Mark Watches ‘Fringe’: S03E22 – The Day We Died

In the twenty-second (and final) episode of the third season of Fringe, Peter deals with the consequences of activating the doomsday device, where he finally learns what it does and how it came to exist. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Fringe.

So….how exactly do you talk about “The Day We Died”?

Much of what Fringe has become is about imagined worlds. There were hints of such things in season one, with season two focusing on how two parallel worlds could subtly affect each other. By the end of season two, and for the entirety of this season, the writers and showrunners of Fringe have given us one of the most detailed group of settings in modern television. Not content to merely elaborate on a world where fringe science is a real, tangible thing, they have given us a parallel world so delicately imagined that even the tiniest details provide us with a universe of insight.

With the full look at the Other Side” in “Over There, Part 1 & 2,” I was not of the belief that we’d return there much. It seemed so difficult to create a parallel universe and fill it with enough idiosyncrasies to make it believable enough that I wouldn’t feel insulted by the concept. They did this successfully in the season two finale, but how on earth would they be able to continue that throughout an entire season?

I think part of the joy of the third season of Fringe has been watching the people writing and running this show pull off what is, at face value, and impossible concept: A serialized show about parallel universes at war with each other. They’ve made the two sides easily identifiable, through title sequences and physical changes in character. They’ve created a story that is emotional, dense, complex, and challenging to watch, but we never feel like we’re in over our heads. They’ve done all of this after being moved to one of the worst time slots for FOX shows that aren’t The X-Files.

Damn it, I love Fringe.

In many ways, over the course of 45 minutes, there was a sense of finality to “The Day We Died.” (The title certainly helped that.) It’s been said a million different ways since yesterday, but had this show not been renewed for a fourth season, I believe we would have all witnessed the most mind-melting, frustrating, troll-ish series finale to ever air in history. COULD YOU EVEN IMAGINE. COULD YOU. Oh god, I would not have been able to handle it. As it is, having to wait four months to find out what the hell just happened is going to be unbearable.

So, how are all of YOU doing right about now? I ask this because an hour has passed between the last paragraph and me starting this one. I am still so flabbergasted by this episode that I don’t even know what to talk about and I played Borderlands for over an hour just to distract myself from this mostly-empty document. It’s not helping. I have been rendered completely wordless because of “The Day We Died.”

It’s time for me to rely on a list, because this is what I do:

THE GOOD

• Let’s start with 2026. What do I say often? I love time travel more than most things. This is a True Statement About Me That You Can Use To Infer Things About My Character. And in “The Day We Died,” we just got a healthy dose of some ontological-paradox-heavy time travel, not only with Peter’s consciousness traveling fifteen years in the future, but with the reveal about The First People. We’ll talk more about that later.
• I love that the first person Peter comes into contact with that he recognizes is Astrid. For the record, I loved her hairstyle, but I’m biased because there probably isn’t a single thing Astrid could do to make me hate her or even express a passive dislike.
• Ok, for a second, I thought Ella was someone pretending to be Olivia, since she was addressed as “Agent Dunham” and THAT IS A LIE, YOU ARE NOT MY OLIVIA. But, again, it’s a testament to how complete this world-building is: Even Ella has a part in it.
• The first truly frightening thing about this future world is the confirmation that there are tears in the world, much like those that occurred on the other side. It’s the first chance for us to learn that the destruction of the Other Side did not lead to a happy future.
• In a way, isn’t this future-world almost like a third universe? Like they did when they introduced the Other Side, the writers get a chance in “The Day We Died” to explore their characters in new emotional and visual ways. If I hadn’t been told that this was still Our Side, I would have proposed the theory that we were not seeing the future, but yet another parallel world. Either way you look at it, there’s still that genuine sensation that the writers have actually planned out what this entire world looks like. It feels expansive. It feels real.
• Oh, I totally spotted you, H.G. Wells reference. No one named Moreau is a good guy!
• The very concept of the End of Dayers is TERRIFYING. People who want to bring about the end of the world and who can actively do so? Bravo, Fringe, for bringing in this truly unsettling plot and only hinting at how horrible it could have been.
• I see you, theater from the season two finale! That was a fantastic visual reference to the past. These men were not going to that theater to save anything; they were going there to destroy.
• EW HALF A BODY WHAT THE HELL.
• PUTTING WALTER IN PRISON FOR ACTIVATING THE DEVICE. GOOD GOD. Totally uncomfortable and unfair, but such a bold and fascinating choice by the writers.
• WALTER IN PRISON IS SO DEPRESSING. It’s a “good” thing in the sense that it’s a fantastic parallel to the very beginning of the series, when Walter was in the hospital.
• BROYLES IS A SENATOR! Which probably means that he can’t take LSD anymore, which TOTALLY ISN’T FAIR, but I like the idea that Broyles continued to move up in the world. Which brings me to my next point….
• So much of the Future World (my official name for it) is about untold stories, left for our minds to imagine them. When did Walter have a stroke? When did Olivia decide she didn’t want to bring a child into the world? What happened to Broyles’ eye? Where were Nina Sharp and Brandon? The beauty of this all is that, given what happens at the end of the episode, we will probably never find out why any of these things popped up in the future. (You know, since Peter technically “erased” that future.)
• Walter saying he is happy for Astrid because then she doesn’t have to take care of him anymore…..oh my god my creys. (This was the first of many moments that nearly made me sob.)
• OLIVIA CAN CONTROL HER POWERS!!11!!!1!1!! Oh my god, what a fantastic development for her character. One of the few very good things about the future world, since most of it was A DISASTER.
• I read a few posts online about how people were mad that Walternate wanted to destroy Our Side….UM THE DUDE TRAVELED THROUGH A WORMHOLE JUST BEFORE HIS SIDE WAS DESTROYED. He was the only living being from his side left alive. Why wouldn’t he want to exact revenge on this side? Given Walternate’s angry desire to do what he wanted, which was so different from our Walter, I found it to be incredibly in character for him to side with the End of Dayers to destroy our side.
• Peter’s entire little speech to his dad…. “You’re my dad.” GOOD CHRIST. Brilliant writing and entirely tear-inducing. Wow. One of the best moments of season three.
• Ok, just a really strange thought, but….Peter and Olivia’s house is really nice???? WHY ARE THESE THINGS THAT I THINK ABOUT?
• Reidan Lake. Good god. I’d say that, as a whole, I watched the entirety of “The Day We Died” with a rapt attention on the screen, sitting on the edge of my couch, my phone silent so that I’d have no interruptions, desperate to catch every word and nuance of this finale. Aside from the final moments, I’d say the entire scene inside the house on Reidan Lake was the most electrifying and tense thing this show has done in all three years since it’s inception. It’s a cliche statement to make, but this is exactly what it felt like: I was hanging on to every word.
• I am now acutely aware that there are at least two Fringe-watching households in my apartment building and one across the street, because at the exact moment that Peter reaches forward to discover that Walternate is a hologram, myself and at least three other people screamed in horror at our television sets. My heart rate instantly shot through the roof because that was one of the most YOU ARE NOT PREPARED twists EVER.
• I know that each one of you who were also unspoiled going into this episode were then equally as mind-fucked when Olivia woke up from the flash in Central Park and was then SHOT IN THE HEAD BY WALTERNATE. Surely, she’s not really dead, right? They can’t kill off the lead character, right?
• First scene after commercial: OLIVIA’S HEARTBREAKING FUNERAL. THEY ACTUALLY DID IT. THEY KILLED OLIVIA. (See? Unbelievable sense of finality to the whole story.)
• Olivia got a funeral pyre. Omg that is how I want to be buried.
• John Noble, Anna Torv, and Joshua Jackson all deserve an Emmy nomination for this show in general, but this finale in particular showed all three of them pulling off some of the most difficult scenes they’ve ever had to film.
• On that note, the moment I finally started crying was when Peter was crying in front of his refrigerator, staring at Amanda’s drawing. Nope, Peter, please don’t cry ever. It is one of the worst things to watch over. (Not quite as bad as Hurley crying, but still. STILL.)
• I LOVE TIME TRAVEL. Bless you, Akiva Goldsman, for using the concept of ontological paradoxes. I’m now entirely used to them because of LOST and Doctor Who and I sort of wish every show had them forever and ever because they are beautiful and nothing hurts. Now I need to go back and re-watch so much of season three with the knowledge that Walter sent the device back in time billions of years through a wormhole. So that means Astrid or Walter or Peter or someone made those drawings and wrote that book and holy god that is such an amazing plot twist that I never even considered. Though…how does Sam Weiss play into this?
• THE LOOK ON PETER’S FACE WHEN HE WAKES UP IN 2011 AND OLIVIA IS IN FRONT OF HIM. Oh my god, the brilliance.
• Fauxlivia is a never-ending badass. “They outsmarted you, didn’t they?” God, she is so nonchalant about her entire universe being destroyed.
• Let us finally discuss what we have needed to discuss this entire time.

PETER MERGED BOTH OF THE UNIVERSES.

We don’t know if they’re fully merged or if, like he said, he’s used Liberty Island alone to manage the two of them. Either way, I never once considered that this was a thing that could occur. To say this was unexpected is an understatement. PLOT TWIST OF THE CENTURY and one BRILLIANT way to lead into season four: how will these two universes get along??? I mean, did you SEE the way they eyed each other? WALTER VS WALTERNATE IN THE RING, September 2011.

When Peter popped out of existence, I knew something was wrong, but could also not have guessed that this is what the Observers were talking about this whole time. He served his purpose, so everyone forgot him???!?!!?! HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE oh my god my heart. WHAT HAPPENS TO FAUXLIVIA’S BABY

THE BAD

• What.

Ok, maybe in the distant future I’ll be able to find something I disliked about “The Day We Died,” but as it stands, that was one of the most exciting and entertaining season finales I have ever watched. What a brilliant, frustrating, and mind-blowing thing to experience.

AND WE HAVE TO WAIT FOUR MONTHS. That is simply TOO LONG FOR ME.

I’ll resume liveblogging and reviewing the show then, but I just want to thank the small group who participates in the liveblogs and comments on my reviews. I wish it was larger, but I do have a lot of fun with a much more manageable crowd. Thanks for the partying and the wonderful insight!