beccatoria: (olivia can kill you with her brain)
[personal profile] beccatoria
Four word Fringe review: I didn't hate it!

Also I'd meant to get these things out a bit quicker than I have been recently. I think it's because either I haven't been as enthused or my thoughts (as last week, as, to a small extent, this week) have run somewhat tangentially to the actual episode and have thus taken me more time to get in order.

Basically, in some ways, I think the wound in my soul left by BSG has finally done some...good in that I was so afraid of Fringe falling down the rabbithole of 4.5-level suck because it had suddenly "gone there" on a romance I narratively feared, and had introduced babiez, that my minimised expectations - the fact I'd reached the bargaining stage of grief for a storyline we may yet get but I suspect not (the epic, permanent breakup of Peter and Olivia), - this was a vaguely pleasant surprise.

Things Which Did Not Happen Thank God:

- Dead Altlivia.
- Dead baby (caveat: there are a few ways I might have been okay with that, but they are not the ways I was afraid of).
- Kidnapped baby.
- Superfast Magic Growth Baby (at least I'm PRETTY SURE he wasn't still growing...)
- Pregnancies are always superhappy funtiems.
- Altlivia having a magic Head!Peter.
- A thing which SADLY didn't happen was a discussion of the fact that if I, for instance, knew I had an 80% chance of DYING if I ever gave birth, contraception would be like, my number one priority. For real, a technobabble line about universe hopping screwing with her birth control, or even just saying, "Jees, that 0.0000000000000001%, huh?" would have really helped there, writer people.

So like, there were some issues with this episode, and with the general direction of this part of the season for sure, but the fact it avoided all of my Huge Paranoid Fears means I'm feeling reasonably generous right now. Which is not to say I rolled my eyes when of course it was a boy. And the whole internet is referring to it as a Bishop. Why not a Dunham! If we're going to use the gendered assumption that male name takes precedence, I insist we ALSO adhere to the gendered assumption that bastards are forced to live with the eternal shame of their mother's maiden name.

Thus, [livejournal.com profile] chaila43 and I have named him JESUS DUNHAM. In my head this is pronounced like the Spanish name, and it will never not be funny.

In terms of the actual episode, there were some structural similarities to Immortality, the last time we were Over There, in that both episodes were basically totally and obviously manufactured in order to get to the final "reveal", so to speak. The difference is that on this occasion, it at least held more personal significance from the beginning and thus felt a little more organic.

The obvious plothole is Altlivia's abductors refusing to tell her what they're doing for, near as I can tell, no reason. I understand why Walternate wouldn't tell her - what if she refused? What if either she didn't want the baby regardless of her genetics and/or she wasn't in the mood to put herself through what was clearly a life-threatening procedure on the offchance it worked (if it was super reliable I imagine it'd be a treatment that was at least known about even if hard for the average VPE sufferer to obtain).

But once he has her in his evil web of abductions and doctors, there's no reason for them to allow her to continue thinking what they're going to do is designed to kill her - that's just going to steel her resolve to escape and fight them even more, and probably being super stressed isn't exactly the best condition to be in when being forced to undergo radical experimental medical treatment.

If she either didn't believe them, or didn't care and still wanted out, then it's not like they've lost anything, they still have her strapped to a fucking bed! And it's not like it would have been a long-kept secret either since as soon as she had the child, as shown at the end of the episode, someone would inform her that the crazy stuff they did to her actually saved them both. I suppose she could be assuming that she was kidnapped by weird baby-thieves who just happened to perform the exact right freaky shit on her to save her kid, but that seems a bit of a stretch for a trained investigator.

So yeah that was...weird and clearly only in there to maintain suspense.

That said, the emotional impact and background was much more interesting. To start with, ridiculous, melodramatic shit goes down in this episode, and the ingredients for making the audience feel might manipulated are all there - last minute resolution to a high risk pregnancy, declarations of love on death's door, weird shop assistants who just stand, staring into middle distance behind the register with weird pseudo smiles on their faces while people give birth three feet from them - a lot of the actual emotions (perhaps excluding Lincoln, but we'll get to him) are underplayed.

I think that Immortality certainly started showing us Altlivia on her own terms in her own world, but she was still bravado and quips (and I loved her for it); she was still fighting against the crucible of her experiences Over Here changing her, against becoming another Olivia altered by what another Walter chose for her life.

Bloodlines makes those parallels more explicit; I could probably cap half this episode and find corresponding shots of Olivia being held against her will, experimented on, rendered choiceless, dying, pleading, fighting back. I don't think it's lazy that Altlivia begins to feel, while still impressively her own character, more familiar also. The last inch of yourself, right?

Regardless, I found her cautious, flat emotional affect at the start of the episode to be a really good example of this. Altlivia is carefully careless, acting as if she's already accepted what is clearly not something she's processed yet at all, while Olivia would probably have simply shut down entirely, but it's the same final inch, just moulded differently.

Marilyn's quiet, distant response to hearing the news that her surviving daughter also had VPE was another moment I thought the episode played very well.

To continue my rambling analysis of what amounts to structure as much as events, there's something about the inevitability of biology and I wonder if it's intended as some kind of representation of fate? Undetectable until it's too late to escape it. In turn how does this fit into Walter(nate)'s propensity to repeatedly spit in nature's face with imagination and science? In turn, how does this fit with Walter(nate)'s understanding that ultimately nature only cares about balance. Nature is already compensating (or failing to compensate for in apocalyptic ways), Walter's original act of unnatural hubris - the unbalancing of its scales.

It would be easy to fall down the rabbit hole of BSG-thematics at this point, to introduce science as the enemy of nature and therefore, ultimately, the enemy of humanity. The concepts of those things we are not meant to know, we doom ourselves with knowledge... You all already know how that goes.

When I very first watched the very first episode of this show, on an 11 hour plane journey, and Nina Sharp made that comment about how science and technology may have advanced beyond our ability to regulate them, and yet, there she was, a cyborg in charge of the chief culprit with no intention of stopping any time soon, I thought to myself, in my hazy, enplaned way, either this show will eventually do something really interesting with that statement or it'll pretend to and then accidentally tell us science is the devil. And then I largely forgot about that specific point, but it is something that drifts back to the forefront of my mind every now and again; the way in which Fringe grapples with the same questions of ethics and technology as BSG did (and, in my opinion, failed to satisfactorily answer).

So far, at least, science is very definitely the bad guy, but science is also the good guy. It's the solution as well as the problem, like Walter. Perhaps like Walternate. Like the Vacuum Machine? There's never been anyone on this show with any voice who's ever advocated anything other than "if you can dream a better world, you can make a better world," and the points at which doing so make a worse world instead are fairly consistently shown to be as a result of personal hubris and failure rather than a failure of knowledge.

I do not count on this to last, but I do note that it remains consistent at this point in the story and I appreciate it quite a lot. If we must speak of fate, let's do so in terms of multiple futures that a future version of yourself has already chosen for you; let's speak of it in terms of biological determinism; let's speak of it in terms of the subconscious, if I'm reading the promo for the next episode correctly.

To continue my vague BSG analogy jag, because why not, there's a structural difference in the way the shows seem to develop, narratively. They were both always more serialised than they initially pretended to be, and both eventually gave up that pretence, to varying degrees. What Fringe developed that BSG didn't, is, I think, are these (not so) subliminal repeating patterns. The way it structures its case of the week as a mirror to a theme or individual, whereas I felt that BSG more often structured it as a platform from which to launch into scenes about individuals or themes? That its self-contained episode-of-the-week stuff which never irrelevant, was dropped more completely when it was finally dropped because it was never part of the style. BSG was one epic analogy, or metaphor, or allegory, whichever you feel is more appropriate. Fringe has that larger story too, and more of it is leaking into individual episodes, but in general, it reads to me more as an endless series of fables about that overarching Big Plot rather than endless parts of it?

I feel it has chapter breaks where BSG started to just bend over pages when it had to stop.

This isn't a criticism of either, in fact, BSG is probably my preferred method if, obviously, not my preferred success story in terms of ultimate message. But there's something to be said for the safety of illuminating small pieces of the plot at a time. The actual mytharc will still succeed or fail based on its inherent suck factor, but in being asked to re-examine it from different angles in small but consistent ways, I feel there are...more bulkheads in case of a narrative hullbreach.

If nothing else, and if I were attempting to be poetic, the endless, low level repetition makes me think of mirroring in nature, of cellular replication, both benign and malignant.

So, back to the episode.

I don't really have a great deal more to say about its actual content - as I said earlier, it was a kind of silly plot that I was okay with because I appreciated the fact it was so much LESS bad than I was expecting an episode with the potential for this much soap this far into a soapy love triangle storyline that I Do Not Care For.

But there are two things that niggle me, one of which I'm...reasonably certain the show will address to my satisfaction, the other of which I'm completely uncertain how they'll resolve.

The first is that Olivia's been passive for a good while now. And I've been largely fine with that because I love watching her Angst Quietly because she has been Wronged but is Stoic about it. But between young!Olivia and Altlivia and Bellivia, I miss her and I want to see her...explode at some shit and scream the house down about what has been done to her and take some names (or more likely, Dunham!Glare with Stoic Pain and Fury before going out and Dunhamnating some bad guys). I guess what I'm saying is, I love watching Olivia get put through the wringer because I love how she rises to the occasion each time with pure heroism and a total lack of repentance for any of her feelings. But...I'm ready to get to that bit now, please. Or at least, you know, after next week when everyone's high on acid.

The second bit is I still have no idea how they'll resolve this love triangle baby thing.

I really like Lincoln (though I still vaguely wish they were using Scarlie for the role; if they want her as Liv's perennial Big Brother in any incarnation, great, but give us more of that, please). And actually, probably the part of the episode that I thought was best done was Altlivia asking him if he'd spoken to her Mom, because...she actually didn't even know yet if she was about to die. And how neither of them can say anything and she's just like...okay. Right. That's how it is then.

I love how much Lincoln loves Liv; and yes, I'm sure some of you can anticipate my next comment - if I believed Peter felt half that deeply for our Olivia I'd have less issues with the 'ship, and I don't think that's just down to Peter being emotionally repressed where Lincoln isn't. Sure there are elements of that, but there's also writing choices that are going on here and I don't like 'em.

So I'm at this frustrating point where I really want to like the idea of Lincoln and Altlivia together, but I can't bring myself to because it seems like an overly convenient trapdoor to avoid the issues of Peter/Altlivia. Which, in fairness to the show I don't think it's going to immediately do. I do think that there will be/has to be more exploration of Peter's connection to Altlivia before the season (or series) ends. And ultimately, how they handle that will be something I'm both deeply interested in but also fully expecting to be disappointed by?

I just mostly can't see how they can resolve this plot anyway though? Because I don't think Peter would be happy to live in another universe to his child, I don't think the thesis of the show can allow a child to be taken away from a parent unwillingly (and I can't see Altlivia agreeing to give up Baby Jesus). But then on a meta level I can't see the show allowing its sole copy of Peter to live in its secondary universe, nor can I see it permanently having two Olivias in the same universe because filming doppelganger scenes is a bit nuts budget and timewise if it's gonna be happening all the time. The idea of killing off Altlivia is one I find superlame both because I like her, it's overly convenient and then there's the idea of Olivia raising the child as her own which would be an interesting parallel if it weren't tied to a ship that's partly about how twisted it was the she was replaceable.

Long story short, can I ship Olivia/RedUniverseLincoln? And maybe they can like, bond over how the people they fell in love with were in love with other people in heartbreaking ways?

Four final notes on Episode Stuff:

1) Fake Altlivia Death was a bit random. I mean...why? They held it for long enough to make it seem like they really were killing her off but then her waking up again was...a relief but also what was wrong with her? Did her heart like, fail A LITTLE and then GET BETTER? Maybe she passed out? Idk, it just struck me as slightly cheap in what was otherwise an unusually noncringy birth scene (crazy spectating shopkeeper aside: HELP OR LEAVE LADY!).

2) I hate Olivia's fringe. It's ugly and makes her look weird. Or, more accurately, I hate it when it's so severe. Which I think is partly a function of when she's wearing the wig rather than her own hair? But also they do use it to tell Altlivia and Olivia apart. When Olivia was being Altlivia, her fringe was way more feathered over her forehead and looked fine, but when Altlivia was being Olivia, that blonde fringe was as severe as it was when she was a redhead.

3) I really love Henry. I've rambled more than enough about parallels and cycles and replication, but I love that Henry is there for both Olivias, inexplicably, when they need him. I don't know if I'd prefer for Our Henry to show up or simply for this Henry to remain unique and connected to both women. Yay Henry!

4) I'm fairly certain that Scarlie and Linc love Liv too much to seriously suspect her in Walternate's shenanigans, but it does concern me slightly. But not as much as I am concerned for their SAFETIES because Walternate would totes off them without a second though even if he wouldn't do so wastefully. I also like that they're questioning him - it's an exciting development and one that throws an air of uncertainty over the finale.

Thus concludes the most pointlessly rambly review I've written in a long while... ;)

Date: 2011-03-29 11:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chaila.livejournal.com
I think of Jesus with the English pronunciation and I can say that it's STILL hilarious. (Although seriously, if the baby is named Bishop, WTF? I know it's a little thing but I will actually be annoyed. It's minor but it kind of makes the subtle point that the baby's way more important in his connection to Peter and Walter than to Altlivia herself. Not that we couldn't assume that, but it's still a bit annoying. Peter's in another UNIVERSE and I doubt she thinks either one of them will ever see him again, however untrue we must know that is. Does anyone but ex-boyfriend dude even know who the daddy is? I didn't watch most of the ep so maybe I'm wrong, but do people generally know? Did Altlivia know that Walternate knows? Even if everyone does know, why wouldn't she give a baby whose dad lives in ANOTHER UNIVERSE who she must plan to raise without him her own name?).

And yes, that really is the only thought I have. :)

Date: 2011-03-30 12:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com
Well the little creepy blood card thing says, "Dunham, Baby Boy," so you know, at least SO FAR Jesus Dunham hasn't been pre-empted? (You can pronounce it in the boring English way if you like - I agree, it really doesn't fundamentally alter its underlying hilarity...)

As to who knows what and when, almost no one knows, although Lincoln, Scarlie and Altstrid find out throughout the course of the episode. It's like a giant secret and Altlivia's lying to everyone that it was just Some Guy she Met In A Bar. But Walternate comes clean to Lincoln about the whole Olivia-swap et al during the course of the episode because he's trying to cover the fact that he stole a Liv to experiment on her again, but knows that Lincoln's a good agent so tells him as much of the truth as he can to hide the lie.

But yeah, it's certainly not public knowledge, nor is it likely to be especially given Walternate's desire to keep it secret that he was behind the kidnapping so everyone's working off an assumption it was probably an inside job by someone who does know it's Walternate's grandkid and has a grudge against him or something. OR SOMETHING. IDK. The point is, Lincoln and Scarlie do some math and work out that Broyles went missing at a VERY SUSPICIOUS TIME and start wondering at each other what else Walternate isn't telling them.

LONG STORY SHORT: They better name that kid Jesus Phillip Dunham. THEY BETTER.

Date: 2011-03-30 12:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daybreak777.livejournal.com
Marilyn's quiet, distant response to hearing the news that her surviving daughter also had VPE was another moment I thought the episode played very well.
I loved the way the cast played the VPE angle. Even the nurse. Everyone took it deadly seriously and it drove home that even a normal event can be deadly in the alt!verse.

But between young!Olivia and Altlivia and Bellivia, I miss her and I want to see her...explode at some shit and scream the house down about what has been done to her and take some names (or more likely, Dunham!Glare with Stoic Pain and Fury before going out and Dunhamnating some bad guys).
I just miss her when she's not on-screen. And her quietly smiling with Peter or investigating Fringe events isn't enough Olivia for me. I don't want her to have to scream or anything. I just want more real!Olivia centered episodes. She's getting lost in all the other 'Livias and I just miss her.

And ultimately, how they handle that will be something I'm both deeply interested in but also fully expecting to be disappointed by?
Hmm. I see your point. I very gently ship Linc and alt!Livia. She deserves someone to love her simply and cleanly. I guess maybe we should--I can't believe I'm saying this--trust the Fringe writers? No, they aren't going to improve on Peter. I've given up on that. But, they rarely forget anything. I really do believe when they leave something out, it's on purpose. I disagree with their choices sometimes but after listening to DVD extras, I realize it's all very deliberate. So I don't think they'll forget about Peter and alt!Livia. She does have his child. I don't know if they'll explore it in a way that you and I would like, though. Sometimes they just don't. Oh Fringe. I respect them for not forgetting but then I'm frustrated because they don't handle things as I'd like. But! I'm used to that by now. :-) Not being that invested in this show is a blessing sometimes.

As for resolution, I think someone will die. I had a thought inspired by some friends in another journal that maybe Baby Boy Dunham will grow rapidly into a Peter-lookalike (this show loves doubles) and then fire that machine and die so Peter won't have to. So there goes Baby Boy. As for the two Olivias, I think these worlds have to 'merge' somehow. We can't just leave live people in amber and the alt!world tearing to pieces. This has to be fixed. It's all Walter's fault and I can't see any of them walking into a sunset with the alt!world falling apart. So maybe with the merge, the people will merge? I don't know. You know me. I usually don't like merging but I can't imagine what else could happen. And this way maybe we could keep zeppelins. :-)

1. I think she passed out. I felt bad because I have Olivia (any-Livia) as so kickass that I didn't even consider she might have a little faint. But that was hard work, I think she deserved it.

2. You mean her hair? *is confused* I adore real!Livia's hair. I love it pulled back. It's no-nonsense and completely unself-conscious. And it's so shiny and straight. Sometimes she has it in a pretty braid. I adore her hair. :-) I think it's really pretty and I love that it stands on its own with no adornment. Kind of like Olivia herself.

3. I love Henry. He's a real friend. And a testament to how you can know Olivia such a short time and learn to care about her. I think I learned to care about her in season 3 right alone with Henry in that cab so he's very special to me.

4. I don't mind them discussing and even planning but just don't die alt!Charlie!

I think I need a shiny beautiful hair Olivia icon. I'm sure there's one out there. :-)

Date: 2011-03-31 08:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com
I just miss her when she's not on-screen

ME TOO. I mean, I do love how much the writers seem to love Anna Torv, especially given a lot of people didn't really like her in the first season when she was deliberately playing a shut down character, so it's nice now that they're showcasing her, but yes. I miss OriginaLivia.

But I do admit that I have a special place in my heart for her when she's Dunhamnating. Which sometimes she does without screaming! Like at Walter in the pastry shop! Best low-decibel smackdown evar. ;)

I very gently ship Linc and alt!Livia. She deserves someone to love her simply and cleanly. I guess maybe we should--I can't believe I'm saying this--trust the Fringe writers?

That's a good way of putting it. I very gently ship them too for the same reason. But equally that's sort of why I don't trust the Fringe writers on this right now, just yet? Because I want that for our Olivia too, and I don't think Peter's giving that to her right now. :(

I had a thought inspired by some friends in another journal that maybe Baby Boy Dunham will grow rapidly into a Peter-lookalike

I had thought of that too, especially given the promos with the accelerated pregnancy but I hope it doesn't happen because I think it's a bit of a cliche? Like a way to get rid of the "baby issue" in a typical scifi fashion? Plus why would it look just like Peter? But I suppose if there's something genetically freaky about Peter. Hmm.

I feel sort of similar about merging the universes. It's a bit...pat and easy? If it were a series finale, then I'd be more convinced, but as a season finale, where do they go from there? With a "fixed" Olivia and a "fixed" Walter and a "fixed" universe? I know that there are lots of other things they could introduce, but I'm still skeptical of it for that reason.

You mean her hair? *is confused* I adore real!Livia's hair.

Aaah, oops, transatlantic English. Yes, "fringe" = "bangs" in British English. And I agree, I also adore her hair.

4. I don't mind them discussing and even planning but just don't die alt!Charlie!

OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED CHARLIE! YOU BASTARDS!

...They better not turn him into the Fringe equivalent of Kenny on Southpark. ;)

Date: 2011-04-01 12:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daybreak777.livejournal.com
Oh, her bangs. Oh gosh, I hate them. I had bangs as a kid (very severe) and I honestly don't think I or anyone looks good in them. If they are a bit wispy, sometimes. I think real verse Olivia hates them too even when pretending. But these are the sacrifices she is willing to make to save the world. I feel for her, I really do, and sincerely hope for Anna Torv it's a wig.

Because I want that for our Olivia too, and I don't think Peter's giving that to her right now. :(
Linc is more cleanly written than Peter. They are kinda in a corner with Peter for me right now. I just want proof that he's good enough for her. Not from previous seasons or eps but right now. I worked so very hard to learn and like Olivia. I can't just ship her with Peter because they say so. I need him to do more.

...They better not turn him into the Fringe equivalent of Kenny on Southpark
They'd better not!

I have no clue what they might do for the season finale. I was thinking more of an endgame kind of thing. I think they just might keep both Olivias around for a while. And I can't wait until they meet each other again. They are more alike than ever now and that's going to be interesting!

Date: 2011-03-30 03:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] coffeejunkii.livejournal.com
For real, a technobabble line about universe hopping screwing with her birth control, or even just saying, "Jees, that 0.0000000000000001%, huh?" would have really helped there, writer people.

that hadn't occured to me until you said it, but OMG YES.

i was also very glad that fauxlivia didn't die. throughout the episode, i was pretty much convinced that she wouldn't make it. i wonder what will become of her and the baby now. also, how will peter find out about this?? i have no idea how that could happen (unless there's some weird reality cross-over happening in this week's ep).

Date: 2011-03-31 08:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com
I KNOW, RIGHT?

My main bet is that one of the reasons that Walternate wanted the blood (aside from the potential that the baby could help work the Machine, but given that Walternate and/or Altlizabeth don't seem able to or they'd've done it by now, I'm guessing that it's not a genetic aspect of Peter's lineage but rather something unique to him, though I suppose it could be a spontaneous mutation he passed to his child?) is to use it as evidence to Peter that his kid exists.

They're much more able to safely send objects through rather than people, hence the creation of the shapeshifters who are less organic. So all he needs to do is send that blood sample to Peter and he'll be able to use SCIENCE to prove that it's genetically half Peter and half Olivia.

Walternate has previously said that Peter has to be Over There of his own free will, which ties to what Sam Weiss (not that I trust him much) said about how the Machine will respond to Peter's state of mind not conscious thoughts. He needs Peter to want the Redverse to survive over the Blueverse.

Date: 2011-04-01 05:22 am (UTC)
ext_61669: (Fringe: Olivia - action/reaction)
From: [identity profile] emmiere.livejournal.com
Long story short, can I ship Olivia/RedUniverseLincoln? And maybe they can like, bond over how the people they fell in love with were in love with other people in heartbreaking ways?

I DO TOOOOO! (I'm counting this as a vague declaration of shipping so I can agree, shut up.)

And actually, probably the part of the episode that I thought was best done was Altlivia asking him if he'd spoken to her Mom, because...she actually didn't even know yet if she was about to die. And how neither of them can say anything and she's just like...okay. Right.

I'd have to say this was my favorite as well, retroactively, because at this point I was still worried AltLiv might not make the next few minutes. There was a lot of nice stuff coming together in that scene really and it's what sold me on the whole thing for this episode at least.

Um, I don't have a whole lot to add to this one except that I enjoyed reading your thoughts as usual, and the BSG/Fringe stuff will probably be bouncing around in my brain for a few days. ;)

Date: 2011-04-03 12:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com
Ahahahaa, okay, we both vaguely ship them, I AM ON BOARD WITH THIS.

I'd have to say this was my favorite as well, retroactively, because at this point I was still worried AltLiv might not make the next few minutes.

Yeah, benefit of having known she survived before I watched it - otherwise I probably would have been totally stressed. But in retrospect, it's a lovely moment, I think, and she doesn't even really have time to finish processing it because, oh god, it's too late anyway.

Glad to hear that the BSG/Fringe stuff was kinda interesting, and as always, srsly, no stress about having Lots Of Thoughts or commentses or anything. :)

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