white tulips, amirte?
A lot of possibly rambly circular thoughts in this post.
I watched the finale, duh. Why else am I making this post*, right? Sure it was a few days later than it aired, but I had to catch up a little. :D
A friend and well the world said it's 'it's about the journey not the destination' but also television is about the destination and they're right. They are incredibly right so while I won't deny that Fringe's journey has suffered a few bumps along the way -- mid season three onward I'm looking at you -- it's about where Fringe and it's characters ended up even if never ended up being the story I wanted it to be, for the most part. But let's talk about the story it was: It's about where Olivia, the first person we see but not the last -- that's Peter, the White Tulip, and Peter again, which actually that tell you a lot about the journey of the show itself, I'll get back to this -- ended up.
First of all, Olivia ended up happy. This is good! This is what we all want for our main (though kinda no longer) character! Emotionally it's great and a bit of nice closing of a circle since the first time we see her she's smiling wide, in love, and about to embark on a journey she couldn't imagine. Her final smile is softer and contemplative almost, which makes sense considering what's happened to her over the course of five years, three universes, two timelines, and some time travel. Olivia is… not less happy, despite the smaller smile, but I think she's more careful and her smile as she looks at Peter and Etta, both smiling wide and cheerful, reflects that. Olivia went from being a cop, an FBI agent, to a solider. Maybe ZFT was right after all. She had to fight tooth and nail and blood and self -- I don't want to talk about Yellow**!Olivia, but I'm thinking about her -- to get here. Happy, calm, but careful.
The others mostly ended up happy too. Let's run them down. First, quickly, it's nice to see that Alt!livia and Lincoln got their own happy ending, all feelings aside of how it came to happen. And well… we didn't really Astrid's ending did we? Which actually highlights a lot of how underuse Jasika Nicole was, but we got that moment with her and Walter, we got to see them with Gene. We got her name from Walter's lips and Walter's affirmation that she was the one that got him the best. It was lovely, it was sweet, and it fit. Would have it been lovely to hear Peter call out to Olivia about Astrid having left a message in the finale scene? Sure! Would have it been even better to hear that she was calling for Broyles or Nina because they really should stop skipping out on work? Yeah! And while it's assumed that Nina is alive and well as is Broyles I have to admit I wish we could have gotten a little bit more for them. Their final scenes were sharp, bitter, and now feel as they passed us by.
Now, for Peter and Walter.
Peter in a way had a mirroring beginning and ending to Olivia's. Almost. We first meet Peter bright, cynical, too clever, untrusting and maybe a little broken. (Walter too.) We end with Peter bright in the sun, holding his daughter smiling and then our final shot of him is well I read confused and a bit WFT is this white tulip drawing to possibly Understanding What's Happened, but mostly happy in his life. Peter also had to sacrifice, though not as much as Olivia. But he went from being someone who was looking for the next big deal, next exit, to someone who's happy going home.
I'm getting romantic, aren't I? Don't worry this doesn't last.
And Walter. Walter who we meet (twice, Yellow!Verse) broken and slight mad and very lonely. He's our mystery guy, he's our mad scientist, he's the man who broke worlds, and loved too selfishly and too harshly. And we leave him answered. We know all his faults, most, if not all, his secrets. We leave him having fixed, as best he could, what he broke, we leave him leaving us (Peter, Olivia, Astrid) because he still loves his son too much but he's willing to sacrifice being with him to save a future, for him. We get this all in a very lovely speech and well that sounded like I was dismissing it but I'm really not. The speech is Walter's love letter to Peter, apologising for everything and showing him that it's still all for him. Sad thing is… Peter forgets it. And his last "real" image of Walter is the White Tulip drawing. Hope, it's telling Peter, but Peter doesn't really know what the message is. We the audience do and we get the message and we smile sadly, but Peter doesn't get it; we hope he does, though.
I think the moment were we and the characters get that this was something hard won is when Olivia smiles in the park but that's not where the show ends. The finale scene comes with a silent message, a lovely one at that, but it also rather highlights how the ended wasn't the same place it began.
The show began being about Olivia and ended being about the Bishops.
This is not bad, per say, depending your feelings, but yeah actually it is. It's sad. Personally, I feel Olivia should have been there when the letter opened, but personal opinion. YMMV, etc. The point I was getting to however is not that the show ended badly, it's that it ended with a different story? protagonist? than it started out with.
And while I agree in some levels that Fringe was about Family thus the end makes sense there was a fundamental transfer in the show's perspective and this ending highlights it.
Because for a long time this show was about family, Olivia's family, found (Walter, Peter, Astrid, Charlie) and real (Rachel, Ella; wherever did they go???! [Chicago, but that's not what I meant.]), and not having it end with her in the centre of it feels a little awkward. At least to me it did. But the ending was what it was. It gave a punch, it gave a smile, it thanked us for the support. (You're welcome! ;])
And so while I spent the majority of it (this season) in a state of detached curiosity? attention? interest? I still wanted to know.
(Now I'm sorry if this feels like two posts in one, but it kinda is. I mean general overview aside I get a little too into it when I talk about the science of it. As much as I understand it, because I love scifi. And I'm going to talk about the scifi of it, sorry! I'm working through it! Sorry if you already did/have!)
I wanted to know how they were going to save the day, because they were. We knew this.
Of course it was going to involve time travel. Because Etta. Oh Etta. Full circle that the moment she doesn't reach her father's arms when the Observers arrive is erased and allow to be rewritten so that she does. She reaches her father's arms. Peter and Olivia do see their child lost with Observers and explosion behind her. Happy ending!
The second she die is the second I knew: Time Travel Saves The Day.
And it did. #not surprised
Also not quiet the way I thought it would. I thought it would be going back to the past to save the day. Instead it became going into the future, a different point in the future, when effectively Observers start coming into being by sending the Child Observer, Michael, forward (I'm not going into the Biblical ramifications of his name, though they are there if you want them.) and showing the scientists that will Make Observers that they don't need to do it by sacrificing emotion over intellect, etc. etc. This of course causes a paradox because the Child Saviour being sent forward (who was sent back, originally. #funnnn) is a result of those who Originally Do Make Observers. He will stop this. He will rewrite the timeline, again. And because Michael is a child he of course needs a guardian.
The last episode posits Walter as this person -- the man who broke the world(s) is the man who saves the world by sacrificing himself in doing pretty much the same thing he broke the world for: saving a child. It all makes perfect thematic sense. -- but there's also the rub because Walter leaving is Sad. We don't want Walter to leave, because Fringe is about Family. (omg i'm so sorry I'm pretty much recapping this.) And we want a happy ending full off families! Bishops! Dunham-Bishops! So here comes September, who I love, who is revealed to be Michael's dad, and he gives us our hope. He tells Peter and Walter, "no, let me. I didn't understand the bond of family before, not as I do now. I want to be with my son." (FAMILY!) It fits, we once more see a happy ending for all families involved.
So we go back to thinking: Happy Ending, no real sacrifices. Happy families! All well and good, except. Here's the thing: the point is that as good as All Families Together now is, like I said, thematically Walter has to sacrifices himself. (IMHO they had/choose to do this for themes, but they didn't have to since they gave an out and then used that out to emotionally manipulate the situation.) So this means… September can't take Michael, which means September has to die. (The emotional manipulation.) This means at the last second there's a build up of OH YA-- SHIT. Walter's gotta go now.
We go back to our thematic ending masterpiece. (We always knew we would.)
And it's pulled off wonderfully emotional in soft blue light (Fringe this season has been off the hook with it's colour palette and cinematography) and Walter, Peter, Olivia, and Astrid giving us faces of understanding and heartache. And Walter steps through and--
We're back at the park. Back to where Peter and Olivia lost Etta, except they don't this time. Time is reset. It doesn't happen. Etta gets into Peter's arms -- the moment of the reset, for me -- and then we go to their house where Peter gets a letter in the mail with a White Tulip drawn. It's all very emotional and sad and...
Here's where I get a little angry. Because Walter is erased. Walter has to be erased because as we learned from s1 is September that causes Walter and Walternate to miss the effect of Peter's cure. And then saves Walter and Peter at the lake but September is now erased too… this is the paradox talking. So I know I'm going to deep here, but it brings up the question: what exactly of Walter was erased because Peter is this world which is it Blue or Red or Yellow? (It's Yellow, it's the only way it works out.)
The day of the Invasion is our 0,0,0,0 point for this, so do all of Peter and Olivia's experiences up until exist? They do, but there has to be fundamental change in how they remember them because while Walter is written out the second Etta reaches Peter's arms it means we're in a new timeline for the second time-- and so while these are the characters we started out with (physically) in a ways they aren't (mentally, emotionally)? It's basically what happened when we were introduced to Yellow!Verse.
Because Peter looked confused by the letter and then there seemed to be a flash of something in his eyes in that last shot. Hope? … Maybe I'm just reading it wrong. But he didn't look sad or suddenly calm. Only very confused. Which in part left me wondering all of this.
And OH right LIGHT BLUB! Of course. I get it now. I see the light.
This is the reason why we were given the Yellow!Verse timeline -- the timeline where Peter died in both worlds and the world continued and Fringe Division worked for four years without him -- so this paradox/reset can happen without it affecting the timeline because otherwise it doesn't make sense. And this is why we have to supplant Blue!Olivia's memories into Yellow!Olivia. Which again, it's better I don't talk about that, because otherwise the entirety of Peter and Olivia's rockily written romance makes doesn't exist and make no sense. Because I think we forget sometimes that when Peter comes back he doesn't suddenly make the show go into Blue!Verse again. We're still in Yellow!Verse (I wonder if this means they reopen the Bridge after the reset. I hope they did , because Red!Verse is awesome. And by rewriting the future what we see of Olivia and Lincoln there doesn't really change, but you know it might now? I wonder too many things, clearly.) and we just have Peter and Blue!Olivia in Yellow!Verse.
[Thoughts about what Yellow!Verse really meant here.]
(And something else the show I feel didn't really do well is how Yellow!Walter was Yellow!Walter until Michael gave him Blue!Walter's memories. Because watching we skim over -- the show hand waves -- that for the last 1.5 season this team of Peter, Olivia, Walter and Astrid isn't the same one from the previous 3.5 seasons. It's a new one with new dynamics, but the show pushes us forward so fast we go back to thinking about our default characters of the first three seasons when save for Peter (and then late Olivia and Walter when their Blue memories are returned they're not. #mistake imho)
Again, we're dealing with a paradox revolving about sending people from the past into a future to change the future that comes after it (and affects the past once more) -- one Doctor Who could have learned from in Angels in Manhattan -- and so I'm handwaving A LOT because I get what's it doing and why it's doing it -- reset are ultimately scifi's biggest Fix Its -- but at the same time to erase Walter actually affect Peter and Olivia's lives and how they met quiet a bit. So I wonder. (I really do wonder too much.)
I mean, I knew there was going to be a sacrifice and I knew there was going to be time travel and the show did it in such a way that when you're watching you're mad that September died, you're saddened that Walter has to step through that portal even though it feels right, you're glad that Etta reaches Peter's arms, and you smile at the white tulip card because it means Hope.
Personally I'd like to think that What Happened Happened (thanks, Lost) especially in terms of Walter, because even rewriting him out Yellow!Verse still affects lives there. That Walter exists to the extent he did because the show kinda doesn't make sense if he doesn't and that it's in that moment where Etta reaches Peter that Walter stops. Not existing because he doesn't, but where stop continuing for Peter and Olivia and Astrid, the world. Because I go back to Peter's face in the final scene. He seems to recognise Walter's name, but the message is a mystery. I guess that's kinda how I feel. I understand the results of what happened, but the details are a mystery. Because Walter isn't Unmade, I don't think. He's written over? He disappears one day maybe it's exactly like when Peter did when he stepped into the machine. The events that took them to the place of having the Bridge (Peter building it) happened, but the resulting affair is that the moment it's built what made it happen (Peter) is forgotten. Everything around it remands though. The catalyst however is gone.
Yeah, I think I'm sticking with that for now. I think that's what the show wants me to stick with anyway.
God I don't know if that makes sense. I don't if this post makes sense. Let me move on to other things about these last few episodes.
I really loved Olivia getting to use her powers again. I really loved it. It was nice to remember that for a long time this show was exactly about Olivia and the affects of those trials left on her. And while I'm not overly convinced on the whole "the cortexiphan burned out of your system" especially considering I don't think Yellow!Olivia went through the trials (and that's whose body we're effectively using) or if she did I don't really remember how far they went -- not far I would presume from the fact we had no mention of other kids; oh season 4 so messy -- so while yes she is (mentally) Blue!Olivia and holds all the memories of her skills I'm still iffy on the whole thing. I guess mind over matter, Olivia is a superhero will have to be enough here. Not to mention it was extremely satisfying to see her Universe Jump and take Widmark down with her powers. Of course that gets rewritten -- the whole solider children plot line got shafted and that will always be sad to me. CORTEXIPHAN KIDS 5EVER. -- in the end though.
I like that the Twelve, our Original Observers, we in fact not in on the overall plan because lbr in season 1 and 2 they definitely DID NOT feel like overtly menacing watchers -- good exposition fix it show.
All the call backs to the early cases were great.
Walter remembering the other timeline, as problematic as it is, it wasn't as problematic as Olivia's.
GENE! Though I'm sad there was no mention at all of Charlie. #weeping forever
September being Donald was actually something I enjoyed. Relearning humanity and emotion is something that is interesting to me. AND AUGUST MENTION! "Make her important!" still one of my favourite episodes.
Clearly for as fucked up as it originally was Red!Verse won the lottery on coolness.
The show moving away from Olivia and War of the Worlds will always be sad to me, let's be honest.
*this post had a lot less CAPS and !!!!!! than I thought it would. I think I was trying to be serious about. #jokes.
**I personally always called it Amber!Verse but I think I was the only one.
(crossposted)
I watched the finale, duh. Why else am I making this post*, right? Sure it was a few days later than it aired, but I had to catch up a little. :D
A friend and well the world said it's 'it's about the journey not the destination' but also television is about the destination and they're right. They are incredibly right so while I won't deny that Fringe's journey has suffered a few bumps along the way -- mid season three onward I'm looking at you -- it's about where Fringe and it's characters ended up even if never ended up being the story I wanted it to be, for the most part. But let's talk about the story it was: It's about where Olivia, the first person we see but not the last -- that's Peter, the White Tulip, and Peter again, which actually that tell you a lot about the journey of the show itself, I'll get back to this -- ended up.
First of all, Olivia ended up happy. This is good! This is what we all want for our main (though kinda no longer) character! Emotionally it's great and a bit of nice closing of a circle since the first time we see her she's smiling wide, in love, and about to embark on a journey she couldn't imagine. Her final smile is softer and contemplative almost, which makes sense considering what's happened to her over the course of five years, three universes, two timelines, and some time travel. Olivia is… not less happy, despite the smaller smile, but I think she's more careful and her smile as she looks at Peter and Etta, both smiling wide and cheerful, reflects that. Olivia went from being a cop, an FBI agent, to a solider. Maybe ZFT was right after all. She had to fight tooth and nail and blood and self -- I don't want to talk about Yellow**!Olivia, but I'm thinking about her -- to get here. Happy, calm, but careful.
The others mostly ended up happy too. Let's run them down. First, quickly, it's nice to see that Alt!livia and Lincoln got their own happy ending, all feelings aside of how it came to happen. And well… we didn't really Astrid's ending did we? Which actually highlights a lot of how underuse Jasika Nicole was, but we got that moment with her and Walter, we got to see them with Gene. We got her name from Walter's lips and Walter's affirmation that she was the one that got him the best. It was lovely, it was sweet, and it fit. Would have it been lovely to hear Peter call out to Olivia about Astrid having left a message in the finale scene? Sure! Would have it been even better to hear that she was calling for Broyles or Nina because they really should stop skipping out on work? Yeah! And while it's assumed that Nina is alive and well as is Broyles I have to admit I wish we could have gotten a little bit more for them. Their final scenes were sharp, bitter, and now feel as they passed us by.
Now, for Peter and Walter.
Peter in a way had a mirroring beginning and ending to Olivia's. Almost. We first meet Peter bright, cynical, too clever, untrusting and maybe a little broken. (Walter too.) We end with Peter bright in the sun, holding his daughter smiling and then our final shot of him is well I read confused and a bit WFT is this white tulip drawing to possibly Understanding What's Happened, but mostly happy in his life. Peter also had to sacrifice, though not as much as Olivia. But he went from being someone who was looking for the next big deal, next exit, to someone who's happy going home.
I'm getting romantic, aren't I? Don't worry this doesn't last.
And Walter. Walter who we meet (twice, Yellow!Verse) broken and slight mad and very lonely. He's our mystery guy, he's our mad scientist, he's the man who broke worlds, and loved too selfishly and too harshly. And we leave him answered. We know all his faults, most, if not all, his secrets. We leave him having fixed, as best he could, what he broke, we leave him leaving us (Peter, Olivia, Astrid) because he still loves his son too much but he's willing to sacrifice being with him to save a future, for him. We get this all in a very lovely speech and well that sounded like I was dismissing it but I'm really not. The speech is Walter's love letter to Peter, apologising for everything and showing him that it's still all for him. Sad thing is… Peter forgets it. And his last "real" image of Walter is the White Tulip drawing. Hope, it's telling Peter, but Peter doesn't really know what the message is. We the audience do and we get the message and we smile sadly, but Peter doesn't get it; we hope he does, though.
I think the moment were we and the characters get that this was something hard won is when Olivia smiles in the park but that's not where the show ends. The finale scene comes with a silent message, a lovely one at that, but it also rather highlights how the ended wasn't the same place it began.
The show began being about Olivia and ended being about the Bishops.
This is not bad, per say, depending your feelings, but yeah actually it is. It's sad. Personally, I feel Olivia should have been there when the letter opened, but personal opinion. YMMV, etc. The point I was getting to however is not that the show ended badly, it's that it ended with a different story? protagonist? than it started out with.
And while I agree in some levels that Fringe was about Family thus the end makes sense there was a fundamental transfer in the show's perspective and this ending highlights it.
Because for a long time this show was about family, Olivia's family, found (Walter, Peter, Astrid, Charlie) and real (Rachel, Ella; wherever did they go???! [Chicago, but that's not what I meant.]), and not having it end with her in the centre of it feels a little awkward. At least to me it did. But the ending was what it was. It gave a punch, it gave a smile, it thanked us for the support. (You're welcome! ;])
And so while I spent the majority of it (this season) in a state of detached curiosity? attention? interest? I still wanted to know.
(Now I'm sorry if this feels like two posts in one, but it kinda is. I mean general overview aside I get a little too into it when I talk about the science of it. As much as I understand it, because I love scifi. And I'm going to talk about the scifi of it, sorry! I'm working through it! Sorry if you already did/have!)
I wanted to know how they were going to save the day, because they were. We knew this.
Of course it was going to involve time travel. Because Etta. Oh Etta. Full circle that the moment she doesn't reach her father's arms when the Observers arrive is erased and allow to be rewritten so that she does. She reaches her father's arms. Peter and Olivia do see their child lost with Observers and explosion behind her. Happy ending!
The second she die is the second I knew: Time Travel Saves The Day.
And it did. #not surprised
Also not quiet the way I thought it would. I thought it would be going back to the past to save the day. Instead it became going into the future, a different point in the future, when effectively Observers start coming into being by sending the Child Observer, Michael, forward (I'm not going into the Biblical ramifications of his name, though they are there if you want them.) and showing the scientists that will Make Observers that they don't need to do it by sacrificing emotion over intellect, etc. etc. This of course causes a paradox because the Child Saviour being sent forward (who was sent back, originally. #funnnn) is a result of those who Originally Do Make Observers. He will stop this. He will rewrite the timeline, again. And because Michael is a child he of course needs a guardian.
The last episode posits Walter as this person -- the man who broke the world(s) is the man who saves the world by sacrificing himself in doing pretty much the same thing he broke the world for: saving a child. It all makes perfect thematic sense. -- but there's also the rub because Walter leaving is Sad. We don't want Walter to leave, because Fringe is about Family. (omg i'm so sorry I'm pretty much recapping this.) And we want a happy ending full off families! Bishops! Dunham-Bishops! So here comes September, who I love, who is revealed to be Michael's dad, and he gives us our hope. He tells Peter and Walter, "no, let me. I didn't understand the bond of family before, not as I do now. I want to be with my son." (FAMILY!) It fits, we once more see a happy ending for all families involved.
So we go back to thinking: Happy Ending, no real sacrifices. Happy families! All well and good, except. Here's the thing: the point is that as good as All Families Together now is, like I said, thematically Walter has to sacrifices himself. (IMHO they had/choose to do this for themes, but they didn't have to since they gave an out and then used that out to emotionally manipulate the situation.) So this means… September can't take Michael, which means September has to die. (The emotional manipulation.) This means at the last second there's a build up of OH YA-- SHIT. Walter's gotta go now.
We go back to our thematic ending masterpiece. (We always knew we would.)
And it's pulled off wonderfully emotional in soft blue light (Fringe this season has been off the hook with it's colour palette and cinematography) and Walter, Peter, Olivia, and Astrid giving us faces of understanding and heartache. And Walter steps through and--
We're back at the park. Back to where Peter and Olivia lost Etta, except they don't this time. Time is reset. It doesn't happen. Etta gets into Peter's arms -- the moment of the reset, for me -- and then we go to their house where Peter gets a letter in the mail with a White Tulip drawn. It's all very emotional and sad and...
Here's where I get a little angry. Because Walter is erased. Walter has to be erased because as we learned from s1 is September that causes Walter and Walternate to miss the effect of Peter's cure. And then saves Walter and Peter at the lake but September is now erased too… this is the paradox talking. So I know I'm going to deep here, but it brings up the question: what exactly of Walter was erased because Peter is this world which is it Blue or Red or Yellow? (It's Yellow, it's the only way it works out.)
The day of the Invasion is our 0,0,0,0 point for this, so do all of Peter and Olivia's experiences up until exist? They do, but there has to be fundamental change in how they remember them because while Walter is written out the second Etta reaches Peter's arms it means we're in a new timeline for the second time-- and so while these are the characters we started out with (physically) in a ways they aren't (mentally, emotionally)? It's basically what happened when we were introduced to Yellow!Verse.
Because Peter looked confused by the letter and then there seemed to be a flash of something in his eyes in that last shot. Hope? … Maybe I'm just reading it wrong. But he didn't look sad or suddenly calm. Only very confused. Which in part left me wondering all of this.
And OH right LIGHT BLUB! Of course. I get it now. I see the light.
This is the reason why we were given the Yellow!Verse timeline -- the timeline where Peter died in both worlds and the world continued and Fringe Division worked for four years without him -- so this paradox/reset can happen without it affecting the timeline because otherwise it doesn't make sense. And this is why we have to supplant Blue!Olivia's memories into Yellow!Olivia. Which again, it's better I don't talk about that, because otherwise the entirety of Peter and Olivia's rockily written romance makes doesn't exist and make no sense. Because I think we forget sometimes that when Peter comes back he doesn't suddenly make the show go into Blue!Verse again. We're still in Yellow!Verse (I wonder if this means they reopen the Bridge after the reset. I hope they did , because Red!Verse is awesome. And by rewriting the future what we see of Olivia and Lincoln there doesn't really change, but you know it might now? I wonder too many things, clearly.) and we just have Peter and Blue!Olivia in Yellow!Verse.
[Thoughts about what Yellow!Verse really meant here.]
(And something else the show I feel didn't really do well is how Yellow!Walter was Yellow!Walter until Michael gave him Blue!Walter's memories. Because watching we skim over -- the show hand waves -- that for the last 1.5 season this team of Peter, Olivia, Walter and Astrid isn't the same one from the previous 3.5 seasons. It's a new one with new dynamics, but the show pushes us forward so fast we go back to thinking about our default characters of the first three seasons when save for Peter (and then late Olivia and Walter when their Blue memories are returned they're not. #mistake imho)
Again, we're dealing with a paradox revolving about sending people from the past into a future to change the future that comes after it (and affects the past once more) -- one Doctor Who could have learned from in Angels in Manhattan -- and so I'm handwaving A LOT because I get what's it doing and why it's doing it -- reset are ultimately scifi's biggest Fix Its -- but at the same time to erase Walter actually affect Peter and Olivia's lives and how they met quiet a bit. So I wonder. (I really do wonder too much.)
I mean, I knew there was going to be a sacrifice and I knew there was going to be time travel and the show did it in such a way that when you're watching you're mad that September died, you're saddened that Walter has to step through that portal even though it feels right, you're glad that Etta reaches Peter's arms, and you smile at the white tulip card because it means Hope.
Personally I'd like to think that What Happened Happened (thanks, Lost) especially in terms of Walter, because even rewriting him out Yellow!Verse still affects lives there. That Walter exists to the extent he did because the show kinda doesn't make sense if he doesn't and that it's in that moment where Etta reaches Peter that Walter stops. Not existing because he doesn't, but where stop continuing for Peter and Olivia and Astrid, the world. Because I go back to Peter's face in the final scene. He seems to recognise Walter's name, but the message is a mystery. I guess that's kinda how I feel. I understand the results of what happened, but the details are a mystery. Because Walter isn't Unmade, I don't think. He's written over? He disappears one day maybe it's exactly like when Peter did when he stepped into the machine. The events that took them to the place of having the Bridge (Peter building it) happened, but the resulting affair is that the moment it's built what made it happen (Peter) is forgotten. Everything around it remands though. The catalyst however is gone.
Yeah, I think I'm sticking with that for now. I think that's what the show wants me to stick with anyway.
God I don't know if that makes sense. I don't if this post makes sense. Let me move on to other things about these last few episodes.
I really loved Olivia getting to use her powers again. I really loved it. It was nice to remember that for a long time this show was exactly about Olivia and the affects of those trials left on her. And while I'm not overly convinced on the whole "the cortexiphan burned out of your system" especially considering I don't think Yellow!Olivia went through the trials (and that's whose body we're effectively using) or if she did I don't really remember how far they went -- not far I would presume from the fact we had no mention of other kids; oh season 4 so messy -- so while yes she is (mentally) Blue!Olivia and holds all the memories of her skills I'm still iffy on the whole thing. I guess mind over matter, Olivia is a superhero will have to be enough here. Not to mention it was extremely satisfying to see her Universe Jump and take Widmark down with her powers. Of course that gets rewritten -- the whole solider children plot line got shafted and that will always be sad to me. CORTEXIPHAN KIDS 5EVER. -- in the end though.
I like that the Twelve, our Original Observers, we in fact not in on the overall plan because lbr in season 1 and 2 they definitely DID NOT feel like overtly menacing watchers -- good exposition fix it show.
All the call backs to the early cases were great.
Walter remembering the other timeline, as problematic as it is, it wasn't as problematic as Olivia's.
GENE! Though I'm sad there was no mention at all of Charlie. #weeping forever
September being Donald was actually something I enjoyed. Relearning humanity and emotion is something that is interesting to me. AND AUGUST MENTION! "Make her important!" still one of my favourite episodes.
Clearly for as fucked up as it originally was Red!Verse won the lottery on coolness.
The show moving away from Olivia and War of the Worlds will always be sad to me, let's be honest.
*this post had a lot less CAPS and !!!!!! than I thought it would. I think I was trying to be serious about. #jokes.
**I personally always called it Amber!Verse but I think I was the only one.
(crossposted)