Fringe Review: What Appears to Be Isn’t at All

It’s taken me a few days to be able to write this recap for you because, well, I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around what happened during Friday night’s finale. In true Fringe fashion, it totally pureed my brain, but for the first time in a while I had a bit of trouble following the logic. Part of that is the time travel aspect, which is just a concept my puny mind always struggles to comprehend.

I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let me attempt to recap the events that took place before tossing out some theories on where we might be headed during season 4.

We are glimpsing the future of our world, a world that resulted from Peter stepping into the doomsday machine and destroying the alternate universe. Astrid (Jasika Nicole) is a Fringe agent, along with Olivia’s niece Belle, and they report to Olivia (Anna Torv) in place of Broyles (Lance Reddick). Broyles is now a U.S. Senator, Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Olivia are married (but childless), and Walter (John Noble) has been imprisoned due to his actions being what caused the ultimate destruction of another world and the ensuing breakdown of our own.

Since the alternate universe was destroyed, the fabric of our world has also begun to disintegrate at an alarming pace. Olivia and Peter are dealing with a terrorist intent on speeding up the process, but need Walter’s help to figure out who created the weapon. In a scene reminiscent of season 1, Peter goes to visit Walter in jail before Broyles agrees to allow him back into his lab for the duration of the investigation. Peter appears to feel guilt over the fact his father is in prison for his crimes when Peter is the one who actually destroyed the alternate world.

Walter’s conclusion is that there’s nothing they can do to stop the destruction of our world because the two universes were inextricably linked. When Peter annihilated their world, he also doomed our own.

What they do find out is that Walternate somehow crossed between the worlds and is now living as some sort of reclusive refugee bent on revenge. Peter goes to see him and apologizes for everything that happened, but when he goes to arrest Walternate he finds the man is only a hologram of some sort. Walternate makes good on his promise to make Peter suffer the way that he has by immediately shooting Olivia dead.

The funeral scene is eerie, sad, and was also when I knew for sure this episode wasn’t going to stick. Walter and Peter come to the revelation that they are the First People – they send the pieces of the machine back in time through a wormhole. In the same manner (this is where they lost me), Peter can go back and make a different decision. Instead of using the machine’s negative influence (destroying worlds), he can use its positive attributes to build a new future.

Peter wakes in the machine, and when he looks down at the two Liberty Island laboratories have merged. Walter stares at Walternate. Olivia eyes AltOlivia. Peter walks up to them and begins a speech about working together to find a way to save both worlds, since they are co-dependent, but flickers out before he finishes his sentence.

At first it seemed strange that his disappearance didn’t strike any of the actors as strange, until we cut to the outside and see the Observers gathered together. One remarks, “They don’t remember Peter.” A second comments, “How could they? He never existed.”

That’s where season 3 ends, and there are plenty of questions people are going to be debating the answers to in the months until the start of season 4.

First, if Peter never existed, then how did the machine build the bridge? Is Peter’s function merely to bridge the two universes? They will inevitable find evidence that a Peter existed at one time, but how will they bring him back into a solid form? Is there still a baby? When Peter does return, will he be the same?

The performances from the actors on this show continue to impress me with their subtlety. No one is ever overly clever about the way they go about things, and in that manner they don’t interfere with the central message of Fringe which is, and always has been, hope. I look forward to following the writer’s wherever they take us next fall.

At least I have the summer to ponder this final episode and perhaps, finally, force my brain to understand the principles of time travel.

Season 3, Episode 22 “The Day We Died” (original air date May 6, 2011)

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

Photos Courtesy of Liane Hentscher and FOX