At first glance, "Johari Window" seemed like a descendant of the classic X-Files episode "Home," in which Mulder and Scully investigate a family of inbred mutants.
Fortunately and unfortunately, Fringe chose not to go that route.
I say unfortunately because "Home" was a pretty creepy hour of TV, and this episode could have used more creepiness. On the whole, it felt almost as expendable as Monday's lost episode from last season.
But on the plus side, "Johari Window" wound up having a rather thoughtful premise, with monsters who were more victims than villains.
The title comes from a psychological tool to understand human interaction and self awareness. The window is a diagram with four quadrants. One quadrant represents things we know about ourself, and that others know about us. The second is things others know about us that we don't. The third is things that we know about ourselves that the rest of the world doesn't. The fourth represents things neither we or others know about ourselves.
It's an appropriate image for this episode, which played around a lot with the idea of perception and self-awareness, whether it was Walter not remembering his involvement in Project Elephant or the residents of Edina using the electromagnetic pulse so that they'd literally be able to look themselves in the mirror.
That last part is actually a very interesting concept, but it felt like the episode didn't really know what to do with it other than strand Peter and Olivia in some dull action sequences. It would have been far better to either make the Edina residents more menacing, or to have them threatened by some sort of external force. (In fact, the idea of them being thrust into the spotlight seemed to trouble Walter a great deal, a moment that was easily the episode's emotional high point).
Some other thoughts:
- Has there ever been an episode that spent as little time out of the lab as this one?
- I could really go for a Devil Dog right about now. Just not one from 1979.
- OK, Fringe, we need some mythology episodes, and we need them now. Well, next week anyway.
Tom Coombe
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