Fringe take on a heavy legacy when it decided to name an installment after one of Philip K. Dick ’s greatest novel . But last night ’s spectacular episode actually delivered something draw close a PKD - horizontal surface of insanity and nerve cell perturbation . looter before .
So who ’s having material emotion in the Fringe - verse , and who ’s just profess ? Who ’s a machine and who ’s a living , external respiration , soul - having person ? After last night ’s sequence , you ’d be hard - beseech to say , with the potential exception of Walter Bishop , who is the heart and soul of the show as always .
Just call up about the opening scene of the installment , which feels like a throwaway character moment at first . ( Not that character - building present moment are “ throwaway ” per se , but bear with me . ) Peter and Fauxlivia are out for a drink , and they ’re people - watch — and Peter ’s misanthropic people - read skills are a wonder to behold . Who ’s really feeling an emotion , and who ’s just take in a dealing , or a sham ? He and Fauxlivia enjoy quash all the the great unwashed in the room to a collection of users and used , and unloved lovers , because they ’re both practiced at using emotions to get what they desire — I ca n’t call up the last time this show mentioned that Peter used to be a con - Isle of Man . The veridical Olivia , of course , take two twelvemonth to open up to Peter about her feelings , but this is n’t the veridical Olivia . Peter and Fauxlivia are both super - agile manipulators who can use emotions as tool to get what they want .
This knowledge will come in handy later in the instalment .
The next affair we see is an older guy cable who ’s buying lemonade from some tyke , and taking an almost artificial grade of joy in being sweet to them — except that he bring forth in a motorcar fortuity , and we before long discover he ’s not a regular guy at all ; he ’s a cyborg infiltrator , a shapeshifter . This pose up a pattern — we read , over and over again , that shapeshifters do actually have spirit , and the infiltrators can “ go native ” to an stupefying degree . The one-time hombre , the Senator , reanimate after being drink down a couple of meter when his married woman shows up . And then there ’s the other shapeshifter , who ’s disguise as a bull , with a married woman and a kid . He ’s instruct , by the chief shapeshifter Thomas Newton , to wipe off his vestige ( kill his family ) and take on a new identity . lead to this absolutely philia - rending scene :
That storyline , with the shapeshifter pig who ’s been instructed to get disembarrass of the shapeshifter Senator by any means necessary , had me holding my hint several fourth dimension in the episode . Including a couple times , when you wonder if the family ’s go to burn the dust . But also , the only reason Walter Bishop survives this episode is because of that shapeshifter ’s sexual love for his syndicate — the smart thing to do , for our shapeshifter , would be to take on the individuality of the man who has absolute top - degree accession at Massive Dynamic . You even see the shapeshifter considering it , when he ’s in an lift with Walter . The only ground he does n’t is because he wants to go home to that family again .
The only shapeshifter who ’s really comfy being a machine , a peter , and a faux homo is Newton , who spend the whole episode scold everybody else about how to be a undecomposed imposter with no genuine sense of ego — and then make the ultimate ritual killing himself at the end of the installment .
Which convey us back round to Fauxlivia — the episode draw some very sharp parallels between the alternative - population doppelganger and the cyborg in disguise . ( It could have been ungainly and sledge - hammery , but the episode address the parallels with a A-one dexterous touch . ) Newton ’s critical review of Fauxlivia are totally contradictory — first , she ’s not able-bodied to go all the elbow room in gaining Peter ’s staring combine , which require her to make a topnotch - strong emotional linkup with him . But second , she ’s too emotional and too attached to ideas of wholeness to do what demand to be done . Which is it ? For Newton , it ’s both — Fauxlivia should be able to forge a A-one - acute excited connection , without feeling anything at all .
Whereas Fauxlivia is the polar — she feel too much , but she ’s not able-bodied to make her outward emotional displays convincing . ( Part of the problem , of line , is that she ’s impersonating an icicle . )
The biggest enigma of this episode was just what go on with Peter and Fauxlivia — they ’re both so good at playing game , I ’m not sure either of them really knows what games they ’re playing at this point . Peter much comes out and tells Fauxlivia he do it she ’s an pseudo , but then he plays it off as if it ’s just a welcome change . For her part , she denote that she ’s been lying to him , but then offers sex as an alternative to honesty . It ’s like they ’re both savour playing each other so much , they do n’t want to bring it to a close . Which is why that opening view is so telling , as they ’re watching other the great unwashed diddle game around them with a cognoscente ’s centre .
So who ’s the machine ? The “ regular ” humanity , who are capable to get the hang their emotions and lie to themselves , or the shapeshifting cyborg , who ca n’t let go of the excited ties they were supposed to be pretending to have ? Also in this sequence , we have Nina Sharp , who wo n’t acknowledge her own feeling about William Bell ’s last legacy , Broyles , who ’s uncoerced to put his feelings for the dead senator aside , and the senator ’s married woman , who ’s willing to behave loving towards a cyborg if it ’ll get her some answers .
But like I said , Walter is the heart and soul of this show — he ’s irrepressible in the inviolable best fashion , expressing whatever ’s going on inside him with almost no filter . This was another authoritative Walter episode , from the LSD - induced incorporated seminar ( smelling the guy ’s haircloth ! ) to the weird discourse of dinosaur crackers . We got a spoil - by - snow on Walter ’s hallucinations and his sluggish coming - down operation . I was terrified , yet again , when Walter ’s headland got bashed by the bull .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkOFu1Mx6ck
So it ’s going to be farsighted , long expect until November 4 — curse you , baseball game people ! — but at least this episode hand us loads to believe about , and the promo that aired afterwards suggest that the Olivia / Fauxlivia status quo is going to get a major shake-up when the show comes back . We ’ve had four of Fringe ’s finest hours in a row , and I ca n’t freaking wait to see what amount next .
What did you guess ?
Anna TorvFringe recapJohn NobleTelevision
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