Fringe Review: We’re Running Out Of Time

Apparently we’ve only got one episode left. ONE. And then what?

No one knows, that’s for damn sure. If you try to tell me you know what’s going to happen next week, next year, or even in the next five minutes on this show, I’m going to have to call bullshit.

We left our favorite paranormal investigators in quite a fix, if you’ll recall, and last night the situation had deteriorated even more. The events caused by the activation of the machine, both in our world and the alternate one, have worsened. Dry lightening storms are popping up without warning – some even indoors – swamping hospitals with burn victims. Peter (Joshua Jackson) is still in his coma but Astrid (Jasika Nicole) pulls Walter (John Noble) away, hoping they can discover something about the phenomenon that will at least slow its progress.

Olivia (Anna Torv) is still extricating knowledge out of Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan) who reveals he is not the first man of that name, nor is he the original author of The Last People. His family has passed the secret volume down through generations, but nothing about what’s happening now makes any sense. Only Peter is supposed to be able to operate the device, which has the ability to both create and destroy worlds. Of course, what none of them know is that Peter has sired a son and Walternate is using his DNA on the other side.

Sam tells Olivia there’s a key that will allow them to pry open the force field around the doomsday machine long enough to let Peter inside. The two of them go through some harrowing experiences getting to that key, only to find it’s another drawing – this time depicting Olivia.

Walter and Astrid discover the radius of the catastrophes can be reduced by moving the device in our world to the corresponding place in the alternate universe, begging Broyles (Lance Reddick) to allow them access to Liberty Island. Though he worries about moving it so close to New York City, Walter convinces him this is the way to prevent a larger loss of life.

Peter wakes up from his coma and doesn’t seem himself. The hospital staff is overwhelmed with burn victims and the spillover from other recent events, so no one notices when Peter pulls out his IV, dresses, grabs his wallet, and leaves the hospital. He leaves a note on the bed saying he’s going home, but we see him take a taxi cab to New York City and buy an old, collectible coin from a pawn shop. When he shows up on Liberty Island asking to see his father, the Secretary of Defense, we know he’s obviously not fine.

Back to the drawing of Olivia.

Walter believes it means that she can allow Peter access to the doomsday machine by switching it off using telekinesis. To make things even more dramatic, she’ll need to switch off the device in the alternate world without leaving our own. Olivia has an understandable attack of the I can’ts because, after all, she’s never known how to access her powers on purpose. Walter has her practice on the typewriter that communicates between our universe and theirs, but she fails repeatedly. Once they find Peter the message goes through, and Olivia knows she’s got to try.

She and Peter share a sweet goodbye scene just before she powers down the device and Peter steps in to embrace what appears to be his destiny. His life flashes before his eyes just before he wakes up battered and face down in a street. Fires rage around him, military vehicles sweep the streets full of panicked civilians. He sees a dedication to the loss of life on September 11, 2001 – a monument clearly anchoring us in our universe, since those terrorist attacks did not take place in the alternate one – and a man addresses him formally, as though he’s a military commander. The monument’s dedication date is in the year 2021.

End of episode.

As it has been with Fringe in recent weeks, the last thirty seconds pretty much left me confused and reeling.

The previews for next week’s season finale indicate we’ll be jumping 15 years into the future and that Walternate’s world has been destroyed. So many questions, few of which will likely be answered before next season, are bruising my brain cells.

When will Peter learn of his son? Are we really going to lose 15 years between Season 3 and Season 4, or could all of what happened after Peter “awoke” from his coma have been a hallucination on his part? Did anything in this episode actually happen? Why did he get into the device after Olivia turned it off…isn’t turning it off all they wanted the entire time?

What do you think, fellow questioners of the accepted? I’m quite curious.

Season 3, Episode 21 “The Last Sam Weiss” (original air date April 29, 2011)

Fringe airs Friday nights at 9/8c on Fox.