Last Thursday’s Fringe surely satisfied the desires of regular viewers with a healthy dose of information which progressed the show’s story along, but sadly meant the death of Charlie Francis.

I applaud Olivia’s willingness to down that glass of flatworms. I was honestly shocked that she grabbed it and downed it before Walter could really say all that he had to say about whether or not the experiment would truly work. Olivia didn’t see immediate results, but over time her memories came back to her in a flood, all triggered by that bell in Walter’s lab. I’m wondering if Walter’s bell will factor into the show more a little later on. It seems strangely coincidental that he and William Bell have the same bell in their lab/office

This week’s case didn’t delve into the same weirdness that we usually see on Fringe, but I’ll admit that it was weird to learn that these hybrids consist of about 40% mercury, a highly poisonous substance to us humans. It reminded me of the Terminator movies.

fringe-204
Leonard Nimoy as William Bell

Leonard Nimoy was once again wonderful in his appearance as William Bell. We got to see quite a bit of that meeting, far more than in the season finale. Bell remained elusive enough about answering some of Olivia’s questions to keep me eager to learn more.

I was really eager to learn more about that leader, the one who is the supposed gatekeeper. It’s too bad that the hybrids found him, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. Everything was leaning towards that development.

The death of Charlie Francis was unfortunate. We all knew it was going to happen once the Fringe writers made the decision to kill the real Charlie off and have a hybrid take over his body. I thought the Charlie Francis character was a bit boring throughout the first season, but he always seemed like a good, dependable co-worker and I didn’t think it was necessary to kill the character like this. The handling of this character brought me down. The episode as a whole was good, but it left me feeling somewhat disappointed.

Rating: 7.8


This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 3:16 pm by James Chamberlin.
Categories: Episode Reviews.

No Comments, Comment or Ping

Comments are closed.