Fringe 4.18: "The Consultant"
Apr. 13th, 2012 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieHooray, Fringe decided to stop sucking and go back to being awesome! Woo! This is the episode I've been waiting for all season! Movement on the plot arcs, character stuff, THE FRINGE TEAMS WORKING TOGETHER ACROSS UNIVERSES YESSSSSSSSSSS, this had it all!
Now that we don't have the whole "when is Peter going to figure out he's already home" issue hanging over our heads any longer, unlike in earlier episodes that dealt with Jones and the shapeshifters, I'm much more sanguine about that plot. I still think "the universes are actively apocalypsing and we must figure out how to stop it with SCIENCE (and also probably feelings!)" was a more interesting arc and I'm a bit sad that it's been replaced with "Mad Scientist wishes to collapse two universes and generally create mayhem for undisclosed reasons," but this plot does at least give Red!Nina a chance toexist be evil, and I'm cool with that.
Anyway, movement on that arc! Hurrah! I was so pleased that we got a motivation for Red!Broyles's treachery, and I loved how they tied it into Walter's actions. The pair of scenes where they spoke and then Broyles speaks to Jones was excellent--first they lulled us into thinking that Walter had convinced Broyles to choose his kid and his world over RDJ, only to reveal that putting his kid first entails dancing to RDJ's tune. (They actually revealed Chris's medication came from Jones earlier in the episode, now that I think about it, but I missed that; I was distracted and only caught that Jones was threatening Chris in a general manner. Anyway, the two scenes work better this way, actually, so it's all good.)
I'm also happy that he turned himself in. He may have been blackmailed into some bad decisions, but he came through in the end.
I'm unclear on how collapsing the two universes (into one? into nothing?) is going to satiate Jones's egomania, but I assume that will be revealed in time.
Anna Torv made some interesting choices playing Redlivia this week. She was so subdued after losing Red!Lincoln that she...actually came off very similarly to Bluelivia, with a few crucial differences. Too bad Bluelivia wasn't there to give her pointers on how to hold her liquor. But Walter was, so that's...good? I was surprised that she and Walter weren't bickering again, like they did in "Making Angels." I know they had a candy-induced detente at the end of that episode, but this level of friendliness, even alcohol-induced as it was, was odd. (He was WEARING HER BATHROBE--which, okay, is not actually strange for Walter, never mind--after she INVITED HIM TO STAY AT HER APARTMENT, and then SHE LAID HER HEAD ON HIS SHOULDER WHILE HE MADE HER EGGS. What. WHAT.) But hell, they were adorable together, so I don't even care.
Ooooh, that was smart, getting Red!Nina to confirm Red!Broyles's duplicity. Go you, Redlivia. You know, I like it when you act more like Bluelivia. Is this Amber!Lincoln's influence? If it is, I can almost live with Red!Lincoln dying and leaving us with the Lesser Lincoln.
Speaking of which, my theory from last week that Red!Lincoln faked his death because he'd figured out Broyles was the mole and wanted to go after him appears to have been a wash. And while we still haven't seen a body, we did see a funeral, and I'm thinking he's really dead. SIGH.
OMG, ASTRID BRINGING ALTSTRID COFFEE. And then them translating for Walter together. My heart grew three sizes. I would like all of next season, if we get a next season, to be about them interacting adorably, please.
We got a lot of fun info on Redverse this time around, too: domesticated badgers as pets, no Sherlock Holmes, no black boxes in airplanes, there's already a treaty about going back and forth between universes that bans bringing perishables across, and apparently the other side's machine is white instead of black? That may have just been the lighting, but it certainly looked white to me.
Anyway, yay show! I would've liked to have seen this episode show up, oh, round about the middle of the season instead of the end of it, thus chopping out the meandering of roughly episodes 7 through 16, but you know, I'll take it. Thank you for coming back to me, Fringe.
Now that we don't have the whole "when is Peter going to figure out he's already home" issue hanging over our heads any longer, unlike in earlier episodes that dealt with Jones and the shapeshifters, I'm much more sanguine about that plot. I still think "the universes are actively apocalypsing and we must figure out how to stop it with SCIENCE (and also probably feelings!)" was a more interesting arc and I'm a bit sad that it's been replaced with "Mad Scientist wishes to collapse two universes and generally create mayhem for undisclosed reasons," but this plot does at least give Red!Nina a chance to
Anyway, movement on that arc! Hurrah! I was so pleased that we got a motivation for Red!Broyles's treachery, and I loved how they tied it into Walter's actions. The pair of scenes where they spoke and then Broyles speaks to Jones was excellent--first they lulled us into thinking that Walter had convinced Broyles to choose his kid and his world over RDJ, only to reveal that putting his kid first entails dancing to RDJ's tune. (They actually revealed Chris's medication came from Jones earlier in the episode, now that I think about it, but I missed that; I was distracted and only caught that Jones was threatening Chris in a general manner. Anyway, the two scenes work better this way, actually, so it's all good.)
I'm also happy that he turned himself in. He may have been blackmailed into some bad decisions, but he came through in the end.
I'm unclear on how collapsing the two universes (into one? into nothing?) is going to satiate Jones's egomania, but I assume that will be revealed in time.
Anna Torv made some interesting choices playing Redlivia this week. She was so subdued after losing Red!Lincoln that she...actually came off very similarly to Bluelivia, with a few crucial differences. Too bad Bluelivia wasn't there to give her pointers on how to hold her liquor. But Walter was, so that's...good? I was surprised that she and Walter weren't bickering again, like they did in "Making Angels." I know they had a candy-induced detente at the end of that episode, but this level of friendliness, even alcohol-induced as it was, was odd. (He was WEARING HER BATHROBE--which, okay, is not actually strange for Walter, never mind--after she INVITED HIM TO STAY AT HER APARTMENT, and then SHE LAID HER HEAD ON HIS SHOULDER WHILE HE MADE HER EGGS. What. WHAT.) But hell, they were adorable together, so I don't even care.
Ooooh, that was smart, getting Red!Nina to confirm Red!Broyles's duplicity. Go you, Redlivia. You know, I like it when you act more like Bluelivia. Is this Amber!Lincoln's influence? If it is, I can almost live with Red!Lincoln dying and leaving us with the Lesser Lincoln.
Speaking of which, my theory from last week that Red!Lincoln faked his death because he'd figured out Broyles was the mole and wanted to go after him appears to have been a wash. And while we still haven't seen a body, we did see a funeral, and I'm thinking he's really dead. SIGH.
OMG, ASTRID BRINGING ALTSTRID COFFEE. And then them translating for Walter together. My heart grew three sizes. I would like all of next season, if we get a next season, to be about them interacting adorably, please.
We got a lot of fun info on Redverse this time around, too: domesticated badgers as pets, no Sherlock Holmes, no black boxes in airplanes, there's already a treaty about going back and forth between universes that bans bringing perishables across, and apparently the other side's machine is white instead of black? That may have just been the lighting, but it certainly looked white to me.
Anyway, yay show! I would've liked to have seen this episode show up, oh, round about the middle of the season instead of the end of it, thus chopping out the meandering of roughly episodes 7 through 16, but you know, I'll take it. Thank you for coming back to me, Fringe.