"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan'

I'm one of the world's worst spellers (as you may notice if you read my blog enough), but even I knew something cool and profound was amiss when the location ID at the beginning of Fringe 2.15 said, "Manhatan".   This is Fringe, after all.  Oddities, including misspellings, don't happen by accident.  In this case, it was sure sign sign we were in the alternate universe - William Bell's, also from which Water took Peter.   This was soon confirmed by the rarity of coffee, and then completely revealed when a character from this world tells us the Pentagon and the White House were destroyed on September 11, 2001.  (The newspaper from the finale of Season One talked about a new White House - and the World Trade Centers were standing tall.)

So, this was set to be a superb episode, and it was.   Olivia had the power as a little girl to recognize things from the alternate universe which wound up in ours:  they shimmered.   She needs to regain this power in order to identify a building in our New York which will disappear into the alternate New York.  She has trouble getting the power back.  She's justifiably furious with Walter for experimenting on her as a little girl.

It dawned on me, about halfway into the story, that should Olivia regain that power, she would see Peter all a glimmer - because he came from that alternate world.  Walter's too engrossed in the matters at hand to realize this in time.

Peter and Olivia are about too kiss - this is sure to happen, sooner or later - as Peter comforts Olivia, who is afraid of what might happen if she doesn't regain the power.   Fear is the catalyst.  Olivia regains the power, saves the people in the building before it vanished, and shows up at Peter's house.   The two are about to go out for a drink-

And Peter's shimmering.

So now the secret's out at last.   Fringe will be back in  April.   And we'll get to see how the crazy world to which we've now become accustomed will be turned upside down.   Good for the screen, good for the brain.


5-min podcast review of Fringe

 See also Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again"
... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best







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2 comments:

TheLooper said...

I'm fairly new to Fringe, having only started watching at the end of last season, but I love it just the same (oddly enough this is exactly how I got involved with another J.J. Abrams produced excursion you might be familiar with).

But I liked this episode. Ever since I saw the tombstone with Peter's name it and the dealings with alternate realities I was hooked. Nice to see that secret finally revealed to them.

But "the rarity of coffee" confuses me? Has that not come up before, or perhaps in an episode I have missed? Inquiring minds wanna know.

One thing I do know, had I not already named my daughter Abigail (due March 4th) I would name her Olivia, because she is just awesome!

Love this show as much as Lost!

Paul Levinson said...

Our tastes agree!

As for coffee: there are subtle and great differences between ours and the alternate reality (the greatest being that JFK was not assassinated, and the WTC buildings are still standing, in the alternate reality).

But you learn to watch for the little differences, too, which are lots of fun. There was no mention of coffee being such a rarity - he got it from Hawaii - in our reality. (Nor is that the case in NYC in our off-TV reality.) So I'm taking that as another characteristic of the alt reality.

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