Fringe "Forced Perspective"

It's been a few weeks for Fringe since we've seen gory. To remind us, a gentleman gets an I-beam to the chest. Tough way to go. I would have preferred this as the cold open, but Fringe has been linking episodes tighly by showing the main characters first in or scene or two before we get the CotW.

By in large, I wasn't crazy about this episode. Our Freak of the Week is still more geek than anything, a teenage girl with the ability to see someone's death before it happens and then draw it. Sound familiar? Yep, that's a call back from either Season 1 or Season 2, but I can't remember. One of the cortexifan kids had that ability. For the life of me I can't remember what happened to him. Was he killed by the guy that could cure disease (before he knew he could cure and was just a serial killer)? I don't have the mind to keep track of 70+ episodes of Fringe straight in my head. The throwback wasn't the issue, but the overprotective dad killed it for me. The overprotective dad is a trope in TV shows these days, and it's just so hard to play convincingly without being a cardboard cutout. Especially in this case, the actor isn't given much to do other than lookout for his daughter. It's not the actor's fault; it's nigh impossible to create a three dimensional ancillary character to an ancillary character. While the FotW did her best, she comes off more as a prop than a proper person. This has been one of my biggest gripes with Fringe is that procedurial piece of the show with guest stars gives us new characters that we don't generally care for except in the best of cases. Most of the characters are just chess pieces.

God comes up in this episode. I tend to read the AV Club reviews of Fringe for most episodes and then check the comments which tend to be pretty insightful. What I've found in the comments is that a lot of fans hate it when Fringe "goes there". "Don't the writers of Fringe know God is dead?" I get that Sci-fi is not primarily concerned with the supernatural; however, I appreciate that Fringe is willing to allow its characters to consider the reality of a higher power. That said, in "Forced Perspective" it's a little clunky. I didn't like the father of the girl in this episode, and I rolled my eyes when he has the "everything happens for a reason" talk with his daughter early on. "Everything happens for a reason" is lazy writing in my book. It acknowledges the existence of a higher-what-have-you but doesn't actually define its terms. I have liked how Fringe has handled Walter's struggle with The Almighty and his search for forgiveness, but I think that's the exception not the rule. If you can't talk about the supernatural plausibly without resorting to Hallmark theology please don't try.

Olivia has to die. We've known that for three episodes I believe, but we're just not getting to some discussion of it. (I appreciate how Fringe is willing to slow play its hand. It puts a lot of faith in the viewer, and I appreciate a show that trusts the viewer, maybe even pushes the viewer to be patient or rewatch and episode.) Fate continues to bandied about! Olivia comes right out and asks Broyles, "Do you believe in fate?" Seeing as the whole episode is about a girl who sees the fate of others, the idea is that fate is sealed...until it isn't! The man with the bomb gets talked down by Olivia. Now we are back to a Western view of fate! Those who aren't willing to risk and don't have the will power to change things are bound to fate, but if you are special, maybe special like Olivia, you can escape fate. Olivia tells the girl, "Nothing is written in stone...You are in control," and yet, the girl still dies. I guess she didn't have the will power to live. Or maybe I'm being too harsh with Fringe as playing right into Western conventions and Fringe is starting to double down on fate. Man, that really would be worth watching. I'd really appreciate it if Olivia did actually have to die to make things right.

Nina is evil, evil, evil regardless of if she is a shapeshifter or not. We find out she's had a hand in hounding the family of our FotW. In this universe, she's a regular Walter Bishop: experimenting on kids all day long. It's her bread and butter, and as it stands now, she's not showing any empathy with the kids. At least our Walter cared about those kids (even if he was methodically ruining their lives). And man, at the end of the episode when Olivia is pouring out her heart to Nina saying Nina's the only mother-figure she's ever had, Nina never breaks character. The evil stays hidden...which just makes her even more evil. AltNina has to die.

A couple of other stray thoughts:

• Olivia is the child whisperer. Maybe its because she got a raw deal as a child, but something about her is like cotton candy to the kiddies. She gets just about every kid to sing like a canary, including the teen girl in this episode
• I cringe when Walter gives pseudo-science explanations for stuff these days. There's been too many bad ones. When he says, "Belly and I once theorized..." I start to tune out. Really, the soul-magnets-as-science ruined it for me. Sometimes physics should be physics and metaphysics should be meta.
• The green and red lights are back! Fringe really knows how to pull a good plot device out of the past. It connects the CotW files too, reminds us that the characters don't just forget everything they've ever encountered and start over every week.

 

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