Fring 4.14: "The End of All Things"
Feb. 24th, 2012 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieI...I...hmmm. I don't exactly know what to do with that. I was enjoying it for the most part, and then the ending happened. I can only see two ways to from that, neither of them good:
1. Olivia is Bluelivia, and Peter leaving her (although the preview has him working with Walter in the lab again, so...not really leaving her?) is just taking up time until they can confirm she's Bluelivia and Peter's where he's supposed to be, or
2. Peter is in the wrong timeline, will eventually return to Blueverse, and we have spent the entire season with characters who don't matter and who I am frankly a little sick of.
I guess there might be a way to pull this off without it feeling pointlessly wheel-spinny, but I certainly can't see it from here.
Other thoughts:
So, the title. Obviously a reference to Return of the King. Except I don't know how, perhaps because I haven't read the book or seen the movie in years. Thoughts?
I was sure at the end of last week that Amber!Nina was in RDJ's den with Olivia, but over the intervening days, I came around to the idea that Jones would get much more out of having Red!Nina there. Apparently this was true! Also, how did Red!Nina also get a robotic arm, since the circumstances were so specific to Blue and Amber!Ninas? (Why can't we know more about Red!Nina? Argh.)
I was so pleased that Peter remained Olivia's trigger! That is kind of a big deal for me. I'm not sure why, but I love it. ALSO OLIVIA'S POWERS ARE BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER, YAY! I missed them! And I very much enjoyed seeing her fry one of RDJ's henchmen with the power of her mind. Oh, and I also very much enjoyed that Peter spent the first fifty minutes trying to rescue Olivia, and then Olivia winds up rescuing him. This is why I love Fringe.
So September was tagged as "Mr. X" on the computer screen; does this mean he's the man with the X on his shirt from "LSD" whom Olivia thought was going to kill her? [Preview-based speculation; highlight to read.] Could it be that he's going to set in motion Blue/Amberlivia's desire to remain Blue when she starts (apparently) reverting to Amber, thus "killing" that personality? Although it was Bluelivia who thought he was going to kill her, so...damn. I don't know.
I'm not sure what I thought the Observers were, but it wasn't that they were future humans. (And from the focus on Henry, I'm guess they're future humans who all descend from him.) Kinda wish they hadn't explained that and had left them mysterious.
I'm torn on the explicit spelling out of Peter and Olivia's DESTINY! I liked that last year, it was hanging around being implicit, and I loved the idea that their love would SAVE THE WORLD (because Peter is Olivia's trigger), but I don't know about "you must be togetherand have babies so that I can be born and set the events that lead to you meeting her into motion." Hmmm.
(Also, how does that even work? If Red!Peter was supposed to be saved by Walternate, he...would never meet Bluelivia, right? Or would they meet somehow, someway, and fall in love even though basically EVERYTHING EVER would be stacked against them? [Destiny does not care whether you even inhabit the same universe!])
So now Peter knows about Henry. OH MAN. Much as I still haaaaaate BabyGate, I think I would've been more into the ending of this episode if he had decided that he couldn't handle Henry never existing and had to figure out a way to get Red and Blueverses back to their original specs. The same plot movements would be accomplished without it feeling like we're wasting time, you know?
It makes me sad that Olivia called Nina "Miss Sharp" until she was eighteen. I know it doesn't mean anything, because it's not like most people go around calling their mothers by their first names, but I don't know, that just seems sad to me.
Perhaps the best takeaway is this: Even if this season is meandering and doesn't know what the hell it's doing, it sure sounds like endgame is a little tribe of Bishops. To which I can only say, "HOORAY!"
1. Olivia is Bluelivia, and Peter leaving her (although the preview has him working with Walter in the lab again, so...not really leaving her?) is just taking up time until they can confirm she's Bluelivia and Peter's where he's supposed to be, or
2. Peter is in the wrong timeline, will eventually return to Blueverse, and we have spent the entire season with characters who don't matter and who I am frankly a little sick of.
I guess there might be a way to pull this off without it feeling pointlessly wheel-spinny, but I certainly can't see it from here.
Other thoughts:
So, the title. Obviously a reference to Return of the King. Except I don't know how, perhaps because I haven't read the book or seen the movie in years. Thoughts?
I was sure at the end of last week that Amber!Nina was in RDJ's den with Olivia, but over the intervening days, I came around to the idea that Jones would get much more out of having Red!Nina there. Apparently this was true! Also, how did Red!Nina also get a robotic arm, since the circumstances were so specific to Blue and Amber!Ninas? (Why can't we know more about Red!Nina? Argh.)
I was so pleased that Peter remained Olivia's trigger! That is kind of a big deal for me. I'm not sure why, but I love it. ALSO OLIVIA'S POWERS ARE BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER, YAY! I missed them! And I very much enjoyed seeing her fry one of RDJ's henchmen with the power of her mind. Oh, and I also very much enjoyed that Peter spent the first fifty minutes trying to rescue Olivia, and then Olivia winds up rescuing him. This is why I love Fringe.
So September was tagged as "Mr. X" on the computer screen; does this mean he's the man with the X on his shirt from "LSD" whom Olivia thought was going to kill her? [Preview-based speculation; highlight to read.] Could it be that he's going to set in motion Blue/Amberlivia's desire to remain Blue when she starts (apparently) reverting to Amber, thus "killing" that personality? Although it was Bluelivia who thought he was going to kill her, so...damn. I don't know.
I'm not sure what I thought the Observers were, but it wasn't that they were future humans. (And from the focus on Henry, I'm guess they're future humans who all descend from him.) Kinda wish they hadn't explained that and had left them mysterious.
I'm torn on the explicit spelling out of Peter and Olivia's DESTINY! I liked that last year, it was hanging around being implicit, and I loved the idea that their love would SAVE THE WORLD (because Peter is Olivia's trigger), but I don't know about "you must be together
(Also, how does that even work? If Red!Peter was supposed to be saved by Walternate, he...would never meet Bluelivia, right? Or would they meet somehow, someway, and fall in love even though basically EVERYTHING EVER would be stacked against them? [Destiny does not care whether you even inhabit the same universe!])
So now Peter knows about Henry. OH MAN. Much as I still haaaaaate BabyGate, I think I would've been more into the ending of this episode if he had decided that he couldn't handle Henry never existing and had to figure out a way to get Red and Blueverses back to their original specs. The same plot movements would be accomplished without it feeling like we're wasting time, you know?
It makes me sad that Olivia called Nina "Miss Sharp" until she was eighteen. I know it doesn't mean anything, because it's not like most people go around calling their mothers by their first names, but I don't know, that just seems sad to me.
Perhaps the best takeaway is this: Even if this season is meandering and doesn't know what the hell it's doing, it sure sounds like endgame is a little tribe of Bishops. To which I can only say, "HOORAY!"