Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Fringe through the current episode, “The Arrival,” originally broadcast September 30, 2008.

Co-written by J.J. Abrams, “The Arrival” is easily the most important episode of Fringe to date. While the previous three episodes have done a good job establishing things, the story of the series is unequivocally pushed forward, all by the arrival and disappearance of a mysterious cylinder whose meaning is never explained. An important new figured is introduced while one member of the cast discovers a very good reason to continue with these investigations.

The best shows are not merely content to assemble an ensemble and then allow them to play cute for the duration of the series, but have constructed backstories that continue to push the characters along, against each other at times and toward each other in increasingly meaningful ways. The relationship that has been the most obvious to this point in Fringe has been between eccentric Walter Bishop and his son, Peter, the geniuses who come together or not at all to the team around Olivia Dunham. Walter’s purpose has been made clear from the start, but what exactly Peter represents hasn’t always been. He’s more the archetypal cynic of this premise, the de facto presence, even the classic daddy issues Abrams figure. The thing is, this episode expands that role to bursting, pushing the dynamic to breaking point and beyond, a defining moment in the early life of the series.

The episode makes clear that Peter’s mostly around because his father insists on it, not merely the government’s safety card for Walter, someone who can at least begin to understand him, but a necessity for Walter himself, even though when the Bishops are together, you can hardly understand why, another archetype of similar temperaments clashing and clashing hard. After last episode, we already knew Peter had other matters beyond these investigations he could hardly care less about, much less believe in, despite what they mean to his father, and not just because he seems to have such personal connections with them. Much of this episode, Peter seems perfectly willing to cash in his chips, regardless of his apparent necessity, maybe because he’s really finally had enough of his emotionally distant, demanding, and condescending father, or that he’s got better interests to look after, whatever exactly they may be (if they’re even legal, which seems to be the implication).

Walter, on the flipside, makes a fair case for being uncontrollable in his impulses, his evasiveness, his blatant disregard for the reactions to his methods. One moment, he’s the charming old man with odd habits and random appetites, who amuses the audience, the next he’s the man inexplicably standing in the way of logic, too caught up in his own machinations for anyone else, even his own son, to comprehend. Besides Peter, he’s had an almost equally intriguing dynamic with federal agent/lab partner Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole), who until this point has humored his inability to acknowledge her efforts even in the slightest degree, failing continuously to even remember her name. In one unforgivable moment, he makes the most dangerous assumption possible, and later discovers how wrong he was when she refuses to accept his apology.

In many ways, the series has been asking its audience whether Walter is as dangerous as the Pattern of fringe science the team has been following. To make a point of it, he’s the only character who has any history or connection with the elusive Observer (Michael Cerveris), an inhuman figure frequently described in his debut as a bald man with no eyebrows, who has made appearances seemingly at the scene of every event in the Pattern. What is his role in this apparent lab of human guinea pigs? It’s his presence that alters the course of Peter’s involvement in the ongoing investigation, his choice to stay rather than leave. Whoever or whatever this Observer is, it’s the one thing he can’t ignore. And the one thing he and his father can share, on a far deeper level than Peter could have suspected.

The cylinder that’s at the heart of the episode, because it is never explained, might end up looking like a MacGuffin, but it’s likely to resurface, if you’ll pardon the pun, just as it’s already done since 1987, a part of the Pattern that nicely reflects the historical element of the series that doesn’t always revolve on Walter Bishop. When it does, it will likely signify just one more reason why this is the first essential episode of the series. And did I mention that Dunham’s lost partner, John Scott, returns?