After a string of take it or leave it episodes on Fringe, we get this one. AND FRINGE TOTALLY REDEEMS ITSELF. When Jared Harris pops up as alternate David Robert Jones, a callback to Season 1, I squealed with delight. Jared Harris not only comes from acting stock -- Richard Harris is his father -- he stands in no one's shadow. I've liked him ever since I saw How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog several years ago starring Kenneth Brannagh (who is hit or miss in anything other than Shakespeare) and Robin Wright (who is hit in pretty much everything). I had completely forgotten Harris was in Igby Goes Down which is near and dear to my heart as a truly great coming of age story. With few missteps, Harris has chosen his roles quite well. He's a bit of a chameleon which is why so many directors are able to call on him to roundout an excellent cast; however, as of late, including the 2011 Sherlock Holmes movie (which I have not seen), Harris has been playing baddies with panache and glee. Maybe it's his advancing age that now allows him to play a criminal with the weight of years resting on him. I don't know. Regardless, Jared Harris is by far my favorite guest star on Fringe (including Peter Weller, who stars in probably the best stand alone episode Fringe has ever produced), and therefore Harris completely deserves this long and winding tangent.
What else to like about this episode? Well, for starters it's not case of the week. The overarching mythology of Fringe is on display and slowly trudges forward. We find out that AltWalternate is not as much like Walternate as we might have assumed. He's not behind the Shapeshifters 2.0. He proves so by shocking the stuffing out of AltBrandon -- who, GASP, is a shapeshifter. Which brings us back to David Robert Jones who seems to be alive and well -- or maybe just alive as his face looks disfigured -- and churning out shapeshifters as if their Cabbage Patch Dolls circa 1985.
I like that Fringe continues to play with the nature vs nurture motif. They ramped it up a notch with "One Night in October" which is up there with "White Tulip" as one of the best stand alone episodes. I tend to shy away from the Freaks and lean into the Geeks, so to speak. The geeks being stand alone episodes that focus on the killer/monster that doesn't fit in for some reason, the broken one who just wants a little wholeness. Is that too much to ask? We see these geeks in "White Tulip" and also in "Wallflower". In "October", we get a man who is night and day in the two worlds because of one human relationship: one side has it, the other side doesn't. I've felt that Fringe leans heavily on nurture. Biologically equal people will branch out depending on what is done to them in life.
This also brings me to another interesting theory. While I feel that Fringe on the surface cares about freewill and choice, under the surface, there's a bit of a fatalistic bent. All the Olivia's are different not because they chose to be different from each other but because of the different environment in which they lived. The same could be said for Walter. They are all similar, yes, but the world they live in has shaped them. They are products of their surroundings and can do only what they have been programmed to do. I'm sure I'm forgetting some important scenes of freewill over the last four seasons of Fringe, but I keep getting the feeling that the way they set things up, the characters are passive not active. This is really interesting because the idea of fate and the world dictating the life you live is a very Eastern view of the world. It breaks the conventions of Western culture in which man owns his own destiny.
One of my favorite episodes since Season 3. Here's hoping for more Jared Harris.
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