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Fringe 4x16 (that's this week's, right?)
First, the stuff I liked: very clever intro! I really thought it was a rerun, and I was thinking, "But wasn't it supposed to be a new episode this week?" and then, hee! Wonderful way to play with the show's premise.
(The actual monster of the week was hilarious, though. Of all the animals that you could possibly cross a human being with ... PORCUPINES. And then, if that wasn't enough - SUDDEN SURPRISE WINGS! I just. It's so utterly absurd and hilarious that I couldn't stop laughing every time it was on screen, which I suppose did away with any pathos that might have attached to those scenes. I kinda wish at least one of the characters had hung a lampshade on the sheer silliness of it, because - PORCUPINES! And then to go ahead and do the Beauty and the Beast thing with it, and the Gargoyles-esque scene on the roof - I kept hating myself for laughing at what was clearly supposed to be ~serious~ and ~tragic~ ... and then LAUGHING SOME MORE.)
The scene between Walter and Peter with the years of gifts was wonderful. Oh, Walter. And Peter, too ... I gotta say I really love how being in the Amberverse has made Peter a little less self-centered; it's made him appreciate the things he took for granted before, especially the unconditional love and affection of his version of Walter. There's a part of me that is a little bit heartbroken that it looks like we'll never see Blueverse Walter again - I'd been hoping that Walter would regain some of his memories, but it looks like that's just an Olivia thing - which means that the Walter who raised Peter, who loved him all those years when Peter wasn't talking to him, who tolerated everything that Peter threw at him and still forgave him for it, will never know this. That version of Walter doesn't exist anymore, of course, so it's not like he's waiting somewhere in vain, but there's still a part of me that wants emotional catharsis that it's never going to get. However, the relationship that Peter and Amberverse Walter have built is sweet enough that I can cope just fine.
Otherwise, while the team-bonding was cute, it was marred somewhat by something that I'll get to in the anti-squee section. Actually, I think I've run out of things I liked, so mooooooving right along ...
The thing that bothered me most is that there is clearly STUPID IN THE WATER, and Olivia's drunk a lot of it.
I've felt for weeks that Olivia seems to have taken idiot pills when it comes to dealing with her memory loss. It's not like she doesn't know it's happening! Yet she keeps acting like she doesn't! Olivia knows her memories can't be trusted; she knows only about half of what she remembers about the current universe is accurate. So why is she so shocked - SHOCKED I SAY - when something she remembers turns out to be false? Why doesn't she verify? Why doesn't she read her own file, or go on Google, or write little notes to herself? The following scene keeps happening over and over:
Olivia: *states something she believes is true*
Other person in Amberverse: *points out that it is not true in Amberverse*
Olivia: *is shocked and confused that her own memories ARE LYING TO HER*
After the third or fourth time - and especially when it's happening in work-critical situations - you'd think that she would, for God's sake, at least request feedback from people around her on whether or not what she remembers is true. And since she knows it's only older stuff (unless Olivia is continuing to remember an unaffected Blueverse timeline, which would be deepy creepy in a cool sci-fi way, but doesn't seem to be the way that they're going), then it seems like it would be in her best interests to, at the very least, go through her own files and case files, and overlay a new layer of fresh Amberverse facts on top of the Blueverse facts that are sifting into her brain. Or sit down with Peter and start figuring out exactly where things are different while she still has a lot of Amberverse knowledge to work from. The differences can trip her up. The differences can kill her. And at this point I feel like we're starting to go past a plausible level of Olivia-esque pretending-everything-is-fine-while-really-falling-apart and straight into "denial to the point of becoming a danger to herself and others".
This has led to a frustrating situation where Olivia really should be sidelined, and her disobeying orders really is the wrong decision - Broyles' confidence in her at the end is lovely, but I'd feel better about it if I was seeing Olivia taking steps to ensure that she won't be a potential liability in the field, since the way she's been acting ain't it. I hate that the narrative has taken a competent and dynamic character like Olivia and shoehorned her into the role of "sidelined from the action, or participating but a liability".
Aside from that, I am really uncomfortable (and puzzled) with how the show's been treating Lincoln lately. In the last few episodes, they've been explicitly putting the band (team) back together, with the Olivia-Peter-Astrid-Walter quadrangle starting to fall back into their Blueverse dynamic. But Lincoln is part of this team too, and I'm baffled by the way that the show is explicitly sidelining him in order to put things back just like they were in the Blueverse. Once again, it strikes me as the same kind of black-and-white thinking that was so frustrating last week, where the complexities of Olivia's character, and Olivia and Peter's relationship, is condensed down to ~TRUE LOVE 4EVAH~. In this case, the show seems to have developed a microfocus on putting the team back together just like it was in the Blueverse, without admitting the possibility that the Blueverse team could possibly expand to include another person ... who is already there! The way it reads, then, is that Lincoln is being crowded out -- not just by Olivia, who legitimately doesn't remember him, but by ALL of the people that he's been working with for all these months.
And the episode was weirdly full of little slights against him -- the scene in which he's excluded from the "family" group is the most blatant, though at least it was acknowledged, but the entire rest of the episode was like that, too. Walter leaving Lincoln holding the needle when he's stitching him up; the characters barely acknowledging that Lincoln was facing mutation and possible death; Lincoln being ignored or pushed to the background in every group scene.
You know the post-Trinity-fic thing where the other characters are oblivious assholes who exclude the woobie character for no reason? That is EXACTLY WHAT THIS EPISODE FELT LIKE. *I* felt bad for him, and I was never a huge fan of having him on the team to begin with! But he is on the team, and he fits nicely there, and I think his interactions with the other characters have been fun. I like Lincoln now. I thought they were all building something together, but apparently they haven't been; it's like the show's writers viewed Lincoln as a replacement/rival for Peter, and now that the rivalry has been decided in favor of Peter, Lincoln is extraneous. And that's just stupid. For pete's sake, show, it's possible for a former romantic rival to stick around and still be friends. It's possible to put the team back together in a satisfactory way and still acknowledge that the team has changed. The group doesn't have to remain perfectly static, and in fact, I much prefer it when it doesn't -- things change, people change, the world around them changes, and they need to be able to flex with it, including making friends outside the group and expanding the group to include another member.
This either/or, black-and-white thing the show's been doing lately is utter high-school drivel and I don't like it. I want to enjoy the team-bonding scenes, but I can't, because there should be another character in them, and the way they're doing it is making the characters look like a cozy little clique who turn their back on anyone outside the clique. I love their "island of misfit toys" vibe, but the whole point to the "island of misfit toys" trope is that it's supposed to be a place where the lost and broken can go to be accepted, and it really loses something for me when another misfit toy comes along and they won't let him in. (Which is one place where Community sometimes misses the mark for me, too ...)
(The actual monster of the week was hilarious, though. Of all the animals that you could possibly cross a human being with ... PORCUPINES. And then, if that wasn't enough - SUDDEN SURPRISE WINGS! I just. It's so utterly absurd and hilarious that I couldn't stop laughing every time it was on screen, which I suppose did away with any pathos that might have attached to those scenes. I kinda wish at least one of the characters had hung a lampshade on the sheer silliness of it, because - PORCUPINES! And then to go ahead and do the Beauty and the Beast thing with it, and the Gargoyles-esque scene on the roof - I kept hating myself for laughing at what was clearly supposed to be ~serious~ and ~tragic~ ... and then LAUGHING SOME MORE.)
The scene between Walter and Peter with the years of gifts was wonderful. Oh, Walter. And Peter, too ... I gotta say I really love how being in the Amberverse has made Peter a little less self-centered; it's made him appreciate the things he took for granted before, especially the unconditional love and affection of his version of Walter. There's a part of me that is a little bit heartbroken that it looks like we'll never see Blueverse Walter again - I'd been hoping that Walter would regain some of his memories, but it looks like that's just an Olivia thing - which means that the Walter who raised Peter, who loved him all those years when Peter wasn't talking to him, who tolerated everything that Peter threw at him and still forgave him for it, will never know this. That version of Walter doesn't exist anymore, of course, so it's not like he's waiting somewhere in vain, but there's still a part of me that wants emotional catharsis that it's never going to get. However, the relationship that Peter and Amberverse Walter have built is sweet enough that I can cope just fine.
Otherwise, while the team-bonding was cute, it was marred somewhat by something that I'll get to in the anti-squee section. Actually, I think I've run out of things I liked, so mooooooving right along ...
The thing that bothered me most is that there is clearly STUPID IN THE WATER, and Olivia's drunk a lot of it.
I've felt for weeks that Olivia seems to have taken idiot pills when it comes to dealing with her memory loss. It's not like she doesn't know it's happening! Yet she keeps acting like she doesn't! Olivia knows her memories can't be trusted; she knows only about half of what she remembers about the current universe is accurate. So why is she so shocked - SHOCKED I SAY - when something she remembers turns out to be false? Why doesn't she verify? Why doesn't she read her own file, or go on Google, or write little notes to herself? The following scene keeps happening over and over:
Olivia: *states something she believes is true*
Other person in Amberverse: *points out that it is not true in Amberverse*
Olivia: *is shocked and confused that her own memories ARE LYING TO HER*
After the third or fourth time - and especially when it's happening in work-critical situations - you'd think that she would, for God's sake, at least request feedback from people around her on whether or not what she remembers is true. And since she knows it's only older stuff (unless Olivia is continuing to remember an unaffected Blueverse timeline, which would be deepy creepy in a cool sci-fi way, but doesn't seem to be the way that they're going), then it seems like it would be in her best interests to, at the very least, go through her own files and case files, and overlay a new layer of fresh Amberverse facts on top of the Blueverse facts that are sifting into her brain. Or sit down with Peter and start figuring out exactly where things are different while she still has a lot of Amberverse knowledge to work from. The differences can trip her up. The differences can kill her. And at this point I feel like we're starting to go past a plausible level of Olivia-esque pretending-everything-is-fine-while-really-falling-apart and straight into "denial to the point of becoming a danger to herself and others".
This has led to a frustrating situation where Olivia really should be sidelined, and her disobeying orders really is the wrong decision - Broyles' confidence in her at the end is lovely, but I'd feel better about it if I was seeing Olivia taking steps to ensure that she won't be a potential liability in the field, since the way she's been acting ain't it. I hate that the narrative has taken a competent and dynamic character like Olivia and shoehorned her into the role of "sidelined from the action, or participating but a liability".
Aside from that, I am really uncomfortable (and puzzled) with how the show's been treating Lincoln lately. In the last few episodes, they've been explicitly putting the band (team) back together, with the Olivia-Peter-Astrid-Walter quadrangle starting to fall back into their Blueverse dynamic. But Lincoln is part of this team too, and I'm baffled by the way that the show is explicitly sidelining him in order to put things back just like they were in the Blueverse. Once again, it strikes me as the same kind of black-and-white thinking that was so frustrating last week, where the complexities of Olivia's character, and Olivia and Peter's relationship, is condensed down to ~TRUE LOVE 4EVAH~. In this case, the show seems to have developed a microfocus on putting the team back together just like it was in the Blueverse, without admitting the possibility that the Blueverse team could possibly expand to include another person ... who is already there! The way it reads, then, is that Lincoln is being crowded out -- not just by Olivia, who legitimately doesn't remember him, but by ALL of the people that he's been working with for all these months.
And the episode was weirdly full of little slights against him -- the scene in which he's excluded from the "family" group is the most blatant, though at least it was acknowledged, but the entire rest of the episode was like that, too. Walter leaving Lincoln holding the needle when he's stitching him up; the characters barely acknowledging that Lincoln was facing mutation and possible death; Lincoln being ignored or pushed to the background in every group scene.
You know the post-Trinity-fic thing where the other characters are oblivious assholes who exclude the woobie character for no reason? That is EXACTLY WHAT THIS EPISODE FELT LIKE. *I* felt bad for him, and I was never a huge fan of having him on the team to begin with! But he is on the team, and he fits nicely there, and I think his interactions with the other characters have been fun. I like Lincoln now. I thought they were all building something together, but apparently they haven't been; it's like the show's writers viewed Lincoln as a replacement/rival for Peter, and now that the rivalry has been decided in favor of Peter, Lincoln is extraneous. And that's just stupid. For pete's sake, show, it's possible for a former romantic rival to stick around and still be friends. It's possible to put the team back together in a satisfactory way and still acknowledge that the team has changed. The group doesn't have to remain perfectly static, and in fact, I much prefer it when it doesn't -- things change, people change, the world around them changes, and they need to be able to flex with it, including making friends outside the group and expanding the group to include another member.
This either/or, black-and-white thing the show's been doing lately is utter high-school drivel and I don't like it. I want to enjoy the team-bonding scenes, but I can't, because there should be another character in them, and the way they're doing it is making the characters look like a cozy little clique who turn their back on anyone outside the clique. I love their "island of misfit toys" vibe, but the whole point to the "island of misfit toys" trope is that it's supposed to be a place where the lost and broken can go to be accepted, and it really loses something for me when another misfit toy comes along and they won't let him in. (Which is one place where Community sometimes misses the mark for me, too ...)