After the momentous revelation that William Bell had been hiding in an alternate universe – the same universe that Walter had kidnapped Peter from after his son died — the first season of “Fringe” seemed like it would be a hard act to follow. But as the second season has already shown, “Fringe” has a few more surprises up its sleeve.
Starting off with a bang, we were immediately thrown amidst a head-on car crash. Car accidents are routine, but not when one of the drivers disappears into thin-air. Thus, in the second season opener, “A New Day in an Old Town,” the sole survivor of the accident was a man who soon revealed himself to be anything but a man. He was a shape-shifter – and clearly not from our universe. It was his mission to kill Olivia. Olivia, in the meantime, had been yanked out of our universe and into the alternate universe for a meeting with the mysterious William Bell. It was because the auto accident failed to stop that meeting from occurring that Olivia had a bulls-eye on her back. For whatever William Bell had told her was worth killing for. However, Olivia’s return to our universe was not gentle and she was thrown through the windshield of her car and sustained a nasty head injury. This left her unable to remember the vital information that William Bell had shared with her. Because Olivia was in a coma, Peter stepped forward to take command and was instrumental in getting the Fringe Division reinstated. It was touch and go for most of the episode, but in the end, Olivia miraculously awoke and Peter saved the Fringe Division from bureaucratic extinction. And Walter made Peter a custard cake for his birthday.
In the second episode, “Night of Desirable Objects,” it was wish-fulfillment of the worst kind – it was answered with a twisted distortion. A doctor so badly wanted a baby of his own; he decided to play God and manipulated the baby’s DNA so that his wife’s disease-ridden body would not reject it. However, it is never a good idea to use cross-species in order to accomplish such a goal. The monster he created was worthy of a horror story of its own and it proceeded to stalk the town’s inhabitants. During that investigation, Olivia, still recuperating from her auto accident injuries and unable to recall what happened to her, nearly shot Peter. This prompted Nina to pay a visit and recommend that Olivia seek out a man by the name of Sam Weiss who might have some answers to the medical problems Olivia was experiencing, including her accentuated hearing. In the meantime, with Olivia still unsure of herself and acting erratically, Peter
continued to step up and fill the power-vacuum to lead the team. And Faux-Charlie (the shape-shifter who had killed and replaced Charlie) continued to lurk in the background with orders to find out what Olivia knows and then kill her.
Then, in “Fracture,” it was a race against time to locate several former military personnel who had been exposed to a nerve-agent that could be triggered turning them into human bombs – for at just the right radio frequency, the genetically altered body would crystallize and then shatter. While Peter and Olivia took a quick field-trip to Iraq so that Peter could convince an old associate to assist in locating doctors familiar with the nerve-agent, Walter was preoccupied with and balking at the prospect of moving into a new apartment. After returning state’s side, Olivia continued her unorthodox treatment with Sam Weiss who worked on rebuilding her confidence. There was also a surprise appearance by The Observer who was seen sorting through photos from the briefcase – in particular, photos of Walter.
Concluding the 4-episode arc involving the shape-shifter posing as Charlie, in “Momentum Deferred” it was finally revealed what the shape-shifter’s handlers feared Olivia would remember — William Bell had told her the location of a cryogenically frozen head of their leader. With a facial recognition program on the verge of revealing the shape-shift as Charlie, Walter called upon a former friend/lover to try to recreate an experiment where she could recognize those from the alternate universe. While Olivia killed Faux-Charlie, just not in time to stop him from pushing the send button on his phone telling his cohorts where the head was located. Thus, in the end, the head was retrieved by the shape-shifter and Walter failed to see that his experiment worked all too well with Rebecca recognized Peter from the alternate universe.
Finally, in last week’s episode “Dream Logic,” we witnessed the power of dreams – or rather the power of addiction. A sleep therapist had created a brain chip that once implanted allowed him to steal a person’s dreams. However, rather than providing a person with a peaceful night sleep, it left the person sleep-deprived and when he replayed the dreams at his leisure, they would experience them while wide-awake leading to extreme violence. With Peter and Walter hard at work on solving the dream mystery, Olivia was back into therapy with Sam Weiss feeling guilt-ridden over Charlie’s death and like her entire life felt like a nightmare. Sam’s therapy methods while unconventional did have results as collecting business cards from everyone wearing a red shirt revealed a hidden message, “you’re gonna be fine” – which was exactly what Olivia needed to hear. Meanwhile, back at the lab, Walter was worried after Peter shared that his recurring nightmare involved him being kidnapped in the night – which smacked awfully close to the truth.
With the loss of Charlie, Olivia doubting her abilities, Peter stepping up to lead the team and lots of typical “Fringe” weirdness going on, this season promises to be just as thrilling and mind-boggling as ever.
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
‘A New Day In The Old Town’ was written by J.J. Abrams and Akiva Goldsman, and directed by Akiva Goldsman. ‘Fringe’ stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole, Kirk Acevedo. ‘Fringe’ airs Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. on Fox.
