The reincarnation thriller Past Life was disliked by critics and viewers alike, but say this much for it: the vacation it gave to Fringe seems to have cause that show to return better than ever.
Yeah, yeah, I know Walter Bishop would tell me that correlation isn't the same as causation.
Still, even the weakest of the four episodes the show has had since it came back from hiatus earlier this month -- I'm thinking here of the one two weeks back about the guy who was passing on his sickness and taking other people's health -- had its moments.
And that episode was bookended by two of Fringe's best hours, "Peter" and last week's brilliant, beautiful "White Tulip." And like bookends, they were a matched set: both stories about men crossing scientific boundaries, endangering themselves and others, in order to rescue lost loves.
Tonight brought us "The Man From the Other Side," and while it couldn't compete with the two episodes I mentioned above, it had a lot going for it.
Start with the overall tone of creepiness set at the beginning of the episode, as the shape shifters from earlier in the season reappear, only this time in their original, Brundleflyish forms. After killing off a pair of Rush-listening, pot smoking teenagers, they hook up with season two big bad Thomas Jerome Newton to work on this week's Evil Science Project, opening a door to the other side.
Seeing the shifters in their original, skinless form was one of the more horrific images Fringe has given us, especially during the sequence when Walter tried to communicate with one of them by hooking it up to a corpse.
But what really made the episode work, as always, was the relationship between Peter and Walter, and Fringe did so many things right with them this week: the moment when Peter, worried for Walter's health, called his father "dad" for the first time; Peter coming to Walter's rescue on the bridge. And of course the painful final scene between them as the truth comes out, Walter scared and sad, trying to explain, Peter cold and angry: "You're not my father."
Best of all, that moment came about not because of a drawn-out confessional scene by Walter, but because Peter figured things out for himself, based on his own family history and witnessing the episode's title character survive the vibrations.
And who is that guy, the "Secretary" that Newton answers to? Perhaps the other side's version of Walter Bishop. He'd be looking for his son, just as our Walter is at the end of this episode, only with much better technology and less of a moral compass.
Other thoughts:
- The scene on the bridge was really well done, the way we see the other side's bridge come into focus, the shimmery, shadowy man come into view, and then the poor nameless FBI agent vibrate out of existence.
- Over at the HitFix website, Ryan McGee argues that the shapeshifter telling Walter "I'm sorry" helps make the case that "Walternate" is either the Secretary, or at the very least someone known the the shapeshifters.
- After the episode where Walter kidnapped Peter from the other side, my local FOX station followed with the "It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?" ad. Tonight's episode ends with Peter vanished, and that PSA returns.
- A character I hope we see more of: the Massive Dynamic all purpose scientist, who comes off like Dwight Schrute's much more personable cousin.
- Newton may be a dimension-jumping terrorist, but he's at least modest enough to refer to himself as "middle aged."
- Man, Olivia just shot that guy with hardly any pretext. A real cop wouldn't have called his sergeant on his cell phone? What if the local PD had made a switch you weren't aware of, Liv?
- So, apparently there's a show called Glee on FOX. Don't worry, I hadn't heard of it either. Because Glee obviously needs to make the world aware of itself, the network is mandating all sorts of music themed programming, including next week's Fringe. This is either going to be awful or awesome, but giving the month this show has had, I'm betting on the latter.
Tom Coombe
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