By djariya at 2011-09-13

Synopsis:



Episode 16 of 22

Promo:

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Hello?

There was a commercial for Scientology around halfway through and then they kind of made fun of it in the episode. I thought that was kind of cool, like they'd take their money but made clear where they stood with sci-fi cults.

Hmmm, wasn't feeling this one at all. Funny I can accept alternate universes and Peter witnessing the Big Bang but the flying porcupine took me completely out of the story.

I really dug this. Loved how what you thought was the same scenario played out totally different.

Another solid episode to a fine season. I was mildly irritated when Peter was missing for several episodes at the beginning of the season, but everything has turned out great in the end. Something is obviously going to happen with Lincoln down the road. Maybe he resets the universe to get "his" Olivia back.

What's that toy Peter was playing with? Remember them from grade school. Wheele-e? or something like that.

Seems like they are now tying things back to season 1's procedural pattern stuff. Awesome!
I can't wait to see how this unfolds for the rest of the season.

I have a suspicion Lincoln
To me the glances and emotional involvement Lincoln has had over Olivia the past couple of episodes seemed a little forced and out of place, but as a setup for the above it'd make more sense.

And it was hard for me to suspend disbelief for flying porcupine, or why someone would want to be one, too. But otherwise I enjoyed the ep.

Good episode. Nice callback to "The Transformation" episode from season 1.

I liked how they took almost the same story, but managed to re-work it.

at Walter coming out of the crapper with "Hump" magazine in his hands. It was so casual and easy to miss.

Fringe is on a roll lately. The season started off really shitty, but the last 4 or 5 episodes have been quite strong. I'm glad to see they are back to form, but won't be surprised if this ends up being the last season.

It almost sounds traitorous for this Fringe fan to say, but this episode did nothing for me. I'm OK with standalone episodes, but there wasn't anything compelling about the transformation story the first time, and there wasn't anything compelling about it this time.

Really? Weren't you at all curious as to the size of the guys' penises after turning into giant monsters?

This time, it seems to link to whatever Barney Bob Jones (what's his freakin' name??) is planning. With so few episodes left, I'm figuring a showdown with him is gonna happen.

Seemed like boat was kind of a freaky Noah's Ark.

DJ - I caught that with Walter coming out of the bathroom too.

Another great Walter moment was his examples of palindromes. John Noble's acting made that moment hilarious, whereas it could've simply been an immature toss-off line.

I enjoyed this episode - the only thing I'm confused about is the timeline.

Since they started this ep with something that happened in Season 1, is the timeline we're following now set during that time? I thought it just progressed from Peter's disappearance. Or was it supposed to be something like "this event hadn't happened yet" - but then...all of the same people are on that flight?

I kept waiting for Peter to say "This happened 4 years ago" and he never did. Or I completely missed them addressing it.

Robert David Jones had already healed from his "meltdown" when we met him in this timeline. And Olivia has her memories from her three years with Peter. So I would assume it takes place "now" rather than resetting it back to the beginning.

Agreed. I've enjoyed this season, just not sure exactly what's where or who's from when.

Really dug the callback to the airplane porcupine - though the wings not so much.

That's what I thought too - then why did the exact same flight with the same people (and subsequent events) happen again...three years later? I really thought it was going to be an "old case" that proceeded differently in this timeline, but it actually happened 4 years later in this timeline.

Confusing.

Did we see anyone else besides the two flight attendants? It's not too ridiculous that the two of them, probably having this particular flight "shift" would be on the same flights. And flight numbers get reused. Possibly an unlikely coincidence, but not impossible, so it can be written off as artistic license.

I guess. I could go back and look at the original ep again, but in the "Previously on Fringe..." they show that flight attendant asking him to sit back down and I'd swear there were some passengers in that shot.

We had a power outage when this aired last week, so we had to wait for it to pop up on Hulu. Really liked the call back to season one, and there was a major X-Files feel with the frieghter at the end.

What's interesting to note is that the timeline seems to be "course correcting" a bit. IIRC, originally Bowman and Hicks were exposed to the virus in order to assassinate them because they were (along with John Scott) investigating Moreau -- now they seemingly exposed themselves willingly as part of the cult. It'll be interesting to see if that was the creator's intention and if they continue to play with that idea.

The cool thing is that in addition to the 2 porcupine monsters, at least 2 more of the monsters on board were from previous episodes as well. The rattlesnake tail sticking out of the cage (likely) belonged to the chimera creature from s1 that laid eggs in Charlie, and I believe the worm thing swimming in the tank was from a s2 episode.