'In Absentia' - Fringe, Season Five

Fringe

Season Five

Episode Two

‘In Absentia’ – 6.0

You'd think the Observers would choose a harder to counterfeit method of discerning loyalists from Natives than tattoos

Once again, Fringe Season Five opens with the arrival of the Observers sometime in the mid-2010s, tearing Henrietta out of Olivia and Peter’s grasps before they even realise she’s gone, then somehow injuring Olivia. This time, however, we don’t get Peter’s warped and out-of-sync perspective, instead getting the much more linear and followable memory from Olivia, but it is just as affecting and just as shocking, despite us already knowing the rough story before we even saw it the first time.

So far, I am definitely enjoying this epic tonal shift to 2036, and though this second episode is not as strong as the premiere, there is that sense of hope and the struggle of this fight that holds the entire thing together. I’m looking forward to more references to the past, as there hasn’t actually been that much that ties this new story to the old ones, other than the Observers of course, but I’m sure that will come in time. Perhaps the coretexiphan kids can do something together.

In an attempt to try and help Walter recall his plan the group uses the steam tunnels to access the old Harvard lab, which has been commandeered by Observers. They find it ambered, but the presence of a video camera suggests that it was Walter himself who encased it, wishing to protect what was on the tape. Unfortunately the amber is too thick to access using the device that extracted our characters, and they need to cut it out first. This requires turning the power back on, a task that can only be done by reactivating the generator in the science building.

Lucky for them, a guard happens to walk in, falling into the hands of our heroes. Henrietta opts to interrogate him using a disturbing device that ages someone a couple years in only a few seconds, which was apparently used to prep the Observers before time travelling. Ok, then. Anyway, the man eventually helps them after receiving some kinder treatment from Olivia, who agrees to tell his son when the resistance kills him.

Peter and Henrietta infiltrate the Observer’s base to find it is a research laboratory, and during the brief but disconcerting walk through the corridor of creepy-ass experimentation, Etta comes across the severed but animated head of former colleague and martyr, Agent Foster. Looks like he’s not coming back anytime soon.

They turn the power on and return to their lab where Walter and Astrid have begun extracting the video camera, while Etta storms off in an angry, aggrieved state of mind. Olivia tries to calm her down, only to find her ‘hardened’ daughter correctly accusing the guard of lying about having a son, as he only wanted to gain Olivia’s favour. Nonetheless, the man gives her an address to go to, so I have no idea what was going on there.

Even though he’s a liar and a loyalist, Etta ends up letting her mother’s morals stand in her way, allowing the guard to leave her custody alive, videoing his escape and sending it to Olivia, who is glad to receive it. It’s all well and good that Etta turned out to be someone who values human life – even if they are the other side – but I find it annoying that main characters are always undeniably good. Ok, always is a definite generalisation, but you get the point. Even the ones that are supposedly evil, the second they join our team their humanity starts to show, while the baddies are almost always just that, without any indication of morality. I understand why the Observers are like that, but it’s just a statement about television in general.

Eventually the group is able to get their hands on the tape, and from it they learn that Walter had in fact described the entire plan over the course of many tapes, which he has hidden. I didn’t hear any indication of where they may be, but I’m sure there’s something that we haven’t seen, or maybe Walter knows if he looks deep enough. I’m just happy the team has a definite direction to head in, even if it’s a glorified scavenger hunt. They can be fun, i.e ‘National Treasure’, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Apart from this sense of morality that always hits network television shows in the arse, I am definitely finding a lot of things to love about this bleak world, and although we don’t know the full story yet I am beginning to get used to the strangeness of a complete shift in narrative. I hope to see Blair Brown soon, as well as Leonard Nimoy – though I probably wouldn’t bet on the latter – but I also don’t want the show to find some bogus reason to get them in on the game. Hell, I would also love to see the alternate universe again, but I also think that ‘Worlds Apart’ was the perfect send-off. Damn I’m conflicted. Anyway, there are only thirteen episodes in this season, and with two down we are now effectively in at the end of the first half of a full season, meaning the plot line should be hitting a climax right about now. Boom, yo.

Yeah, I am aware of the generalisation there as well. You don’t have to tell me.