Welcome to Multiversity Comics’ Summer Binge of Fringe, a series that Parks and Recreation’s own Ben Wyatt once called “airtight.” This week, we’re finally back to some good, fun, dynamic material that makes real progress on the season-scale.
1. Thank Goodness
Oh my, did I breathe a sigh of relief when I watched “Bad Dreams.” After a pair of truly disappointing episodes, the show is back on track and with any luck, that change is for good. This show is very capable of being very good- a fact that this episode showed us. It simply needs to lean into its best instincts instead of doing whatever it was doing the last two weeks. “Bad Dreams” is not the best episode of Fringe or even the best of the last 5 episodes of Fringe. It’s so much better than anything that doesn’t lean into the bigger mysteries and character arcs of the show, though. So welcome back to the good version of Fringe, please stick around.
2. The Mother of All Emotional Breakdowns
“Bad Dreams” marks the first time that Fringe has actually pulled off a tragic antagonist. It’s tried before- most notably in the frustrating “Power Hungry”- but here, you really feel for the accidentally villainous Nick Lane. Basically, Nick has an emotional energy field that affects the people around him. When he’s happy, others are overjoyed. When he’s sad, they’re actively depressed. Unfortunately for Nick, and the world, he’s a downright tortured dude. More importantly to our narrative (though far less urgently), Nick was in the cortexiphan trials with Olivia and they’re somehow psychically linked because of it. Their shared past and their connection helps a lot with feeling a real emotional investment in him, given that we care about Olivia so much. Even without her, though, Nick is a sad character to watch. He knows all about ZFT and waited his whole life to be recruited to save his universe. That type of pressure is a lot. Not even getting a callback, though? That’s even more weight on his shoulders. His abilities also serve up one of the most genuinely tense climaxes that we’ve seen on this show. Fringe isn’t bad at villains but it’s not particularly strong in the antagonist department either. Moving forward, I hope more of the case of the week people look like Nick Lane than anyone else that we’ve seen so far.
3. What Happened with Peter?
This is brief but important: what in the world is going on with Peter’s arc? My issue is not with the wonderful Joshua Jackson or even with inconsistent writing. If anything, he’s been getting even stronger and seeing him get more and more fluent in Walter is a real treat. There was a promise of more than just being a good character, though. Peter was given this mysterious past and not along ago, it seemed like that past was coming back to get him. After weeks, though, we’ve got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I don’t know that I’m desperate for the exact story that they were setting up but I don’t like the laziness of setting something up with absolutely no followup or even allusion. Please Fringe, give me some scraps here before the season wraps up.
4. Olivia’s Got Some Gaps
We learn a bit more about Olivia’s experience in the cortexiphan trials with the arrival of Mr. Lane this week. As far as character touchstones go, this is significantly more interesting stuff than anything that we saw with John Scott, whom I’d genuinely almost forgotten until I started writing this sentence. This storyline isn’t just great because it makes Olivia more interesting (which it does), but because it’s another mystery that keeps us engaged. It’s innately more intriguing to be given cool tidbits over time than it is to be given a conceit and then seeing it over and over again. Plus it’s tied into the greater arc of the show, which means learning more is satisfying on multiple levels.
5. Walter’s Got a Secret
At on point in “Bad Dreams,” Walter brings up the fact that William Bell (the yet to be seen leader of Massive Dynamic) led the cortexiphan experiments on children, which caused the pair’s split. In the last moments of the episode, though, Walter watches a tape of a young Olivia sitting on camera as he and William (who is heard but not seen) have a discussion about her state. This is exciting for two reasons. First, the late great Leonard Nimoy’s voice is heard for the first time and he’s literally always exciting. I wish I could’ve experienced watching this as a nerd in 2009 and hearing that voice because it must have been glorious. Second, it lays the groundwork for what could be strong material for Walter and Olivia as a duo. We’re in the endgame now and I’m praying to the lord above that Fringe does not give up a bit of the momentum it’s built up here.
