“The Road Not Taken”

Fringe hurtles towards it’s season finale and it’s a great rollercoaster ride. Everything has been pointing towards this type of ending, even if a lot of it is setting up for the next episode.

The Fringe event of the week involves a woman who seemingly explodes in the middle of a New York street. Fun!

More importantly though of course is the fact that Broyles has launhced a real investigation in Massive Dynamic and William Bell. Although Harris tries to squash it per his usual bluster. Broyles remains committed behind the scenes to continuing the investigation.

Even more intriguing is that the fact that Dunham is having hallucinations with regards to the scene. She sees an alternate reality of sorts. In her vision there are two bodies instead of one. In a later hallucination she sees the landscape of burning buildings. Walter theorizes that she is getting views into another reality. The road not taken. The cortexiphan trials are most likely the root of why she is getting these glimpses.

Meanwhile, Walter and Peter’s story is advanced when Peter begins cannabilizes Walter’s equipment for an experiment of his own. Walter is both proud and agitated at the same time.

The investigation takes it’s own twists and turns when it leads to Grayson. And one of the best sequences of the series. Grayson is a conspiracy theorist with a website who reported on a similar incident. Played by the always brilliant (and crazy) Clint Howard, Grayson at first tells them exactly what they want to hear. Bell is behind everything and even includes bits of the ZFT manifesto but then it leads into him claiming that Romulan agents from the future had been sent back in time to prevent the federation from forming (hmmm sounds just like JJ Abrams’ Star Trek plot!)

And Grayson announces himself as the Son of Sarek…or Spock. (Nice touch when you consider the next episode and William Bell).

Joshua Jackson comes off really well during the scene as well.

After finding that their victim did in fact have a sister, their investigation leads there but we see that she has aleady been kidnapped. During the struggle, she obviously let out some fire of her own and it indented in the window.

We then get to see what Peter has been creating with the parts. It was a device that would take the grooves on Walter’s rare records and digitize them, capturing them in the computer. Same concept, but it will instead capture the grooves from the window that was melted slightly.

They find a cel phone being dialed and when Dunham dials using the tones we get Sanford Harris.

YES! I was glad to see Harris be a ZFT infiltrator. Not because it’s imaginative at all. In fact it was pretty predictable. But it was good to know that he would be eliminated soon. His melodrama was just simply boring and irritating.

Harris has the twin in captivity and is trying to get her to activate her gifts when Dunham discovers her. Harris traps her in the same room and if the girl can’t control her gifts, than they both will die. With Dunham’s help, the girl is able to focus her heat powers on Harris causing him to explode instead.

Afterwards Dunham is distraught and lays into Walter with regards to him testing on her when she was a child and tries to get him to give her more information to which Walter breaks down crying. It’s a powerful scene for John Noble who continues to excel in the role.

Walter, who has been obsessing with the ZFT manual in an attempt to exonerate Bell, discovers a complete manuscript with the missing ethic chapter which stresses how we much protect our children. In a great moment of vindication, Walter is rewarded with a visit from The Observer who tells him that “it’s time.”

What?! Cliffhanger…and a good one. But it’s not over. Nina Sharp enters her condominium and is shot by an unknown assailant.

A great episode that solidly leads into the finale.

A-

OBSERVER MOMENT: At the end of the episode, The Observer collects Walter for a trip of unknown destination.

Previous – 1.18

Next – 1.20