Awww ... we have met The Observer, and he is shy and caring. Or a cold-hearted killer, take your pick.
At long last, it was good to learn a little more about these mysterious creatures, although there are still lots of questions about them. We know there are many of them, that they observe people throughout the course of their life, and that they're not supposed to interfere. Oh, and they like hot sauce, but we already knew that.
So even with all of the scary stuff she sees in her line of work, Olivia is scared of roller coasters. I guess it's one thing to peer down a dark corridor with a gun in your hand, and yet another to be at the mercy of the roller coaster builders. At least she and Ella got their day at the theme park. If only we knew what that Observer meant when he said ...
(S02E07) "Truthfully, I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about what human brains would taste like." Astrid to Walter, while he's dissecting a brain
As with last week, this episode of Fringe wasn't completely centered on the alternate universe and its goings-on, but that's ok. We still got plenty of good stuff to tie us over to next week, when it's all about The Observers.
What struck me most about this episode in terms of relationships is how broken up Walter was over the loss of his son. As mentioned in my other reviews this season, Walter is like the kid and Peter is the parent. John Noble does a fantastic job of portraying a scared kid who's lost his dad in a department store. I've said it before, and will again: He deserves an Emmy and whatever other awards are out there.
(S02E06) "Why is this case so important to you?" - Olivia to Agent Broyles
I said in my preview earlier today that I hoped this episode of Fringe wouldn't be a stand-alone creature feature. Unfortunately, that's exactly what it was. No William Bell. No Nina Sharp. No Pattern. No alternate universe. And no Observer. At least, not front and center. Did anyone see him?
Instead, we got a little diversion into the life of Phillip Broyles; how he got so involved in a case four years ago that it cost him his marriage and family. I feel for the guy, but I'm not that interested in his life. As for the Shadow, was this an X-Files knock-off? You can tell me in the comments after the jump.
I'm in a serious Fringe withdrawal, having had no episode to watch on Thursday night. So let's revisit "Dream Logic," the episode that aired last week. My favorite scene was near the end where Peter was yanked out of bed by ... I'm going to guess either the Walter from this universe (since we can see him in the photo above) or maybe The Observer.
There were some really great comments on my episode review, and BugKiller noticed that the poster in young Peter's room featured the Challenger Space Shuttle -- the 11th mission in 1984. Says BugKiller: "Challenger blew up during its 10th mission in 1986. This jibes with what Walter said: Earth-2 is about a decade or two ahead of us in terms of technology. It appears as if Earth-2 started their shuttle program earlier than ours, sometime in the 70's, because KENNEDY NEVER DIED on Earth-2, so they probably landed on the moon earlier, too."
(S02E05) "Whether you admit it or not, your life is something of a nightmare." - Bowling Alley Guy to Olivia
For a minute there, I thought maybe we were in a True Blood crossover with the horned guy in the first few minutes of this episode. But no, it was the usual twisty-turny Fringe-isms involving mind control, computer chips and dream states.
And it appears that something many of us assumed had happened to Peter actually did happen -- though with this show, you can never be sure until it all plays out. It wouldn't surprise me if it's something completely different from what I'm assuming it is. All this, and Mysterious Bowling Alley Guy after the jump ...
(S02E04) "Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back in full. As I always said to Walter, physics is a bitch." - William Bell to Olivia, on the dangers of jumping universes
Cryonics, frozen heads, worm juice, mercury blood, shapeshifters, and Leonard Nimoy were all featured in this episode, and I loved it all.
Let's start with the worm juice. Olivia must have been seriously craving her William Bell memories to drink that awful stuff. And what a trooper that she was able to keep it down, too. I guess it must have worked. She got some of her memories back, along with some help from the bell -- both the bell they chimed during Rebecca's psychedelic adventure and William Bell. Or Willem, as Olivia used to call him.
Is she right not to trust him? Could he have started the war? It's certainly possible, given his mysteriousness. He said for reasons she might understand later, he couldn't come back to this universe right now, possibly never. Why? What's he doing over there? Is he the one building the army? Is he being forced to? Will he and Walter face off eventually?
(S02E03) "Get my portable chemistry set ... this means bodies!" - Walter to Astrid
This episode of Fringe sort of went along without too many shocker moments -- until the last few minutes, that is. I wasn't all that surprised about the serum that turned people into human explosives, or even that it might be part of a top-secret military experiment. But I was wondering when our friend The Observer would turn up again in a big way and dump something spicy all over his plate of food.
(S02E02) "We're all victims of our own gene pool. Someone must have peed in yours." - Walter to Sheriff Golightly
Creature feature? Or relevant to the alternate universe storyline? Those were the questions running through my head as I watched this episode of Fringe.
What I believe -- at the moment -- is that all of the creature features we had during season one are somehow relevant to the overall storyline. Since things are slightly different in the alternate universe, perhaps there are creatures there who've evolved or avoided extinction that have somehow made their way back to this universe. Of course, it appears that this episode's creature was created right here.
Read my Fringe theories, and follow me after the jump for commentary on tonight's episode.
I can hardly contain my giddiness that Fringe is back, so ... yay! ... Fringe is back! More mystery! More intrigue! More Walter Bishop! More Jean! More jump-out-of-your-seat moments!
It's been a long summer since we last left the crew with Olivia in another dimension, Walter visiting Peter's grave, and the mysterious William Bell played by the mysterious Leonard Nimoy. Follow me after the jump to explore how the season is shaping up so far ...
I'm talking about the gag reels, of course! I don't think anyone would find such evil doings funny ... well, actually, I bet a lot of people would.
This gag reel is on the Fringe first season DVD (I'm assuming), which came out yesterday. I don't know why, but I've always been a fan of gag reels and blooper shows. Some people can watch these and just sit there stone-faced. I find a lot of it very funny. The new season starts September 17.
Fox has released a few photos from the Fringe season two premiere, "A New Day in the Old Town," which airs Thursday, Sept. 17, at 9 PM ET. I'm so ready for the return of Fringe, and anxious to see where the show goes this season with the parallel universe storyline. And I've really been missing my Walter fix since season one ended earlier this year.
Interesting that there's no sign of Anna Torv in the photos. Rather, junior agent Amy Jessup (Meghan Markle) is pictured in the last photo after the jump. She's been assigned to an investigation with the Fringe Division. That would be Walter Bishop, Peter Bishop, Astrid Farnsworth and, supposedly, Olivia Dunham. Maybe she got stuck in the alternate universe. Walter apparently made it back!
Everybody loves a good mystery. Well maybe not everybody if the ratings for Harper's Island are any indication. But mysteries and suspense have been a part of television since it's inception. It's one thing for the plot to be full of mysteries. Things like "Who shot J.R.?" can become a part of popular culture. But J.R. himself wasn't a mystery, we knew him pretty well.
But there are those characters we don't know much about. Think about Benjamin Linus from Lost when he first appeared as Henry Gale among the Flight 815 survivors. There were so many secrets and mysteries surrounding him that we couldn't take our eyes off of him when he was on-screen. Well Ben's story may be more or less told, though something tells me there's still more to be gleaned, but there are plenty of familiar faces on television with not so familiar back-stories. And while Ben didn't make the list, that doesn't mean Lost went unrepresented.
(S01E20) Oh my. I wondered how they would wrap things up (or not wrap things up) in the season finale, and they definitely delivered the goods. It's no big shocker that we're dealing with an alternate reality; most of us probably saw that coming. But there was that one moment that made me gasp.
We knew Walter had done experiments on Peter when he was a kid, but it never occurred to me that Peter might have died -- or maybe it was just buried in the deep recesses of my brain. When Walter visited the graveyard, I fully expected to see his wife's name on that gravestone. Instead, we saw Peter's.
That last episode of Fringe just will not let go of me. Tapping into parallel worlds, and then hearing from Walter that they're real... The impending conflict that he and Bell were preparing Olivia and the other children test subjects for in Florida... The Observer coming to collect Walter because it's time... You can feel it. Things are coming to a head and it reminds me of that feeling I had toward the end of the first season of Lost.
Back then it was just a show about bizarrely connected people on a weird island who somehow survived a plane crash. We certainly didn't know 90 percent of what we do now, but we could feel all that story percolating. Mid-2008 Fringe was just a little show about weird happenings and I kept waiting to get more into the big conspiracy, the "what's this show really all about?." Now Nina Sharp of Massive Dynamics is scared, and The Observer is telling Walter that it's time. Oh the pot is stirring my friends. Fringe is one of the best hours on television right now, and it could well be poised to be one of the all-time greats!
(S02E08) "Who are these people?" -- Peter
(S02E04) "Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back in full. As I always said to Walter, physics is a bitch." - William Bell to Olivia, on the dangers of jumping universes
Everybody loves a good mystery. Well maybe not everybody if the ratings for Harper's Island are any indication. But mysteries and suspense have been a part of television since it's inception. It's one thing for the plot to be full of mysteries. Things like "Who shot J.R.?" can become a part of popular culture. But J.R. himself wasn't a mystery, we knew him pretty well.
That last episode of 
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