TV Review: Fringe 4.18, 'The Consultant'
In the aftermath of Alt-Lincoln’s death, Walter is drawn to the other side to help investigate a strange occurrence that has claimed victims on both sides.
rating: 4
In the aftermath of Alt-Lincolns (Seth Gabel) death, Walter (John Noble) is drawn to the other side to help investigate a strange occurrence that has claimed victims on both sides. Fauxlivia (Anna Torv) also struggles with her partners death, and the Alt-Broyles (Lance Reddick) mole story arc comes to a close. At Alt-Lincolns funeral, Fauxlivia promises his parents that she will do everything possible to find the people responsible for his death and bring them to justice. Well she doesnt know it yet but one of those people is standing right next to her. Afterwards she goes to evil Ninas (Blair Brown) cell to ask some questions but gets nothing more than veiled threats. Those threats prove rather fruitful however. Back on our side, a particularly unique string of deaths occur. Two men in the same office building suffer sever physical trauma seemingly out of nowhere. One victim is lifted out of his seat and thrown back down with such force as to break both his legs and shatter his spine, killing him instantly. Elsewhere a third victim, identified as a pilot, is discovered to have died under the same circumstances. After examining the bodies, Peter (Joshua Jackson) suggests that their injuries are indicative of car crash injuries. Walter then expands the hypothesis to a plane crash, which may have occurred on the other side. Sure enough, the same three men did indeed die in a plane crash on the other side at the same time as the victims over here. Evidently, the accident over there had far reaching effects. Identifying the cause and nature of which, become Walters objective in his mission to the other side. Before being assigned as Walters escort, Fauxlivia delivers a list of suspects from within the D.O.D. that she has isolated as having knowledge of the teams whereabouts at the time of Alt-Lincolns murder. Broyles assures her that he will cut through the red tape while she is working with Walter. After a few experiments, Walter theorises that the frequency of the victims was altered to reflect that of the universe where the accident occurred. As he explains, our universe vibrates at a frequency resembling the musical note C, and the other universe vibrates at G. The victims over here were re-tuned to G, thus allowing them to be affected by the trauma of their doppelgangers. Now I know Fringe is pretty notorious at coming up with bogus pseudo-physics to explain some of the phenomena, but really this takes the cake. How convenient that the entirety of both universes vibrates perfectly at a pitch that can be measured using a major scale (western). I guess all those other cultures were wrong. Anyway, the point is that Walter now knows how the culprit is causing the phenomena, he just doesnt understand why. The culprit, we learn in the following scene, is of course the illusive David Robert Jones (Jarred Harris). Now we get into the murky water of Alt-Broyles and his place in the trio of doom. (Broyles/Nina/Jones) Until now it hadnt been confirmed whether Alt-Broyles was working for Jones, or whether the real Alt-Broyles had been replaced by a shapeshifter. We can now assume that he is not a shapeshifter, because his motivation for helping Jones is to cure his dying son (presumably a shapeshifter wouldnt care about such a thing). Jones has bought Broyles allegiance with medication for the sick boy, but he has a new assignment for him; to place a device on the control panel of the bridge between the universes. Jones must have some plan to take his experiment to the next level. Another cross-universe incident occurs involving a woman who drowns in a taxicab after it crashes off a bridge. Sure enough, her alternate on the other side drowns as well, though not near any water. Peter and Olivia co-ordinate the investigation with Walter on the other side and Peter finds the device that re-tuned the victims frequencies. Strangely, the device must re-tune the other person, not the one it is in proximity of, but that persons alternate. I make this assumption because the first victims over here were tuned to G, the frequency of the other side. The device and accident were also both on the other side. In the second case, the device is placed in the cab over on this side, so presumably the victim on the other side is the one who is retuned to C. If it were the not this way, than surely the first victims in the plane crash over there would have been tuned to C and not those here tuned to G. This suggests that there is already some kind of natural link between people across universes that the device taps into, otherwise, being a remote tuner, what purpose would it serve to place the device within the proximity of the subject whose doppelganger you are trying to retune? It doesnt exactly bear relevance (not yet anyway); I just thought it was interesting. Something to puzzle over Later that night, Fauxlivia is awake, a little drunk, and restless, trying to figure out who the mole in the D.O.D is. The list that she gave Broyles provided no new evidence (unsurprisingly). Walter is up as well, though not for lack of sleep, and he fixes her some eggs and tries to offer a new perspective. This was the highlight of the episode for me because he makes reference to my favourite Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze and the curious incident of the dog in the night. Fauxlivia is mystified by the analogy (first no Batman, now no Sherlock?! Get your shit together other side!) Basically, there was no incident with the dog in the night; it never made a sound. Holmes is the only one to recognise this as crucial evidence because he deduces that it can only mean that the dog knew the criminal. As Walter summarises in this case: No evidence is evidence, in and of itself. This opens up Alt-Broyles as a suspect in Fauxlivias case, which she then tricks Nina into confirming. As a side note, Anna Torv continues to be brilliant as Fauxlivia, who is far more engaging than any of the other Olivia's in any universe or timeline. The episode culminates in Alt-Broyles turning himself in, deciding not to implant Jones device at the bridge, a device Walter later theorises would have collapsed both universes (phew!). So what was that? Was that Jones plan, to hope that Broyles was loyal enough to plant the device that would destroy both universes? Doesnt sound like it. We all know Jones is more cunning than that. Therefore we have to assume that Jones wanted Broyles to turn himself in, for some alternative purpose. Maybe Broyles is there to break Nina out? I also dont believe Jones wants to destroy the universes. How would that serve him? Not only would he also die, but Jones motivation is that he thinks he never got the recognition he deserved for being a genius. He certainly wont get it if everyone is dead. At any rate, there are only four episodes to go in the season (and possibly the series!) and I expect Jones true plan will come to a head soon. Tune in next week and we might just find out more!