Fringe 4x19 - "Letters of Transit" (Live Commentary, Spoilers)

Huh?

 

damnit... another hour before i get to see it

M

 

The next glyph is E.

It's QUAKE. Which refers to next week's episode.

 

Well, this is really weird. I wonder if we're going to have a continuation of this episode another episode from now. So, we'll shift into a PRESENT and FUTURE alternating, similar to the universe flipping of season 3.

 

That's a way of getting Nimoy on the show.

So was that the bullet that killed Olivia?

 

Well, I guess we now know what 'QUAKE' refers to.

 

And last week's word was Simon.

 

There was such a dangling thread on this episode... seems odd for it to be a stand-alone.

 

How can that be the end of that episode?

 

The thing is, earlier in the season, Walter made mention of the fact that Bell was no longer alive, though the manner of his death in this timeline was never revealed.

So if he was dead, how did he get ambered in 2015?

 

I think that's what's going to happen and I'm going to love it.

This episode was just as good as I hoped it to be. John Noble's performance of a more-brain-damaged-than-usual Walter and a Walter with all his mental faculties fully renewed was compelling. I had a feeling the blonde agent was either Peter and Olivia's daughter or Olivia after she died and resurrected herself as a younger version of who she was like Doctor Who. I love the Simon character and the dark reveal of the reason behind the Observers planting themselves in humanity's past.

 

I'm thinking this is the plot thread that Lance Reddick mentioned as being the potential storyline for Season 5, if the show gets renewed.

 

Ah, OK. Thanks! I didn't see that interview. Well, odds for Season 5 don't seem very good right now. It'll be interesting to see if this episode creates a bigger draw for the next one.

 

Hopefully we'll see them get Desmond out of the amber if they return to this future storyline.

 

Just came across something posted on the IMDB. Walter had a paper with the numbers 0 9 2 1 1 2. So is that 09/21/12 which happens to be a Friday? Projected date for the next season start?

 

Nice catch, NCC. I certainly hope it is!

 

I actually was excited about this episode and it disappointed--it turned out to not reveal a whole lot and instead looks to be a simple set-up episode for an ongoing LOSTesque type "flashforward" intercutting narrative format where we visit the present and work towards the future events in 2036.

Frankly I think with cancellation or at the very least a 13 episode final season they introduced this a little too late in the game.

The episode much like the series itself drew things out and padded the hour with a bunch of unneccessarily long scenes involving the mere mechanics of freeing Walter and restoring his mind leaving no time to really delve deeply into the Observers and the future--right now they are a vague generic plot device although I assume the writers are hinting cortexiphan and abilities they allow for is what leads to the Observers. We also have no better idea of the weapon to get rid of the Observers. And what few answers we got weren't very satisfying i.e. why the Observers took over the past. In short it was standard and univentive--in what has become the "go to" motive for sci-fi future threats most recently in The 4400 and Terra Nova--future humanity ruined planet Earth and sought to start anew in its past--yawn. And if the Observers can see the future and all possible outcomes you'd think they would see how the Fringe division would defeat them or how bad an idea it is to not wipe out all humanity since they will never stop being threatening and the Observer who got blown up in Massive Dynamic would have seen that coming

About the only worthwhile surprises offered up were William Bell was one of Walter's team and the switcheroo with Peter. The writers gave away pretty much from the start that Etta was Peter and Olivia's child so no surprise there.

Overall pretty average. I think we'll find out when all is said and done that much like Lost, Fringe will be remembered more for being good at throwing a lot of different plot elements into the mix, twists and turns that offered immediate gratification but ultimately very little in terms of providing satisfying payoffs to its myriad plotlines and a coherent bigger picture narratively.

 

I really liked this episode, but what disappointed me was the lack of resolution at the end of it.

John Noble did a fantastic job with his performance as Walter in this episode, and his shift from brain-damaged to brillaint scientist after the procedure was extremely well done.

I liked Nina's role in this episode as a sort of catalyst for the latter half of the episode, and the grey hair suited her.

The whole Orwellian vibe of this episode was probably my favourite part of the whole episode. Observers everywhere, curfews, Observer propaganda and even officers loyal to the Observers.

Also, the Brooklyn Bridge painted black was awesomely creepy

The revelation that William Bell was part of Walter's team was unexpected (since he 'died' at the end of season 2) and now I wonder what will happen with that hand that Walter stowed in that bag...

I too suspected that Etta was Peter and Olivia's daughter from the start (she looks so much like Olivia), so I was happy that I was right when her family history was finally revealed.

I mentioned above that I wasn't happy with the lack of resolution in this episode and here's why: we're left with more questions than answers.

First of all: Why did the Observers choose to travel back to 2015 when the world fell apart in 2609? What was so special about that year that made them want to travel back, and since when did Observers become so violent? It seems strange to me that beings that are usually peaceful and non-interfering would suddenly change like this.

Secondly: Where is Olivia? It didn't appear that she was encased in amber with the others, so was she killed in 2026 (as we saw in "The Day We Died") or did she die earlier before the others were encased in amber? And is that why Etta has a bullet as a necklace; is it the one that killed her mother?

Thirdly: Did this happen in the other universe as well? I'm very curious as to how the other universe reacted to this sudden invasion, because if the bridge was still active then the Observers could cross unhindered. So was the bridge sealed off, or is the alternate universe under the same control that ours is in 2036?

Maybe that's where Olivia went! (To the Other Side)

Lastly: What about that device that Walter was going to build? How exactly does it stop the Observers? I wish that they had expanded on that more.

Anyways, I rated this episode Very Good because the new approach by the writers was fantastic and I'm a sucker for anything dystopian. But for all its flair, this episode leaves us with more questions than answers and by the looks of next week's episode they are going to be unanswered for a little while (if not indefinitely).

 

It was kind of hard for me to get into the episode at first. It felt like I wandered into the wrong show by mistake. Thankfully as the episode progressed that feeling went away and I got more acclimated to it. Once Walter got out of the amber it felt like I was actually watching Fringe. Really good episode though it was way obvious that the blonde agent was Peter and Olivia's daughter. Georgina Haig looks just enough like Anna Torv where you could believe that she was laying her daughter.