"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Fringe 4.13: Tea and Telepathy

Let me get the excellent standalone story of Fringe 4.13 out of the way:  Walter, adding honey to his tea, realizes that the case at hand involves a telepathic group of people who, just like bees, are able to communicate to one another at a distance and pursue shared  survival goals.

Excellent, as I said, but actually not entirely standalone, because, like most of the recent episodes on Fringe, the individual story lines mirror what is going on in the deeper, continuing story.  As we saw, and I cheered about, last week, Olivia is beginning to remember Peter.

There's much more of that tonight - Olivia basically remembers everything about her and Peter that we saw the first three years.   My explanation for this is that Peter has returned to our world of the first three years (that's where he's been as soon he came out of the lake), bereft of memory of him at the start, but now, at least in Olivia, beginning to recall.

I pretty much still think that - though, based on what happened at the very end of tonight's episode, I'm not 100% sure.  Walter thinks that Olivia, under the influence of cortexiphan, is super sensitive to Peter's thoughts and emotions.  We did see Nina do something to Olivia a few episodes back - was it administer cortexiphan?  Walter and Lee do find that some of it missing from its Massive Dynamic cold keeping.  But ... Peter realizes that Olivia knows things from her past, relative to him, but that he didn't know until Olivia just told him. Ergo: Walter's theory that Olivia is picking up on Peter's thoughts can't be right.

Realizing this, Peter finally gives in and kisses Olivia - who promptly disappears (after walking into a gas station convenience store), and we see her held prisoner somewhere with Nina.

So, ok, good writing, I have no idea what's going on - I seriously like inscrutable stories - and we see in the coming attractions that we'll not only find out next week more of what's going on, but who the Eternal Bald Observers really are (bear in mind that September said Olivia will die in all possible timelines).

That's why I said that I'm no longer 100% sure that Peter is really in our first three years timeline now.  But until I see a better explanation, I'm at least 96% percent sure.

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology



See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man ... Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realities ... Fringe 4.9: Elizabeth ... Fringe 4.10: Deceit and Future Vision ... Fringe 4.11: Alternate Astrid ... Fringe 4.12: Double Westfield / Single Olivia

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: 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 ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

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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The Plot to Save Socrates

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"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

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