ABSOLUTE DESTINY APOCALYPSE

[swatkat]

My internet is dead. But at least I'm all caught up on Fringe.

4.11: Why can't we all get along

ASTRIIIIIID ♥

Trust Astrid to be the one person to get along with her alter-ego. Olivia and Lincoln are openly disdainful of their doubles (Olivia with good reason), and one gets the feeling the Broyleses do not get along very well, either. But not the Astrids, no—that's not how they're built. I was left wondering if Astrid really does feel what she said about her father there in the end, or if she simply said them to comfort Altstrid.

(What are the odds we'll be hearing from him again, though? I'm not holding my breath.)

4.08-4.09/4.11: Be careful what you wish for

After watching the latest episode, one of my RL friends told me that she wasn't entirely happy with Walter in the Amberverse—he had, she said, been reduced to a wish-fulfilling Santa Clause figure ("Where's Frankenstein?" she wrote, demanding further complexity in his character). I hadn't seen the episode when she said this, so I didn't have an adequate reply. Now that I have seen it, I think her complaint was with the comic overtones in the episode; like me, she watches Fringe for the drama, and she is worried that the kind of drama she loves will dissipate with comedy episodes like these. I think she doesn't need to worry too much, because Fringe does these (mostly) lighthearted episodes every now and then, but that doesn't mean the drama will go away. But I liked the word 'wish-fulfillment', because isn't that what the Amberverse is? After the end of the previous season, I wrote,

But coming back to the Superman analogy - the machine gave Peter a glimpse of a future, a future where he had chosen to destroy the Redverse and doomed their own in the process, and Walter's ~time paradox magic gives him another opportunity to fix it. So this time he takes a cue out of Ella's book (and how magnificent is that? they took a little throwaway thing from 'Brown Betty' and made a plot point out of it. you can rewrite a story to give it a happy ending, because otherwise it's not a good story at all, as little Ella would say) and wishes for a bridge that brings both his fathers and his Olivias together. A satisfactory outcome of his heavily-overplayed Special Destiny, at least. The next part is more confusing, because does he also wish himself out of history and memory, or is it just a side-effect of a mortal playing with time, a result of his hubris? I suppose time will tell.

The Amberverse—or rather, the Amber timeline, with its own distinct Red and Blue verses, is the universe Peter Bishop made by surrendering to the machine and wishing really hard. And watching them all come together in 4.11, working together against a common enemy, I couldn't help but think, again, that in many ways Peter's wish has come true—the Walters are redeemable and the two universes are capable of putting aside their differences and working together, but he didn't expect the side-effects.

I tend to be harsh on Peter sometimes. Unduly so, perhaps. But my biases notwithstanding, I don't think I'm particularly off the mark when I say that Peter seemed at his selfish worst in these two episodes, arguing again and again that everyone in the two universes had to drop everything they were doing because he had to go home, because he was not in Kansas anymore, because his pain, clearly, was the worst pain of all—he had lost an universe, and so what if everyone else was trying to figure out something that was important to them? Here's the problem: Peter Bishop doesn't deal very well with not being the centre of everyone's universe. He was, always, the apple of every Walter's eye, irresistible to every Olivia, and now it seems the Walters do not want him and the Olivias prefer the nice guys. It's the kind of thing that would sting, especially to a man who has seldom had the luxury of a home: the defining moment of Peter's life, after all, was when Walter snatched him away from the Redverse in 1985, away from a family that was his. He grew up, we have seen now, trying to run away, and failing; the only true family he knew after that was the one he made: Walter, Olivia, Astrid, Broyles, even Altlivia in her own way. And now that's been taken away from him, and he's terrified and in a world full of people who look like the people he loves and look at him with suspicion and fear. It does not justify his dismissal of everyone else's concerns, but I can understand where it comes from.

What is worst for him is the fact that he did this himself: he took the miracle machine and wished really hard, but that kind of thing comes with a cost. A mortal man cannot be playing with time and not pay a price. And this is Peter's price: the universe as it should be is one where you do not exist, and that's a terrible, terrible knowledge to live with.

4.10—4.11: Still alive

Now this is a storyline after my own heart, because my heart belongs to Olivia Dunham in her broken, magnificent glory. I love Fringe best when it goes all-out, like a giant science opera, emotions running high and violins playing in the background. I love the overwhelming sense of tragedy, of a time gone out of joint and a protagonist cursed to set it right. Self-fulfilling prophecies, overwhelming destiny vs. defiant human spirit, that sort of a thing. It goes without saying that these two episodes hit all the right notes for me.

I wrote some time ago: What does it mean, to be Olivia? To be a lab rat. To be violated, to be cut open, to be experimented upon, again and again, by amoral men (Walter Bishop, William Bell) in the name of science. To rise above that, to struggle, to fight and snatch that very dignity and agency that she's denied as a lab rat. To stand up and move on, uncomplaining, because that's what Olivia does.

I suppose we could add Nina Sharpe's name to that list now, only this time it comes with added betrayal: in the Amberverse, Nina is the closest thing she has to a mother.

I do not exaggerate when I call Olivia a lab rat—William Bell called her the same, while wearing her body:

'With the rats it was nearly two weeks before I began to see any complications.'

'What rats?'

'My test subjects. When I was first conducting soul magnet experiments, thirty years ago, the rats lasted nearly two weeks before the host's consciousness got lost. I never anticipated that it would happen more quickly in humans.'

In 4.10 again, Emily's father is vehement about not allowing his daughter to be used like a helpless laboratory animal: 'It always starts this way. Authorities show up when they get the wind of a girl with her ability, then others come, who wanna study her, like those people at Massive Dynamic, and they never stop. No matter where we go, they find her. Watching from their cars, waiting for the right moment to grab her, take her to their labs. They poke and prod her like she's some kinda animal. You have any idea what that does to a young girl?'

Olivia, of course, does, more than Emily's father will ever know. She knows it in every incarnation. Even Altlivia, who grew up hale and hearty in the Altverse, was not spared Walternate's needles once she became entangled with Olivia's life. And Olivia, Olivia knows it as abuse, is angry about it, even if she can bring herself to forgive Walter in the Amberverse (Olivia is so kind): we saw it in her outburst in 'Jacksonville', which is till date one of my favourite episodes ever, we see it again in her outburst to Nina:

Nina:Oh, are you asking me a question, or are you accusing me of something?

Olivia: I thought you said that you were done using children as test subjects.

Nina: Yes, we are. Massive Dynamic did approach [Emily's family] when they lived in Baltimore. Emily exhibited some fascinating precog abilities which would have allowed us to make drastic advances in our study of the human brain. We simply wanted to catalogue her abilities. Her father wasn't interested, even when we offered to pay for Emily's schooling. [Nina waves a hand, appearing extremely put off]

Olivia: [horrified] I don't know how you could have raised me for so many years, and seen all the damage that was done to me, and pretended that there's nothing wrong with what you've just said.

Nina: Olivia, I'm sorry. Now what happened to you, was awful. But this girl is different. No one made her this way.

Olivia: I don't see the difference! I mean, it's still abuse!

Just because AmberOlivia can forgive Walter doesn't mean she's not sensitive to the abuse that was done to her, and oh god, why are they going to break her heart like this?

It isn't surprising that Olivia got through to Emily. Have I ever mentioned how much I ♥ her kind heart? Sometimes I think it's her true superpower, Waltergiven abilities notwithstanding. We've seen her do this countless times, in every universe: she brings her emotions into the job and it makes her good at it; she puts herself out there and steps into other people's shoes. AmberOlivia, being a slightly different sort of Olivia, is more open about her emotions, and it hurts my heart to see her set up for betrayal like this. With the David Robert Jones/ZFT reveal, I suspect Nina took her in for a reason—she is perhaps setting Olivia up as the supersoldier the ZFT manual had talked about in Season One, although to what end I do not know. She might have grown to care for her (I hope she did, I can't tell right now), but that hasn't stopped her from making Olivia her lab rat. That last scene, where Olivia is so open and vulnerable and honest, and Nina makes her soup, gah. ;____;

True to her Olivianess, of course, AmberOlivia has made it clear that she's not going to become anyone's self-fulfilling prophecy, that she not going to surrender agency, give up and go down in some undignified ratlike manner. It's a story that makes more sense with AmberOlivia, because BlueOlivia would not have been as rattled by September's words as AmberOlivia was—she does not experience fear the same way. And when she talked the suicide bomber out of the detonation, she was also talking to herself, telling herself that there's no fate but what she makes (like a true successor of Sarah Connor), 'Nothing has to happen, nothing is written in stone. You and I, we don't have to die here today. Now whatever happens is up to you. You are in control.'

It sets the tone for the rest of the season, I think, since the mytharc is now in its place: the Observers, it seems, are determined that Peter Bishop has to die—or, well, not exist anymore. September only saw death for Olivia in every possible future. This death, if it comes to pass at all, cannot be the death we saw in the future timeline, because there Olivia had lived a full life, had seen Ella grow up and follow her footsteps, had learned to control her powers and love the broken parts of herself. I cannot imagine Olivia accepting a version of the universe where Peter has to not exist, because nothing has to be, nothing must be written in stone, she will not let it be so. Perhaps that's why she has to die in every possible timeline, because she takes it upon herself to defy the order of things and rewrite the story, make a 'happy' ending as she sees fit.

Comments

[monanotlisa]

Oh, God, it's 1:46am, and my boss is back in the office tomorrow morning. But I WILL BE BACK, for I love Fringe AND your brain, so this your post is clearly the place to be.

♥

[monanotlisa]

4.11: Why can't we all get along

Ahahah. Yes. Showcasing that!

Trust Astrid to be the one person to get along with her alter-ego.

...I'd never considered that, but you're right: they really work -- with each other.

Olivia and Lincoln are openly disdainful of their doubles (Olivia with good reason)

Too cool for school vs. the nerd squad? ;)

But not the Astrids, no—that's not how they're built. I was left wondering if Astrid really does feel what she said about her father there in the end, or if she simply said them to comfort Altstrid.

She lied, I felt; that was one of the two perfect double-punches at the end there.

I think her complaint was with the comic overtones in the episode; like me, she watches Fringe for the drama, and she is worried that the kind of drama she loves will dissipate with comedy episodes like these.

Huh, I was commenting to rainer76 about that factor -- I'm such a fan of mixing drama with comedy; it's why I was so hugely into shows like BtfVS, but also the darker-tinted humour of, say, Dexter before it jumped the shark.

But coming back to the Superman analogy - the machine gave Peter a glimpse of a future, a future where he had chosen to destroy the Redverse and doomed their own in the process, and Walter's ~time paradox magic gives him another opportunity to fix it. So this time he takes a cue out of Ella's book (and how magnificent is that? they took a little throwaway thing from 'Brown Betty' and made a plot point out of it. you can rewrite a story to give it a happy ending, because otherwise it's not a good story at all, as little Ella would say) and wishes for a bridge that brings both his fathers and his Olivias together. A satisfactory outcome of his heavily-overplayed Special Destiny, at least.

Hah. And, yes -- I hadn't brought it all the way back to Brown Betty, but you can; you did.

the Amber timeline, with its own distinct Red and Blue verses, is the universe Peter Bishop made by surrendering to the machine and wishing really hard. And watching them all come together in 4.11, working together against a common enemy, I couldn't help but think, again, that in many ways Peter's wish has come true—the Walters are redeemable and the two universes are capable of putting aside their differences and working together, but he didn't expect the side-effects.

No he didn't. Perhaps all these people who claim this ain't real are right, after all.

Here's the problem: Peter Bishop doesn't deal very well with not being the centre of everyone's universe. He was, always, the apple of every Walter's eye, irresistible to every Olivia, and now it seems the Walters do not want him and the Olivias prefer the nice guys.

See, and this is one reason I do love the Amber!verse with a passion I think is not common in the wider fandom: It takes our world and puts it right in some ways, only that means upside down for certain people, and yes: Peter's one of them.

And now that's been taken away from him, and he's terrified and in a world full of people who look like the people he loves and look at him with suspicion and fear. It does not justify his dismissal of everyone else's concerns, but I can understand where it comes from.

My sympathy for Peter on a rational level approaches zero; the world he's is in is the intended one: by him; by the universe. Possibly the Observers.

(The thing is, we only ended up in it because I'm fully, 100% with Peter Bishop' in 3x22: A world in which Olivia Dunham dies must be one fucked-up universe, indeed, and needs to be rectified. Re-written.)

On an emotional level, I do get him; it's actually consistent characterisation too -- a bit of a marvel with Peter, really: We've seen him in early Season Three, so desperate to believe this was his Olivia, merely having seen the light of his love and all. Perception is the key to transformation. Peter has the (odd for a scientist) tendency to view the world as he wants it, not as it is.

What is worst for him is the fact that he did this himself: he took the miracle machine and wished really hard, but that kind of thing comes with a cost. A mortal man cannot be playing with time and not pay a price. And this is Peter's price: the universe as it should be is one where you do not exist, and that's a terrible, terrible knowledge to live with.

Yes.

Now this is a storyline after my own heart, because my heart belongs to Olivia Dunham in her broken, magnificent glory. I love Fringe best when it goes all-out, like a giant science opera, emotions running high and violins playing in the background. I love the overwhelming sense of tragedy, of a time gone out of joint and a protagonist cursed to set it right. Self-fulfilling prophecies, overwhelming destiny vs. defiant human spirit, that sort of a thing. It goes without saying that these two episodes hit all the right notes for me.

Can I say yes again? Or is that lame?

I write a lot of Astrid, of Lincoln, because I adore them. And Peter Bishop features rather prominently in various positions (more or less literally). But the thing is: I watch the show, the show itself for Olivia Dunham, Blueverse version -- any version that's marked as Ours, and hell, this one this season is; the people who can't see that baffle me.

To stand up and move on, uncomplaining, because that's what Olivia does.

It is, and it means the world to me. The resonance Olivia has isn't particularly rational (but most of our feelings are not, I guess).

I suppose we could add Nina Sharpe's name to that list now, only this time it comes with added betrayal: in the Amberverse, Nina is the closest thing she has to a mother.

But this betrayal I have hopes for: layers of priorities and perhaps pride; I don't doubt there's love too.

I do not exaggerate when I call Olivia a lab rat—William Bell called her the same, while wearing her body:

*shiver* People found a lot of that funny. I did not; I found the vast majority of scenes too creepy to contemplate in reviews or any other medium. It goes back to what you conjure up there: that Olivia has been violated, physically, so often; adding to that even by contemplation makes me hurt.

. And Olivia, Olivia knows it as abuse, is angry about it, even if she can bring herself to forgive Walter in the Amberverse (Olivia is so kind): we saw it in her outburst in 'Jacksonville', which is till date one of my favourite episodes ever, we see it again in her outburst to Nina:

Oh, oh, this. So much.

(I'm vain, like most people; I love seeing my thoughts echoed in people whose opinions I value:

Olivia took in his profile, perfectly framed by the window behind Lincoln's head. "She was a girl once, too." Young, certainly, but now Olivia wasn't so sure about that head full of dreams Nina had been talking about. And still, not everything could have been a lie. Olivia had been sifting through the memories in her mind, separating the strands, ever since the revelation. Olivia's genesis -- and that is exactly what it was now, wasn't it? -- was a web of half-truths at best. But Nina's own story?

"I think she's always had her reasons. Not all of them kind."

Lincoln studied her for a moment, silent until he was not. "You are, though -- to say that about her, after all of this."

)Just because AmberOlivia can forgive Walter doesn't mean she's not sensitive to the abuse that was done to her, and oh god, why are they going to break her heart like this?

Because they can; because this is a drama show. I hate it with a passion, but at the same time: Olivia Dunham is the Angsty Hero of our times; she fares no better than the cruel plot devices your usual super-hero is subjected to (which I realise you as a comics fan knows). It's in some ways the opposite of Peter Bishop's Storyline, which I don't like on a general level -- well, don't care more apt -- but can see on a personal one.

It isn't surprising that Olivia got through to Emily. Have I ever mentioned how much I ♥ her kind heart?

I respond to Olivia in my myriad ways because of this -- my sister does too; I know this without having talked to her about this, because she's only a very intermittent fan, and feral too if that term still applies. ;) But justice and acknowledgement and kindness, they do mean the world to us (and Olivia embodies them all).

With the David Robert Jones/ZFT reveal, I suspect Nina took her in for a reason—she is perhaps setting Olivia up as the supersoldier the ZFT manual had talked about in Season One, although to what end I do not know. She might have grown to care for her (I hope she did, I can't tell right now), but that hasn't stopped her from making Olivia her lab rat. That last scene, where Olivia is so open and vulnerable and honest, and Nina makes her soup, gah. ;____;

I am having ALL THE FEELINGS THERE. lökasdfklkasjdfölasdkjfasldfjasölkäoökälööäkl!

Basically.

True to her Olivianess, of course, AmberOlivia has made it clear that she's not going to become anyone's self-fulfilling prophecy, that she not going to surrender agency, give up and go down in some undignified ratlike manner.

Oh, HELL NO! *g*

'Nothing has to happen, nothing is written in stone. You and I, we don't have to die here today. Now whatever happens is up to you. You are in control.'

God, that scene. It was perfection.

Perhaps that's why she has to die in every possible timeline, because she takes it upon herself to defy the order of things and rewrite the story, make a 'happy' ending as she sees fit.

I think you are right (and the showrunners will make it so).

♥