TV-Reviewed

After a monster of the week episode last week, Fringe came back with another solid episode which continued with the story behind the series… the conspiracy. I didn’t see it coming, in fact. It made for a truly entertaining episode.

Sam had been warning Olivia all along about her headaches. I wondered if this was going to be of the typical headache variety or if this was going to be something unusual. As it turns out, it wasn’t of the variety you and I would suffer from on occasion. Instead, Olivia had glimpses of her unusual visit to the other universe. Not much of her visit was shown in her headache, but I did enjoy that shot of the World Trade Center still erected in NY.

Not unlike Olivia, I was beginning to doubt Sam’s effectiveness. But sure enough, Fringe pulled a fast one by showing Olivia suddenly being able to walk without her cane. I’m somewhat torn by this. I am glad Olivia is progressing, but I hope that she suddenly isn’t cured in this area. I hate that cane, but it would be strange, even for Fringe, if Olivia is 100% as far as her walking is concerned.

Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Anna Torv and Lance Reddick

The mystery Fringe had to work out this past week was why people were exploding. Walter did his thing in the lab and determined that a few soldiers were experimented on during their tours of duty in Iraq. The serum being given to those soldiers turned their bodies into a bomb, detonating by a particular radio frequency that Walter and Astrid determined.

My favorite scene in fact was that brief scene which resulted in watermelon being blown all over the lab. Astrid was not pleased with Walter’s experiments, but I sure got a kick out of it.

The payoff for all of this was great. The culprit wasn’t just some lunatic officer who went off the deep end. He actually knew about the greater conspiracy… the show’s anthology, in fact. He knew all about The Observer and his team who have been monitoring this planet’s people. His way of sending a message to them was by killing their couriers with those soldiers which were turned into bombs.

I was shocked by the fact that the villain was familiar with what was going on. Fringe is trying to balance out standalone episodes with ones which tap into the show’s mythology and that’s fine with me. I’m enjoying the back-and-forth stories. It’s got me hooked. I’m thoroughly enjoying this series.

Rating: 8.6