![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaSo, I liked that episode. I spent so much time recently wringing my hands about the fact I now had to deal with a ship I didn't particularly want to set sail, that I forgot that, while Olivia has been my favourite for a long time, and I've always loved her, it was probably Walter who first stole my heart.
Obviously this episode has far more wide-reaching narrative implications than White Tulip; nevertheless I found myself responding to it for the same reasons. It felt very...classical in the way it bridged character and plot development. The blunt science fiction premise, both of Bobby's time-traveling visit to his father and of the chaos theory that made it necessary and allowed the rest of the episode's events to be possible.
While not as narratively neat as White Tulip, which turned on a single image, The Firefly nevertheless performs a similar feat when we believe the plan was a convoluted plot to prevent Walter from drinking his poisoned smart-milk, while the last scene instead clarifies that this was either entirely tangential or simply a positive side-effect to the true goal: ascertaining Walter's ability to let go of his son if the world depends on it, the way he could not in 1985.
Fanon: the girl who had the asthma attack is the girl who caught the firefly. Just because it's poetic in a way I think the Observer would enjoy, or that would make sense to him; I'm not sure.
As with White Tulip, the idea that drives the plot is not amazingly original. No one can go, "OMG FRINGE! I HAD NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE!" if they are even passingly familiar with science fiction. We've all heard of butterfly wings starting a hurricane and we've all heard of time-travelers going back to the past to fix a mistake. But again like White Tulip, the Firefly makes this stock idea moving because of the character implications.
It would have been easy for it to become cliche or overly convenient but instead the story the Observer told Walter about Peter and the firefly, about Bobby Joyce's death, is quiet and profoundly moving. Knowing Roscoe Joyce, both as a hero and now personally and more than that, as a parallel person to himself, with so much in common: old broken men no longer in control of their own minds, drinking strawberry milkshake: it makes the impact of Peter's existence in this universe explicable on a brutal and graspable level to Walter that I do not believe it was before. He understood, intellectually, that it was his fault Alternate New England was a wasteland. And he felt awful for it, but here, in this episode, we see him grappling with despair and heartbreak. Not that what he did was irresponsible, but that there is no way to fix it. The only way to fix it, he begins to think, will involve the Observer taking his son.
It mixes the personal and the global the way the Observer's tale mixes them. Chaos theory, but always laced with coincidence and irony. The stoplight, the Observer takes care to note, turns red - the colour of the altverse. The car skids through Harvard Yard; where another car once skidded through universes.
Roscoe's story makes it clear that in addition to the question of how to stop the tears in the universe getting worse, there is the fact that so much has already happened and cannot be fixed. Ever.
Walter lets Peter go.
I don't know whether I think Peter needs to die in the end. Certainly right now it feels like a hollow threat - there will be a third option. But there's also something in me - and I swear that it's not simply because I am not that attached to his character - that would like to see that genuine weight in the resolution of the story. It's so profoundly about consequences, I almost don't want the magical third option Olivia and AltBroyles and Peter and Walter keep hoping for to materialise. I mean, obviously I don't want a tragic ending. But I think it would feel false, somehow, if there weren't massive sacrifice involved in the ultimate series finale. At least right now it feels that way.
So yes, I enjoyed that episode quite a lot.
To move onto Olivia and Peter briefly, I'm still confused. I like that they're still playing out the beats of this and making it clear that it's not simply fixed. I liked that Peter's argument that because he meant it for her not Altlivia means he still wants to give it to her isn't easily accepted because Olivia has valid counterpoints; she hasn't had any of the conversations leading up that moment. She hasn't earned it and he hasn't earned the right to give it to her. But then she does ask (and I don't blame her or think that constitutes narrative failure or anything), and I would understand it so much more if I ever saw the chemistry between them in the first place. Which I didn't.
But I do think I'm starting to understand why I didn't.
I'll leave some spoilerspace here because I'm about to very obliquely reference the preview clip for next week. It's a spoiler on the level of "X main character expresses Y emotion."
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
p
a
c
e
Still here? Yay!
Anyway, so in the next episode preview, Peter expresses real...emotion, like remorse/shame/upset about some of the stuff that's happened, and it was kind of shocking to me because I'd honestly never seen that from the character before. And I immediately liked him more for it and felt for him more. Not that I hated him before, but...despite the fact that I understand why people say Olivia is inaccessible, I've never understood that, I always felt that way about Peter but I don't think was able to clearly articulate it before.
Olivia is very clearly buttoned up and emotionally tightly controlled, but this is demonstrated by all the times we see her upset and then secretly (but not secretly to us, the audience) pull herself together and keep it together. She doesn't express a lot, but I always felt it was made clear that was because she was hiding a lot and we got fairly regular peeks inside that cold exterior. Every couple of episodes she almost breaks down in secret then sucks it up and keeps moving.
Peter, on the other hand, is superficially much more open, he's much more friendly. He's the master of the easy smile, the instant connection, and it's not surprising he's not so good at deeper things because he never stays in any one place for very long, and that's because he, like Olivia, isn't exactly undamaged by his childhood. Olivia deals by being tightly controlled and making people keep distance, and so it's very obvious that she's emotionally flat, whereas Peter deals with sarcasm and changing the subject with a light joke which superficially seems more functional.
But unlike Olivia, where we see her break down in secret, I honestly do not think we've really seen that with Peter yet. I don't know where our "in" with him is. I mean, that the show shows us. It tells us a lot. But as a comparison, when Olivia finds out what Walter did to her as a child, we see raw, emotional vulnerability from her before we move to her keeping him at a polite distance or expressing controlled anger. With Peter, we do get anger from him initially, which was definitely very interesting, but then we move straight to the classic Peter runaway, to chatting up waitresses and getting mixtapes and then running off with his original father. The end of the second season where Peter acknowledges that Walter did more for him than Walternate is good and moving, but we never see that vulnerability from Peter. We never see a raw moment.
This isn't precisely a criticism. If it's intentional, it's extremely effective. The acknowledgement from Peter in this episode that he wasn't the easiest guy to get to know was interesting, though, because prior to that I honestly wasn't sure if the show believed that. And I still hope they know that as an audience member I likewise find him difficult to know and understand without filling in the blanks myself.
But as characterisation, it's valid, it's potentially interesting. But it's also, I think, why I can't quite grasp him and what's up with him. I want...authenticity from him and what we usually get is the serial charm-artist who runs away whenever he's in any danger of having that facade broken down.
I guess I'm interested to see where they go with this, but I doubt it'll lead to me shipping them.
Anyway, them are my thoughts.
Obviously this episode has far more wide-reaching narrative implications than White Tulip; nevertheless I found myself responding to it for the same reasons. It felt very...classical in the way it bridged character and plot development. The blunt science fiction premise, both of Bobby's time-traveling visit to his father and of the chaos theory that made it necessary and allowed the rest of the episode's events to be possible.
While not as narratively neat as White Tulip, which turned on a single image, The Firefly nevertheless performs a similar feat when we believe the plan was a convoluted plot to prevent Walter from drinking his poisoned smart-milk, while the last scene instead clarifies that this was either entirely tangential or simply a positive side-effect to the true goal: ascertaining Walter's ability to let go of his son if the world depends on it, the way he could not in 1985.
Fanon: the girl who had the asthma attack is the girl who caught the firefly. Just because it's poetic in a way I think the Observer would enjoy, or that would make sense to him; I'm not sure.
As with White Tulip, the idea that drives the plot is not amazingly original. No one can go, "OMG FRINGE! I HAD NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE!" if they are even passingly familiar with science fiction. We've all heard of butterfly wings starting a hurricane and we've all heard of time-travelers going back to the past to fix a mistake. But again like White Tulip, the Firefly makes this stock idea moving because of the character implications.
It would have been easy for it to become cliche or overly convenient but instead the story the Observer told Walter about Peter and the firefly, about Bobby Joyce's death, is quiet and profoundly moving. Knowing Roscoe Joyce, both as a hero and now personally and more than that, as a parallel person to himself, with so much in common: old broken men no longer in control of their own minds, drinking strawberry milkshake: it makes the impact of Peter's existence in this universe explicable on a brutal and graspable level to Walter that I do not believe it was before. He understood, intellectually, that it was his fault Alternate New England was a wasteland. And he felt awful for it, but here, in this episode, we see him grappling with despair and heartbreak. Not that what he did was irresponsible, but that there is no way to fix it. The only way to fix it, he begins to think, will involve the Observer taking his son.
It mixes the personal and the global the way the Observer's tale mixes them. Chaos theory, but always laced with coincidence and irony. The stoplight, the Observer takes care to note, turns red - the colour of the altverse. The car skids through Harvard Yard; where another car once skidded through universes.
Roscoe's story makes it clear that in addition to the question of how to stop the tears in the universe getting worse, there is the fact that so much has already happened and cannot be fixed. Ever.
Walter lets Peter go.
I don't know whether I think Peter needs to die in the end. Certainly right now it feels like a hollow threat - there will be a third option. But there's also something in me - and I swear that it's not simply because I am not that attached to his character - that would like to see that genuine weight in the resolution of the story. It's so profoundly about consequences, I almost don't want the magical third option Olivia and AltBroyles and Peter and Walter keep hoping for to materialise. I mean, obviously I don't want a tragic ending. But I think it would feel false, somehow, if there weren't massive sacrifice involved in the ultimate series finale. At least right now it feels that way.
So yes, I enjoyed that episode quite a lot.
To move onto Olivia and Peter briefly, I'm still confused. I like that they're still playing out the beats of this and making it clear that it's not simply fixed. I liked that Peter's argument that because he meant it for her not Altlivia means he still wants to give it to her isn't easily accepted because Olivia has valid counterpoints; she hasn't had any of the conversations leading up that moment. She hasn't earned it and he hasn't earned the right to give it to her. But then she does ask (and I don't blame her or think that constitutes narrative failure or anything), and I would understand it so much more if I ever saw the chemistry between them in the first place. Which I didn't.
But I do think I'm starting to understand why I didn't.
I'll leave some spoilerspace here because I'm about to very obliquely reference the preview clip for next week. It's a spoiler on the level of "X main character expresses Y emotion."
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
p
a
c
e
Still here? Yay!
Anyway, so in the next episode preview, Peter expresses real...emotion, like remorse/shame/upset about some of the stuff that's happened, and it was kind of shocking to me because I'd honestly never seen that from the character before. And I immediately liked him more for it and felt for him more. Not that I hated him before, but...despite the fact that I understand why people say Olivia is inaccessible, I've never understood that, I always felt that way about Peter but I don't think was able to clearly articulate it before.
Olivia is very clearly buttoned up and emotionally tightly controlled, but this is demonstrated by all the times we see her upset and then secretly (but not secretly to us, the audience) pull herself together and keep it together. She doesn't express a lot, but I always felt it was made clear that was because she was hiding a lot and we got fairly regular peeks inside that cold exterior. Every couple of episodes she almost breaks down in secret then sucks it up and keeps moving.
Peter, on the other hand, is superficially much more open, he's much more friendly. He's the master of the easy smile, the instant connection, and it's not surprising he's not so good at deeper things because he never stays in any one place for very long, and that's because he, like Olivia, isn't exactly undamaged by his childhood. Olivia deals by being tightly controlled and making people keep distance, and so it's very obvious that she's emotionally flat, whereas Peter deals with sarcasm and changing the subject with a light joke which superficially seems more functional.
But unlike Olivia, where we see her break down in secret, I honestly do not think we've really seen that with Peter yet. I don't know where our "in" with him is. I mean, that the show shows us. It tells us a lot. But as a comparison, when Olivia finds out what Walter did to her as a child, we see raw, emotional vulnerability from her before we move to her keeping him at a polite distance or expressing controlled anger. With Peter, we do get anger from him initially, which was definitely very interesting, but then we move straight to the classic Peter runaway, to chatting up waitresses and getting mixtapes and then running off with his original father. The end of the second season where Peter acknowledges that Walter did more for him than Walternate is good and moving, but we never see that vulnerability from Peter. We never see a raw moment.
This isn't precisely a criticism. If it's intentional, it's extremely effective. The acknowledgement from Peter in this episode that he wasn't the easiest guy to get to know was interesting, though, because prior to that I honestly wasn't sure if the show believed that. And I still hope they know that as an audience member I likewise find him difficult to know and understand without filling in the blanks myself.
But as characterisation, it's valid, it's potentially interesting. But it's also, I think, why I can't quite grasp him and what's up with him. I want...authenticity from him and what we usually get is the serial charm-artist who runs away whenever he's in any danger of having that facade broken down.
I guess I'm interested to see where they go with this, but I doubt it'll lead to me shipping them.
Anyway, them are my thoughts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 10:39 pm (UTC)and 5% that makes me always nervous
It's at least exciting for you! You never know what you're going to get!
Few shows are 100% the show. It's a rare thing, I think.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 05:07 am (UTC)This is what I was thinking the entire time, it fits so nicely!
I did like White Tulip more individually, but they sort of dropped the ball immediately after on having it really mean anything, so this one may end up having more impact on the show through Walter's development. Which I will like. :D
*sporfles at "Walter's the only one with feelings!" tag*
And I meant to come back to your other post and flail uselessly about how I still don't know what to think, re. Peter and Peter/Olivia. Because I don't ship it, but what they're doing with both of them is arguably the most interesting thing they've ever done with them? (I don't think they've done much at all before now.)
Since all signs point to Peter continuing to play a larger part in all of the show, while I'll never stop clinging like mad to Olivia the lonely superhero who may save both universes with her MAGICAL SCIENCE BRAIN (though please not in a way that sucks, show!), if Peter steps up to do more, I want that in to understand him beyond having a nice smile. I want it not to be awful. It was nice that he had that line. And it's a shame Elizabeth Bishop hasn't shown up again to help out some more with this.
I'm also feeling a tiny bit more empathy for Peter now, given that Olivia has been nearly in his place with Charlie, and that he didn't attempt to keep her in the dark. None of which means she needs to forgive, or that it's ok, because what an incredibly harsh way, telling her that Altlivia smiled more. And he didn't notice. But I can see can see how much of a relief it would be to think that they'd have some time to take it easy and get to know each other, and in the process, he overlooked that it was never really her at all. Because I don't think he ever did know Olivia well, and it has to sting to know that and that he picked someone she wasn't. It's nothing like the enormous sympathy and desire to hug Olivia I have ALL THE TIME RIGHT NOW, but something I can sort of understand.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 10:34 pm (UTC)I also agree with what you say about Peter and Olivia. I don't ship them either, obvs, but I can't disagree that this is definitely the most interesting thing they've done with them. But like, I think I'm supposed to believe that they'd told us a love story beforehand when instead like you I don't think they did much with them. They were kind of paired up by default and so it's weird having Peter basically acknowledge that they didn't know each other that well. But if they know that, and know that they didn't really sell the relationship earlier except because people like to root for SOMEONE to get together with SOMEONE else, it still feels...I don't know. Odd.
And yeah, I'm basically torn between wanting to know about Peter more so that maybe I can make peace with him being more narratively important and being Olivia's love interest and stuff - giving him a chance to win me over, and not wanting him to on principle because I still very strongly feel that he's being helicoptered in more because a show is supposed to have a white, male lead rather than because Peter has organically grown into that role (i.e. it's the third freaking season and I still don't know him in anything like the detail I know Olivia and Walter, which can only partially be put down to my lack of interest; there's also some stuff going on there with the way the show portrays him).
SO ARGH. WHO KNOWS. But yes, I do feel...more sympathetic to him, I'm just not sure how I feel about feeling that way?
Let's both just hug Olivia lots? MAGIC SCIENCE BRAIN?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 04:47 am (UTC)Oops, I think I was so confusing because I was fake-remembering a longer gap here. (I am totally blaming the looooong gap between Olivia knowing and Peter finding out. Which had excellent episodes, but killed me with So. Much. Foreshadowing.) So, I was less interested in Walter finding God than I was a little disappointed that the quieter mailbox miracle didn't carry over into the dramatic reveal the next episode?
It does say a lot that I'm so surprised by Peter in this last episode because we've never heard any of this before.
I think it's the principle of the thing that's making me so conflicted too. (On one level, it's hilarious how indirectly involved Peter continues to be in everything despite a huge chunk of plot supposedly about him.) It's not that I *don't* like him, but even if they give me enough not to dislike the story they're making for him, it's still not what I came to the show for or wanted. And yeah, it feels odd, like, "whoa, too far outside the status quo, reset to Peter!". Which, not exactly. BUT STILL.
MAGIC SCIENCE BRAIN?
FRINGE: WHERE IT IS NOT AN OXYMORON? *clings to Olivia*
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 04:03 am (UTC)On the Peter and Olivia ship. I often feel like there's too much time spent about them angsting, and at the same time too little time about them just getting along (although at this point that's not really likely). Like I would prefer more positive interactions between them, showing why the fans should root for them as a couple. I quite liked them in season two, but I'm sort of meh about the ship at the moment.
I watched the preview but I don't even remember the part where Peter actually expresses emotion! Because I'm with you there, he's not a very emotional character, or whatever emotions he has they are so buried that him actually caring about something is sort of a big deal.
I agree with your thoughts wrt Peter and Olivia's emotional states. Olivia is a much more emotional person, and the show displays that, while having that be one of her strengths and making her character deeper and more interesting. It doesn't feel like they show much of Peter's emotions. It seems like Josh Jackson tries to play some emotions across Peter's face to get across what Peter might be feeling, but I still feel very distant from him as a character a lot of the time. It definitely feels like the audience knows him on more of a shallow level than Olivia or even Walter. Peter just reacts, and broods; he needs to express something!
At least in season one he sometimes yelled at Walter and genuinely laughed at things. Now he just sort of is all bottled up towards him or mildly affectionate.
I've seen people say Peter is their favorite character, and I just don't get that. I don't dislike him at all, I just feel like there's still so much more of him to be shown, that he is not that interesting yet. He feels very elusive.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 11:25 pm (UTC)I think I could have been sold on Peter/Olivia during S2, but I honestly didn't really SEE any of it? Like I guess during Jacksonville I understood why Peter made a move then, and okay, Olivia had heightened and desperate emotions. But in general it sort of felt like a very default ship even then. Like, not that in inherently sucks, but just there was no work there - there was an assumption the actors would sell it with chemistry maybe? When frankly I think she has more with other characters (like Charlie, but he was married, then dead, then in an altverse). And yeah, now I feel they've gone to straight to angst. Which could be interesting if that's the point I guess? But I'm not sure it is. I guess we'll see?
I wasn't actually talking about the promo though, I was talking about the sneak peek which is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS_HKhHOd9Q
It's only a 30 second scene though obviously contains spoilers though honestly, nothing epically plot revealing, if you ask me?
It really confuses me when people say Peter is their favourite, not like, in some specific cases - I have a flister who likes him and that makes sense to me because I know her personally, and even she thinks he's massively underused and a lot of her enjoyment is the fact she likes the actor? But it honestly surprises me how much of a fandom favourite he seems to be? Because, yeah, he's a pretty nondescript in many ways.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 04:43 am (UTC)Peter's popularity in Fringe fandom often confuses me too. I sometimes get cynical and just figure it has to do with the actor and the fact that he's the only young white dude on the show for them to latch onto.