Fringe

Fringe

Episode 1: Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11

By: Carlos Uribe

Fringe is a show about a small team of people who are trying to save our world from the Observers.

Spoilers Ahoy!

“The final season of Fringe promises to be great.”

Those are the words that I closed my review of last season's season finale with. The final season has began and so far the promise is being kept. Fringe comes back for a fifth and final season and I have mixed feelings about this. I'm extremely glad that this show is being given the opportunity to end. This is a show that definably deserves to finish telling it's story. I'm also sad since it means that there's only so few episodes left that I get to spend time with characters that I have become seriously invested in. This is an episode that doesn't really pick up on where the season finale left of. It's instead a continuation of the nineteenth episode, Letters of Transit. It's hard to believe that this season would be able to jump as ahead as it does in time if that episode hadn't already done so. I had to give that episode a mini-review but it was essentially a backdoor pilot for this season of Fringe. A few weeks ago, I decided to catch the episode again to refresh my memories of it. It was even better than I remembered it and it really got me excited for this premiere in a way that marketing hasn't been able to. The final season of Fringe is a transformation for the series. It's changing the time, it's changing the opening sequence, and it's changing it's format. It's no longer going to be a procedural show but a serialized one. This means every episode will be advancing the plot in some capacity.

Let's talk about the actual premiere. You could split this episode into two halves. The first is that to find and rescue Olivia. This means having to track down her final steps and then finding out where she was ambered. It turns out that in this future, there are amber gypsies that sell you ambered human beings. Since most people can't set people free from amber, this means that the ambered people are used as furniture. Olivia has been taked by an amber gypsy and then sold to Markham. The characters are able to retrieve her from his apartment but then Walter gets captured by the Observers. The second half is having to rescue him. This means having to figure out where he was taken and then having to find a way in. When this requires them to use some experimental technology that makes their bodies appear dead, they're willing to do so even though it means that they won't be able to effectively use it again. Walter is rescued but the characters are a little bit too late. The plan that Walter had to defeat the Observers is gone and Walter has reverted back to the state that viewers are familiar with him: his loony self. The rescue has also revealed Etta's status as a rogue agent to the Observers. The season premiere effectively did two things: it reunited the main cast and it scrambled Walter's brain so that the writers can drag out the conflict over the next twelve episodes.

Splitting the episode into two halves worked. The first half helped to reveal nice details about this dystopian world and was entertaining enough. It's the first hint we get where Peter and Olivia's relationship hadn't been smooth sailing between the time the finale aired and the time they got ambered. This is because Etta had been separated from them when she was little. Peter never gave up looking for her while Olivia answered Walter's call to save the world. She had to amber herself to protect the device Walter sent her to get. The second half was just as exciting but it was more emotionally involving. It's where Peter and Olivia revealed what had happened between them but it's also where we see Walter's mind being tortured by the Observers. Both halves were related and helped to compliment each other. Peter and Olivia's drama would have felt sudden if the episode hadn't laid the seeds in the first half. The world felt more complete because of the details set forth in the first half of th episode.

The episode had ended with a great Fringe moment. It has Walter going outside without any pants on to a taxi cab. He finds a disc of music that hasn't been destroyed and he puts it in. Music starts to jam and Walter cries. In the distance, between the cracked pavement, is a single flower that is growing. A flower that brings forth memories of what opened the episode: a memory of Etta being taken by the Observers. It is a vivid and ridiculous moment that Fringe manages to make emotionally moving. That flower is a sign of hope. The Observers might claim that nothing can grow from scorched earth, but they're already being proven wrong. It's a highly symbolic ending but it also is used to signify Walter's return to his old self. That's he's outside with no pants is the Walter we know, not the Walter who had begun the episode with his proclamation that he knows he needs to wear pants.

Fringe had a pretty amazing season premiere. It managed to finish setting up the final season just about as well as Letters of Transit had began the set up. It had some great character moments and that ending with Walter was handled perfectly. The season has perfectly clear bad guys and good guys and I can't wait to see how our characters are going to be able to take down the antagonists. Fringe is currently my favorite drama on television. I might be sad to seeing it end, but I can't wait to see it either. Bring it on Fringe.