TV Review: Fringe 4.14, 'The End of All Things'
Well there’s good news and bad news...
rating: 4
Well theres good news and bad news. The good news is that several long standing questions have been cleared up (kind of) in this weeks Fringe but the bad news is the show will now go on hiatus for four weeks! On the plus side, the remaining eight episodes will air uninterrupted until the season ends. Hopefully we will hear something during the break with regards to the ongoing negotiations between Fox and Warner Bros. about the status of a fifth season. Now to those answers, and some more questions there be spoilers. As the last episode ended, Olivia (Anna Torv) has been abducted along with a second Nina (Blair Brown) and I think we all knew who the culprit was. Yes, Jared Harris returns to the show this week as the nefarious David Robert Jones. Ill never get tired of this character. The fact that he repeats the same lines with the same arrogance as he did in the first season, despite us knowing how badly he failed, is hilarious. Having said that, he still manages to convey menace and threat. There are several plotlines at work here, so Ill try to go through them without making a big mess of things. Primarily theres Olivia and Nina 2 in captivity, Peter (Joshua Jackson) and the rest of the team trying to find her, and Broyles (Lance Reddick) and Nina 1 in the F.B.I. interrogation room. Then theres also the Observers story. September (Michael Cerveris) has become a fugitive amongst his own and he finally reveals himself to Peter in this timeline. This is where all the big reveals come from so well get to that part later, but firstly to the problems at hand: Jones is holding Olivia for the same reasons as he did before: to get her to play with his magic light set. Actually we dont know why he wants to activate Olivias ability because as she says, hes already mastered crossing between universes. Jones end game is still unclear to me but what Im fairly certain of is that he doesnt want to destroy the universes. Whilst he may get a kick out being evil, we have to remember that he was originally a scientist who craved recognition and I dont think destroying everything would satisfy that need. I also dont think Nina would ally with him if he was on a suicide apocalypse mission, her motivations are purely self serving and Im sure death isnt on her to-do-list. So Jones uses Nina 2 as a plant to motivate Olivia into using her abilities. Olivia sees through this quite easily (as I think we all did) and tricks them into bringing Peter to her. Even though we know which Nina is which, I still cant feel any sympathy for Nina 1, who is being held by the F.B.I. for abducting and drugging Olivia. While her character this season has been re-written as Olivias adopted mum, I will never look at her and think, Yeah, I could believe you and your robo-arm raised and loved children. You just cant undo three seasons of ambiguity and distrust. For all her amicable intentions, I honestly couldnt care if Nina 1 ends up taking the fall for this. On the other side of the story, Peter and Lincoln (Seth Gabel) begin by searching Olivias apartment and finding a camera bug. Theres some heat between them as Lincoln blames Peter for stealing Olivias identity. Back at the lab, they manage to isolate an image of the intruder who planted the bug in Olivias apartment. Turns out hes already dead though What was the point of this storyline again? None of this matters however because things take a sharp turn when September suddenly appears in the lab, still bleeding out from his bullet wound. As September lies dying on the table, Peter realises he is the only one who can help them find Olivia; if only he was conscious enough to talk, but then this is Fringe; so long as your corpse has minimal brain activity, you can take them out for dinner. So without any regard for explaining the (pseudo) science like they used to, Walter merges Peters subconscious with Septembers and they are able to have a full-on conversation in a glass room in space at the birth of the universe what of it? The important thing is that September actually starts talking, and not just in riddles. We learn that the Observers are a scientific team from the future, or at least one possible future for humanity. They use their technology to go back and witness humanitys beginnings, never interfering, never changing the course of the timeline until the fateful day when September prevented Walternate from discovering the cure to Peters childhood illness. From that point on, events shifted dramatically, culminating in the birth of Peters son Henry with the wrong Olivia; a child that was never meant to be born. This is why the timeline had to be erased. What is still unclear is why Peter was so important to the original Observers timeline. Why did September take an interest in watching Walternate discover the cure for Peters disease? A discovery that presumably lead to Peter remaining on the other side his whole life. What part did he then play in building their future that they have so drastically altered by preventing his cure? How then as well, was he still fated to be with the original Olivia? Assuming he never came to our universe as a child, he would have grown up over there, and would have never come to work for our Fringe team. Perhaps he and Fauxlivia would have got together for real, but apparently not because their union results in some kind of devil spawn. So much is still unclear, but what is clear, is that Peters determination to return home is stronger than ever. After he and Olivia escape captivity and Jones gets away once again, Peter ends things with Olivia before they even get started. With only eight episodes to go, Im still holding out hope for a fifth season, but if not, Im praying they at least conclude this season with a resolution to the timeline conundrum. On a side note, Im guessing that it is Peter who shoots September, most likely as the cliffhanger before the last episode and the September we see now is travelling back in time, attempting to the lay the threads for Peter to pick up in the season finale. Why does he shoot him? Maybe September kills Olivia?