Fringe Episode 5.07: Five-Twenty-Ten - Observations, Connections & Predictions

 

Don't look, Marion!

When Star Trek: The Original Series was just barely renewed for a third season, everyone knew it would be the last. Gene Rodenberry got bored with it or more interested in other projects and was only minimally involved in the production of the show. As a result, the quality of the show suffered. Thankfully, the curse of the final season is not happening on Fringe. This season continues to be tense and full of surprises. Five-Twenty-Ten was a great episode

Assorted connections, observations and hidden messages:

 

• In tape number five, the whole lab was shaking; the lights were swaying and the chemicals were sloshing around. What was that all about?
• Kelvin Genetics was mentioned again. It was first mentioned in season two, I beleive. Kelvin Genetics is named after creator J. J. Abrams’ father’s business, Kelvin Electronics. The 2009 Star Trek reboot film had a starship USS Kelvin, which also took its name from Kelvin Electronics.
• The meeting with Nina was at a bridge. There are lots of bridges this season.
• The Observers prefer spicy food. They were eating hot peppers and spiced meat at the restaurant.
• Peter said it was “logical” that they split up, which was very Spock-like. Spock, of course, was played by Leonard Nimoy who also played William Bell, whose hand appeared in this episode.
• There were butterflies mounted on the wall behind Olivia. Other than that, there were very few hidden text messages or glyph messages in this episode.
• Walter retrieved the David Bowie record (The Man Who Sold the World) from William Bell’s storage facility and played it as he went to sleep. David Bowie’s real name is David Robert Jones. That was also the name of the now twice-deceased Fringe villain.
• Olivia has been reactive this season. She needs to be more proactive.
• I’ve never seen Marathon Man. I’m going to have to watch that.

Predictions:

• Walter’s mysterious comrade “Donald” will be revealed to be Donald Bell, William Bell’s son. There is also a good chance he’ll be played by Zachary Quinto from Star Trek (2009). It’s a logical prediction.
• When they finally complete the fringe science Rube Goldberg device that will defeat the Observers, there is going to be some conflict because whatever it does to the Observers will endanger Peter, too.
• We will get a glimpse of the future world where the Observers come from before the end of the series.
• Olivia will become more proactive.

This is my shocked face.

 

Fringe Episode 5.06: Through the Looking Glass (And What Walter Found There)

 

Through the Looking Glass (And What Walter Found There) was one of the best episodes of the entire series. I'm quite impressed that the people who make the show continue to put so much into this even though there is no chance for a sixth season.

What have I got in my pocket universe?

 Random notes:

• Peter needs to stop keeping things from his wife. Gonna be trouble.
• In the last episode, An Origin Story, the mirror imagery was very evident. It paid off in a big way in this episode.
• The apartment building and the entire area around it had been blasted by “light bombs” in 2016. This was prefigured by a “Lumineaux” sign on a building in the previous episode.
• Etta appeared in a blue hologram at the beginning of the episode. This is bookended at the end of the episode when Peter told Walter, “You are only hope”. Both are from the original Star Wars.
• The address of the apartment building that held the entrance to the pocket universe was 167 Cedar Street, Worcester, Massachusetts. Like in TTUM-11, this is an almost real address. Google maps shows it as being near Saint Spyridon Cathedral in Worcester.
• As Walter made his way to the apartment building in Worcester, there was a frog on the roof of a car. A frog is one of the Fringe glyph symbols.

 

 

 

• “GF672” was written on the wall on the way to the apartment.
• The approach to the pocket universe is red, red, red. Red bricks, red paint and a cyborg with a red eye; the area has been “red-tagged” for years and you even get there by taking the redline train. There was also lots of red in the previous episode. Red had always been the color theme of the alternate universe. The red was an indication that there was something universey going on.
• I love the pocket universe. The barely visible upside down art, doors and windows that move subtly in the background, the ghostly lighting and the M.C. Escher architecture made it look dreamlike anddeep, like we’d get lost if we just took a few more steps in. I wish the art on the walls in the pocket universe was more visible. I’m sure each picture was full of meaning and foreshadowing if only we could get a better look at what was there. But they were upside down, each only visible for an instant, and half hidden in shadows and behind walls. We’re fascinated by what is obscured.
• One of the pictures on the wall looked like a Vincent Van Gogh self portrait. Expect someone’s ear to be cut off soon!
• In the pocket universe, more Fringe glyphs made an appearance. There was a sea horse, a hand and an apple. Never before have the in-show glyphs looked so much like the prototypical glyphs and there were three of them in a row. We’re getting close to the end.
• The Observer kid was from season one episode Inner Child. What did Walter him when they left him in the apartment in the pocket universe? Was that a bag of M&Ms?

 

 

• Walter said that “A Series of Unfortunate Events” stuck Cecil in the pocket universe. I’m not familiar with that book series, so I don’t know if there is any relevance to that.
• The number “103 A” was on the wall inside the monorail.
• Near the end of the episode, Peter used the observer tech installed in his neck to move with lightning speed and teleport just as the Observers do. This was reminiscent of The Matrix, where Neo could “move like they do” while fighting the agents. Also, by the end of the episode, Peter could see the Matrix! Or at least he could see with enhanced Observo-vision. Question: Is the blue grid over everything in Observer vision a measurement overlay or is it an indication that the world is just a simulation and the Observers can see the pixels? I think the former, but it looked like the latter.

 

 

• Peter called Walter “Dad”. Last episode, Walter called Peter “son”.
• When Peter and Walter had their conversation at the end, the Observer poster was between them. As they said on The Simpsons, there is subliminal, luminal and superluminal. This one was superliminal. Peter is supposed to help Walter, but as thye poster remindes us, he might become a hairless, heartless observer like the one on the poster.

 

Fringe Episode 5.05: An Origin Story - Notes, Asides and the Dark Side

Peter started this episode by keeping things from his wife, Olivia. He did not tell Olivia about Etta’s secret compartment and weapons. He also embarked on the interrogation of the captured Observer without involving Olivia. At the conclusion of the interrogation, Peter had killed the Observer and inserted the device removed from the Observer into his own body. Just a few episodes ago, Olivia came down on the side of not torturing prisoners to death and now Peter has done just that. I get the impression that Peter isn’t going to tell Olivia about the tech in his neck either. It’s just like that time he went all dark side and slaughtered a whole tribe of sand people, all of them, not just the men, but the women and children, too a whole bunch shapeshifters. Keeping secrets from his wife is not going to end well – and his hair might fall out as a side effect of the Observer neck-tech.



Anikin, you are breaking my heart!

This was an excellent episode. The back and forth between Peter and the captive was intense, Olivia dealt with her grief and Walter got to do a lab demonstration.

Random notes:

• Etta’s apartment had a picture of a weird Thanksgiving parade balloon on the wall. Also note that there was a mirror to the left of the picture. The mirror is a reference to the next Fringe episode, Through the Looking Glass (And What Walter Found There), which will air around Thanksgiving 2012. It would also be a reference to the New York and alternate universe New York from the previous seasons.
• Etta kept her items in a Bluebell Soap box. This notable because it has both blue (as in blue universe) and Bell as in William Bell.
• There was a mirror in Etta’s apartment with “No. 6” written beneath it. This is another Looking Glass reference. The Looking Glass episode will be episode number six of the fifth season.
• There is red paint on the walls in Etta’s apartment. In fact there is a lot of red in this episode. Previously the color red has indicated the “red” alternate universe.
• Etta had a miniature Statue of Liberty, which is a symbol of freedom. It is also a symbol of the double universe, with the green statue here and the gold one “over there”. There was also a Buddha statue; Peter’s favorite book is If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him. You can pick up a copy in our gift shop.
• The graffiti on the wall said “Go Ask Alice”, as in Alice in Wonderland. This is a reference to the song White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and if we follow the trail, leads us to the next episode title. Also, it’s a drug reference.
• In Walter’s demonstration, a toy car got sucked into the time hole on the future end. When the time tunnel collapsed, it sucked in a full size car from our end. This is an echo of Walter sending a car to the alternate universe in one of his early experiments.
• The Observer binoculars have returned! I used to have a pair of collapsing binoculars like that when I was a kid.
• Most importantly, we learned that the Observers are not completely hairless. They have eyelashes.

It might seem strange to have all these obscure references and foreshadowing pop up in the lives our Fringe characters. But it makes sense to me. As Walter has said, significant events echo backward in time. What we are seeing are these subtle echoes, barely noticeable if you are not watching for them. Also, all the universes and all the timelines are focused around our characters at this point in time. These are the most important people in existence (and sometimes the most important people in non-existence). It is not surprising that "God, time, fate or whatever" puts these little Easter eggs in the world.