering someone locked up looks like a bad-guy act, whereas it could just be Walternate being prudent with other-universe invaders.

[monanotlisa]

I got what you were saying and completely agree on a general level. It's just that I would feel cheated if they did that with regard to the shapeshifters in particular, if not other plot elements and assumptions. It's not impossible that, for example, Nina has been fashioning the shapeshifters v.1 in the Amber timeline, and they ended up being similar enough that Peter's communication with the Blue Fringe side about them did not raise any red flags.

But it'd still be flying in the face of storytelling, because then we'd have needed at least some tiny mention of puzzle pieces not fitting together. The only indication of your theory I could think of was the Amber!Walternate discussion with Brandon Fayette, but then again, everything about that was staged on either side...

After all, if we've already concluded that Walternate is as dangerous and manipulative as his old timeline counterpart (which I certainly had), then, say, Walternate looking sinister and ordering someone locked up looks like a bad-guy act, whereas it could just be Walternate being prudent with other-universe invaders.

That's true, and I would actually love that -- unreliable viewers! What we do know from Walternate's own mouth, however, is that he has kept tabs on the Blue!verse...and not via webcam, certainly; someone, somehow, must have crossed for him. (I guess it is possible he's only spied on the Blue!verse since the Bridge was built. But given the security we've seen, him having used the Bridge seems unlikely.)

But there is absolutely no reason why it has to be.

Probability! But that's not exactly a Fringe staple. ;)

[sholio]

It's not, I think, necessarily about ability as much as inclination, I guess I meant to say? Any good actor will obviously do what the director demands when she or he demands it, up the emotion, or tone it down. But what if it's not explicitly called for?

Or possibly an actor's ability to do multiple layers in the same scene. Some actors are good at it -- they're playing unemotive characters, but you can still see the emotions going on underneath. You can tell when the character is being insincere or suppressing emotion. Joshua Jackson doesn't really seem to be doing that, but I can't tell if it's because they want Peter to be that buttoned down, or because the actor doesn't do emotional layering very well.

[monanotlisa]

*nodnod*

It's also, as you said, the comparison to the rest of the cast, who are so good at that layering.

[sholio]

Right, but then, I certainly can't rule out that it is something that Joshua Jackson is doing deliberately, as part of the character, and that it's unfair to say "Well, it's just that he can't act very well" because he doesn't seem to have that emotional underlayer. It may just be that Peter is simply that repressed. It's hard to tell when there's not another version of Peter to compare him to.

[monanotlisa]

Other shows don't have that advantage, yet one can pin-point that phenomenon. ;) Not that you're wrong at all -- and as discussed, it may all be deliberate.

[sholio]

Well, it's certainly not something that I'm wedded to, any more than I'm wedded to Walternate being the mastermind. I think it could go either way. Possibly it's just that you have more faith in the Fringe writers than I do, to adequately set up that kind of reversal of expectation beforehand. *g* I don't, really, because it seems that this sort of sudden reversal is something they do a lot. I don't remember any setup for Broyles being a shapeshifter, for example (although, like I said before, my recall of specific Fringe canon is somewhat shaky), or for Nina's duplicity outside of the episode in which we found out that she was drugging Olivia (which is the first episode in which I remember Olivia's headaches being mentioned, though I could be wrong about that).

In any case, even if Walternate is completely innocent of the crimes of his alternate-timeline version, there's no conceivable way that he's not still going to be a tricky bastard with a ruthless streak. Every version of Walter is. At this point, I'm leaning slightly toward the theory that Walternate is not guilty of most of the things Peter thinks he's guilty of, but I would definitely not be shocked if it turns out that this is all a setup for a betrayal later.

[monanotlisa]

. Possibly it's just that you have more faith in the Fringe writers than I do, to adequately set up that kind of reversal of expectation beforehand. *g*

Maybe I do! They have made me grumpy before; they have, so far, not devastated me though, intellectually or emotionally. ;)

The thing about Broyles would apply, it's true, if he really were being a nefariously scheming mastermind in this incarnation. After some musings on whether he has his reasons (ah, don't they all *g*) the ever-sharp rainer76 postulated he's his old self, only being blackmailed or misled; then we'd need no pointer, obviously -- and it would also tie into some double-cross at the end, when Broyles returns to the side of of light.

But oh, with regard to Nina we got just that pointer at the beginning of S4, remember? I remember discussing it in fact, long before the reveal of "Wallflower" -- her (somewhat, err, heavy-handed) speech about MD just fashioning the means, not being concerned with the ends? Of course, in a lot of ways, I think that in turn was a tip-off that the opposite is true for her on a personal level. But either way, it was as big a red flashing light re: Nina's morality as the writers could have given.

...see also kerithwyn, who after the first eps repeated, "I can tell Nina is lying because her lips are moving." Which of course does tie into old assumptions being carried across to some degree; there is the whole Season One Redux theme, too: with Nina as the villain. She too may not be who she seems to be.

God, I need a Nina icon.

[sholio]

Regarding Nina, I don't remember that (and it may be that I didn't notice it because I'd come into it with the idea already in mind that Nina was untrustworthy and dangerous, so anything that she did along those lines wouldn't have come as a shock), but good for them on setting that up!

Fringe is one of those shows (like Lost) where I'm happy to be taken wherever the show wants to take me, and otherwise try not to think too hard about it, because when I try too hard to piece things together under the surface, it tends to disappoint. The Redverse annoyed me at first because a lot of the historical changes that were hinted at should have resulted in much more sweeping changes than have actually occurred -- in particular, buying the idea that there's a Fringe Division in the Redverse with an Olivia and Charlie and Astrid working for it, given that it's a world that is so different it doesn't have pens ... Yeah, no, but I'm willing to accept it for dramatic convenience and the cool factor, rather than spoil my own fun by over-thinking it. And there's a lot about Fringe that's that way for me. I'm not convinced that the writers aren't just winging it, but it's a terribly fun journey, so I'm trying not to spoil it for myself by over-thinking it.

[monanotlisa]

The world-building and history is cool but, it's true, wouldn't withstand the meta. The basic (if not intricate, perhaps) plot level and the interpersonal dynamics, though -- they're usually so sure-footed that for me that trust transfers to the rest of the show.

We'll see.

[sholio]

Actually, that is a good point -- the worldbuilding serves the storytelling (and is sometimes pretty weak because of it), but the storytelling is usually pretty solid, you're right!

Anyway, we'll find out. :D And Fringe is one of the few shows that really does confound my expectations on a regular basis; it's a neat, twisty show, and I like the fact that I can't usually anticipate where it's taking me, because most TV is so predictable and Fringe really isn't.