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.