Fringe: Os
Mar. 16th, 2011 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaFor those of you who even noticed I hadn't posted a write-up on this yet, the reason for its lateness is probably easily guessed - it wasn't that interesting.
The story of the week was fine, I guess. Mostly interesting in the way it illustrates our world's continued collapse and it did lead to some really nice stuff between Walter and Nina. I appreciate the kind of unexpected gentleness she shows him but the way she is very firm with it. Like from the previous episode when he asked her how she knew he wouldn't fail and she told him, "because you can't." Not angry, not glowing, just true and simple. He can't fail. I also liked, here, the focus on how yes, he is extremely intelligent, but that he was such a genius inventor because of his imagination; there was something simple, yet something I hadn't previously considered in the way she put that. For all he's lost parts of his brain to surgery and parts of his sanity to St Claire's, his imagination is intact, and Nina declares it the best part of him.
So, yes, I liked that.
The Peter/Olivia stuff was all...blah. Whatever. I mean, I didn't want to tear my eyes out, and okay, Olivia is a bit happier than we'd previously seen her but I felt she was still different to Fauxlivia and also, we saw her like this, a little, in the Pilot with John Scott and in the memories of him we saw later. So, okay. Fine. I don't get why she likes him but apparently she does and at least it seems reasonably low key (PAINFUL PAINFULLY forced expository dialogue from Walter to Nina aside). So I cringed slightly and eyerolled through it and figured, whatever, it could be worse. Mostly I'm offended by the perfunctory narrative way in which it was put together.
And I think that's where my sadness really comes in. Not so much at having to sit through a few brief scenes of her asking him if he wants to go to a street fair or something, but the way in which I do not get why they're together at all. I miss the scenes where she was quietly withdrawn and he was trying and failing to connect with her in clumsy ways. I miss the pain of that because it felt authentic in a way this doesn't, because I don't really feel the pain of that was ever resolved. It was resolved through Olivia's sheer determination not to be broken because Peter suggested to her that she was (which is interesting since I don't think, deep down, he wants to believe that at all). In itself, that's kind of heartbreaking too, but...I don't know anymore.
A lot hangs on how she handles the murderous revelation they ended with before William Bell took her over because in addition to general dishonesty, those 'shifters were pretty brutally killed.
So, okay, here's as simple as I can put it. In 6B Peter says he knows Olivia has trust issues and he never wanted to be one of the reasons for that. Yet he embarks on a relationship with her knowing he is continuing to deceive her in both a personal and professional capacity. How am I to take that?
He frames his admission to her in terms of trust in her judgement rather than an apology for his behaviour, which honestly, even if Peter isn't being willfully manipulative, still feels extremely manipulative. And it's not the first time he's flipped things around like this.
During the first half of the season I really thought that the problem was Peter didn't know Olivia as well as he thought; wanted to believe she was fixable and he was fixing her; loving her in spite of the parts of her that were broken and healed at slightly odd (if stronger) angles, instead of because of them. I think I clung to this interpretation so strongly because it was one in which my lack of understanding as to why the two of them had fallen for each other was a bonus not a negative. And because it was totally tragic, in the narrative sense of the word as well as the emotional. I even felt for Peter in this situation, who was, once again, unable to be the man this universe needed him to be.
But now, even though it was never what I wanted, I'm struggling not to see Peter as actively selfish. I don't think he sits around twirling his mustachios and wondering how he can manipulate Olivia, or anything. But I do think that he seems much more focused on how he can convince her to forgive him than whether or not she's ready to. It's not a perspective I want to hold, and until recently, it wasn't one I did hold.
And it may yet turn out that the machine has been affecting his behaviour in a myriad of ways and in some ways I hope it has been because he's becoming unlikeable in his search for answers. Which is ironically like his father(s), and something I applaud the show for doing if it is, indeed, doing it. But like so much on this show, I'm never sure.
I'm reminded of "Northwest Passage". That was the episode at the end of S2 when Peter went off on his own and had an adventure with Martha Plimpton as a local cop and Martha Plimpton owned the entire episode in absolutely stunning ways. And I went into that wondering if I'd come out of it understanding Peter more - wanting to. But the parts of Peter I came to understand more were not really the parts I wanted to. The isolation and abandonment and confusion I wanted to see explored were pretty much entirely sublimated beneath a veneer of casual interpersonal surface-interactions and, once engaged in something he thought could provide him with answers, in righteous, singleminded anger and resolve to the point he became more than a little disturbing.
At the time I mourned not getting to see what was underneath the anger, because I kind of vaguely assumed the anger was shorthand for Action!Peter and the episode was yet another failed attempt to make him seem edgy and cool and like a Lead Character, instead of being braver and going for something quieter and more introspective.
But I'm starting to think that the confusion and isolation has been pushed so deep down in Peter for so long that the episode might have given me more insight into Peter than I realised at first. His inability to form really deep and lasting connections to people manifest in questionable behaviour even with those he wants to form bonds with. He gets aggressive and angry when he's frustrated. And he's kind of selfish and singleminded to the point of tunnelvision when he's decided that there's something he wants - like answers about his background or the machine.
His broken childhood makes these traits make sense. More than that, they're traits that Walter and Walternate share very strongly. I know that's a negative slew of crap I just dumped on him; probably slightly more extreme than he deserves, but I'm trying to illustrate a point. Which is, Peter's...not really that great a guy all the time. And there's a bunch of interesting backstory reasons for that if we care to delve into them, and a bunch of potentially interesting narrative things that could be done with that in the future, the problem is that once again, am I seeing what I'm supposed to be seeing?
Peter was introduced as a conman, but fandom latched onto him as the conman with a heart ofPacey gold. And it's not that I think he has a heart of PURE EVIL ICE or anything, I just wonder how much of the assumption that he's a real Nice Guy in a Crazy Situation is fannish creation, show intention or Dawson's Creek transference.
I certainly think a fair amount does come from the show's seemingly ambivalent attitude to him and its failure to really give him enough space to develop into a character complex enough to encompass both the Nice Guy in a Crazy Situation and the Angry Guy who Wants Answers and Doesn't Care How He Gets Them. Which is totally doable, but just...hasn't been done for him, in my mind.
Ultimately I guess it's just...he's making me uncomfortable. He's reminding me of Walternate. I hope this is intentional. I hope Olivia gives him hell about this. I hope it was largely down to the Machine affecting him because otherwise I think I'm going to struggle with what I think of him.
Mostly I just hope that they don't handle it the way they handled Olivia's feelings after she found out about Peter and Fauxlivia - i.e. setting up a complicated, painful, real situation, then resolving it because "it's been a while, let's resolve it" rather than because any common ground actually seemed to have been reached.
The story of the week was fine, I guess. Mostly interesting in the way it illustrates our world's continued collapse and it did lead to some really nice stuff between Walter and Nina. I appreciate the kind of unexpected gentleness she shows him but the way she is very firm with it. Like from the previous episode when he asked her how she knew he wouldn't fail and she told him, "because you can't." Not angry, not glowing, just true and simple. He can't fail. I also liked, here, the focus on how yes, he is extremely intelligent, but that he was such a genius inventor because of his imagination; there was something simple, yet something I hadn't previously considered in the way she put that. For all he's lost parts of his brain to surgery and parts of his sanity to St Claire's, his imagination is intact, and Nina declares it the best part of him.
So, yes, I liked that.
The Peter/Olivia stuff was all...blah. Whatever. I mean, I didn't want to tear my eyes out, and okay, Olivia is a bit happier than we'd previously seen her but I felt she was still different to Fauxlivia and also, we saw her like this, a little, in the Pilot with John Scott and in the memories of him we saw later. So, okay. Fine. I don't get why she likes him but apparently she does and at least it seems reasonably low key (PAINFUL PAINFULLY forced expository dialogue from Walter to Nina aside). So I cringed slightly and eyerolled through it and figured, whatever, it could be worse. Mostly I'm offended by the perfunctory narrative way in which it was put together.
And I think that's where my sadness really comes in. Not so much at having to sit through a few brief scenes of her asking him if he wants to go to a street fair or something, but the way in which I do not get why they're together at all. I miss the scenes where she was quietly withdrawn and he was trying and failing to connect with her in clumsy ways. I miss the pain of that because it felt authentic in a way this doesn't, because I don't really feel the pain of that was ever resolved. It was resolved through Olivia's sheer determination not to be broken because Peter suggested to her that she was (which is interesting since I don't think, deep down, he wants to believe that at all). In itself, that's kind of heartbreaking too, but...I don't know anymore.
A lot hangs on how she handles the murderous revelation they ended with before William Bell took her over because in addition to general dishonesty, those 'shifters were pretty brutally killed.
So, okay, here's as simple as I can put it. In 6B Peter says he knows Olivia has trust issues and he never wanted to be one of the reasons for that. Yet he embarks on a relationship with her knowing he is continuing to deceive her in both a personal and professional capacity. How am I to take that?
He frames his admission to her in terms of trust in her judgement rather than an apology for his behaviour, which honestly, even if Peter isn't being willfully manipulative, still feels extremely manipulative. And it's not the first time he's flipped things around like this.
During the first half of the season I really thought that the problem was Peter didn't know Olivia as well as he thought; wanted to believe she was fixable and he was fixing her; loving her in spite of the parts of her that were broken and healed at slightly odd (if stronger) angles, instead of because of them. I think I clung to this interpretation so strongly because it was one in which my lack of understanding as to why the two of them had fallen for each other was a bonus not a negative. And because it was totally tragic, in the narrative sense of the word as well as the emotional. I even felt for Peter in this situation, who was, once again, unable to be the man this universe needed him to be.
But now, even though it was never what I wanted, I'm struggling not to see Peter as actively selfish. I don't think he sits around twirling his mustachios and wondering how he can manipulate Olivia, or anything. But I do think that he seems much more focused on how he can convince her to forgive him than whether or not she's ready to. It's not a perspective I want to hold, and until recently, it wasn't one I did hold.
And it may yet turn out that the machine has been affecting his behaviour in a myriad of ways and in some ways I hope it has been because he's becoming unlikeable in his search for answers. Which is ironically like his father(s), and something I applaud the show for doing if it is, indeed, doing it. But like so much on this show, I'm never sure.
I'm reminded of "Northwest Passage". That was the episode at the end of S2 when Peter went off on his own and had an adventure with Martha Plimpton as a local cop and Martha Plimpton owned the entire episode in absolutely stunning ways. And I went into that wondering if I'd come out of it understanding Peter more - wanting to. But the parts of Peter I came to understand more were not really the parts I wanted to. The isolation and abandonment and confusion I wanted to see explored were pretty much entirely sublimated beneath a veneer of casual interpersonal surface-interactions and, once engaged in something he thought could provide him with answers, in righteous, singleminded anger and resolve to the point he became more than a little disturbing.
At the time I mourned not getting to see what was underneath the anger, because I kind of vaguely assumed the anger was shorthand for Action!Peter and the episode was yet another failed attempt to make him seem edgy and cool and like a Lead Character, instead of being braver and going for something quieter and more introspective.
But I'm starting to think that the confusion and isolation has been pushed so deep down in Peter for so long that the episode might have given me more insight into Peter than I realised at first. His inability to form really deep and lasting connections to people manifest in questionable behaviour even with those he wants to form bonds with. He gets aggressive and angry when he's frustrated. And he's kind of selfish and singleminded to the point of tunnelvision when he's decided that there's something he wants - like answers about his background or the machine.
His broken childhood makes these traits make sense. More than that, they're traits that Walter and Walternate share very strongly. I know that's a negative slew of crap I just dumped on him; probably slightly more extreme than he deserves, but I'm trying to illustrate a point. Which is, Peter's...not really that great a guy all the time. And there's a bunch of interesting backstory reasons for that if we care to delve into them, and a bunch of potentially interesting narrative things that could be done with that in the future, the problem is that once again, am I seeing what I'm supposed to be seeing?
Peter was introduced as a conman, but fandom latched onto him as the conman with a heart of
I certainly think a fair amount does come from the show's seemingly ambivalent attitude to him and its failure to really give him enough space to develop into a character complex enough to encompass both the Nice Guy in a Crazy Situation and the Angry Guy who Wants Answers and Doesn't Care How He Gets Them. Which is totally doable, but just...hasn't been done for him, in my mind.
Ultimately I guess it's just...he's making me uncomfortable. He's reminding me of Walternate. I hope this is intentional. I hope Olivia gives him hell about this. I hope it was largely down to the Machine affecting him because otherwise I think I'm going to struggle with what I think of him.
Mostly I just hope that they don't handle it the way they handled Olivia's feelings after she found out about Peter and Fauxlivia - i.e. setting up a complicated, painful, real situation, then resolving it because "it's been a while, let's resolve it" rather than because any common ground actually seemed to have been reached.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-16 07:21 pm (UTC)Peter is not really a good person. He is *not* a nice guy. He's the guy that, in the pilot, went and broke someones finger's while they were in custody. Why did he do this, which I don't even think he thought was the 'right' thing to do? Because Olivia, who he was inexplicably immediately (or maybe not so inexplicably and immediately) attached to, was in deep emotional pain and that made him angry.
I think Peter really is ALL his parents' son. He has Walternate's genius, and Walter's imagination, Alt!Elizabeth's furious resolution to be strong for his family, and like our Elizabeth, seeing the people he loves hurting just about kills him.
And while he is brilliant, I think he is a caretaker first, and scientist second. Makes sense - the world changed out from under him. Holding onto the people he has is all he's got. When he decided to go along with our Bishops' con, it seems like Walter took and the blame, and he bonded hard with Elizabeth. No wonder he didn't stop running after he died. What I don't get is why he left in the first place. Aside from maybe knowing, deep down, she was in on the lie, too.
So, yes, I can see why he was blind to Alt!Olivia's differences. Lying to himself about the people he loves, so he can feel loved, is a near life long habit. To a certain extent Olivia being in his life is more important than Olivia for herself, to him. He's a little co-dependent. I think he can realize his issues and work through them, but I'm not sure the show will go there.
In short, caregiver does not = moral.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 01:24 pm (UTC)But he has definitely become a caregiver. For a long time that was his primary motivation in staying; perhaps it's not a coincidence that when he finally has his own reasons for doing so - the picture of him in the machine and the revelations about his own involvement herald more of a return to That Guy who'll break thumbs for answers just because he's angry.
However, to get back to your original point, I do think that attachment, even if not caregiving (although in Walter's case it's definitely that too) is a big part of this. He runs away all the time because he's afraid of abandonment and betrayal given his weird upbringing that he doesn't even remember on a conscious level, but ultimately now he's been forced into a place where he has it I definitely agree about the codependency. Saying that having Olivia in his life is more important than which Olivia that is, makes a lot of sense to me.
It's odd that I really hate the idea of them being "destined to be together" and their meeting as kids being evidence of this, but (and I don't think the show has yet gone here, will go here, nor do I necessarily want it to) the idea that a meeting as kids while in dire emotional straits, knocked them off course and sort of broke them - that their experiences as children and adults led them to this irrational attachment/subconscious belief they should be together even though on a rational and realworld level, they're not really that good a match. Like as a genuinely slightly doomed misunderstanding of the connection they feel to each other. One that, as adults, is misfiring towards romance.
Though again, I don't think the show will actually go there, or even to the less unlikely and more needed exploration of Peter's issues.