Fringe: Concentrate & Ask Again
Feb. 5th, 2011 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaOkay, I have a Lot Of Thoughts about this. Basically, haters may wish to bookmark this post so that when the show goes totally off the rails and fails worse than BSG, Lost, and that Dallas Shower Thing combined, they can come back and mock me mercilessly.
However. I honestly think they're setting up these pins to knock them down. Here is why:
Okay, so yes, I will put this out there off the bat. If the central conflict of the show is "But which Olivia will Peter choooooose? THE FATE OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON IT!", I will storm off in a huff and fight![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaila43 for custody of Olivia.
However, I think that despite the blunt statements in the last few minutes of the show, the reality of the show's trajectory is much less clear.
To start with, there's the simple fact that we should consider the source. The S2 finale featured the (confirmed by the executive producers to be genuine) easter egg anagram that revealed, "Don't Trust Sam Weiss". This is the first time we've seen him since then and the first piece of information he's imparted to us. Why should we trust it?
However, I don't actually believe he's just out and out lying. I think there's a lot, or even total (as he sees it) truth to his statements. I'm inclined to believe - given the messages of reciprocity in the last episode - that the machine and Peter will work together to create an effect and what that effect will be will depend on what frame of mind Peter's in - his desires, conscious or otherwise - the "frequency" he's vibrating at. I would also note in passing that while mentioning that it's a machine of creation and destruction, Weiss only details the destructive option which I find suspicious in itself.
It's scientific bullshit, but that's fine, Fringe has always been scientifically bullshit.
Now, again, I'm not a fan of the way Peter was helicoptered in to be so SUPER SPECIAL that the doomsday device responds only to him, nor am I a fan of the more centralised romance between him and Olivia. But what Sam Weiss says about the machine destroying the universe with the Olivia Peter doesn't choose in it, while rather grossly blunt, isn't anything the show hasn't already implied.
As soon as you have Peter being the only one who can control a universe destroying doomsday device, it's going to come down to his choice about which universe, if any, he destroys. As soon as you introduce a love triangle with a girl in each universe, that's going to affect his decision.
The scene between Nina and Weiss simply vocalised the gross thing Fringe had already done.
So the obvious reason that that's a bad thing is that by vocalising it, it removes ambiguity, the possibility of alternate readings, and the hope of a change in narrative direction.
But I think those are only issues if we accept the vocalisation as the voice of the show, and quite aside from our instruction not to trust Sam Weiss, there are a number of other reasons I think everything other than that scene sent quite a different message.
A comparable scene would be the end of Firefly with two Observers discussing the fact that Walter will be able to allow Peter to die when it ultimately becomes necessary. The Observers, like Weiss, represent quasi-trustworthy help/hindering mystical characters with their own agendas who seem to have a lot more knowledge of the past and future than we do. Speaking among themselves, they had no reason to lie - this is obviously what they believe must happen. And yet, whether one is against the idea of Peter's death or for it, I doubt many of us assumed the show was confirming to us what would happen. Rather it struck a note of destiny versus choice - about whether this was inevitable or another way was possible.
I see no reason to take Weiss statement as anything other than a similar piece of information. We now know that if Peter uses the machine, he will save the universe with the person he loves most in it, and it will kill him. Frankly I think all this was fairly evident thematically if not in the nuts and bolts of the plot, in the S2 finale.
But okay, the next question is why I'm so convinced that this scenario is unlikely to play out this way.
Bluntly, I think that resolving the story by simply destroying the "other" universe (whichever one that is), isn't where this tale is headed. It's simplistic and goes against all the efforts to humanise the other side and define the position of wanting to save both - denying that they need to be at war in the first place. I do think that there's some narrative gold to be mined from the notion that they can't find another solution, that what Walter did was irreparable, etc. I don't want some wonderful solution to appear because they tried and so deserved a break. But ultimately I think that given the way the story has unfolded so far, simply letting Peter get into that machine and let rip and then yay, good, we managed to convince him to fall in love with the right girl, isn't it nice that she wears skirts these days, etc., etc., is spectacularly unimpressive. Like on a level I really think would represent a basic misunderstanding of everything they've been writing so far. One of the reasons I fear the Peter/Olivia ship so much is that I feel the writers HAVE been trying to push it in places, and I simply haven't been convinced. But I don't feel they've pushed anything like, "and then sadly, Peter's gonna have to destroy the Altverse after all..." on us, in fact, the opposite.
So okay, that establishes why I don't think the actual resolution will be making sure Peter Loves Our Olivia, because I don't believe the solution will be Peter destroying a universe.
So, fine, the NEXT thing to talk about is that even if that's not what happens in the end, if that's what everyone THINKS will happen, might it not still be super icky and awkward?
Well, yes, it might. Given that the most dramatic narrative thing they can do having given this dilemma is have Peter choose Fauxlivia, I can't promise that they won't then have the big dramatic endgame be Olivia Winning Him Back From That Skanky Ho.
But...I don't actually think that's how it's gonna go down. For the following reasons:
If Peter chooses Olivia then...that's that, where does the narrative go except to "OH GOOD, HE WILL USE THE WEAPON THE RIGHT WAY". If he chooses Fauxlivia then obviously the show isn't ACTUALLY going to blow up our world, so there MUST be a workaround/alternate choice available. For reasons already stated, I think this is how it's going to go down. Which in itself proves Weiss wrong, and it's not all about Peter's Dick.
But the main reason I think it's not about Peter's Dick is the way the show still, so clearly, views Olivia as the main character, and I think it was the way they foregrounded her in this episode that really helped assure me of that and convince me that whereever the show's going, even if it has more shippiness than I'd like, they aren't going to take away Olivia's agency.
Because that's the really gross part of this, right? The idea that it's down to Peter to choose her and nothing at all to do with her?
I find it continually interesting that on the face of it, this "twist" is all about taking power from Olivia and giving it to Peter, but in execution, Peter's the one who's been reduced to a reactive ingredient.
Weiss' terminology made it sound much more like the machine would respond to Peter's state of mind and subconscious desires rather than his conscious choices - this episode also posited Olivia as his conscious choice and Fauxlivia as his subconscious choice. The machine causes Peter to change personality, to relinquish a certain amount of control over his own actions, and now, apparently, is going to take his life to enact a result he doesn't even have the ability to effect on a conscious level.
We can, perhaps, parallel Fauxlivia/Peter with Olivia/John Scott, in that he thought she was tricking him and later it turned out to be more than a trick. In doing so, the lack of Peter's POV in this storyline is startling. We see him only through Olivia. And we continue to be invited to take her side.
I continue to be disappointed that there's quite so much romance at stake in the story of Olivia returning to her own world, though to a degree that makes sense given what Fauxlivia got up to, but I do believe that it's simply the biggest example of what she's lost because it's most currently prominent, not the only thing. She speaks about her own experiences being the other her to Nina, and good lord, that was heartbreaking, to hear her speak with experience about how the other her is better. She knows that the other her had an easier smile not just because Peter told her, but because she had that once and now it's gone. Olivia knows, now, what Walter took from her, and it was THAT part of her storyline that was front and centre this week too with her storyline with the Simon the Cortexikid.
Since her return, Olivia has remained the action heroine, has remained the primary POV character (with Walter second), and has had an expansive exploration of her own feelings. Peter got an episode where crazy space tech took over his brain and the reveal and nature of the story meant we STILL didn't get a chance to see what he was thinking.
Now, I'm wary of saying that because she's still the POV character the show can't fail. I mean, fuck, Twilight is written from Bella's perspective.
I'm also aware that sometimes there's this pressure to make excuses for female characters not having agency, like, to say that if we can put in effort and see it, it still "counts"? That we shouldn't criticise until there's a critical mass of fail? And I don't want to do that here.
But also, for all Sam Weiss saying, THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE DEPENDS ON PETER'S DICK!, sounds like it's going to be all about Peter's Dick and not about what Olivia(s) want(s) at all, that statement is bizarrely at odds with what's actually happening on screen.
Which is to say that, aside from the fact that the metaplot may be less about her with the introduction of the doomsday device, Olivia's personal agency hasn't been reduced at all. Similarly, I've been waiting for two years for the show to give Peter more agency instead of having him function as a reactive object, and while they've made him a much more (and annoyingly) important reactive object, he still doesn't have any control over his own destiny or choices or fate or anything, really.
What this episode did was show us that yeah, actually, Peter really did fall for Fauxlivia, even if he's trying to convince himself otherwise.
That final shot of Olivia, reading the note from Simon, understanding that he still has feelings for Fauxlivia...
Call me a hopeless optimist, but as of right now, I really am of the opinion that this isn't going to be the story of which girl Peter chooses: we already know who he's trying to choose, and consciously it's Olivia; there's no real tension if Olivia turns around and agrees to this. I think this is going to be the story of Olivia not consenting to be chosen. And the story of Olivia finding another way when Peter chooses the other side.
It's tricky because what I'm basically saying is, I believe they're setting up this horrible cliche in order to knock it down, but if they don't, OH GOD WHAT A HORRIBLE CLICHE. I don't really blame anyone for not agreeing with me either. But for whatever reason, it's where I'm at right now.
I think that by vocalising the gross thing they'd already implied, they're now in a position to address it, and subvert it.
Like I said, bookmark this post for future mocking. ;)
IN OTHER NEWS, Nina, once again, proves she can work out ANYTHING if given five minutes alone with it in her office. Plus, that CIA dude? "And we both know that what Nina Sharp wants, she gets." SHOT OF BROYLES. SHOT OF TOTALLY SELF-SATISIFED NINA. Oh yeah. You go girl.
ALSO, they have a mindreader read Peter's mind and tell Olivia and the note DOESN'T include a, "P.S. he also totally murdered a bunch of shapeshifters!"?!!
PLUS, okay a lot of my enjoyment of this episode probably stemmed from the fact that before the last five minutes it was A WHOLE EPISODE OF OLIVIA HAVING MANPAIN and being all, allied with the other Cortexikid and speaking about them as a group she was a part of, and being an action hero, and having sharpshooting skillz, and generally being awesome and Olivia-ish. Because while I'm glad she's never done it before, and I'm not looking for her to do it again, by season three, show, you have earned the right to put your leading lady in a SUPERFANCY DRESS with 1950S KILLER LIPSTICK and a PISTOL WITH A SILENCER. AND THEN HAVE HER TAKE BITCHES DOWN LIKE A GODDAMN HERO.
However. I honestly think they're setting up these pins to knock them down. Here is why:
Okay, so yes, I will put this out there off the bat. If the central conflict of the show is "But which Olivia will Peter choooooose? THE FATE OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON IT!", I will storm off in a huff and fight
chaila43 for custody of Olivia. However, I think that despite the blunt statements in the last few minutes of the show, the reality of the show's trajectory is much less clear.
To start with, there's the simple fact that we should consider the source. The S2 finale featured the (confirmed by the executive producers to be genuine) easter egg anagram that revealed, "Don't Trust Sam Weiss". This is the first time we've seen him since then and the first piece of information he's imparted to us. Why should we trust it?
However, I don't actually believe he's just out and out lying. I think there's a lot, or even total (as he sees it) truth to his statements. I'm inclined to believe - given the messages of reciprocity in the last episode - that the machine and Peter will work together to create an effect and what that effect will be will depend on what frame of mind Peter's in - his desires, conscious or otherwise - the "frequency" he's vibrating at. I would also note in passing that while mentioning that it's a machine of creation and destruction, Weiss only details the destructive option which I find suspicious in itself.
It's scientific bullshit, but that's fine, Fringe has always been scientifically bullshit.
Now, again, I'm not a fan of the way Peter was helicoptered in to be so SUPER SPECIAL that the doomsday device responds only to him, nor am I a fan of the more centralised romance between him and Olivia. But what Sam Weiss says about the machine destroying the universe with the Olivia Peter doesn't choose in it, while rather grossly blunt, isn't anything the show hasn't already implied.
As soon as you have Peter being the only one who can control a universe destroying doomsday device, it's going to come down to his choice about which universe, if any, he destroys. As soon as you introduce a love triangle with a girl in each universe, that's going to affect his decision.
The scene between Nina and Weiss simply vocalised the gross thing Fringe had already done.
So the obvious reason that that's a bad thing is that by vocalising it, it removes ambiguity, the possibility of alternate readings, and the hope of a change in narrative direction.
But I think those are only issues if we accept the vocalisation as the voice of the show, and quite aside from our instruction not to trust Sam Weiss, there are a number of other reasons I think everything other than that scene sent quite a different message.
A comparable scene would be the end of Firefly with two Observers discussing the fact that Walter will be able to allow Peter to die when it ultimately becomes necessary. The Observers, like Weiss, represent quasi-trustworthy help/hindering mystical characters with their own agendas who seem to have a lot more knowledge of the past and future than we do. Speaking among themselves, they had no reason to lie - this is obviously what they believe must happen. And yet, whether one is against the idea of Peter's death or for it, I doubt many of us assumed the show was confirming to us what would happen. Rather it struck a note of destiny versus choice - about whether this was inevitable or another way was possible.
I see no reason to take Weiss statement as anything other than a similar piece of information. We now know that if Peter uses the machine, he will save the universe with the person he loves most in it, and it will kill him. Frankly I think all this was fairly evident thematically if not in the nuts and bolts of the plot, in the S2 finale.
But okay, the next question is why I'm so convinced that this scenario is unlikely to play out this way.
Bluntly, I think that resolving the story by simply destroying the "other" universe (whichever one that is), isn't where this tale is headed. It's simplistic and goes against all the efforts to humanise the other side and define the position of wanting to save both - denying that they need to be at war in the first place. I do think that there's some narrative gold to be mined from the notion that they can't find another solution, that what Walter did was irreparable, etc. I don't want some wonderful solution to appear because they tried and so deserved a break. But ultimately I think that given the way the story has unfolded so far, simply letting Peter get into that machine and let rip and then yay, good, we managed to convince him to fall in love with the right girl, isn't it nice that she wears skirts these days, etc., etc., is spectacularly unimpressive. Like on a level I really think would represent a basic misunderstanding of everything they've been writing so far. One of the reasons I fear the Peter/Olivia ship so much is that I feel the writers HAVE been trying to push it in places, and I simply haven't been convinced. But I don't feel they've pushed anything like, "and then sadly, Peter's gonna have to destroy the Altverse after all..." on us, in fact, the opposite.
So okay, that establishes why I don't think the actual resolution will be making sure Peter Loves Our Olivia, because I don't believe the solution will be Peter destroying a universe.
So, fine, the NEXT thing to talk about is that even if that's not what happens in the end, if that's what everyone THINKS will happen, might it not still be super icky and awkward?
Well, yes, it might. Given that the most dramatic narrative thing they can do having given this dilemma is have Peter choose Fauxlivia, I can't promise that they won't then have the big dramatic endgame be Olivia Winning Him Back From That Skanky Ho.
But...I don't actually think that's how it's gonna go down. For the following reasons:
If Peter chooses Olivia then...that's that, where does the narrative go except to "OH GOOD, HE WILL USE THE WEAPON THE RIGHT WAY". If he chooses Fauxlivia then obviously the show isn't ACTUALLY going to blow up our world, so there MUST be a workaround/alternate choice available. For reasons already stated, I think this is how it's going to go down. Which in itself proves Weiss wrong, and it's not all about Peter's Dick.
But the main reason I think it's not about Peter's Dick is the way the show still, so clearly, views Olivia as the main character, and I think it was the way they foregrounded her in this episode that really helped assure me of that and convince me that whereever the show's going, even if it has more shippiness than I'd like, they aren't going to take away Olivia's agency.
Because that's the really gross part of this, right? The idea that it's down to Peter to choose her and nothing at all to do with her?
I find it continually interesting that on the face of it, this "twist" is all about taking power from Olivia and giving it to Peter, but in execution, Peter's the one who's been reduced to a reactive ingredient.
Weiss' terminology made it sound much more like the machine would respond to Peter's state of mind and subconscious desires rather than his conscious choices - this episode also posited Olivia as his conscious choice and Fauxlivia as his subconscious choice. The machine causes Peter to change personality, to relinquish a certain amount of control over his own actions, and now, apparently, is going to take his life to enact a result he doesn't even have the ability to effect on a conscious level.
We can, perhaps, parallel Fauxlivia/Peter with Olivia/John Scott, in that he thought she was tricking him and later it turned out to be more than a trick. In doing so, the lack of Peter's POV in this storyline is startling. We see him only through Olivia. And we continue to be invited to take her side.
I continue to be disappointed that there's quite so much romance at stake in the story of Olivia returning to her own world, though to a degree that makes sense given what Fauxlivia got up to, but I do believe that it's simply the biggest example of what she's lost because it's most currently prominent, not the only thing. She speaks about her own experiences being the other her to Nina, and good lord, that was heartbreaking, to hear her speak with experience about how the other her is better. She knows that the other her had an easier smile not just because Peter told her, but because she had that once and now it's gone. Olivia knows, now, what Walter took from her, and it was THAT part of her storyline that was front and centre this week too with her storyline with the Simon the Cortexikid.
Since her return, Olivia has remained the action heroine, has remained the primary POV character (with Walter second), and has had an expansive exploration of her own feelings. Peter got an episode where crazy space tech took over his brain and the reveal and nature of the story meant we STILL didn't get a chance to see what he was thinking.
Now, I'm wary of saying that because she's still the POV character the show can't fail. I mean, fuck, Twilight is written from Bella's perspective.
I'm also aware that sometimes there's this pressure to make excuses for female characters not having agency, like, to say that if we can put in effort and see it, it still "counts"? That we shouldn't criticise until there's a critical mass of fail? And I don't want to do that here.
But also, for all Sam Weiss saying, THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE DEPENDS ON PETER'S DICK!, sounds like it's going to be all about Peter's Dick and not about what Olivia(s) want(s) at all, that statement is bizarrely at odds with what's actually happening on screen.
Which is to say that, aside from the fact that the metaplot may be less about her with the introduction of the doomsday device, Olivia's personal agency hasn't been reduced at all. Similarly, I've been waiting for two years for the show to give Peter more agency instead of having him function as a reactive object, and while they've made him a much more (and annoyingly) important reactive object, he still doesn't have any control over his own destiny or choices or fate or anything, really.
What this episode did was show us that yeah, actually, Peter really did fall for Fauxlivia, even if he's trying to convince himself otherwise.
That final shot of Olivia, reading the note from Simon, understanding that he still has feelings for Fauxlivia...
Call me a hopeless optimist, but as of right now, I really am of the opinion that this isn't going to be the story of which girl Peter chooses: we already know who he's trying to choose, and consciously it's Olivia; there's no real tension if Olivia turns around and agrees to this. I think this is going to be the story of Olivia not consenting to be chosen. And the story of Olivia finding another way when Peter chooses the other side.
It's tricky because what I'm basically saying is, I believe they're setting up this horrible cliche in order to knock it down, but if they don't, OH GOD WHAT A HORRIBLE CLICHE. I don't really blame anyone for not agreeing with me either. But for whatever reason, it's where I'm at right now.
I think that by vocalising the gross thing they'd already implied, they're now in a position to address it, and subvert it.
Like I said, bookmark this post for future mocking. ;)
IN OTHER NEWS, Nina, once again, proves she can work out ANYTHING if given five minutes alone with it in her office. Plus, that CIA dude? "And we both know that what Nina Sharp wants, she gets." SHOT OF BROYLES. SHOT OF TOTALLY SELF-SATISIFED NINA. Oh yeah. You go girl.
ALSO, they have a mindreader read Peter's mind and tell Olivia and the note DOESN'T include a, "P.S. he also totally murdered a bunch of shapeshifters!"?!!
PLUS, okay a lot of my enjoyment of this episode probably stemmed from the fact that before the last five minutes it was A WHOLE EPISODE OF OLIVIA HAVING MANPAIN and being all, allied with the other Cortexikid and speaking about them as a group she was a part of, and being an action hero, and having sharpshooting skillz, and generally being awesome and Olivia-ish. Because while I'm glad she's never done it before, and I'm not looking for her to do it again, by season three, show, you have earned the right to put your leading lady in a SUPERFANCY DRESS with 1950S KILLER LIPSTICK and a PISTOL WITH A SILENCER. AND THEN HAVE HER TAKE BITCHES DOWN LIKE A GODDAMN HERO.
