Fringe continues its steady improvement steady improvement, and “Five-Twenty-Ten” emerges as the best episode of the season in no small part due to John Noble’s considerable acting talent. With Broyles returning a few episodes ago it was nice to see Blair Brown return as Nina Sharp.
Peter learns how to utilize the Observer’s implants to understand their precognitive abilities. By manipulating events he hopes to plant a bomb in one of the Observer’s meetings. He continues on his quest for revenge continuing to drift away from his family and friends. As the episode progresses Peter picks ups more and more of the Observers mannerisms. It gets increasingly creepy. Meanwhile the Fringe team is trying to uncover two beacon cylinders from one of William Bell’s old storehouses. Unfortunately the storehouse is buried under a destroyed building, and our heroes need special equipment from Nina to clear it away.
Thus far John Noble has played three versions of the same character: Walternate, pre-operation god-complex Walter, and post-op bafoonish yet loveable and oddly heroic Walter. Walter’s lobotomization has always been portrayed as a good thing. It made him a more humane, compassionate person. It’s pretty impressive to see Walter transform back and forth between the post and pre-op versions of himself within the span of a sentence. Though Peter is arguably making a more frightening transformation, by becoming what he’s trying to destroy, Walter’s is more disturbing. His transformation wasn’t his choice, and as a consequence it may lose everything he holds dear. Walter doesn’t want to turn, and is fighting it. He’s relying on love to save him, and it might not be enough. The conflict between Old Walter and New Walter is as dramatic as the battle with the Observers. I can’t wait to see this play out.
On a Scale of 1 to Epic (Epic = 10): 
