Fringe Season 5, Episode 5: An Origin Story. The resistance movement captures an Observer. Peter formulates a plan to destroy a time corridor used by the Observers while Olivia mourns for their daughter, Etta.

These last episodes of Fringe are really intense.  Who expected Etta to die after only four episodes? In the aftermath of her death we see peter an Olivia drifting apart as they each deal with the pain which comes from the loss of a child. Olivia is introspective and attempts to escape her pain. She keeps her self occupied by helping Astrid with the decryption the observer language, Peter on the other hand has no interest in escapism. He needs a more actionable outlet… he needs revenge.

We’ve known for some time that Peter has a certain capacity for doing the unspeakable since he began hunting and killing shape-shifters in “Reciprocity” (season 3 episode 11). That he might torture or kill the captured observer to get the information he needs is not unexpected.  But I can’t help but draw parallels between Fringe and the Matrix now that Peter has implanted the observer technology into his own body. In the teaser for the next episode we see that peter moves like an observer when fighting the observers; in much the same way that Neo moved like an agent during the rooftop fight scene in “The Matrix”. If this episode of Fringe is “An Origin Story”, is it the origin of Peter as “the one”?

Because you asked: Where did the “resist” posters come from?

Readers have been asking where the  subway posters featuring an image of Henrietta and the word resist came from.   Anil (one of Etta’s fellow resistance fighters) assured Olivia that “Etta was very important to the Resistance; more important than you can imagine.” It seems likely that members of the resistance have adopted Etta as the symbol of their struggle against the observers. The resistance needed a counter message to the loyalist “ordered future” and “obey” propaganda. Etta embodied their message as someone who died for the cause despite being a agent of fringe division. (Fringe division was charged with policing the native human population after the observer invasion.)

Fringe season 5 episode 4 “The bullet that saved the world”
No matter how bad your week may have been (mine was quite bad so I can sympathize) Fringe Friday always makes it better. This intense episode sees the Fringe team causing some mayhem for the observers.SciFi Mafia has some Fringe video clips and more for you. Here’s a Walter bishop quote from the episode teaser:

“There was a time when we solved fringe cases… Its time we created a few of our own.”

Wasn’t it awesome to see the fringe team using some materials from old fringe cases in the fight against the observers? The chemical agent from “Ability” (season 1, episode 14) was a good choice but personally I was hoping they would opt for the blue powder from the episode “concentrate and ask again” (season 3, episode 12), a biological weapon which dissolved the skeleton of its victims.

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Fringe Season 4, Episode 7: Wallflower.

When a man mysteriously dies by an invisible force, his body rapidly begins turning ghostly white. The Fringe team learns that this is not an isolated incident, and there’s evidence that links the predator to someone who passed away with an unknown genetic disorder. Meanwhile, Olivia suffers from migraines.

This episode was billed as being the fall finale. Now fans must wait until January 2012 for the series to return.

What do we know about a world or two without Peter bishop?

• Olivia was fully aware that she had been a subject of the cortexaphan experiments conducted by  Walter Bishop and William Bell.
• Olivia and her sister were raised by Nina Sharp after their mother died from cancer.
• The peter bishop from the alternate universe also died. he drowned in Reiden lake shortly after Walter abducted him.
• Walter was released from St. Clair’s into Olivia’s custody.
• It was Walter, not peter who activated “the machine”.
• Walter has not left the Harvard University lab in over three years.

It would appear The door is still open for some kind of romance between Lincoln and Olivia. The two meet in a diner after Olivia’s late night walk to a pharmacy. Agent Lee has guessed that Peter and Olivia were a couple in the world that Peter comes from. Peter assures agent Lee that the Olivia Dunham he’s talking about; is not Peter’s Olivia. At the conclusion of the case, Olivia and Lincoln tentatively plan to met again at the diner. Unfortunately Olivia is incapacitated by some kind of nerve gas.

This episode has left us with some disturbing questions about Nina Sharp and Massive Dynamic.

Subsidiaries of Massive Dynamic perform experiments on infants?

Why is Nina sharp injecting Olivia with  a mysterious serum which causes her to suffer migraine headaches? I would assume the drug is cortexaphan.

Fringe: Season 4, Episode 6: And Those We Left Behind.

The Fringe team must find the pattern between tragic time loop anomalies. As the investigation unfolds, Raymond, an electrical engineer, and his wife Kate, a professor of theoretical physics, enter the picture. Peter’s existence remains unreconciled with the Universe at large.

I was really hoping that this episode would lead to Peter being re-integrated into the fringe team. Unfortunately Peter now seems to feel that this isn’t his universe after all. Although he has no recollection of causing either Walter’s visions or Olivia’s dreams, those occurrences would lead you to believe that peter was once part of their universe.

The unforeseen consequences of the choices we make is once again a central theme in Fringe. An electrical engineer uses his wife’s research in theoretical physics to construct a time compartment. Time is regressed by four years inside a spherical envelope where he is able to recapture lost time with his wife who has since succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. The engineer did not foresee catastrophic “time displacement” bubbles that are being generated as a side effect of his experiments. Fringe division must shutdown equipment before fatal collisions in time space claim hundreds of civilian lives.

By the end of the episode Olivia has come to the personal conclusion that she (or her counterpart in another universe) must have been very important to Peter. It seems agent Dunham has taken notice of the way Peter looks at at her when he thinks she is unaware. She leaves no illusion for Peter; that a romance might exist between them (in her reality). Peter resigns himself to finding a way back to the Universe he know and the Olivia Dunham he loves. Perhaps the possibility remains for some kind of relationship between Olivia and Agent Lincoln Lee.

Well, I guess I should thank Major League Baseball for being over. you may recall that this episode of fringe was actually scheduled to air last week but was preempted by the World Series. I imagine Texas thought they were witnessing a fringe event when St. Louis tied the series and forced game seven.

Novation is probably one of the most interesting episodes of fringe so far in season four. Peter Bishop has returned but none of his fringe division colleagues remember him. In Walter’s recollection the alternate Peter drowned at Raven Lake during Walter’s attempt to retrieve him from the mirror universe. in the timeline that we are accustomed to the observer told Walter and Peter from the icy water; and act which the observer cites as interrupting the balance of the universe.

The plot turns once again to the new breed of shape shifters who are intent on locating a scientist specializing in cell duplication. His research may help to stabilize the rapid deterioration of their organic tissue. William Bell new that such research could be dangerous and had previously terminated this research project.

Though the members of fringe division don’t recall Peter Bishop or believe his claim of being Walter’s son, his suggestions about the data storage device located in the shape shifters bodies proves to be the only lead they have. Peter discovers that the data storage device contains multiple DNA samples, which would allow the new shape shifters to perfectly impersonate anybody, thus making them perfect infiltration agents. fortunately the data storage device also broadcasts a signal which fringe division uses the track the location of the shape shifters.

it’s very interesting that the new shape shifters also use a “quantum entangled” typewriter to file their mission reports and receive new orders. But who are they reporting to? Is it possible that fringe may branch into a third universe? Walternate claims no knowledge of these new organic shape shifters and they certainly do not match any known technology from the alternate universe we have seen so far.

These  ghetto shape shifters don’t even have access to a proper electric typewriter. Instead they rely on a portable. How primitive.

I wonder now that Peter has returned if there will be some kind of alternate universe love triangle? despite Astrid’s suggestions agent Lee seems genuinely disinterested Olivia but their alternate universe counterparts definitely had some chemistry.

Olivia is plagued by a mysterious recurring field of energy which discharges massive amounts of electro magnetism. Metal objects nearby are thrown across the room as a precursor to the appearance of the field. Olivia discovers that contact with the energy field is very dangerous and begins to suspect that someone is using the energy field to attack her.

Walter Leaves the fringe laboratory for the first time in nearly 3 years to help Olivia pursue the man who had once been  a subject of the Cortexiphan trials. Walter recalls the “Subject 9” was capable of astral projection and the massive energy discharge was a side effect of said ability.

Of course the man is not responsible for the attacks and is instead recruited to help dissipate the energy field using an ability which is an unwelcome side effect of the Cortexiphan treatment.

Olivia receives a letter from Dr. Bruce Sumner (William Sadler) the director of St. Claire’s institution which recommends that Walter once again be committed for psychiatric care.
Considering that Olivia is also seeing the “mysterious man” it is somewhat disturbing that she even needs to consider Walter’s sanity.

Oddly, in a timeline without Peter, Walter is mysophobic (an unreasonable fear of germs). He has a violent anxiety attack triggered by a stay in a hotel room; where he imagines countless gruesome contaminants.
This is a considerable contrast to the  Walter we are used to; who never thinks twice about snacking while conducting an autopsy.

While Olivia and Walter attempt to destroy the energy field, Peter Bishop is released back into their timeline where he finds himself naked in Raiden lake. Unfortunately his reappearance has not corrected the timeline and none of his former colleagues remember him.
I guess I was just hoping for a reunion more like Olivia’s return from the alternate universe.