Although we were back Over Here in tonight’s episode of Fringe, it sure seemed like parts of Over There were seeping into our universe both literally and figuratively.
Ever since we were shown Over There, we’ve seen the large-scale ramifications of Walter bringing their Peter to our universe but tonight we saw the possibility that our universe is not too far off from breaking at the seams and resorting to amber encasements to contain the cracks.
Playing cupid, Walter invited Olivia over for a blueberry pancake breakfast with Peter. What was meant to be a nice gesture and a step in the right direction momentarily turns out making things more awkward. Olivia feels Peter isn’t being completely honest with her. He still has feelings for Fauxlivia and thinks about her a lot. She ponders if he thinks she can’t handle hearing about their relationship.
He thinks about her, if only he says because ‘I’ve seen what the two of us together looks like and it’s beautiful.’
‘Peter, she’s the one that took it away from us, not me,’Olivia says.
‘And now? Who’s the one stopping us now?’he answers back.
And with that, the fringe division is called to the scene of the Rosencrantz apartment building where weird events have been happening and party guests have seemingly fallen through a balcony to their deaths.
Upon investigation of this incident, Walter becomes angry and tense as he recognizes the laws of physics are off. What’s happened Over There he says has begun here and it all starts with this building. A vortex is opening. He’s upset, worried, nervous, and anxious and is played fantastically by John Noble.
Walter sends Olivia and Peter back to the building with a seismograph to monitor the crack and sends Astrid to retrieve a case file from an incident with a commuter bus we saw way back in season 1.
They head to a bar across the street with the seismograph in tow. Olivia lets Peter know she wants to know what ‘beautiful’felt like. As she begins to kiss him, she stops, and says she needs to get some air. She’s terrified she can’t fix this that she’s incapable of being vulnerable with him, that she can’t be open like Fauxlivia.
Scared and feeling exposed with Peter, Olivia saw him glimmer. Though unnerving, this glimmer led her to see the glimmer from the vortex beginning to crack in apartment 6B.
This apartment belongs to Mrs. Merchant whose husband died a few months ago after losing a coin toss which sent him to the fuse box he lost his life at. Mrs. Merchant can see her dead husband, though she doesn’t know it, this is not her husband. It’s the Derek Merchant from Over There.
‘If the fabric is so thin that Mrs. Merchant can see through it…this is not good,’says Walter.
Whereas Peter is concerned with why she can see to the other side, Walter is more concerned with what’s next. How will they keep vortexes from forming and their universe from falling apart? Each incident will cause a new hole to form. He’s beginning to grapple with what it must be like to be Walternate, to make those hard choices to save his world. He gives some of the amber from Over There to Massive Dynamic for them to generate quantities of it.
Walter tells Nina, ‘For a long time I’ve been willing to think the worst of Walternate, it made it easy to justify what I did, and now I’m faced with the same decision and I’m arguing that we do exactly what he did.’Struggling with this hard choice, Walter’s empathy for Walternate is apparent. He may just be doing what he needs to in order to ensure the survival of his universe.
Peter, still concerned with the why of this incident, develops a theory. Perhaps the coin toss which killed Mr. Merchant in our world, also took place Over There. Except when it happened Over There, Mrs. Merchant was the one who lost and thus lost her life. This begins some type of emotional quantum entanglement wherein these two people are interacting with each other though separated by a great distance, in this case, a whole universe.
Mr. and Mrs. Merchant’s entanglement are causing this hole in our universe. Before quarantining the building with amber, Olivia and Peter plead with Broyles to let them try out this theory and see if they can get Mrs. Merchant to let go of her husband.
In the end its Peter’s words of wisdom (‘You’ve already had what most of us only dream of, a lifetime with the person you love’) and Mr. Merchant’s declaration that the girls miss her (Mr. and Mrs. Merchant never had children over here.) that make her see the truth. She lets go of him, and the vortex closes.
While Walter remains worried of what’s to come, Olivia heads to the Bishop house. ‘What you said to Mrs. Merchant…I want what you want’she says and she kisses Peter. There is no glimmer this time as they head up the stairs.
Cut to Over There, where Alt-Astrid has reported a class 4 event at the Rosencrantz apartment building. Only there’s nothing wrong. Fauxlivia knocks on the door of apartment 6B and Mr. Merchant tells her that nothing strange has happened here. Whatever hole their quantum entanglement created, it’s been closed on both sides.
Next week’s Fringe is sure to be informative and exciting as we see Peter and Olivia meet for the first time when they were children. Their relationship is no accident.
So what do you think about the developments in Peter and Olivia’s relationship tonight? How do you think it will change now that we know Fauxlivia is pregnant? What about Walter’s empathy for Walternate’s tough decisions? Do you think Walter will be able to stop the universes from collapsing? Let us know in the comments below! And don’t forget to keep watching Fringe at 9/8c on FOX!
Photo Credit: FOX
Follow Us
