Television Breakdown: The Scene of the Crime

Fringe: Subject 13

Fringe took a dive last week, not ratings, but in quality. They overdosed on the sentimentality, and the extraneous pieces just didn't come together organically. Tonight had a lot of work to do in terms of renewing faith in the series, and it certainly did in the only way this show knows how. Peter was the episode that established Fringe as my favorite show on television, so this episode had some hefty shoes to fill. It didn't deal at all with the collapse of the universes, instead deciding to focus on many of the other aspects of the show. It was a mix of tragedy, hope, and mythological integrity to several different lines of thought.

Keep in mind that this is not the perfection that Peter was, because there's one or two gripes I have. The nature of this episode is different than I imagined, being less action focused and more emotionally based. It's not so much a problem, but something that requires a change of perspective. I also thought Olivia was a bit old to be in that daycare in Jacksonville, but whatever. I'm forgiving of that as long as we're given something as beautiful, sweet, and heartbreaking as what we saw. Subject 13 messed around with the vignette format in an interesting way that was perfectly adept to their brand of quality.

The episode begins with Peter marching out to Reiden Lake, intent on going straight to the bottom and return home. Obviously it doesn't work that way, and he accidentally tries to kill himself. His time in our world has been stressed to say the least, with him railing against the parents and the world that isn't his. Relocating to Jacksonville, young Olivia Dunham is in the midst of Walter's advanced drug trials while simultaneously dealing with her abusive and frightening stepfather. For Olivia, these horrible trials on children were a welcome escape from the devil she experienced at home. So far, he is not played by Gary Oldman, to my great dismay. They've still got time to change that eventually, and when they pay off on his character, I'm sure it will be an interesting plot string.

The next vignette shows Walter's ruthless study of Olivia's different emotional responses. It's almost difficult to watch as Walter turns on a dime on her in order to serve his own ends, though out of the best intentions. He wants to get Peter back home, but has to deal with how far he is willing to go to achieve that goal. Is he willing to sacrifice a little girl for the greater good? It appears not, as both versions of Walter will not sacrifice a child so bluntly. No matter what, there is a line that still can't be crossed. On the other hand, Walter did paint Nick Lane out to be dead in front of her, causing Olivia set the room ablaze. I guess that line doesn't include cruel practical jokes.

The third section travels over into the alternate universe, looking at how Walternate and Alt-lizabeth dealt with Peter's kidnapping. Walternate is practically the exact same as our Walter was in Peter, except dealing with a different tragedy. He's emotionally broken, throwing out every unlikely idea at who stole their son, and it's tearing apart their marriage. We can now see where that rift between them started, and never again will I look at Walternate as a cold machine. He's a man who had the most important thing in his life taken from him, and the political pressure on him allied with the grief has pushed him to take saving his world so seriously. He is the ultimate victim of this show, and the greatest victims become the greatest threats.

The final act brought everything together, with Peter and Olivia meeting in a field of white tulips, and Peter giving Olivia the advice to tell Dr. Walter about her abusive stepfather. When she bursts into Walter's office and tearfully confesses her problems to him, Walter looks genuinely surprised. That's when it turns out that she's not talking to our Walter. She's talking to the man who, in 25 years, will abduct her from her own universe and order that her brain be dissected. It's such a deep moment in terms of the series, it answers questions we didn't even know we had, and it offers one hell of an ending. Walternate knows where his son is, and even though we know what he does about, you can't help but cheer for him. If this series were all about the 1985 incident, there would be a blood-boiling tension about which Walter would win, and that tension is starting to materialize within our own series. I hope that in another year we get a third flashback to complete the trilogy, or at least continue this series. And to address one of the questions that is for some reason confounding everyone, why don't Peter and Olivia remember meeting each other when they're adults? Well, maybe it's because they were eight, they only met once, and it's 25 years later. You try remembering exactly what you were doing and who you were with 25 years ago. See how you come up!

9.6 out of 10

Glee: Blame it on the Alcohol

In season 1, Glee quite honestly came off as preachy at times, in the worst way possible. They were pure and pretty little virginal pop-culture swans, and this series wasn't going to work if they continued too far with that. Fortunately, the show has matured in a good way over the past year, to the point where they don't try preaching to the overly child-conscious adults in the audience. The episode takes an unconventional format, starting out with Rachel throwing a house party while her gay dads are away, and when it turns out as exactly what you'd expect a Rachel Berry house party to be, Puck breaks into the liquor cabinet and things get crazy.

While everyone but Kurt and Finn get drunk, Finn breaks down the different kinds of drunken girls: The hysterical drunk (Santana), the angry drunk (Lauren and Quinn), the needy drunk (Rachel), the happy drunk (Mercedes and Tina), and the girl who turns into a stripper when they're drunk (Brittany). This leads into a game of spin the bottle, Rachel kisses Blaine, and they sing a duet for the rest of the party. This sparks an interest in Blaine as to whether he's bisexual. Kurt knows exactly how this will play out, as do we, and Rachel decides to be sadly Rachel, and ignore all the signs.

The rest of the episode shows the gang maintaining their drunk throughout the rest of the episode, in hopes of keeping the hangover out of the way. It climaxes at the school assembly about underage drinking, where the glee club performs "'Tik and also Tok' by 'Ke-dollar-sign-ha'". I've been begging for Brittany to take on Ke$ha, so this was a dream come true for me. And then it ended when Brittany puked all over Rachel. This is exactly what a Glee episode about alcohol should be, not pushing the prosaic and pompous message to never drink, and never promote drinking. It shows both the good and the bad of being drunk, and that's as smart as an episode of this theme can be.

8.6 out of 10