Hi, Wayne and Dan! Raul here for the last time this year with my Thoughts From the Fringe for episode 10, Anomaly XB-uh… something or another
The first thing I want to do is give kudos to everyone who thought Donald and September were one and the same. Great call! Of course that does not rule out whether Michael is September as well. The ability to travel in and manipulate time does have this tendency to make your head want to explode.
I’d like to call out a particularly fine acting job by the cast, but everyone was just so on the mark that it isn’t possible. Obviously, Blair Brown was absolutely amazing. I told Anthea as soon as we saw Nina that she wasn’t going to survive this episode. That may not have been too hard to figure out, but I was blown away by Nina’s heroism and lack of fear in facing down Windmark. Her conversation did give away a small bit of the outcome of the series — the Observers will be defeated. I do have my idea how, but I’ll get to that later.
Walter was great to watch, as well, as he goes through his struggle with his two halves. At the beginning I thought his conversation with Peter and Olivia were foreshadowing his death, but by the end? I really don’t know. I’d call it a 50/50 shot now. I hope that his grief at Nina death is the final push towards peace for him. Still, as I’ve said in years past, Walter – for all is endearing qualities – is not a very good person. If you really look at his actions over the 5 seasons, there’s still very much the brain-restored/Walternate version of him there. He still has the price of his and Bell’s actions to pay.
One actor that doesn’t get enough mention is Michael Kopsa who plays Windmark. He gives a base against which the other actors provide exceptional performances. His quality performance helps even great actors exceed themselves. Nina tonight is a great example. His interrogation of Walter is another. It takes talent do what he has done for the series and cast.
Ok… a few predictions, here.
First, I think we are in a position to explain why we haven’t seen any female Observers. It will be one of two things. Either there aren’t any, since Observers are genetically engineered for the characteristics deemed desirable or they are essentially living wombs whose sole purpose is to serve as a breeding tank for new Observers. In the former case, Observers are simply grown in tanks. Note that this doesn’t rule out female humans still around, but with a 35 year life span. Perhaps used to satisfy “urges.”
The second prediction. I’ve been saying that they are going to be building the Machine. I’m sticking to this. I mean, how many Great Machines can you have in a single series. I’ve said before that while we’ve seen its power, we still haven’t seen its real purpose. Or how and why it was tuned to Peter. I’m sticking to my belief that its purpose is to defeat the Observers. Ok, I know. That’s not really a new prediction, but it bears repeating. Whether the universe of their future is deleted or the past is rewritten to correct some mistake, I don’t know. The former is rather simple and has a potential “happily ever after.”
If it is the latter, does that mean we need to have “this” timeline, but where Walter saves Peter? Now that the time loop is broken, can they do this safely without recreating a new time loop? And what does that do to the all the events that have happened since? Does Peter “write” history with the machine – godlike – as he sees fit? And at what price?
Is the solution fixing events so that Redverse Peter doesn’t die due to September’s distraction. That certainly solves the time loop, Walter’s breaking the universe and the whole Redverse conflict. But would that also mean that Olivia never meets Peter or Walter in the Blueverse? That’d be a bummer ending.
Remember that comment earlier about time manipulation making your head want to explode? Yeah.
That wraps it up for tonight. Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
From the Fringe,
Raul