Won't be restarting until Nov. 5th, but figured we might as well go ahead and create a thread. For the uninitiated, this show is quite a bit like the X-Files, but without all the stuff that made that show ungodly frustrating. Mainly, every episode moves the overarching plot forward (if just a hair) and questions are eventually answered (and the answer usually raises a couple more questions). I highly recommend going back and watching Season 1 if you haven't. Alright nerds, let's have at it.
I really like the new season so far. I loved Charlie but I think it makes it more believable that he died. They kill off random no-name agents all the time and with the situations they put themselves in each week, it makes sense that one of them would die sooner or later. Plus I'm interested in seeing how the new agent does (Keith Dudemeister from Scrubs)
This show has jumped up into my top 5 right now. I really enjoyed Season 1 and thought it had a great combinations of FOTW (Freak of the Week) and mythology mixed in the middle. This season, I'm getting a little frustrated with the lack of mythology going on. First episode back we get the new agent and at the end she's going through the bible and the cases from last year. No mention of that one bit. I'm not greedy and want all my answers now but there has been NOTHING whatsoever from her or that scene since. Then 3 episodes ago we find out there is some super-agent that is going to get his head attached to open a portal to both worls. Not ONE mention of that search in the 2 episodes that followed. Really? Even a little throwaway line that they are "still following leads" would be good for me but it seems like they found out and said, "Ehhh.. lets worry about these other special people who AREN'T trying to destroy our entire world". /endrant But, like I said, I've been enjoying the show this season also. Hell, it MIGHT even be because each episode has stuch stand-alone ability (which is hypocitical, I know) but it's definately something I will be watching regardless. One thing I'm curious about that I'm not sure of or if it was ever mentioned in the show maybe someone can help me. Are there only 2 different universes or are you only able to travel to one other universe from yours? To clarify, when Nina Sharp had the two globes and showed them smashing I assumed there were only 2 universes. But someone else mentioned that it was like two circles that overlap each other, you can only reach one universe from that other one. (i.e. jump from our universe to William Bell's, then jump from Bells' to a completely different one, so on and so one) Anyone have any clue?
As far as the show goes, I believe that only 2 universes exist. The show is already way far out of intellectual grasp for most Americans, and trying to get people to somewhat understand string theory among other things would be quite difficult.
For Americans? So what country can the majority of the TV watching population understand string-theory, and half of the other shit going on?
I finally got caught up on everything. It's a shame they put 2 filler episodes back to back. Episode 4 (i.e. frozen heads, alternate universe, biomech army, collision of universes, etc) had a ton of stuff going on and they just leave us with our TV boners hanging out for 2 weeks. And I guess the hot agent from the first episode isn't going to be a regular? The only arc that progressed was the allusion to Walter stealing Peter from another dimension when Peter had his nightmare. Nevertheless, I'm glad I went back and picked up from where I stopped watching in season 1 for whatever reason. I am however kind of disappointed in that I feel like I don't have many questions about the characters themselves right now, course I could be entirely wrong. The main question on my mind is why people from the other universe seem to be preparing for war. The answer that I seem to believe deals with what Nina said in that 2 of the same objects cannot occupy the same space. So the plan is to eliminate everyone in the Fringers' world, thereby enabling everyone from Alt Universe to take their places. Other questions: - How sure are we that it was William Bell that wrote the ZFT manifesto? Both he and Walter had access to the typewriter afterall. Also one part of it really stuck out for me: "What we know as reality is only a fragile membrane on... of a larger multiverse. A skin on a bowl of pudding." It sounds like a very Walter-esque analogy to me. He is obsessed with food afterall and makes frequent references to food when trying to explain his theories (the cereal box and pyrokinesis for instance). - What's up with the prevalence of red and green? We already know that Abrams is big on duality and likes using colors to represent this (black and white from Lost). Red and green is seen a lot throughout the show. The tinker toys used to construct the model. Olivia's flashbacks of the alt universe were in a red tint. Olivia requesting business cards from people wearing red. My guess is that they symbolize the two universes: Alt (red) and Fringe's (green). I'm probably going to spend the next hour on http://fringepedia.net/wiki/Fringepedia. Great.
For some reason the old station wagon and creepy red haired kid made me think of Pete and Pete half of the time.
And pretty much another filler episode with a little more Walter feeling protective of Peter side-plot. There could be more to the human cloning/Tylers stuff at Massive Dynamic, but it doesn't seem like something they'll follow up on in my opinion. Least we saw how Nina and Bell communicate with each other. Not as cool as the typewriter in the backroom that the bio-mech soldiers use however. Spoiler Next week's ep is supposed to center around The Observer so hopefully that will get things rolling again
This episode left me with a couple of questions: 1. Why is the girl the Observer kidnapped no longer expendable? The explanation that she is now important b/c she is the cause of an Observer's death doesn't make much sense (at least right now). I imagine the girl's importance within the context of The Pattern/history has run its course and we will never see her again. So why not finish what they started? 2. I'm guessing the Observer's gun no longer fires b/c it's the Observer himself that loads/charges it. I think that's what we were supposed to learn when he started the car with his finger and caught the bullet. Not really sure. 3. At the end when the elderly looking Observer said "it's a shame things are about to get so hard for her" was he referring to Olivia or her niece? It would be pretty interesting if we found out in season 3 or 4 that the rarely mentioned niece is the most important person connected to the Pattern and not Olivia, Walter, etc. Anyways, great episode. Probably my favorite of the series.
The girl was supposed to die in the plane crash, however had she died in the plane crash, she could not have been responsible for the Observer's death. By causing his death, she made it necessary for herself to have been alive at that point in time, therefore she couldn't have died in the crash, and is no longer supposed to be dead.
I'm going to have to say Olivia was the one being mentioned.. just because of last seasons episodes about Olivia and her being treated with those meds, and her significant importance to William Bell. Maybe it's the Catholic in me, but the Observers are really starting to look like "angels"... complete with hierarchy and specific job roles. I believe also in lore, if an angel were to be involved with a human, it would be the end of the angel. (I don't want to research this point right now, but if someone knows for sure, PM me. please) This would make sense because she invoked a human feeling into the angel, which should not happen. (Oh yeah, the hot agent from episode 2-1...examining the bible...I'm just sayin'..) ok, no more religious talk. I'm extremely concerned with how well Bishop knows these Observers. He knew the language almost instantly (must have been taught it), and knew what the higher-ups wanted. He even knew the "rules"... this is going to make things very interesting. There was an episode a while back that is really nagging at me, and may start to make sense in the next few weeks...
Walter didn't know their language, it's just that the Observer left some chemical compound symbols in his book that only Walter would recognize because he's such a talented scientist. If you look at his message it shows the atomic symbols to spell out an address to where he met the Observer. That's the sole reason he left his book where he kidnapped the girl.
I don't agree with you there. The minds at Massive Dynamic have been studying the symbols for years, and even have computers running the symbols. if it were just different sections of the chemical compounds, they would have cracked it by now. Not to mention, Walter specifically knew how to assemble it and answer it correctly. I will also bring up how August went to Walter to ask for help. He asked Walter what he could do to fix his problem, and what he can do to save the girl. Almost instantly, he knew what had to be done. And September quoted Walter almost verbatim, as if September was reading out of a rule book. Add this tidbit to Walter, in tears, said that "he knew what he did was wrong, and against the rules. But he talked to September about it". Walter knows quite a bit about the Observers.
Walter got the location to meet from the notebook he left at the scene and massive dynamic never saw the book before it got to Walter (i dont think), also the observer who left the notebook mentioned something to Walter when he showed up at the diner about how much he knows Walter liked the nitrogen molecule or something and knew he'd figure out where/when to meet him from it.
I really hope that getting hooked up to those pieces of brain tissue reconnected some neural pathways in Walter to help him remember some of the things that were taken from him. It's good to see the show get back to the main plot again. It looks like they've finally found another decent bad guy to replace Jones from last season.
So I got Fringe Season 1 from Santa, and today I watched the first 5 episodes. It is absolutely amazing how well the second season has answered many questions in the first season. In fact, I encourage anyone to rewatch the episode where The Observer is first introduced. With the information we learned in the second season, this episode has actually lead to some questions being answered.