Fringe is a series that has been built around mystery. There is a great deal of continuity in the characters back stories which help shape the course of the story and drives the characters motives. There are the mundane ones like: Olivia came from an abusive family. Peter’s parents had a strained marriage, and his mother was emotionally unstable. Walter did secret research for the government. Than there are the extraordinary elements of the back stories: Peter is from an another universe. Olivia was experimented on by Walter. Subject 13 did a good job flashing back to 1980s and wove these mundane and and extraordinary plot threads together.
The episode starts with Peter trying to break through the frozen lake to get back home. He noticed the differences in the world and realizes he’s not where he belongs. Though Elizabeth Bishop is able to rescue him, she and Walter fight over the problem of raising the child who is their son, but isn’t. Peter particularly doesn’t trust Walter, as he is the man that stole him. He seems to have varying levels of appreciation for Elizabeth. It really gives us a window into why Peter holds so much anger towards his father later in his life, and why he becomes a wanderer after his mother dies. At the same time Walter is in Jacksonville trying to get the Cortexiphan children to tap into their powers. Olivia is present and shown talking to a child named Nick, in a continuity nod to the character Nick Lane from Bad Dreams and Over There, Part 1. She first taps into her universe hopping abilities when her step father hits her. What stuck me was these experiments were much less horrific than I had imagined. Though Walter is a cold bastard when trying to stress Olivia’s emotions, I always imagined much more of a horror show. Both Peter and Olivia are going through hard times and bond with each other. When Olivia causes a fire with her mind during Walters experiment she runs off. Peter finds her. As children they relate to each other almost identical to the relationship they have in the present.Peter provides Olivia with advice and help her deal with her emotions. It may be slightly cheesy that their love began when they were children but its cute, and adds a “it’s meant to be” dimension to their story.
This episode had a great call back to the episode “White Tulip”. In this episode Walter tells time traveler Alistair Peck that he’s asked God for a sign of forgiveness in the form a White Tulip. Even though tulips don’t grow in Boston at that time of year Walter asks for one. His logic is that if God can forgive him he’ll make a tulip appear. If God can forgive him maybe Peter can too. Though Peck scoffs at Walter’s penance, and proclaims “God is science!”, Peck travels back in time and mails Walter a drawing of a white tulip. In Subject 13 Elizabeth Bishop talks to Peter about how a tulip field is there because a scientist brought it there, in a nice metaphor for Peter’s presence in our universe. Later Peter finds the runaway Olivia in the same field. My theory is the flowers represent God being present. I don’t mean god as in the, Battlestar Galactica “God made it happen” cop out. I don’t mean God as the some Judeo-Christian mythic entity. Peck said God is science, and the divine symbol is made by him. God works through people in Fringe, and is a symbolic image of forgiveness and healing, or at very least hope. If the tulip appears when Peter and Olivia bond for the first time maybe it signifies how they heal each other, and how both are needed to heal the universes. I think spirituality in science fiction can be a very interesting realm to explore so long as they don’t use God as a way to write off occurrences without much more explanation. Fringe has done a good job so far. I hope they continue this trend.
I did have a few complaints about this episode. The events were pretty major and I want to know why the characters don’t remember this when they meet in the present. Walter has the excuse that he’s missing parts of his brain. Shouldn’t Peter and Olivia remember they were friends as children. I assumed Olivia forgot the events of the drug trials because Cortexiphan was intoxicating, but she’s shown to be coherent and reasonable (for a child) the entire episode. Peter knew about the other universe, and Walter isn’t his true father. The adults referred to Olivia by her full name too many times. She should have always been called Olive, it would have left a bit of a distinction between the memory loss. I guess I can write this off as the children being so young they just forget. This is sci-fi after all a little willing suspension of disbelief is required.
On a Scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic equals 10) I’d give it a 8.3