Fringe: Momentum Deferred

By Rhea Dee
Good news: Olivia got most of her memories back! Bad news: she immediately shares the secret info locked in her head with the bad guys. Also, she drank a flatworm milkshake.

Yes, Olivia is badass enough to drink worms. Take that world! Actually, Walter thinks that the worms will help her remember her time in the alternate universe, and while Peter and Walter are arguing about the gross factor vs. the efficiency factor, Olivia just takes the glass and downs it. Everyone stares at her in shock, and even Walter admits that he was going to mix it with fruit before giving it to her.

Whether or not the flatworms actually aided Olivia’s memory is up for debate. Olivia does get a quick red saturated flashback when investigating a dead shapeshifter. But Olivia’s memories return when Peter rings a bell for another woman, to help her get into the mind frame to sense alternate universe folk (she was experimented on back in the Bell & Walter happy days of the 70’s; she willingly comes back to help Walter).

In Olivia’s saturated color memories of the alternate universe, we get the gist of what’s to come and what she needs to do. Apparently in the alt. universe there are hybrids (the shapeshifters) that want to open a doorway between Olivia’s universe and the one Bell is in. Unfortunately, opening a door between the two universes would destroy one. The hybrid universe wants to be the universe on top. Bell also gives Olivia important information regarding the decapitated head of the shapeshifter leader, an object she needs to have before the shapeshifters get to it.

And after all of this heavy information is doled out, Bell dishes out a badass line: he tells Olivia that since he called her to his universe when she was driving home, she’s going to be returned to her wrecked car and it’s not going to be fun. Bell sagely says: “Physics is a bitch.” And then Olivia goes crashing through a window. I’m sure that J.J. Abrams and co. sat down and decided it would be deliciously fan service-y for Leonard Nimoy to say “bitch.” And you know what? It totally was.

Back from memory land, Olivia immediately gives away her top secret Bell knowledge by confiding the info to evil!Charlie, which leads the shapeshifters to their leader’s head, which they reattach to his body. Future problems, for sure.

Speaking of evil!Charlie, he’s dead now. I don’t know if he’s dead dead, or mostly dead, but my guess is the former. It was a sad, anti-climatic death for one of my favorite characters on this show. I give the show props for trying to create a mini-arc towards his death so that it wouldn’t seem so sudden, but it was only halfway effective. The fact that the death scene happened in an alley in the last five minutes of the show kind of felt more like “let’s get this done with” rather than “let’s give this character a fond farewell.” Which is a bummer, really. Charlie deserves better than to go out in an alley, shot down by his best friend forever. And all I can think is: what about his sweeter than sweet wife? Argh, this frustrates me beyond belief. I was not really to let Charlie go.

But moving on. Last week, we got a (secretive) look into Peter’s past. This week, we got a (little less secretive) look into Walter’s past. Walter’s past seems to have the least mystery behind it on the surface, simply for the fact that his past is so thoroughly entwined with the Pattern and all the spooky things to come, that whenever we peel away a layer of that mystery, we are inevitably peeling away a bit of the Walter mystery. But while we know a lot of Walter the crazy scientist, we know very little about Walter the man, other than the fact that his son died and that he stole Peter from the alternate universe.

This episode was a nice little peek into Walter the man. I’m delighted by the fact that
Walter wasn’t an upstanding man, which makes sense given the experiments he performed on people back then, in the name of science. The Walter of the past wasn’t that great of a father, fooled around with women he was doing experiments on, and experimented on children who then grew up to be Olivia. The Walter of the present acknowledges all these things–but doesn’t reject it. He wants to move past it, and atone. It was fairly obvious that the woman he had an affair with still had feelings for him, but Walter wasn’t tempted; instead he merely apologized for the experiments he did on her and then went home. The Walter of the present is more concerned with patching up his relationship with his son; before he escorted her home, he asked Peter for permission. Which Peter of course gave, because he’s a sweetheart. A hot sweetheart that loves his Dad.

Next Week on Fringe: Dreams and demons! COOL!

Last Thoughts: Add another notch to Olivia’s cool factor: she knows her classic sci-fi. Awesome.

Rhea Dee spends her time collecting vintage junk, daydreaming about Eli Roth, and pondering the genius of John Carpenter soundtracks.  She really likes horror films.

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