Fringe Review: A Single Person Can Change Everything

Friday’s episode of Fringe strayed from its format of the last couple of seasons, and took some big risks that paid off due to some rather fantastic acting. We aren’t seeing glaring changes on either side, but little differences are cropping up within the framework of the investigations and conversations between characters.

A serial killer named McClennan is loose in the alternate world, and Altlivia has requested the assistance of the McClennan from our side, a professor who studies profiling. Both McClennan’s are portrayed by John Pyper-Ferguson, who gives a masterful performance as he paints a disturbed mind with brilliant strokes of subtly and pathos. Olivia (Anna Torv) wants nothing to do with the other universe, but Broyles (Lance Reddick) orders her to cooperate by bringing the professor into their world. Right around that time we get the first reveal of the evening, which is that alternate Broyles is still alive. In the Peter world, Alternate Broyles was killed by Walternate after he helped Olivia escape.

Which raises some questions regarding the new timeline, such as how did she escape and return home in this reality, for one thing.

When the professor McClennan sees a picture of his father in the killer’s house, he panics and runs outside, only to be confronted by a second Olivia. Needless to say, they’re forced to tell him the truth, and Professor McClennan admits he’s lived with the dark urges to kill his entire life, but a woman he met as a child taught him how to control them, how to fight the darkness and step toward the light. He immediately feels sorrow for his alternate self, realizing he probably never had anyone to show him another way. Determined to help the man, perhaps pay forward the good deed done to him, the professor escapes and finds his counterpart.

The serial killer McClennan has devised a way to steal happy memories from his victims, and those brief, stolen moments are the only peace he’s ever known. He pilfers Professor McClennan’s memories of the woman who saved him before the team catches up with him. The serial killer is shot, and our professor has lost the memory of the woman who taught him how to suppress his dark side.

Strangely enough, in the hospital he still recalls her lessons, even though he can’t recall ever knowing the woman who spoke them. Broyles draws us a nice parallel to Peter (Joshua Jackson) when he tells Olivia that some people leave a mark that’s burned into our consciousness, and the words they said and the way they made us feel outlast their existence.

The whole episode struck me as melancholy and sad, with an edging of longing. I enjoyed the tone of the entire thing, and the way it connects to our feelings about Peter and the hole he’s left.

I like the subtle way they’re going about Peter’s absence and the changes it has wrought. We learn in this episode that Olivia killed her abusive father, though we haven’t been told how it happened. After last week I suspected we would go a direction that includes a potential relationship between Lincoln (Seth Gabel) and Olivia, and Astrid (Jasika Nicole) did broach the subject.

Walter (John Noble) continues to see Peter, so he’s covered the reflective surfaces in his lab and is sliding down a slippery slope of insanity. The episode ends with Peter shouting in the darkness, begging his father to help him, to see him, while Walter covers his ears. I’m willing to stick this out with the writers, and I understand why it’s important that Walter be the one to remember Peter, but I wish they could do something to bring back Walter’s spark in the meantime. This week his character offered very little, and when John Noble’s not part of the story, the show suffers. We’ve also been missing Peter’s wit and easy sense of humor, but seeing more of Altlivia helped shore up that weakness. Watching the two Olivias’ interactions and facial expressions tells the story of two women who, though they look very much alike, have led completely different lives.

The episode, much like last week, felt like more of a procedural cop show than the series we’ve become addicted to in the past couple of seasons. Due to the outstanding performance of Pyper-Ferguson, as well as the continued skill of Anna Torv and her two characters, it worked quite well and we were treated to a great hour of television.

The thing is, that’s not why we watch Fringe. I hope to see more of not only Peter in the coming weeks, but more science fiction, more of the alternate world, and more all-around gooey weird goodness.

Season 4, Episode 2 “One Night in October” (original airdate Sept 30, 2011)

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

Photos Courtesy of Liane Hentscher/FOX