“Unleashed” is what every non plot driven episode of Fringe should strive to be. The episode has good action and an actual monster that Fringe division has to deal with. The episode moves quickly as the team is on the clock to save a character that is actually important to the show, adding to the suspense. I also like the fact that Charlie had a big role in the episode. Charlie is one of those characters that doesn’t have a big role but has a big following and no one want anything bad to happen to. This episode help that cause by showing Charlie’s courageousness and the fact that he is a good man and a good husband. Walter also showed compassion (or guily) as he risked his own life to save Charlie. Walter was one of the pioneers of this episode’s Fringe science “genetic mutations” and he felt that he was somewhat responsible for what happened to Charlie. It is amazing how much knowledge and influence Walter has in the Fringe universe making him almost if not legendary. Not bad for a man living in an insane asylum for 18 years.
Star of the Show – Walter Bishop
I really wanted to give this to Charlie but when Walter is eating old burritos, creating bat/snake creatures, and blasting monsters with giant guns makes it too hard not to give Walter the node
Fringe rounds the corner to the final straight away of the season with “Inner Child,” an interesting but relatively mediocre episode. The strange, bald head, mute kid with outer worldly powers is an interesting character, especially since there is an obvious connection with the observer and the fact that it was insinuated that more of them exist. The episode itself, however dragged, as most of time was spent trying to get the mute kid to talk in hopes that he help them solve another woman snatching case. In my opinion, the character of Olivia is too perfect. It is hard for me to take her character seriously when she seemingly has no weaknesses and no character flaws that would make her interesting. I would like to know more about her inner skeletons and to not he great at everything she does. Walter has been recycling his various devices as of late. The different Fringe sciences and the devices Walter uses to interact with them is one of the best parts of the show. An episode that late any continuation with any of the previous shows could have used something to liven it up. Fringe has left me with so many questions that I don’t know if they will all be answered before the end of the season. I at least hope that the important ones get answered.
Star of the Show: Baby Observer
A little kid that doesn’t talk, reads minds, and can live on rats and little oxygen. What’s not to like.
Fringe should go on hiatus every episode because right before every extended break come the best episodes. The angle of other universes and other beings like us causing the events of the pattern and the inevitable destruction of one of those worlds. This answers the question of where the pattern is coming from and maybe where the observer(s) are from. Mr. Jones is a great antagonist with the intellect that rivals Dr. Bishop’s. He is a remorseless killer that will permeate his will to get what he wants. He represents a villian that is truly frightening. I am concerned that his transformation will negate his intellectual aptitude but seeing how the episode ended, my concerns are small. Walter’s connection to the ZFT and the special powers of the Cortexiphan kids have made this new hiatus hard to bear.
Star of the Show: Olivia Dunham/Peter Bishop
I don’t know which one actually stopped the light bomb, but who ever did gets the star of the series because that is an awesome power.
Fringe this week was a barely decent filler episode and I don’t understand why seeing as how it is only two episode in from the break. This episode didn’t touch on any of the unawnsered question from the first 11 episodes with the exception of the woman who wanted to meet with Walter about her daughter that died in the lab explosion that got Walter intitutionalized. This week’s Fringe science “computer human virus,” was a bit campy with the 1980’s computer hand coming out the screen, although I did like the brain goo. Sanford Harris is just just providing a thorn in the side of the Fringe division and is an unnecessary antagonist that the main episode villian would provide on their own. Speaking of vilIians, Brian Dempsey (Chris Bauer) has been the waekest of all of the villians so far. He had the weakest motive for revenge, the lamest way to inflict his revenge, and he didn’t feel like a heartless villian or a tortured soul that needed acceptance or redemtion. I do feel Olivia’s character is stronger with the addition of her sister Rachel and her niece Ella. I also think the subtle romantic tension between Peter and Rachel is a exciting.
Star of the Show: Philip Broyles
Broyles has always been the most consistant of all the characters and in this episode he put Sanford in his place. I wouldn’t step on this guy’s shoes even if he were throwing them at George Bush.
Fringe is back from it’s winter hiatus beginning where it left off. Agent Dunham is captive and a strange masked man gives her a spinal tap. Olivia notices a white spot on the masked man’s show after the spinal tap. It is later revealed that this man is none other than our favorite double agent Loeb. Agent Dunham is able to escape the facility single handedly using brute force that we have not seen from her up to this point. Before she leaves, she grabs test tubes and then buries them before her rescue raid comes and good thing because the agents sent on the raid apprehend Olivia. Meanwhile, we learn that a man named Sanford Harris (Michael Gaston), who has a past history with Agent Dunham, is assigned to investigate Fringe Division. Olivia is released from hospital care and is put right back to work to investigate this week’s Fringe science, “a super-sized Picornavirus.” The slug like object killed Dr. Miles Kinberg, an immunologist. As Walter, Peter and Astrid experiment on the slug, Olivia secures a possible target of another “slug attack,” Dr. Russell Simon after learning from Kinberg’s teaching assistant that Kinberg took a job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Olivia takes Dr. Simon to headquarters. She starts to ask him about his involvement with the (CDC) when she is called out of the room. While she is talking to Peter about what the substance in the samples she grabbed were, Agent Loeb poors a yellow substance from the same sample vile in Dr. Simon’s water and dies in seconds. Everyone is somber in the office. Agent Loeb drops the magic 8-ball that Olivia’s niece gave her and as Olivia picks it up she notices the white spot on his shoes. Olivia now knows that Loeb is a double agent and investigates his residents. While she is trying to pick the lock, Agent Loeb’s wife Samantha comes up. She invites her in for some tea. Olivia lets her know that she knows about Agent Loeb being a double agent as to bait Samantha to giving her some sort of hard evidence that Loeb is a double agent. Olivia excuses herself to the bathroom and Samantha calls her husband to alert him of Olivia’s snooping. Little does she know, Peter has tapped the phone and just catches that Agent Loeb orders his wife to kill Agent Dunham. Peter calls Olivia has just found more evidence against Loeb and warns her about Samantha. Samantha grabs a gun out of the closet and looks for Olivia. Olivia gets the jump on her but Samantha is able to knock the gun out her hands. A tussle in sues that leads to both Samantha and Olivia fire shots. Samantha’s shot hits inches away from Olivia and Olivia’s shot hits Samantha in the forehead. Now the department is after Loeb who had just left the office. Loeb, not knowing his wife is dead, gets a text from his wife to meet him at a phone booth where the agents are waiting to apprehend him. Agent Dunham interrogates Loeb but Loeb isn’t saying a word except that he wasn’t to see his wife. Dunham shows him picks of his dead wife and tells him she did it to intimidate Loeb. Loeb breaks and tell Olivia that she has ruined the plan and that were going to let her go and save her. Olivia is perplexed by this and Peter tries to convince Olivia that he is playing head games with her.
I like the action in this episode. Olivia finally showed why she is a super agent worthy of praise, although I would have like to see more team play. After the explosive beginning, the episode became very cliche. I would have liked to see a full continuation to the previous episode. Although Agent Loeb was the main villain it didn’t seem like there was any correlation to the previous episode. I’m not sure I I feel about Sanford. His character doesn’t bother me, but if he is just there to bother Olivia and has not ties to Massive Dynamic or Mr. Jones, he will be a wasted character. I do want to know what was injected in Olivia and what side of the equation Agent Loeb and Mr. Jones are on.
Star of the Show: Olivia Dunham
Olivia strutted her stuff finally. She show how viciousand cold she could be in a physical manner and she flexed muscles I didn’t know she had. Here is to more of this Olivia. Kudos.
Fringe takes us back to the past this week, all the way back to the first episode (all 11 weeks ago) with Olivia getting back in the brain tank. It starts with an up and coming employee at Massive Dynamic killing himself by jumping out of a high story window. The weird lacerations on his body bring in Olivia and team to check things out. During the investigation, Agent Scott leads Olivia to a basement full of Bufo Alvarius or toads. It turns out that these toads have hallucinogenic powers and that happens to be the Fringe science of this episode. Walter concludes that it was no accident and the Massive Dynamic employee was murdered. Olivia urges Walter to put her back in the tank to get the rest of Agent Scott’s memories to help finish solving the case. Meanwhile, Peter’s past caught up with him when a mysterious woman warns him of trouble coming his way. Peter finds out that people in his past are causing this woman, who obviously has close connections to Peter problems. As Olivia, Walter, and Astrid find a lead to the Massive Dynamic mystery, Peter is taking the law into his own hands and assaults one of the bad guys from his past. Olivia and Agent Francis chase and catch who they think is the culprit of the murder is. While under hospital care, the man has a hallucinogenic attack that causes his throat to be cut from the inside. He was telling Agent Dunham that Massive Dynamic was behind the killing and that he was in danger before he died.
Fringe is good when it follows the Massive Dynamic storyline. When the evil company is involved in the show, interesting sciences are showcased and more mystery is involved. The Olivia/Agent Scott love plot is still annoying but leading to a possible interesting conclusion. Peter has the best potential of any character in the show because of his shady, unknown past and the potential of what he can do and what he is capable of. If this show can sure up all of the many different plot angles they have introduced, it will be a good first season. I see closure in some of those angles so this is very promising.
Star of the Show: Peter Bishop
He takes an armed guy throws him to against a parked car, beats on him like a trained Navy Seal, disarms him, throws him to the ground, and dismantles the gun all in one minute. Then walks away like he does this every Tuesday. Who knew?
Fringe picked it up this week with “The Equation.” The episode starts off with a father driving his musically gifted son called “Bean” (Charlie Tahan) somewhere when they find a woman stalled on the side of the road. The father being a good Samaritan stops and helps the pretty lady. He opens the hood to see if he can see something wrong that he can fix when green and red lights start flashing which brings us to the first of this week’s Fringe science; Induced Hypnagogia – Which causes someone to go into a half state of sleep . Next thing you know, M. Stockton (Adam Grupper) is startled by the late tow truck driver. His son, the woman and her car are gone. The team gets involved because that man had blacked out for a long while but he swears he didn’t. It turns out that these blackouts have occurred before with the same woman three other times. Walter knows the light pattern they are referring to and remembers that his fellow inmate Dashiell Kim (Randell Duk Kim) was abducted by a woman with flashing lights. So Olivia goes to St. Claire’s Asylum and asks Dr. Sumner (William Sadler) if she could speak with Dashiell. Sumner agrees as long as Walter is the interviewer. Olivia brings this to the attention of Peter and Walter agrees much to Peter’s dismay. Walter goes into the asylum which once held him captive for 17 years, to speak to his friend. Dashiell is among the rest of the inmates in the common room and Walter mindfully makes his way to him. He asks Dashiell about the woman with the flashing lights. The mentally unstable Dashiell refuses to answer the question begrudgingly. Walter pushes harder and Dashiell screams that he doesn’t know about the woman which causes the other inmates to lose their calm. Walter is sedated and held overnight at the asylum while Peter and Olivia get a court order for his release. Meanwhile, Bean is being kept in a strange basement looking facility playing the piano to match the Equation. Walter, still hard at work, approaches Dashiell again while they are outside on the balcony and asks him the question one more time. Dashiell answers the question to the best of his ability as Walter’s mentally hindered friend. It turns out that that was just the answer they needed, as Peter picks up Walter and they tell Olivia all the info Walter got from Dashiell. Olivia along with agent Francis find the whereabouts of Bean and his kidnapper. The kidnapper stuns agent Dunham using the flashing lights and gets away with the finished equation she has allegedly been hunting for years. She takes the Equation to a mysterious man. The man then enters the Equation into a computer and synchronizes it with speakers he just put in the back of a safe with an apple inside of it. The man then phases his hand through the safe to retrieve the apple. After a successful test of the second Fringe science of the episode; The Equation – a vibration pattern that allows objects to phase through other objects, he shoots the girl who brought him the formula.
This episode tied in well with both past episodes and later episodes. We have a consistent villain in Agent Loeb and we get to delve into the past of Walter and what he went through at the St. Claires Asylum and finally see that disgusting butterscotch pudding (he must have went in on a Monday). The characters of Walter and Peter were more toned down and believable than they have been for the last couple of episodes. Two events in the show did get under my skin however, the first being the scene with the flashing lights under the hood. It seems highly unlikely that the father would be the person to stop for the would be kidnapper and that father, a person that knows little about cars, would look under the hood to be hypnotized. The other scene is when Olivia is chasing the kidnapper and falls prey to the hypnotizing lights even though she should know that its coming and what it can do. These are small nuisances but with a show based so much on detail, I would like smarter characters and situations. This episode entertained me greatly as a viewer and it peaked my interest and now I can’t wait for “The Dreamscape”
Star of the Show: Alternate Walter
Who is he? How creepy is he? How awesome is he? Walter is an enigma of a character by himself but with two of them? I want more, I need more.
“Unleashed” is what every non plot driven episode of Fringe should strive to be. The episode has good action and an actual monster that Fringe division has to deal with. The episode moves quickly as the team is on the clock to save a character that is actually important to the show, adding to the suspense. I also like the fact that Charlie had a big role in the episode. Charlie is one of those characters that doesn’t have a big role but has a big following and no one want anything bad to happen to. 
This episode help that cause by showing Charlie’s courageousness and the fact that he is a good man and a good husband. Walter also showed compassion (or guily) as he risked his own life to save Charlie. Walter was one of the pioneers of this episode’s Fringe science “genetic mutations” and he felt that he was somewhat responsible for what happened to Charlie. It is amazing how much knowledge and influence Walter has in the Fringe universe making him almost if not legendary. Not bad for a man living in an insane asylum for 18 years. 
