Fringe: There’s More Than One Of Everything [season finale]
By fred | May 13, 2009
(S01E20) For a while it seemed like this show had a lot of potential, but failed to deliver. It took a while for them to pull out some really good episodes, and while – unlike what was first said/planned for the show – they had to dove deeper and deeper into serialization to get there, they eventually did, and it was a lot of fun. But now that the season is over, and while I am looking forward to the next, I’m not sure I would be putting this on my list of must-see series.
Much like this episode, there’s still a lot of potential, but there’s also still something missing. For instance, while this was a good and solid episode, I have to say it was also disappointing to me, especially as a season finale, because in the end almost nothing happened, and no answers were given and no revelations of any kind were made — only confirmations of what we (long) suspected.
For most of the episode we dealt with alternate universe and people traveling from one to the other, but as good as this might have been made, it wasn’t new to the show, nor was there anything we actually hadn’t seen before. I mean there was, but last week Olivia wasn’t only “traveling” to another universe/world, she was also interacting with the people there.
In other words, more than we ever saw this time (minus the last scene) where people only went halfway through, quite literally. Again, not that it was bad but it lacked a certain something to make this a lot more exciting and thrilling, and especially for a season finale that is something one notices.
Of course, there was Peter. Or, more precisely, Peter’s grave. But I think many if not most suspected that Peter might be from another universe, that Walter invented a way to travel through universe just for Peter, to save him or, if that couldn’t be done, to get “another one” of him — because he couldn’t bare the thought of not having his son alive.
When we first saw Walter at the cemetery, I suspected it was Peter’s grave he was starring at, because it made sense the Observer would bring him here, trying to trigger his memory. And when he gave him the coin that wasn’t the one Walter knew, just one just like it, and when he said that there is more than one of everything, it was pretty much a confirmation that the name of that tombstone was indeed Peter’s.
And if you had any doubts, Walter explaining how he wanted to go in another universe to take something from there and bring it back, the way he told that story to Peter without being able to fully tell the truth, the complete truth, made things quite clear — at least to us. So by the time we saw his name, it wasn’t much of a revelation, more of a confirmation of what we had already figured out.
Of course, that doesn’t mean both Jackson and Noble weren’t fantastic together, especially when Peter remembered the pancake story, which was such an emotional moment for Walter not because it trigger his memory, but because it’s highly possible that he did not do that with Peter, not this Peter at least, but the one from this world, the one who died.
I have to say, though, that I wonder whether there is a limited number if universe or not. If so, then it goes on forever: Walter grabbed Peter from another universe, so the Walter from there got pissed and probably went into another universe to get himself another Peter, leading that other universe’s Walter to do the same, and so on and so on. If we have a limited number of universe though, I wonder if there are a few Walters who kept fighting themselves and stealing one Peter from one universe to the next. It’s silly, but that thought made me laugh…
Anyways, the problem is that we didn’t get to see or learn much more. Why was it so important that Walter stop Jones from traveling?? It couldn’t be because people aren’t supposed to go from one universe to the other, since obviously Walter did, and so did Bell! And why would the Observer stop being just that and get proactive, pushing Walter to act, fast?? And on a more serious note, what happened to the Walter our Walter stole Peter from? About Bell, if ours lives in another world, are there two William Bell in that world? Did the other one died? Was he killed? By our Bell? Is there a war between worlds coming up, as ZFT indicated?
Again, we got no answers at all, all we had was Olivia traveling to another world and say hi to Bell — the end. It sure makes us wants to see what happens next, but it would have been nice to get some answers this time. Even the travel was, in itself, only a confirmation of what we long knew. Seeing the Twin Towers was a strong visual, and I’m sure everyone noticed that Olivia probably first traveled to another universe (where others where in the elevator with her) before jumping right after into another place, within the same universe this time, going from whatever the restaurant she was in was in this universe, to Bell’s office in the WTC.
As we’ve seen all along, what Bell has is what (he and) Walter created about 30 years ago, only better and more powerful, since he obviously fixed/improved things in all those years. And back in the day, Walter was able to open a window to another world to go grab himself another son, he created a device that could transport someone from one place to another, so it only makes sense Bell can now do all that, only with much better precision, and less side effects — or so I would hope for Olivia, seeing how Jones didn’t look so good.
Overall, it was a good episode, but it was also a bit disappointing. Not a lot happened, as what did was only confirmations of what we knew instead of answers/revelations, and while Olivia finally got to meet the infamous William Bell, and given what we know of her and the past the “share” I can only imagine they both have questions for the other one, we didn’t get to that part just yet. I don’t know, hopefully next season we will, and from the start they’ll have a precise idea of where to go / what to do with the show.
So, I caught the Observer easy this time, but where were Olivia’s sister and her daughter?
What did everybody else think?
