Fringe 4x12 Review

Welcome to Westfield

Another very interesting and creepy episode of Fringe tonight. While watching I had flashbacks to great X-Files episodes, and even The Twilight Zone. Some of my favorite Fringe episodes are those that remind me of The X-Files so it's no surprise that I really liked this one a lot. The best part about this episode for me was that they blended the "Case of the Week" and the main story arc of the season. In the past Fringe has struggled with that in my opinion. Usually what they do is they have a very good COTW episode, and then reveal how it connects to the main plot in the very end with a bit of expository dialogue. Many episodes in season three did that. This episode though succeeded that combining them very well. 

The episode starts with a generally Fringe-tasticly creepy opening. I love beyond belief how they make us think for a moment that the crashing plane is a UFO because they know many Fringe fans were also X-Files fans. Electronics shutting down, and metal things floating are so UFO encounter. Speaking of the airplane, how many airplane disasters have there been on Fringe? 5? Interesting. 

The Fringe team arrives with Walter(which I also loved). He's much more comfortable with Peter around, and it's so amazing to see how much Peter means to Walter. I hope Peter sees this, and recognizes how important he is in the life of Walter. As the events of the episode unfold and we start to figure out what's happening that bond remains important, and you wonder how the Fringe team did anything w/o Peter there to help and comfort Walter. In the diner Peter saves Walter's life, and later in the school it's Peter who helps Walter figure out the safest place in the town. It's a relationship that's been shown throughout the series, and I was so happy that Peter talked about the early days in this episode. It really showed how far he has come. 

The mysterious part of the episode is Olivia. Walter says that she is not affected by whatever is happening in the town, yet she is showing symptoms. Her's are a bit different though since she's not merging with Red Verse Olivia. We know that because she talked about the case with the town with the disfigured people and that was a Blue Verse Olivia case. There also was that rather vivid dream of Peter, but I'm sure many women have had that dream about Peter and it doesn't mean they had a long term relationship with him in an alternate timeline. She is merging, or at least getting memories it seems from the Olivia we have known for three years. Whether this is because of Peter and their relationship getting closer or something else, we don't know. What we do know is that by the end of the episode she wasn't just having flashes of that Olivia, she was in full Classic Olivia mode. This is good news and bad news for Peter. Good news because Olivia now loves him again, but bad news because he still sees her as the wrong Olivia. The real question then is, is this the wrong Olivia? We still don't know what we're dealing with here, and I feel we are going to start to get answers to that question very soon.

In this episode we also learn what David Robert Jones is planning, or at least we got a big clue. He set up that special stuff that he found all over the town of Westfield and caused it to merge with the alternate universe. This appears to have been a test, and I can only assume he is going to use this event, and the threat of bigger events in order to get something else. I mean Fringe is usually more complicated then simply having a crazy villain who wants to destroy the world. I have no idea what Jones could want. 

As people may or may not know, I hated the soul magnets story line, and never want it to return. A friend of mine bet me $10 that he could convince me that it's possible that Fringe could do a story using Soul Magnets, and I would love it. Since I knew that almost anything as a possibility there had to be something I would like, I said that it couldn't be totally random, it had to be a possible story line using confirmed canon. He agreed without hesitation. With that, I took the bet. He then quietly asked me if I remembered the end of the episode with Jones, and if I remembered who he was talking to. I said I did, and that it was Nina Sharp. He then said, "What if it's Nina, but with Bell's soul magnets?"  I then handed him $10, and smiled.  

I'm pretty sure that's not what is happening, but oh my word, that would be one of my most favorite reveals ever! 

If that does happen though, don't be made at me for "spoiling" it. If it happens I'll give you all his e-mail address so you can flame him for it. I know I will.