Mark Watches ‘Fringe’: S03E14 – 6B

In the fourteenth episode of Fringe, a building in Brooklyn becomes the site of a terrifying reality: our world is beginning to fall apart. Meanwhile, Peter and Olivia do their best to try to mend their relationship. Intrigued? Then it’s time to watch for Mark to watch Fringe.

It’s time for me to be a bit of a broken record, but I really enjoy the opportunity to talk about this sort of thing, especially with the positive feedback I got from some of you who could relate. I’m developed a pretty wonderful affinity for Olivia Dunham, both because she’s such a fierce and fascinating female character, and because there’s a large part of her character that I can relate to. There are not many characters on television who open up about feeling “wrong” inside, to feel that something inside them was either made so irrevocably different from the people around them that many social situations provide a sense of dissonance or even terror.

Building heavily on the character developments of all of the episodes since Olivia’s return in “Entrada,” we watched Olivia take the steps to finally begin to repair the pain and loss she experienced as she realized Fauxlivia stole her life during the switch in universes. I was really happy to finally see both her and Peter experience something we’d not seen in a while: hope.

The X-Files did this a lot, but we get yet another episode that helps to possibly explain a paranormal phenomenon in terms of the show’s mythology. Like “6955 kHz” earlier in this season, which tackled the infamous existence of number stations, “6B” suggested an interesting explanation for ghosts. (I recognized this might have been a singular explanation just for this episode, but I have a feeling that the concept of an emotional quantum entanglement will return in a future episode.)

It was inevitable, really, that the effects of what happened when the Fringe Division traveled between universes began to appear in our world. Once I realized that was what was going on in the building in Brooklyn, an unbearable dread set in to me. Even giving that nothing but a cursory thought, it’s a terrifying reality: how much of our universe is going to crumble? Will there be more and more destruction on our side, like what we’ve seen in the parallel world, and will it force Walter and the Fringe team to make more and more drastic decisions to save people?

I guess I’m jumping ahead of myself at this point. This episode opens with a heartwarming (and then heart-wrenching) scene as Walter attempts to force Peter and Olivia to deal with their stilted relationship. I wonder: Has Nina Sharp shared the information Sam provided her about Peter’s disposition affecting the doomsday device? I feel like we got a sense that she had when she asked him how he was doing in the middle of this episode, but I think she has. It seems to be something to important not to share with Walter. But I also know that Walter just wants his son to be genuinely happy as well.

I cringed a lot during Peter and Olivia’s conversations, not because there was anything wrong with them, but because a lot of really difficult things needed to be said if these two were going to be honest with each other. I have to admit that the relationship aspect of these two does feel rushed in a way, but I suspect it’s because the writers are moving the story forward without stalling because they’re leading to a much grander, terrifying reality at the end of this season. Maybe they know there’s a chance that this show might not make a fourth season and they need to push the story to a certain part just in case. Essentially, though, I didn’t expect Olivia to outright tell Peter that she knows he still has feelings for Fauxlivia. On the inverse of that, I also didn’t anticipate Peter confirming he did, but to add a twist to it: he’s only thinking of her because he imagined the two of them together for so long. There is nothing he’s wanted more than for him and Olivia to be together.

The story in apartment 6B is a great, if not too subtle, parallel to Olivia and Peter. Alice Merchant, played wonderfully by Phyllis Somerville, has been seeing a vision of her dead husband, believing it to be a ghost. We don’t know that she’s the reason for the opening events at the building, which seriously was one of the most terrifying cold opens this show has ever given us. We know that people are leaving that particular building in Brooklyn because of, frankly, the weird shit going on. We get a peak of that when the blender mysteriously comes on during a party, but WHAT THE FUCK HOLY SHIT a bunch of people appear to jump to their deaths below. WHAT.

Turns out this building is the source of a spot where our world is beginning to break apart, soon to become a vortex that could swallow half of Brooklyn whole. I found it fascinating how this situation affected Walter so differently from Peter/Olivia. Walter knows that what’s happening in the alternate universe, what’s become a reality of their life, is beginning to happen here. I loved the call back to the third episode in season one, “The Ghost Network,” with the mysterious amber in the bus that I’d completely forgotten about. When Walter begins to realize exactly what that amber may have been used for and what he may have to do in this case, he tells Nina Sharp that perhaps his alternate in the parallel world is not quite as sinister as he suspected.

“For a long time, I’ve been willing to think the worst of Walternate. That he was an evil man. Willing to use any means necessary to get what he needed. I suppose it made it easy to justify what I did. Now we’re faced with the same decision. And I’m arguing that we do exactly what he did. What sort of person does that make me?”

This is not terrifying because Walter might become “evil” himself. He wouldn’t. It’s terrifying because it gives a new context to Walternate’s actions, a justification we’d never considered before, and because it’s possibly the most ominous sign Walter could get. What awful, terrible decisions is he going to have to make in the future?

For Peter and Olivia, Alice Merchant’s role in the growing vortex in apartment 6B provide that parallel to their lives. Because Alice refuses to let go of her husband, she’s risking to destroy everything. Olivia has no idea that Peter must choose her over Fauxlivia in order to save her world, but it’s still great that she takes the steps towards repairing the chances of a real relationship with Peter. I know I wasn’t the only one whose heart nearly exploded when they kissed in the bar and then was immediately saddened that Olivia wasn’t quite ready to move in this direction. But I think her reaction (which wasn’t based on Peter glimmering, I think) was completely natural. How could she not think of Fauxlivia doing the same thing with Peter?

But as she and Peter moved into 6B to confront Alice and try to get her to let go of her husband, I feared the worst. The device to release the amber inside the building was already set up and Walter had already resigned himself to the terrible fate of damning anyone left. (Honestly, this show has a lot of tragic and depressing scenes, but watching Walter relinquish the device to activate the amber to Broyles, knowing his son and Olivia were still inside, was SOUL CRUSHING.)

Honestly, though, I was so surprised and amazed that it was Peter who stepped up to deliver the knowledge that Alice needed to let go, and I loved that it was partially a message to Olivia: I love you and I am going to fight for you.

“But you’ve already had what most of us only dream of. A lifetime with the person you love. Look around you. Your entire house is filled with mementos—photographs, ticket stubs. Evidence of a life shared with somebody. Proof that what you and Derek had was true and real. And I know that when you have something so real, you’ll do anything to keep from losing it. But please, you have to let him go.”

For Olivia, however, this message meant something entirely different. I was hesitant to accept the idea the writers gave us, that it was Olivia holding things back. I think it was completely fair of her to accuse Peter of not being over Fauxlivia. That is something holding them back as well. But they chose not to take a really unbelievable route with Olivia by instead having her accept that Olivia was merely holding back the attempt at a chance for them to be together.

Thankfully, Alice’s husband tells her that the kids miss her, which are kids they never had in this world, and the emotional quantum entanglement is dissolved. Seriously, though, can you imagine an experience like that? After spending months thinking you’re seeing a ghost, you’re actually looking at a parallel universe? Pretty sure that my brain would have pulled a Scanners at that point.

Even though the disaster is avoided, for Walter, he knows this is just the beginning of something awful. Their world is going to continue to fall apart from here on out. The upcoming episodes are going to be full of a lot of uncomfortable realities, I think, so I appreciate that this episode moves in a direction that gave me some of that hope I spoke about earlier. I can relate to the sensation Olivia describes, of feeling so different inside that you feel wrong, and I’m glad that the writers don’t erase that experience for her, to suggest that what she’d lived up to that point was wrong or a lie. It’s very, very real for her and it made me happy that they didn’t discard that. Instead, the final moments of “6B” show us that Olivia is going to give this a chance. Reluctantly at first, with trepidation, but knowing that, ultimately, Peter’s heart wants her. And she’s going to give that a chance.

THOUGHTS

• So here’s a fun thought. What if Peter gets Olivia pregnant? Yeah, I already want to punch myself in the face just thinking that but WHAT IF.
• What’s your guess for when an emotional quantum entanglement comes back? Do you think Fauxlivia and Peter could create one?
• Please don’t yell at Astrid. :: sad faces forever ::
• Could Walter make me breakfast? Please?
• OMG NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE. HOLY SHIT.