Fringe S04e04 - Subject 9

Oct 15, 2011 13:48

So, Fringe. My main reaction at the end was: ( aww, already? We were having so much fun! )

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raffaella October 19 2011, 14:34:41 UTC
I'm a fickle beast as I don't want this version of the alt-universes to go away either. I want my cake and to eat it too.

Me too! For example, I was extremely happy to see that AltBroyles was alive, but bummed that his history with Olivia has been erased. She saved his son and he rescued her! Their conversation when she was about to be cut to pieces, when he said: "Is there anything I can do to make you comfortable?" and she answered: "That's not why you came. You came here to make yourself comfortable." was one of my favourite moments of last season and I don't want all that to be lost.

And yes, her meeting with Peter as kids was a lovely moment of connection (I loved that episode), and it was important because she saw that she could talk about her abuse and ask for help, which was the right thing to do. And normally, I'd say that it's not a good thing for a child to have her stepfather's death on her conscience, but given the way he's tormented her every year on her birthday, I'm glad she fired that third bullet in this universe.

That was one of the cruelest things I can remember seeing one person do to another. I still don't know how the fuck he could have thought this was the right thing for him to say.

I can't get over it. The thing is, up until he said that, I could have excused him. After all, he hadn't dated her before, only knew her as a friend and colleague and had never seen her with a boyfriend, so for all he knew, this was how she was when she was in love (and that's more or less the case, from what we saw of her with John Scott in the pilot). If he'd said that, I would have thought: "All right, fair enough." But given the idiocy and callousness of what he said, I would have been fine if this had closed the door on a possible relationship between them.

Still, I don't even mind their relationship much when it's in the background. I just don't like it when it's presented as this driving force that justifies her every action. Like you, I watch for the plot and for the other relationships, and I agree that the relationship between Walter and Olivia is the most fascinating on the show. Seeing Olvia and Walter negociate their past and their current relationship is one of my favourite things ever, which is why I loved this episode, in a universe where she's had years to deal with what he's done to her. When she bandaged his hands and they went for a root beer float, and he told her that he knew he wasn't family....Every scene they have together is a hundred times more intense that anything else on the show. (The scenes between Walter and Peter can be very emotional too and I love them, but all the emotion comes from John Noble, so it's not the same). I also like seeing Olivia with Broyles (and I wouldn't mind seeing more of him), I like Peter and Walter together, I'd love to see more of Astrid and I want Olivia and her to be friends. And now, I'm fascinated by the idea that in this universe, Nina raised Olivia in her teens. No wonder this Olivia seems more confident.

And I'd really, really like to see the links between the Cortexiphan kids explored more in depth. I noticed that in this episode, once Cameron realised who she was, one of the first things he said was: "Olive. Man, look at you. Are you okay?" -- they have a shared past and here, she apparently remembers it. I was annoyed when the Cortexiphan kids we met in the previous seasons (I wanted to see more of Nick Lane interacting with Olivia) were all killed when they went to rescue Peter in the red universe, so if they're alive now, I hope we'll see them again.

So yes, basically, like you said, there's such a richness of relationships and possible interactions between other characters, I don't want them to fall by the wayside like in the second half of season 3, when even Olivia's sister and niece disappeared.

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