
(S01E07) "Do you have any mints?" - Walter to Agent Broyles, who just told him to save his friend in the hospital
Tuesdays are a big night around our house, thanks to Fringe. My 14-year-old son and I wait patiently for it, passing the time by discussing possible explanations for The Observer, the cylinders, The Pattern, the Massive Dynamic connection, everything. If we had a watercooler in the house, we'd be around it for sure.
My thoughts on tonight's episode:
Agent Broyles didn't appear to be in on Jessica and Mitchell Loeb's plot -- whatever that may be. For a while, I was wondering if Broyles might be the inside man, but if he is, he's not in cahoots with these two. Mr. Jones suggested to Olivia that someone engineered their meeting, and then Jessica gave Olivia a list of numbers at the beginning of the episode. Their goal: To learn the answer that Mr. Jones also wanted to know: Little Hill. What's it all mean?
Peter certainly seems to know a lot about medicine. He knew about the water-borne parasite Walter mentioned, as well as how to save Mitchell's life when the disgusting man-made parasite started squeezing Mitchell's heart. But Peter didn't seem any too pleased to hear Walter say, "Excellent work, son. You may have found your true calling at last ... working with me."
The Pattern manifests itself in the DNA of the parasite, and Astrid thinks it might be a code -- the Caesar Shift, a letter-replacement code. All of this ties in to ZFT, which was on the file for one of John Scott's cases.
We learn that David Robert Jones is a British national, specializing in genetic weaponry that's connected to The Pattern. We learn that there are privately-funded cells in 83 recorded countries, and ZFT is among them. They track scientific progress and experiments, such as what happened on Flight 627.
Other points of interest:
- That mind-meld just never gets old, does it? If I was Peter, though, I sure as heck wouldn't be letting Walter hook me up to anybody. Guess he's been doing that for a while, though, like the car battery thing Peter mentioned. It's no wonder Peter has issues with his dad. That's child abuse!
- I don't trust Lucas. There's something about him I don't like. I wonder if he'll be back, or if he was just a plot-movement thing to give more backstory to Olivia's emotional blockage. Plus, he told Olivia he had other means to get information about Mr. Jones, so I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of him.
- I hate it when they talk in a different language without subtitles. What are we, mind readers?
- Those German prisons sure are damp and dark, aren't they?
- Walter worked on Jimmy Hoffa?! That's interesting!
- At the end of the episode, Broyles is kind of a jerk for not giving Olivia the answers she wants -- because, he said, her curiosity and drive makes her an even better agent. What kind of crap is that?!
- Did you see The Observer?! I did! I'll let you guys tell the world about it, though.
Fringe' Show & Cast Photos
FRINGE Walter (John Noble), Peter (Joshua Jackson), Olivia (Anna Torv) and Broyles (Lance Reddick) enter a governement warehouse to examine a mysterious cylinder found among the debris of a construction site explosion in the episode "The Arrival." Airs Tuesday, September 30, 2008.
Fox
FRINGE Peter (Joshua Jackson), Olivia (Anna Torv), Walter (John Noble) and Broyles (Lance Reddick) return to the lab to gather more information on a mysterious cylinder found among the debris of a construction site explosion in the episode "The Arrival." Airs Tuesday, September 30, 2008.
Fox
FRINGE Olivia (Anna Torv) chases a suspect through the woods in the episode "The Arrival." Airs Tuesday, September 30, 2008.
Fox
FRINGE Walter (John Noble, L) and Peter (Joshua Jackson, R) examine a mysterious cylinder found among the debris of a construction site explosion in the episode "The Arrival." Airs Tuesday, September 30, 2008.
Fox
FRINGE Olivia (Anna Torv) chases a suspect through the woods in the episode "The Arrival". Airs Tuesday, September 30, 2008.
Fox
NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 13: Actress Jasika Nicole attends FOX's "Fringe" premiere during the 2008 New York Television Festival at New World Stage on September 13, 2008 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Jasika Nicole
Getty Images
Executive Producers John Wirth, Josh Friedman and James Middleton arrive at The Paley Center and TV Guide
Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage.com
Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Molly Stanton arrive at The Paley Center and TV Guide
Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage.com
Jesse Tyler Ferguson arrives at The Paley Center and TV Guide
Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage.com
Mark Valley arrives at The Paley Center and TV Guide
Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage.com















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-12-2008 @ 8:37AM
Eric said...
Great episode last night - that parasite was pretty nasty though.....
I did see the observer!!!! Thank heavens for DVR!!! I had to back it up because I thought I caught him out of the corner of my eye, and sure enough, there he was. Has he been in every episode in the background?
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11-12-2008 @ 9:11AM
shawn said...
where was the observer?! Damn my eyes!
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11-12-2008 @ 7:38PM
Zach S said...
He was in the first shot inside the Frankfurt airport, walking away from a crowd of people. I've been noticing that ever since they introduced the character, he's been randomly popping up in each episode- pretty cool, if you ask me!
11-12-2008 @ 9:25AM
Gabi said...
I must've missed the obsever, where exactly did we see him in the episode?
This was a very good episode, but there is just so much going on, so much information I don't really follow everything all the time.
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11-12-2008 @ 9:25AM
bruce said...
I knew the guy's wife was in on it (either with the infected husband on on her own). TV shows have becoem predictable with respect to extraneous characters in each episode being "the guy" (or gal). TV shows pack a crapload of plot into a half or full hour (really just 22 or 48 minutes), they have to be very tight. Once you start to think about which character is not needed for a plot purpose you'll easily be able to figure out, 99% of the time, who the bad guy is. This is especially true for Bones, Psych, and Monk. I don't see why it would be different for Fringe, though each episode is not a whodunnit and there is not always confirmation or closure at the end of each episode (in fact, we've had pretty much no confirmation of anything thus far in Fringe). Anyway, predictability aside, great episode.
One quibble I have... at this point Walter has shown he can communicate with people in a coma, listen to the ghost network on unknown frequencies, take a picture of the last thing a dead person saw... among other things. Isn't it time Peter concedes Walter is not a total nutjob, at least insofar as the science is concerned, and not be the sarcastic "well that's just nutty!" comic relief in every episode? Now he's shown Peter that he can communicate with the dead. Hopefully Peter will be more tolerant in future episodes and not be the little "that's just crazy!" wiseass barking at Olivia every time Walter has a fringe idea. It's old as far as I'm concerned. In fact it was only really valid in the first episode, before Walter's first experiment and before Peter knew about Walter's secret scientific past.
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11-12-2008 @ 8:27PM
Modwild said...
Another clue to who is either "in on it" or "the bad guy" is that pesky actor who used to be somebody, or is really good but otherwise not employed. There was no way in the world Trini Alvarado was going to be in the show as some patient's wife only. Personally, those "we chose a relatively known actor to be 'the guy'" choices annoy the crap out of me.
11-12-2008 @ 9:51AM
Kim said...
Great episode! I, too, missed the observer. I always intend to keep my eye out for him when the episode begins, but then I become so involved in the story that it gets pushed to the back of my mind.
I can't imagine infecting myself with that greusome parasite for all the tea in China!
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11-12-2008 @ 10:14AM
mdisloki said...
I've begun observing the Observer, tracking his every move. This time he appeared at the airport. The question is what exactly was he observing?
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11-12-2008 @ 10:19AM
Kris said...
Great episode, but it doesn't take medical training to know what Giardia is. I was actually amazed that Olivia didn't know what it was. It's one of the main reasons American's shouldn't drink water in some other countries.
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11-12-2008 @ 10:27AM
0megapart!cle said...
Yea, the Observer was at the airport when Olivia arrived, and if I had to guess, I think that was what he came to observe. He turned around and started to walk away as soon as Olivia disembarked.
Pretty good episode, although again, I have to pretty much close my eyes, plug my brain, and scream "La La La" at the atrocious pseudo-science. X-files was much better (usually) at not making me turn off my brain to believe the crap they call science even has the slimmest chance in hell of being real in the next century.
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11-12-2008 @ 10:46AM
vacelts said...
Another good episode, although I’m really frustrated that Broyles won’t come clean with Olivia on what he knows about the Pattern.
http://vacelts.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/12/2103635-why-wont-broyles-come-clean-with-olivia-on-fringe
I loved that we finally got to see Olivia smile. I was beginning to wonder if she could. Of course, it took a guy to make it happen. I wonder just how close she and Lucas were. And when?
Well know we know of at least one experiment Walter did on Peter. Who hooks up car batteries to their child? Makes you wonder what else he’s done to Peter.
My favorite Walterism is when he’s at the hospital looking at the parasite in Loeb. They ask Walter if he can help. He replies that he can, but not here. His breath is atrocious. I loved his obsession with gum/mints this episode.
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11-12-2008 @ 10:55AM
Jonathan Toomey said...
I loved the little "Alias" reference when Loeb told Broyles to turn to "page 47."
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11-12-2008 @ 11:34AM
getchaos said...
Only the first german conversation between Lucas and the warden where interesting.
At first Lucas told the german prison warden:
Lucas: "There may be things, you can use (you want to have) and i would be ready to talk about them."
Warden: "With what i need, you can't help me."
And then after Olivia says "I would be willing to sign anything....." she continues in german:
"...for example, something that would prove, i was'nt here"
The rest wasn't that interesting....in the cell scene with the guards, the guard just tells Olivia that her time is up and she has to leave. She tells him, that she only needs 60 seconds and he answers:"No. You must go now. You have no time left"
Next scene the guard says: "You do no have permission to be here anymore. I will use force if you do not leave emediatly"
Olivia: "I'm almost ready"
Next scene
Guard:"I will no longer ask you for this. Your time is up now"
Next scene
Guards coming in: "Come with me or we will take you with us."
...so, except the conversation Lucas had with the warden, nothing the viewers could'nt figure out by themselves.
Again it was a bit of a pity that they did not use german actors for the german characters. As a german you recognise this emidiatly because they had the typical "english" german accent. Only the warden had a good accent but his lines were a bit unusual. His grammar was a bit bad. (Maybe like my english grammar ;-) )
Anywhay...there are only a few english spoken productions out there where they use german actors for german characters and sometimes it gets strange.
For example: In an episode of Scrubs they had a german patient but his german was very very bad. Elliot had a better german accent than the so called german patient ^^.
So i hope, i could help understanding the german lines ^^.
PS: From a german point, it was an episode with some cliches (dark, messy prison with angry soldiers, for example)....but it was nice to see the airport of Frankfurt.
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11-12-2008 @ 11:38AM
getchaos said...
....Whoops....after sending this, i saw a lot of bad english grammar....sorry ;-).... i will try harder next time....
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11-12-2008 @ 12:04PM
xnifex said...
did anyone else think the parasite was just one of those pirahna plants from super mario bros? that thing looked awesome!
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11-12-2008 @ 3:34PM
Loni said...
LOL! Yes!!!! That was the first thing my 17yr old son said when he saw it, and I agree.
11-12-2008 @ 12:55PM
Cyantre said...
I'm not sure where the show is going, but it's starting to feel a lot like Alias, in that it's trying to build up to something but I feel by the time it gets to that point I'll have already lost interest.
Olivia's romantic side-track in the episode felt really forced and didn't flow very well, as the scene before she was driven to keep her promise to the wife to save the husband who was dying - then in the next she's in this new guys's hotel room in an awkward romantic tension scene. I understand she had to stay in Germany overnight, but it just didn't work for me.
Maybe it's because I stuck with Alias for all five seasons, and I don't see Fringe as being that different. It's like the JJ Abrams mad lib, just switch around the characters names and organizations. Take away the fringe science part of the show and it pretty much is Alias.
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11-12-2008 @ 1:57PM
metz said...
Fringe = Alias? Nah, On fringe they haven't once captured a bad guy and locked them up, only to have a mission the following week where they "had" to bring the bad guy with them only to watch him escape when all the good guys leave the prisoner handcuffed to a pole in order to chase another bad guy.
On fringe they kill the bad guy then use some weird science to recover something from their brains.
I hope fringe doesn't go the alias route because Alias became incredibly frustrating to watch as every plot point only moved forward due to the stupidity of the good guys.
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11-12-2008 @ 4:48PM
james said...
I hate when shows translate conversations. Like "getchaos" said, nothing that the viewer couldn't figure out on their own. I also agree with Getchaos that the producers should hire people that speak their native tongue. That said I totally dug last nights episode. I liked the girl from the Frighteners being in the show, but that made her a Red Herring in my opinion.
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11-12-2008 @ 8:37PM
jboursaw said...
Thanks for the German translation - much appreciated!
I watched this episode twice and picked up a lot of stuff the second time around. As Gabi said, there's so much going on, it's hard to get everything the first time. Thank goodness I did, though, because my son text'd me from school to ask if I'd seen The Observer. Fringe is a hot topic for 14-year-old boys.
My son theorizes that "the gentleman" is The Observer, and that maybe he's the one who lives in Little Hill, wherever or whatever that might be. Any thoughts on that?
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