Fringe S1 Ep9: The Dreamscape

"Did I invent ZFT? Flight 627? The North Woods Group? John Scott? The Pattern?  The whole thing is a hoax.  It's all a smoke screen so Massive Dynamic can do whatever it wants to whoever it wants.  Do you understand that?  Massive Dynamic is hell and its founder William Bell is the devil."

 

-George Morales warning Agent Olivia Dunham-

"I believe that your cooperation is an illusion.  It never leads to something tangible.  It only leads to more questions.  And that's the point isn't it?  To keep us all asking questions.  All just chasing our own tails." 

-Agent Olivia Dunham to Nina Sharp-




"Sir Isaac Newton remarked, 'If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.'  Like a scientific journal article that builds upon previous works, the series Fringe borrows from, and pays clear homage to, many of the 'giant' works of science fiction that preceded it." (p.17)

-Kevin R. Grazier, preface to In Search Of Fringe's Literary Ancestors, Fringe Science: Parallel Universes, White Tulips, And Mad Scientists-










Fringe is cooking along with its dreamy ninth entry.  Fringe is finding its heartbeat and getting its rhythm and that vibe is beginning to feel more natural than ever with the latest effort's brush with technological wonder.

Previously in my coverage of Fringe, Season One, Episode 8, The Equation we analyzed the leap by Fringe into the technological future.  The series is wise to implement and benefit from the advancement of special effects technology in the short span of years since the end of The X-Files. Fringe takes full advantage of these advancements coupling them with a story that plays with reality and technology. But like most things, it's not exclusive.  The Observer arrives early.



Fringe also unabashedly pays its homage to the technological past within classic science fiction with weird wires, tanks, chemical labs, flasks, VHS tapes, and other vintage glories of the sci-fi past.  Fringe, Season One, Episode 4, The Arrival was a stylistic nod to the 1950s, but fused technology and classic style seamlessly connecting the science fiction past to the technological future.  Fringe even has its very own Dr. Frankenstein of a sort in Walter Bishop, a mad but brilliant scientist. Still, these things work within Fringe's techie, modernity. It embraces the past and steps into the future in a dreamy amalgamation of ideas and technical wonder.  The aforementioned quote from Fringe Science and efforts here at Musings Of A Sci-Fi Fanatic recognize Fringe's embrace of the science fiction past but also its efforts to leave an imprint of its own in the science fiction pantheon but re-imagining those ideas and opening them up with a new interpretation, new twists while leveraging new technologies within its expanding mythology.  Put simply, it's a process, and due to some arguably clunky moments and sometimes questionable writing the Fringe identity doesn't become immediately apparent in Season One.







The futurist sci-fi series with a smile toward past glories continues to forge ahead into the mindscape of Fringe, Season One, Episode 9, The Dreamscape.  The tale opens with the death of an executive named Mark Young.  Can you imagine death by butterfly?  The Dreamscape does and with cinematic wonder.




There's a sense of impending doom in the prologue beginning with a camera close up of a woman gracefully closing a glass door to the meeting room after all participants have exited leaving Young alone.  There's nothing intended to be sinister about it, but the way it is framed in isolation and designed to be visually intimate viewers are immediately placed on alert. Senses are heightened to the possibility of impending dread.  Doom for Young is coming.  The opening sequence is stunningly simple, meticulously cold and corporate and yet beautiful in execution (literally) as a beautiful monarch butterfly enters through an air duct within the meeting room at Massive Dynamic, New York home to 300,000 employees.  The speaker, Young, is left alone and greeted by a playful butterfly that gracefully dances about him landing on his finger.  SLICE!  The wing of the butterfly cuts him in a number of spots before landing and being swatted dead by Young.  Moments later, other butterflies enter the room as he is sliced by their wings, which appear to have the strength of razor blades.  This is followed by a swarm.  In a frenzy he attempts to break free but only breaks through the glass window, crashing through shattered glass and falling to his death.  Once again, it is an exceptionally executed sequence and genuinely disturbing and strangely beautiful set against delicate compositions by the show's composers as the man ultimately falls to his death in delicate and floating slow motion.  Maybe my children had legitimate fears about Butterfly World when they were very tiny.  What happened to termination papers?  It's clear that these butterflies are unlikely real but visually it's magnificent.



Dunham is called by Phillip Broyles to the scene from Boston along with the Bishops.  Something is indeed amiss as Walter notes laceration's on Young's body but none penetrating his shirt.  Meanwhile, Dunham spots John Scott through a crowd who then disappears. Dunham continues to see John Scott in her visions. Memories of Scott linger.

Dunham meets with COO of Massive Dynamic, Nina Sharp.  Her conversation with Nina Sharp is pleasant and polite, but even Dunham wants more than pleasantries concerning Sharp's cooperation with the FBI investigation. "I would expect more from you than the polite appearance of cooperation." Sharp even makes a sharp-tongued, barbed remark about the private industry expectations of Massive Dynamic versus someone working in the public sector like Dunham. It's veiled, but it's there.









An investigation of Young's apartment reveals the word MONARCH in his files.  Olivia also sees butterflies adorning his wall and her mind experiences their wings fluttering for a moment in a nifty visual trick in keeping thematically with The Dreamscape story.



Elsewhere, we are slowly learning more about Peter Bishop who appears to have been involved with some very bad people.  A girl named Tess Amaral meets him and tells him he should leave Boston and go far away.  Tess is clearly the victim of abuse by a man named Michael Kelly.  Later, Peter would beat Kelly as he exits his home and warns him not to touch Tess again or he would be killed.  Peter is demonstrating some relatively harsh attributes.  It's certainly an interesting character component.  The suggestion that Peter was connected to the criminal underworld and perhaps the mafia as secret society continues to be an intriguing but minor subplot.









Funny enough, Joshua Jackson was a last minute casting choice for Fringe.  He tried out for the role of Captain Kirk in J.J.Abrams Star Trek (2009) reboot and lost it.  He landed on his feet though for Fringe.  He definitely has a kind of edgy Captain Kirk quality.  I could see him in that role, but I do think he has much to offer to the part of Peter Bishop and I am starting to warm to him despite some behavioral inconsistencies to this point.





Fringe, as we've discussed here at Musings Of A Sci-Fi Fanatic, and which has been well-publicized and documented elsewhere, was definitely a series designed and mirrored to carry the torch of prior science fiction series like The X-Files, Lost and The Twilight Zone.  Just look at the quote from the book Fringe Science noted at the top of this entry.  As referenced in the Pilot and here with The Dreamscape the series has been infused with an homage to Altered States (1980), just one of many science fiction tributes.  Dunham first experienced the tank in Walter's lab during the series Pilot in an effort to connect to Scott and save his life.  At that time, Scott was struggling to survive.  But he never made it.  He's dead Jim.




Dunham is receiving correspondence via e-mail from John Scott on her laptop in her apartment.  She is receiving notes from a ghost. The first receipt is strictly an address.  Scott is leading her through mental remnants.  At 1312 Labrador Lane, Dunham finds frogs in a basement connected to the death of Young. The frogs are sent to Walter's lab.  While Walter determined the frogs are connected to Young's death, Olivia explains to Charlie she is experiencing visions of John.



In the lab, Walter determined the frogs are actually toads - Bufo alvarius to be exact.  The toads secrete a compound from their skin that has a psychophysiological effect on the mind, whereby the mind produces physical effects on the body.  If the compound is modified into a psychoactive hallucinogen it is indeed powerful. This, in turn, directly affects the fear center of the brain.  Walter surmises Young's death was indeed murder.







The latest episode, The Dreamscape, takes us back into Altered States territory as Dunham goes back into the sensory deprivation tank or the tank to attempt to cleanse herself of Scott's memories.  Walter cautions that the repressed memory therapy procedure is very dangerous, but Dunham is an adventurous agent and steps back into the tank with free will.  Walter sees lifting the trapped memories could be potentially detrimental to her health.  Dunham wants them purged.  She needs them removed for peace of mind, rather than piece of mind.

The entirety of that sequence including flashbacks is well-produced and directed.  The lighting and cinematography in those sequences are so beautifully directed, produced and executed there is an ethereal quality to them.



Olivia, with the aid of Walter's drugs, immerses herself in a dream state and revisits her first date with Scott.  The scene is actually quite poignant.  Olivia observes a version of herself sitting with Scott at a restaurant table. Olivia watches to see herself leave the table, so she sits down in front of John.  He cannot see her by all accounts.  Looking at John Olivia tells Scott "I loved you." Torv is very effective in this scene opening up her vulnerable side and expressing that she did indeed love this man.  The tough but emotional Olivia was indeed wounded by this man.  There is a sense of betrayal by Scott of Olivia.  At least this is how she feels towards him.  She tells John that Mark Young died and John turns and looks into Olivia's eyes.  Olivia is panic-stricken in the moment.  Walter calms her.







The scene quickly shifts and Olivia witnesses a transaction being made between Scott, a black man, a Latino man as well as the now deceased Young. Olivia follows Young and the Latino man but they disappear because she is experiencing John's memories and must return to John. Returning Scott kills the black man by stabbing him.  This jostles Dunham out of her altered, drug-infused state. This further complicates her ability to understand who Scott was and his agenda.  Olivia is removed from the tank.  This entire sequence is the heartbeat of The Dreamscape.



Olivia realizes that only the Hispanic man is left alive.  Everyone else from that memory is dead.  She begins to composite the Hispanic man's face through facial recognition software in the hopes of getting answers and determining who this man is and what he might know about Young and maybe even Scott.





Olivia informs Broyles that Young may have been selling this synthetic hallucinogen on the black market.  It has the potential not only to be a street drug, but weaponized.  Olivia wants Young's files from Massive Dynamic and Broyles submits he will see what can be done.  After all, Broyles and Sharp have a murky relationship that still remains something of a mystery.  That relationship is more than suggested in Fringe, Season One, Episode 3, The Ghost Network's closing moments.  Broyles would later provide Olivia with information given to him by Sharp.



Throughout the episode there are moments of strange or inappropriate humor from Walter, but generally speaking it begins to work and it works for me and I'm beginning to enjoy the retorts.  In this case, his random coffee yogurt or erection moments, as odd as they seem, somehow work in The Dreamscape.

Dialing 1-212-MONARCH, Olivia recognizes the voice of George Morales, a black market trafficker.  The pursuit offers sci-fi action fans an intense but ephemeral thrill ride before apprehending Morales after being hit by a car.



In the hospital Morales warns her Massive Dynamic is "hell" and William Bell is the "devil."  He wants immunity and protection from Massive Dynamic further upping the ante on the company's unknowns. Morales received great technologies from Young and further lends credence to the fact he may have been literally terminated by the company for selling secrets.  Morales believes he can trust Olivia because John told him about her.  Again, complications continue as Olivia tries to make heads or tails of Scott's mission.

Olivia pays a condescending visit to Sharp suggesting the company's cooperation is nothing more than an intangible illusion.  They offer seeming rabbit holes and more questions.  Ultimately, Olivia's investigations lead her back to Massive Dynamic.  She suggests Nina be forthright with her investigation with Morales in custody.  Sharp is unmolested.  The scene is juxtaposed with the death of Morales.



Broyles informs Dunham the witness has been killed with the same psychosomatic or psychoactive drug that killed Mark Young.  Young believed he was killed by butterflies, but the poison was the culprit.  In the case of Morales he saw John Scott slicing his throat before his death and the same poison was found in his system.  The synthetic hallucinogen eliminates Olivia's sole remaining witness.  The drug as a weapon could be lethal.  It can literally scare you to death and convince the body to murder you.  Yes, that's one powerful drug.



Olivia is frustrated with Sharp and Massive Dynamic and brings her grievances to her superior, Broyles, who essentially slaps her on the wrist assuring her that the company has been nothing but forthcoming and cooperative.





Dunham visits Walter at his apartment and tells him she wishes to go back into the tank despite serious physical long-term detriment or the potential for deleterious effects to herself.  She is willing to do it.  Walter is against it.  She wants the truth and she knows Scott's memories hold the key to those questions to the truth and those memories are within her.  But that re-tanking is for another day.



The final moments and music deliver classic Abrams.  Talk about Ghost In The Machine. Dunham's laptop mysteriously activates while she rests in her apartment.  She receives a second e-mail from John Scott.  Though she can see him while in the tank, those in her memories cannot see her, or can they?  The music tightens and the e-mail from Scott reads, "I Saw You. In The Restaurant."

Many of the moments and scenes within The Dreamscape lend further evidence that Fringe is coming into its own.  Plenty of moments, like Lost, allow interpretation for Fringe.  These splendid little moments see Fringe finding its touch and doing so much more naturally and confidently as the story and mytharc expands.







Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote, "The Dreamscape is an episode more involved with insinuation and mythology-building than with telling a complete-in-one story."  IGN's Travis Fickett noted the series, at this point, is "still trying to find its legs."  Sarah Steggall still sees potential in the series, but took issue with the sometimes problematic writing.  "Why can bad writing like this survive and even thrive...?"  Stegall suspects it has "breakout" potential but feels the cliched over reliance on the "Big Bad Corporation" as "greedy, soulless Bad Guys" is old.  These are the same companies "signing their paychecks and producing this stuff." Bad Robot indeed.  These are fair points, but The Dreamscape is a strong step in the right direction. Despite these reservations and grievances this is an above average script coupled with the typically excellect technical production making it a real Season One highlight.



Kudos to Zack Whedon in his first scripting appearance with Julia Cho. Cho and Whedon, of thee family Whedon, work a wonderfully gentle script and get at the nuances of Dunham's feminine side, clearly a Whedon trademark along with Cho's own sure-handed perspective.  It's a solid script with capable direction from Fringe mainstay Frederick E. O. Toye (Falling Skies).  Fringe is becoming a science fiction experience and like The Dreamscape, and episodes like The Transformation and Bad Dreams to come, the series takes pleasure in exploring both the frightening and the ethereal within the mind.  I'm really starting to let go and simply float inside its mysterious waters.



The Dreamscape: B/ B+.
Writer: Julia Cho, Zack Whedon. Director: Frederick E. O. Toye.
Glyph Code: VOICE.

Fringe S1 Ep8: The Equation

"Numbers make everything work."

 

-Agent Mitchell Loeb-

As you know, I've been attempting to understand Fringe's place within the vast, complex science fiction television universe to offer an argument of validation for its existence when so many discounted its qualifications.  It's easy to come back time and again to The X-Files and Millennium, because in many respects Fringe feels like a natural heir to these programs.  Even The Equation relates back to such grim, dark tales as Millennium's A Room With No View and that episode's frightening Lucy Butler played so seductively and deliciously by Sarah-Jane Redmond with her abduction of the young also with talent.  Fringe is very much the offspring as the next step in this respective evolution.





As I keep putting the pieces together with each episode, I continue to ask myself why Fringe is different or at least why it should be respected as a separate entity outside of those comparisons to The X-Files.

I was reading an excellent excerpt of writer John Kenneth Muir's analysis of The X-Files Pilot recently which inspired further exploration of the issue. Here is the excerpt that furthers the discussion concerning Fringe's placement within the pantheon of great science fiction television and within the context of the evolving science fiction crime procedural.





"If one considers the Victorian Age to be Pax Britannica, a time when England experienced prosperity because of colonial imports from Europe and Asia, and developed new technologies at homes (Kodak cameras, and early motion picture devices such as “cinematographs”), then one may also be tempted to look at the Age of the X-Files-- the Age of Bill Clinton -- as a version of Pax Americana. Technological advance came in the form of the Internet, and that decade saw the dawn not of colonialism, but globalism (consider, NAFTA, for example).

Yet in both the Victorian Age and the Clinton Age, many people began to suffer a spiritual ennui, and experienced worry about the “mechanical” de-humanization of “modern” civilization and the loss of racial/cultural identity. How could a single Age accommodate both the miracle of surgery and the terror of Jack the Ripper? The science of Darwin and the magic of Dracula?

Or for that matter, how could the World Wide Web and Jeffrey Dahmer exist side-by-side?

Essentially, The X-Files represents a new Gothic paradigm in which Enlightenment and Romanticism ideals compete again and go one more round, each trying to gain a foothold. Whereas Dracula could transform into the form of wind, fog, thunder, owls, bats, wolves or foxes, consider the myriad villains of The X-Files. They too are atmospheric (“D.P.O.”) in nature, or hail from the natural world. There were bats (“Patience”), wolves (“Alpha”) and other strange, quasi-natural menaces to challenge Scully and Mulder. These monsters were re-assertions of the Romantic Ideal in a world that was apparently enlightened.

If one is so inclined, certainly one can gaze the prologue in “Pilot” and see that it serves as a kind of metaphor for the entire series, for the new debate between science and superstition, knowledge and faith.

The final imagery of “Pilot” may seem familiar for another reason. It appears a deliberate homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). In that Steven Spielberg film, the Lost Ark of the Covenant (a symbol, once more of Romanticism) is tucked away by 20^th century man in a place where it can’t threaten Enlightenment, inside a giant, endless warehouse."





I've come to realize Fringe is the next logical step in the evolution of the science fiction procedural within the context of 21st Century Man.  This is the logical leap forward.  This is the next step in the modern revolution as Fringe embraced the complexities of today's discoveries, many of which were in their infancy when The X-Files was born.  The X-Files feels like a bridge between the ideas of Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Fringe today as these series take the surrounding culture and reflect certain beliefs.  The X-Files began more closely resembling the application of the crime procedural as portrayed in the influential Kolchak, but by the series end it became more closely connected to technological man.  It began to change, while remaining true to its romantic roots as Muir correctly reflected.  But Fringe, makes that massive (dynamic) leap forward into the 21st Century unabashedly embracing the wild proliferation of technology and computers as well as medical wonders and applies that to its affect on humanity in a sterile, corporate world.  The X-Files even laments the arrival of computer technology in The X-Files, Season Two finale, Episode 25, Anasazi, in a scene between Bill Mulder and The Cigarette-Smoking Man.  "Who could have predicted the future Bill?  That the computers you and I only dreamed of would someday be home appliances capable of the most technical espionage."





The aesthetic of the Fringe series also embraces, not the dark, grim blacks and whites of The X-Files, but the freakish technicolor of today's modern world set against bright white and black. It's a pleasure to note the contrasts as much as the comparisons and not that the two stand mutually exclusive in these approaches.

Fringe takes all of the radical concerns embodied by the likes of a man like American terrorist Theodore Kaczynski who railed against technology and wrote manifestos about those industrial developments and it places these concepts within a science fiction context.  The Unabomber (referred to an FBI case file called UNABOM for university and airline bombings), as Kaczynski was known, waged a national war against technology through bombings.  The one-time professor penned a type-written manifesto called Industrial Society And Its Future.  The idea of anarchists in popular culture is nothing new, but the vehicle of Fringe takes a long, hard look at the realities of technology far beyond its predecessors and the nature of this evolving reality. More on the Kaczynski effect and his type-written (a common method in The X-Files and Kolchak) manifesto to come in Fringe, Season One, Episode 14, Ability.



Both good and evil are indeed working sometimes to deleterious effect with the rapidly expanding technology and information.  It is happening in concert and a war is indeed being waged between these forces with the tools of the 21st Century.  Nina Sharp reflected upon this in the Pilot episode. It plays out each week with sometimes gruesome consequences.  But the fabric of humanity, so intertwined with technology and today's advancements, is forced to keep up at a breakneck pace. With technology moving so quickly, humankind seems incapable of sustaining a relationship with it, and Fringe mines those ideas, that territory with the possibility that we are incapable of fully understanding the deleterious effects of the technology employed on today's world and tomorrow in the hands of both good and evil men. Nevertheless, efforts by the likes of Agent Olivia Dunham are in play actively attempting to understand and set things right.



Thus, Kolchak: The Nightstalker (1974-1975) + The X-Files (1993-2002) + Millennium (1996-1999) = Fringe (2008-2013) today.  That's having a bit of fun with an oversimplification, given the entry's title, but the progression exists.  This evolution is more apparent to me now and Fringe is seen by this Sci-Fi Fanatic, not as a copy or a clone, but as a natural step in the evolution of the crime procedural within science fiction within our 21st Century culture.   Up to this point, this is the best possible explanation for the seemingly logical approach Fringe takes toward its world and its growing mythology not to mention very different character dynamics. Fringe is setting up to be an original in its own right.

In Middletown, CT Jeremy Stockton stops to aid a woman in the rain by her disabled car.  Upon opening the hood the man is hypnotized by a series of flashing green and red lights (green, green, green, red), in effect, hypnotized by technology.  When he awakens from his hypnagogic trance (a transitional state to sleep) by the tow truck operator he called earlier, not only is her car missing, but now his son Ben is missing too.



Welcome to the nightmare world of the technologically challenged machinations of Fringe, Season One, Episode 8, The Equation.

Phillip Broyles brings Agent Olivia Dunham up to speed.  The abductions have happened before and the same woman is involved in each case.  All of the abductees eventually turn up but then inevitably "go insane."  All of the abductions involve academics.  This time it is ten year old Ben Stockton, who demonstrates a genius gift for music and rhythm with an obsession for a particular piece.  This is noted in the opening just prior to his abduction.  Walter Bishop recalls the green and red sequencing and their ability to create a state of hypnosis.  He would later employ its use in Season One, Episode 17, Bad Dreams. Again, underscoring the use of technology in the hands of both good and evil.



Dunham visits Mr. Stockton and discovers Ben was involved in an accident, which led to a coma for six days.  He awakened as a kind of musical prodigy composing his own music.  In a sense he has awakened an untapped ability, often a recurring theme in Fringe.  Sadly, Ben lost his mother in that accident.

As we mentioned, The Equation reminisces of Millennium, Season Two, Episode 20, A Room With No View, as Ben is held against his will in a dark undisclosed location and the forces working against him attempt to break him psychologically.  It is suggested to Ben that his mother is still alive.  Joanne Ostler, while no Lucy Butler, is the abductor and is played quite effectively by Gillian Jacobs, as she works to break Ben's will to achieve her ends in much the same way Butler worked to break the spirit of the young boys in the basement of A Room With No View.  While those elements exist, the two stories differ entirely on a substantive level.



Back at the Harvard lab, Walter performs an experiment on his son Peter (again).  Some things never change noting these things began when Peter was a child as noted in Fringe, Episode 7, In Which We Meet Mr. Jones.  Walter utilizes red and green lights as stimuli for hypnosis.  It works.

Charlie Francis informs Dunham the female abductor has been identified.  She was a neurologist at MIT.  Her name is Joanne Ostler only she died ten years ago.  Her car went off a bridge in 1998, eight months before the first abduction.  Though her car was recovered her body was never found.



Walter remembers his connection to the red and green lights.  The man who can help them is Dashiell Kim, a fellow inmate at St. Claire's Hospital. Kim once shared a story with Walter about being hypnotized by a Christmas tree.

Kim was the head of astrophysics at UMASS and was abducted in 2006.  He was returned after a week, suffered a psychotic breakdown only to bludgeon his wife to death with a tire iron.  He shared his memory of events with Walter.  Kim remembered being put to sleep by a Christmas Tree and disappearing.  Dunham is told by Broyles seeing him will be difficult because he is in a 1027, incarceration for the criminally insane with state secrets on defense.  Access in in question.





Meanwhile, Ben is taken to another room where his written compositions are arranged in a different order then he is accustomed.  His mother greets him with a hug.

At the lab, an image of the Kim murder scene is handed to Walter. The walls in the image are covered with mathematical equations.  Bishop says he never could complete the equation.  Dunham recalls Mr. Stockton telling her something similar about Ben not completing a composition of music.  These people become obsessed with their puzzle.   Peter points out that music is essentially a mathematical equation too. Chords and notes are like numerical values. Ben's song or piece is the equivalent of Kim's math formula.  Walter assures that curious minds converge on like ideas, but what it is those minds are attempting to solve is another matter.



Walter completes the translation of the math into music.  Peter performs the piece.  Ben's selection is the musical equivalent of Kim's math.

Ben's mother tells him he needs to complete the song for Ostler in order for her to stay. Ben's mother displays a visible scar on her face.

Elsewhere, Dunham meets with Dr. Sumner, played by William Sadler.  Sumner insists to Dunham that Walter Bishop, who left his care three months ago, has no business being on the outside, despite Olivia's claim that Walter is doing well and is aiding the FBI.  Sumner is fairly evasive in allowing Dunham access to Kim.  He will allow Walter to speak with Kim - alone.  Dr. Sumner clearly enjoys the game, or field, of psychology. Sadler is terrific in the role.



Peter is defensive of Walter expressing concern to Olivia about sending him back into the institution.  The Equation certainly paints the picture that the asylum was a big part of what made him unstable in the first place.  One of the great issues with Fringe, thus far, has been Peter as a character.  He's a bit of an enigma and is seemingly inconsistent in his decision-making ability.  At first he denies his father's existence.  He rails against the treatment of his father toward him as a child, but then quickly defends him.  But perhaps, Peter is softening to his father aware of Walter's instability.  Peter and Walter suffered from years of dysfunction.  There's no reason to think movement to bring them closer and develop understanding between them should be easy, logical, or anything less than complicated.  But Peter does exhibit precious signs of empathy toward his father.  Gradual connections are being made even if Peter's actions at times appear irrational.  There's certainly no manual for relationships especially one as estranged as Peter and Walter's connection.



Walter takes umbrage at being discussed in the third person as if not in the room, like a child himself.  He speaks and informs Peter and Olivia, "I'd rather not go" back to St. Claire, but says he will do it as he watched repeated video of young Ben playing the piano.  Something in Walter connects with the loss of a child and perhaps Walter's own negligence at not being there entirely for Peter as a boy.  Though I'm not entirely sure Peter sees the bigger picture and reacts by taking it personally to a degree.  Walter demonstrates a recognition of those outside of his own sphere of genius, which comes as something of a revelation too.



Sadler appears to operate with a sadistic nature, but at the same time his behavior could be perceived as sincere.  It's no wonder he was cast in Die Hard 2 (1990).  But Sumner looks like he plays a good mind game or two harming rather than helping his patients.  Sadler is like the male alternative to Nurse Mildred Ratched, played devilishly by Louise Fletcher, in Milos Forman's film version of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975).



Sumner greets Walter, Peter and Olivia.  As Sumner takes Walter into the hospital, you can see tremendous anxiety in Walter.  He is indeed experiencing stress even at the touch on his arm by Sadler.  This scene drew me into watching Fringe that much more deeply.  It's one of those moments that gives Fringe its own identity.  Again, the impression may be incorrect, but Sumner appears almost as though he takes inner pleasure at bringing Walter back down that hall.  There is great power in that scene as Walter walks back into the institution behind bars as Olivia and Peter shrink away in the distance.  The scene gives great understanding and power to the character of Walter.  I have been harsh on my assessments of Walter at times as he proceeds to sound unhinged socially when he speaks with others.  But seeing Walter walk down that hall surrounded by darkness, people who are mentally unstable, with all manner of crazy habits, it puts who he is and his experience into perspective.  Walter was in prison for years.  He's on the outside now.  You're not going to change in weeks or months.  All that separates Walter from being considered a patient at St. Claire's is the fact he has been on the other side of those metal doors and locks for days.  That's it.  And when he walks down the corridor toward the world he left behind, you can see his apparent unease.  Will Peter and Olivia still be there?  Walter's love for everything from cotton candy, seat warmers, onion soup, and mints to gum and root beer make perfect sense, but it was difficult to accept with Walter functioning as an asset of the FBI almost from the word go on Fringe.  These things certainly resonate with greater perspective by experiencing this sequence and framing Walter within this world.  It's powerful and it's clear this has not been a place that would make him well but rather much worse.  It was an impressive moment in the series for me.  It's also easy to feel Peter's concern.  Walter looks like he could fit in just fine at St. Claire's. Yet, slowly, ever so gradually, Olivia and Peter are bringing Walter back from the abyss.





Walter meets with Kim, given a moving performance by Randall Duk Kim (The Keymaker in The Matrix: Reloaded).  They exchange pleasantries and Kim clearly isn't right in the head.  As my father once said, "He's one short of a six pack."  Walter brings up the abduction story Kim once shared. Kim simply stops smiling, shuts down and tells Walter he is mistaken.  Walter proceeds to write out the math formula on a coffee table.  Kim becomes irate. "I DON'T DO MATH ANYMORE!"  All of the patients become upset and animated.  Rather than take Walter from the room he is sedated and kept within the hospital.  Sumner acts against the agreement.  Olivia threatens a court order for his release and Sumner tells her to go ahead and get it.  Again, is Sumner perverse or acting within the field justification of his oath?



In Walter's room he sings songs almost as a coping mechanism.  It's something we've seen Walter do while living with Peter.  The door opens and another version of Walter Bishop sits at the end of his bed and tells him "Welcome back Walter."  Walter holds back the tears.  This is indeed a potent moment within the series that leaves viewers with many questions.  Is this Walter real?  Is this a psychological construct developed by Walter while a patient at St. Claire's?  What is the significance of that moment?





Dunham is informed the court order will be available in the morning. She is apologetic to Peter, but Peter knows this was also Walter's choice. This choice by Walter was indeed a form of freedom or free will, which was formerly stripped of the man as a patient of St. Claire's.  Exercising that freedom of choice was liberating but certainly difficult for Walter.  Meanwhile, Peter ascertains some aliases for Joanne Ostler [middle English for Inn Keeper] and the search for Ben Stockton is expanded based on the PO BOX address of a Joanne Ritz.





In Ben's prison he is unable to finish the musical piece.  His mother sits with him.  Her face begins dripping blood.  She literally bleeds to death in front of Ben all over again.  Like the efforts of Lucy Butler breaking down her captives in Millennium's A Room With No View through the use of Paul Mauriat's number one hit Love Is Blue (1968), a hideous, insanely repetitive but addictive instrumental, Ostler's efforts to break down Ben are working, but her efforts to create an allusion for Ben through electrical stimulus are also breaking down as images of his mother turn to horrifying nightmares.



At St. Claire's Walter meets with Kim again.  He also sees an image of himself across the courtyard once again.  Is it a life left behind?  Walter convinces Kim that he can remember.  It says something about Walter's own ability to dream again, live again and believe in himself again.  He brings that spirit with him into St. Claire's.  Kim cries.  Kim tells Walter the woman promised Kim things and used images of people he loved.  Ben is placed in a similar environment within the dungeon with the promise of his mother.  He is hooked up to wires and attempts to complete the promise of the equation.  Kim couldn't do it for the woman and he is unable to do it for Walter.  All Kim remembers is a red castle.



Peter retrieves Walter despite Sumner's efforts to keep him.  "My personal assessment is that he's safer with me than he is with you," declares Peter.  And like me, Peter, too, saw Walter change when he walked through that door.  "He was afraid."  Sumner takes offense, feeling as though Peter is suggesting he intentionally harmed Walter while in his care.  In turn, Sumner tells Peter he did some backgrounding on him.  He feels Peter is unfit based on a questionable background to be Walter's guardian and he is going to petition the state to remove him from his care.  The Observer in the house.  Do you see him?  In some cases, and this may be one of them, it appears he may have been photoshopped into the frame.  That plays directly into the idea of technology affecting our reality on Fringe.





Walter tells Peter he wants to leave. He also feels he has failed and Kim rambled nonsensically about "red castles and dungeons." "Is that what it's like to talk to me?," asks Walter with a hint of sadness.  He asks Peter if that is what it is like talking to him. Peter neither confirms or denies but by his actions forgives his father and accepts him and wishes him to return home with him.

Peter updates Dunham who is investigating their expanded lead in Clarksburg, MA. She happens upon a red castle, a carousel noted thanks to Walter's intel.





Underground Dunham finds Ben, but also the woman.  A tense duel ensues and Ostler's escape results in the woman's use of a trap of hypnotic green and red lights (the two colors would have recurring significance in the future).  In a trance Dunham is awakened by Charlie Francis and Ostler is gone.  One thing is certain, Dunham knows how to throw it down in a fight.  She can turn the skills on as she does here in her first official physical duel.

When Walter returns home, he requests a place of his own.  Peter tells Walter he was very brave going back to St. Claire's to which Walter replies, "Thank you son."  Walter has tasted freedom and appears more hungry than ever for it.  There is real growth of character between Walter and Peter in The Equation.





Later, Ostler meets with FBI Agent Mitchel Loeb, apparently a party to child abduction now too.  Chance Kelly continues to savor an intriguing recurring role as Loeb.  Loeb has recovered to a good degree from the nightmare existence he manipulated in Fringe, Season One, Episode 7, In Which We Meet Mr. Jones.  Ben succeeded for Ostler.  Loeb programs the numbers to the equation she was able to retrieve from Ben into a frequency generator.  "Numbers make everything work," replies Loeb.  Fringe is great for science and math classes.  Moments later, his hand moves through solid matter retrieving an apple from within a metallic safe.  He turns to Joanne Ostler and without hesitation shoots her dead then takes a bite of the apple.  No soul. No conscience. No loose ends.  Adam killing Eve on the dawn of something entirely new. He phones someone and tells them "It worked."  It's a shame Joanne died. There was something incredibly hot about that chick.



Ben is reunited with his father.  Dunham takes pleasure in the moment taking in their embrace.  This is what she lives for.  She takes pleasure in positive resolutions.  But no doubt questions will come for Dunham.  Will it be revealed the boy solved the equation? Will Ben come into question again?  Elsewhere, The Observer continues walking under the nose of the FBI.

Images of Walter seen by Walter back at St Claire's are certainly open to interpretation.  Was this a ghost of his former self?  Was it a mental construct?  Was it justification to Dr. Sumner's concerns? Was it a sign of things to come?  It couldn't be real.



The real highlight of The Equation is Walter's development and his fateful return to St. Claire's asylum.  The experience has all of the negative connotations associated with the concept of an asylum or institution. Actor John Noble delivers big.  Jane Boursaw of AOL TV accurately reflected on this aspect of the serial as "heartbreaking."  In general, IGN's Travis Fickett noted the series required "patience."  Noel Murray of The AV Club felt the ending slipped into "something out of dozens of mediocre cop shows."  While mostly positive some felt the storytelling quality still had a tendency to "wobble" and that's not unfair. Generally, The Equation is a solid answer to Fringe's ills.

As the title of the episode might suggest, The Equation speaks directly to the need for certain components and variables to reach the answer.  The Equation is just one small part of the much larger picture of Fringe and the opening up of that world.  Ramifications would follow in Fringe, Season One, Episode 10, Safe.



The Equation is another visually impressive  entry in the series as it continues to wow.  Director Gwyneth Horder-Payton offers some impressive credentials having directed episodes of some terrific series including The Shield, ten episodes of Sons Of Anarchy, two episodes of The Walking Dead and an episode of Battlestar Galactica. She brings a unique stamp to the series.  It would be her only appearance.



I've been watching a bit on the history of magic on History channel, and one can certainly look at today's contemporary special effects as an extension of that magic, hence movie magic.  But Fringe really does a splendid job of employing those special effects sparingly as it does here in The Equation essentially teasing us and leaving our mouths agape as we walk deeper into its magical world.  This is indeed the magic of Fringe science and its mythology as we peer much further into the dark unknowns that the creators originally intended, but have yet to barely glimpse.  The Fringe formula is getting interesting weaving very original ideas into more tried and true conventions.



The Equation: B.
Writer: J.R. Orci, David H. Goodman.  Director: Gwyneth Horder-Payton.
Glyph Code: TAKEN.