Fringe: "The Arrival" - Episode 104

With this week's episode of Fringe entitled 'The Arrival', I believe Fringe has turned a corner. The first three episodes of the show were more in the Monster Of The Week format that diehard fans of The X-Files take such pride in, but this one seemed, well, different. I said to myself about halfway through the episode that I believed we were about to learn something very big, and in part, I was right. As was expected, there was no real huge payoff to be found within its sixty-minute running time (after all, it's still an Abrams show), but being that JJ co-wrote the episode himself, I wasn't exactly shocked to see 'The Arrival' dole out a few more layers of what will inevitably be its master plan for at least the rest of the season. What exactly happened between Peter and Walter that forced them apart? What about The Pattern? Is it manmade, or something else completely? Why is the seemingly undead character of John Scott starting to play such a large role? Well, that's a lot of whys and whats that might not get answered for who knows how long, but for now, let's check out 'The Arrival'. More Fringe after the jump...

The episode started out pretty normal. Well, for Fringe, anyway. We're in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn diner, and seated at one of the tables is a pretty freaky-looking dude with an equally freaky order for the waitress. Lukewarm tap water, eleven jalapenos, and a raw roast beef sandwich on a roll. If that wasn't stomach-turning enough, he adds an entire shaker of pepper and half a bottle of hot sauce to the thing before downing it in just a few bites. That's a fairly impressive concoction, but what was even more so was the fact that the actor ate the damn thing in a single shot. Blargh.

Enough about what this creepy bald guy with no eyebrows ate for lunch, though. What was far more interesting was how he kept peering out at the construction site across the street with a pair of high-tech binoculars. A Massive Dynamic creation, perhaps? He kept an eye on nearly every worker and every aspect of the site as he ate. What's more, he kept checking his pocketwatch and scribbling in a notebook in some odd rune-like script from right to left on the page. 'What is that, Korean?' asks the waitress. (What exactly is JJ's fascination with Korea, anyway?) I'd be wary if I were you, waitress lady. People this weird are bound not to tip. Believe me, I know.

As he finishes writing in his book and drains his glass of tap water, all hell breaks loose. The ground starts shaking, the enormous crane on the site starts to fall, and before long, it snaps loose of its moorings and crashes into a building across the street. Total mayhem erupts on the street below with construction workers and pedestrians running everywhere. Our freak in question puts on his fedora and glasses, gathers up his things, pays for his meal with a fresh new $20 bill, and leaves the diner. He makes his way across the street to the ruined construction site, and upon observing what has happened, he makes a quick phone call. 'It has arrived,' he says.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our Smoking Man, and his name is The Observer.

Besides that fairly shocking opener, (hey, I found it shocking enough that anything other than more shitty indie-rock dives and hipster douchebag coffee houses were being constructed in Williamsburg), what the hell was this episode all about? Good question. The basic premise of it was that this crazy projectile thing that looked like King Kong's buttplug had appeared out of nowhere under the ground at a construction site. It's a weird little contraption, too - it emanates blue light from a spiral groove cut around it, and it vibrates at an oscillating frequency with no explanation at all. It didn't fall from the sky, either - it actually burrowed up from somewhere underground instead. Where did it come from? Well, no one knows, but according to Director Broyles, it had appeared before 20 years ago in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI agent in charge of that investigation is Henry Jacobson, an old colleague and mentor of Olivia's, so she goes to see him to ask what the F is up with King Kong's buttplug popping up out of the ground from seemingly nowhere. He tells her that his team never really got a handle on what exactly it was, because before they could investigate it in any kind of detail, the thing took off on its own, burrowing back into the ground and disappearing. Until now.

Meanwhile, Walter drops some very suspicious hints that he once worked on something called 'Project Thor', a top-secret effort to build a torpedo that could actually be fired through the Earth's core at a target on the other side of the planet. He never really gave us much more than that, and no matter how many times Peter insisted that he was crazy and demanded he be told what his father knew about the thing, Walter refused to say another word about it. He insists that the mysterious capsule thingy be moved to his labs immediately so that he can study it with cute-pie lab assistant Astrid Farnsworth and further confuse everyone about what exactly the hell it actually is in the process. Good old Walter.

While Walter and Astrid carry out their tests in the Fringe lab across town, a mysterious guy in a ski cap with four dots embroidered on it (three blue, one red) breaks into the warehouse that King Kong's buttplug had previously been kept in before Walter started yelling about how it had be moved to his labs and starts capping fools with a funky-fresh Flash Gordon zap gun. (Yet another Massive Dynamic creation, perhaps?) Zap! Zap! Before long, he's killed everyone in the warehouse, and he's plenty pissed to find that the buttplug isn't there anymore. He's even so pissed as to go to Henry Jacobson's house in Virginia and put the zip-zap on his ass, too. It's on now, sucka.

But wait! Jacobson's not dead, is he? No, he isn't - Ski Cap must've had his phaser on stun, because here he's got Jacobson tied to a chair in his living room, hooked up to this crazy torture device that electrocutes him through his nose. OW. Ski Cap tells Jacobson to think about the woman that came to him asking about the Quantico case (that would be Olivia), and if he refuses, he gets another blast of the juice up his nose. Jacobson can't help but think about Olivia, and Ski Cap's happy. He takes his zap gun off stun, and Jacobson's done for. So does this mean Ski Cap can read minds? Or is that earpiece he always wears while extracting info from people's minds far more effective in that ability? Do we have still another Massive Dynamic creation at work here?

Back to our freaky bald guy from the top of the episode. As Olivia is perusing the photographs that she got from Henry Jacobson pertaining to the Quantico investigation, she finds a very familiar face in a few of them. That's right, it's The Observer himself, and that's not the only place he's shown up. He was even at the hospital a few weeks ago when John Scott was being checked out. When Olivia reports her findings to Director Broyles, he blows her mind even further. Seems our friend The Observer has been spotted in locations all over the world, and always in places that The Pattern has manifested itself in some form or another. He's never seen doing anything but watching, but there he is, just the same. Who the hell is this guy, anyway? And what's with the bald head?

Walter steps up his levels of secrecy surrounding what he actually knows about the buttplug when Olivia calls and tells the team about the zap gun attack on the warehouse. Walter agrees with Olivia when she says that they have to move the buttplug immediately, but it's how he goes about doing it that ruffles a few feathers. While Peter's out looking for tinfoil and root beer floats for Walter, the crazy old bastard takes it on himself to knock my girl Astrid out with a syringe of goof juice and take off with the buttplug. Uh-oh. We don't see where he takes it right away, but we catch up with him in a diner slurping on the root beer float he's had a hankering for all episode. Who should stroll up and take a seat at his table but Bald Guy! OMG! The two chat for a bit (do they know each other?), and Baldy thanks him for hiding the buttplug. You'll have answers soon, he adds. Of course, says Walter.

The search is on for Walter back at the lab, and before long, he's in FBI custody. He's in deep shit for drugging Astrid and stealing the buttplug, but he's not talking at all except to say that someone is coming for the thing and it needed to be hidden. He claims he only needs to keep it hidden for another four hours, and that Bald Guy agrees with him. Walter's stubbornness enrages Peter so much that he leaves the case entirely, and he's making plans to leave the team to pursue other work options when Ski Cap shows up at Fringe labs and abducts Peter. Ski Cap subjects him to the nose electrocution thingy he did Jacobson with, and this time, Ski Cap wants to know where the buttplug is. Peter doesn't know, of course, but wait... does he? Olivia's interrogation of Walter reveals that while he hasn't told his son where the buttplug is, he might not have had to. Wait... so does that mean that they're psychically linked somehow? Ski Cap presses his case for a while, and before long, his forced suggestions that Peter think about his father reveal to him where the buttplug is after all. Thanks, says Ski Cap. With that, he leaves.

To the graveyard! Wait, what? Ski Cap rolls up at a cemetery somewhere with Peter in the trunk, and before long, they're at the headstone of one Robert Bishop, born in 1912, died in 1944. Who is this? Walter's father, maybe? Ski Cap says its a shame Peter never met him, which I find quite interesting. Does that mean Ski Cap DID know him? He makes Peter dig around the gravesite a bit, and before long, there's the buttplug. SKi Cap tries to make off with it when Olivia shows up, and while Peter cuts himself loose from his binds, she gives chase and shoots Ski Cap twice in the back, killing him and knocking the buttplug to the ground. While checking out Ski Cap's body, a huge explosion sounds, and the buttplug has exploded down into the ground again, off to its next destination. Bald Guy is hiding behind a tree nearby and talking into his cellphone again. 'Departure on schedule,' he says. Before he can even hang up, Peter tackles him from behind and demands to know who the hell he is and what the buttplug is. Much to the mindfuckery of everyone, though, Bald Guy starts reading Peter's mind right then and there, thinking and saying exactly what Peter is before he can even do it himself. Peter's trying to get a grasp on what the hell is going on when zap! Bald guy pulls a .45 from his pocket and shoots Peter, but it's not a bullet that comes out of it. There's no laser beam or anything like that, just a high-pitched whine that knocks Peter on his ass, unconscious. What the hell? I hate to keep saying it, but is this weapon yet ANOTHER Massive Dynamic creation?

Walter is freed from detainment at FBI HQ, and after apologizing to Astrid about injecting her with goof juice (the lucky bastard), he and Peter have a little heart-to-heart about what happened out there in the forest with Bald Guy. How did he know where the buttplug was buried when, in fact, he didn't at all know where it was? Walter delivers one of his signature Vincent Price monologues and tells him that some things are just known between them. That's really all there is to it. The two of them have much more of a special bond between them than just father and son, and Walter explains why. Years ago, the two of them were rescued from certain death after crashing their car into a frozen lake, and their rescuer was none other than Bald Guy. Walter explains that in that moment, he was told by Bald Guy via mindmeld that in exchange for their rescue, he would be called upon to return the favor someday. This protection of the buttplug was exactly that, and that his meeting with Bald Guy was very much of a revelation for him. This means that Walter knows who the Bald Guy is, and more importantly, WHAT he is. Walter's not telling any more than he needs to, of course, but all in due time.

Time for the big shocking conclusion - Olivia makes her way back home after all the hubbub of the day, and who should be waiting in her house for her as she downs her nightly meal of scotch and breakfast cereal but her undead beau, John Scott. Of course he is. I expected nothing less.

BITS OF THE FRINGE -

Why won't Walter work with the Fringe team anymore if Peter decides to split, which is something the younger Bishop desperately wants to do? And what of Walter's snarling insistence that Peter not be like his mother? And here I thought my family had issues.

So not only can dead people now come back from the dead thanks to Massive Dynamic, but they can also make untraceable calls to their old girlfriends in the middle of the night? Awesome. Sign me up for that service, AT&T. I've got more than a few scores I'd like to settle.

Could our ski-capped friend that raided the warehouse looking for the buttplug be bald underneath that hat, too? What are his feelings on jalapenos?

Walter definitely spoke for a few of us when he told Peter to stop being such a smartass, didn't he? I mean, come on - how much spooky shit do you need to see before you start believing that SOMETHING might be going on here? He's starting to come around now that he's got some official credentials (and probably an accompanying paycheck) to boast about, but I think he's only done that to play the Fox Mulder role - to REALLY get an answer about what the hell is going on out there. He's not in it to gawk at all the geeky sci-fi shit that's happening all over, but more to get a handle on what real-world explanations probably lie behind them. Walter said it best - not having any real explanations for what is happening around them is immensely frustrating. After all, the two of them are Men of Science. Kinda like Jack Shepherd.

Does Bald Guy's insistence that he wouldn't taste much in a root beer float explain why he packed so much heat into that roast beef sandwich? What brand of devil spawn doesn't enjoy a root beer float in the first place? There's a reference to the pepper-loving aliens from 'Roswell' hidden in there somewhere...

Walter got his kink on with cute little Astrid Farnsworth when he told her she could inject him with something if she wanted to, wasn't he? Back up off my girl, Pops!

If there is a theme to all the madness of The Pattern, it is communication. Remember the 'human internet' angle of the episode that had magnetic substances inserted in that artist guy's bloodstream to make him into a walking radio tower? Tonight, we get telepathics running around with zap guns. Interesting.

Fairly certain that we saw quite a few Massive Dynamic creations at work in this episode without even realizing it. Check it out -

1) The high-tech binoculars that Bald Guy had,
2) The Flash Gordon Zap Gun that Ski Cap Dude used to kill and/or stun people with,
3) The sonic weapon that was disguised as a .45 automatic that Bald Guy knocked Peter out with,
4) The nose electrocution/mind-melding device that Ski Cap Dude used on his victims. I don't think the guy could read minds, but rather using the device to do that instead. Remember the earpiece he always had in place while using it to extract thoughts from the people he tortured? Bingo. Bald Guy could do the mindreading thing for real, though. I'm fairly sure of that. Maybe Massive Dynamic gets the inspiration for some of their devices from alien technology that has been shared with them by whatever kind of creature(s) is hiding inside Bald Guy.

Anna Torv's freckles in HD have magical powers.

That's it for this week. The mewling sack of cats that some people are calling the presidential debates are on next week in Fringe's time slot, so I'll see you back here in two weeks. However, it is of my opinion that FOX might not be the best place to watch said debates. I'll leave it at that. In the meantime, I think I'm going to take a closer look at John McCain to see if he has any eyebrows.

Until then...

-littlebigmouth.