At this point, I’ve got to feel a little gratified, because show I like has managed to make it to a third season. Granted, I know that a lot of shows like that have lasted as long, a little longer, and I still feel a little cheated, for one reason or another, but with ‘Fringe,’ something strange and wonderful has happened. All the potential I saw in the beginning, gradually, critics and audiences have come to embrace as well. The world is beginning to understand that this thing is fascinating. The third season looks like it’s only going to grow more fascinating still.

When we left off last season, we had finally made the momentous trip “over there,” the alternate reality Walter Bishop (John Noble) once visited when he realized he could have a second chance at saving the life of his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson). Much of this backstory is reiterated via clips to open the season premiere, so if you were a little fuzzy on that, it’s okay. But the real problem, and what occupies most of the episode, is that when our characters made that that trip, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) was kidnapped and replaced by her double. When Peter went back home, he inadvertently celebrated with the wrong Dunham.

There’s a few scenes with Peter and Bolivia (as the alternate Olivia is apparently being referred to, off-camera, just as alternate Walter, on-camera, is distinguished as Walternate, which Peter himself references during a debriefing), but mostly, “Olivia” is all about Olivia, stuck in the alternate reality, setting up the working points of the season, or at least the starting points.

What’s immediately fascinating about the setup is that until now, I hadn’t realized how closely it resembles how the third seasons of ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost,’ two other shows begun by J.J. Abrams (which I often reference in these reviews, as counterpoint) started out so similarly. You’ll recall that in ‘Alias,’ Sydney Bristow had woken up in Hong Kong, her memory and a significant period missing from her life. It was the first unpopular move the series made, and in a sense, it never fully recovered from it. In ‘Lost,’ Jack, Sawyer, and Kate all became hostages of the Others, a situation that contributed in making that season the most consistently uncomfortable and unpopular year of the show, which like the same season in ‘Alias’ almost torpedoed all interest in it.

I don’t mention these facts to suggest ‘Fringe’ has done something similar and will suffer a similar fate (though it’s certainly possible), but again, for contrast. Unlike the other shows, Olivia seems to gain a certain measure of power within the first episode, a sense of control, which even if undermined by the end of it, still gives a measure of satisfaction to the viewer. She is not completely powerless; her undoing is deliberate and adequately explained, and helps set up more and perhaps more interesting developments for later episodes. That Walternate has her conditioned to believe that she is actually the Olivia that is indigenous to the alternate reality is pretty fascinating, like the Mirror Universe episodes from Star Trek, when we could follow two different versions of the same character simultaneously, but with the added complication that even the constant, the personality we’re supposed to know, won’t be acting that way. It’s all about sympathy. As long as audiences can keep it straight, they’re be rooting for the “right” Olivia, right from the start. They’ll be looking for the moment that she breaks free from the control she’s been put under, because in essence, they’ve seen her do it once already, no matter what the facts may suggest to Walternate and his cronies.

While she’s fighting it here, we already get some extraordinary moments. Olivia has a knack for making the right connections at the right times (as she did last season with Sam Weiss, played by Kevin Corrigan, who will be returning this season), and she does that again during this episode. While she’s briefly on the run and in full command of her faculties, she runs into a cabbie who ends up being the audience surrogate, the character who will make it easy for new viewers to understand what’s going on, and old ones to build the needed sympathy that will sustain her in later episodes. Olivia uses some strong tactics on him early on, but gradually builds some real trust, so that eventually, the cabbie realizes that he knows exactly what she’s going through. She ends up not needing the leverage she’s been holding against him to earn his continued cooperation. As a one-off character, the cabbie, played by a familiar genre veteran, Andre Royo, last seen in ‘Heroes’ (the “villain” who could create miniature black holes), and lends a lot of his backstory from vague illusions to that past performance, is spot-on.

The alternate Charlie Francis (the one that’s still alive), is given a lot more sympathy during this episode than his appearance at the end of last season as well, another clear as to how navigating this season is going to work. We also meet Olivia’s mother, Marilyn (Amy Madigan), who in our reality is dead, but in the alternate reality is alive and kicking, and inadvertently helps put Olivia back into the hands of Walternate. But there are signs that she may hold the key to Olivia’s salvation.

Speaking of salvation, viewers from last season really should have guessed it all along, but those who had been hoping for some swift and handy resolution to Olivia’s situation probably spent the whole episode expecting that she’s made a quick trip back home, only to discover that, for all intents and purposes, she’s stuck there. We’ve known it isn’t a simple matter to cross between realities, but basic instinctual hope, and a need for the status quo (which both ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost,’ as I’ve suggested, both unsuccessfully exploited) made some viewers hope against the facts. But ‘Fringe’ has a chance of making this familiar gambit succeed, because in essence, it’s got two versions of more or less the same reality going on, the same characters, the same actors. To create some differences that don’t have to do with temperament and visuals, some new characters have been introduced, including Marilyn Dunham. But Charlie has a new partner, Lincoln Lee, who happens to be portrayed by one of two brothers cast for the season, Shawn and Aaron Ashmore, who introduce a whole new level of duplication to matters. Lincoln has been badly scarred, leaving him pretty distinctive, so rather than a nice set of twins, right there in the alternate reality, there’s a problem of fractured facades, complications that need to be worked out.

“Olivia,” to my mind, is a terrific way to start out the third season, clearly echoing history while also making history work for it, in a strong and confident way, much as the series has been progressing from the start, always keenly aware of what it’s trying to do, and attempting to make it as interesting as possible. ‘Fringe’ is not a show like ‘Alias’ or ‘Lost,’ where there’s a single story that weaves through the back- and foreground, moving in an obvious direction. It’s been working twists and turns, gradual and deliberate revelations all along, combining what worked well for both its immediate predecessors, and potentially creating something that could exceed them. A lot of that potential became more obvious in the second half of last season, and it appears that the third season hasn’t slacked off from the increased momentum. We’re up for a pretty interesting ride.

It’s funny. This season on ‘Lost’ there’s been a pretty significant presence of an alternate reality. In Star Trek, there was always the Mirror Universe, which at least in ‘Deep Space Nine’ became a recurring place to visit and watch develop. But even in a show like ‘Sliders,’ which is probably one of the most prominent examples of a TV show employing this gimmick, I can’t imagine it ever being as important as it has become on ‘Fringe.’ As the second season concludes, you can find no more dramatic exploration of just how much.

The conclusion of the two-part episode begins with a brief tour of some of the superficial differences, which is much of what we’ve gotten to this point about the alternate reality. From there, we expand further, into some of the ways the alternate versions of familiar characters differ, which in itself can help to define and illuminate both the people we know, and those we’re just meeting. (Our) Olivia is defined as someone who’s always reacting against some sort of personal pain; or in other words, haunted, and that fits her just as well as how Walter defined her during the “musical” episode, “Brown Betty.”

Of course, one of the big things about the episode is the reunion between Walter and William Bell (Leonard Nimoy), which in some ways has been as long-in-coming as Peter learning that he comes from the alternate reality. The relationship between Walter and Bell has been a part of the mythology, the backstory, from the start, and to finally see it in action again is pretty huge. Nimoy and John Noble don’t disappoint, either, acting out their scenes together as old friends who are particularly reluctant to see each other again, with a little too much history and bitterness between them for any real enjoyment to flow from it. Bell formed Massive Dynamic in our reality while Walter was suffering in an institution, and then escaped into the alternate reality, which he likes to point out was just as necessary as Walter’s need to “rescue” his son, an event, the crossing between universes (which they’d both wanted to exploit in the past, but not like this), that started the series arc.

Olivia ends up basically declaring her love for Peter to try and win him back to our reality, which is another development somewhat long in coming. Unlike most shows whose lead characters end up in romantic relationships after years of platonic interactions, there hasn’t been a lot of teasing, which has both made it seem like they weren’t going to do it and perhaps more natural than previous examples, which ended up building most of their appeal and thus inevitable viewer disappointment on its culmination.

Considering that the show has used Nimoy so sparingly, these past two episodes are the most we’ve ever seen Bell, and so it’s been as much the mystique of having Nimoy around as the history Bell helps establish with Walter. It’s funny, because even in these episodes, Nimoy is used sparingly, but he still comes across pretty powerfully, because the show seems to know exactly how to use him. To our heroes, he’s as much as legendary, but to the alternate Olivia and Charlie Francis, he’s a complete unknown, even though he carries weight in that reality as a friend of Walternate’s. We’ve already been told that he’s crossed between worlds too often, and that it’s made his molecules unstable, so it makes a pretty appropriate sacrifice, but still an effective one, when he serves as the catalyst to get our heroes back home, including Peter.

Perhaps the truly remarkable thing about the episode is how subtle it treats the reunion of Peter and Walter, which demonstrates a considerable amount of restraint. Peter doesn’t forgive Walter so much as decide that he might be able to see things his way, which is probably more appropriate. How long have we waited for people to not just accept Walter as he is but to understand him, too?

But as curveballs go, it’s the ending that has to take the cake. ‘Fringe’ loves curveballs, and especially to end episodes with them. In the past, this has been done to redeem week episodes, but here it’s a way to conclude the season exactly as it began: with an infiltrator (it’s worth noting that Bell created the shape-shifter technology, which is not the method this time, but rather the alternate Olivia). With Olivia once more trapped on the other side, it becomes that much more of an impetus next season to raise the stakes further, which for a show like this is exactly what you want. But I guess we have to wait a few months…

To round out the review, it might be worth noting, as I anticipated back in February for my review of “Jacksonville” (before the rest of the season was available for final listings), that I was correct in assuming that the numbers Walter stumbled across but couldn’t remember the significance of, that happened to correspond at least in theory of a date for a future ‘Fringe’ episode, turned out to be pretty accurate, and it was of course this very season finale. It’s another example, because this wasn’t specifically brought up in the episode (though Walter does at one point complain to Bell about his memory problems, part of a litany of perceived grievances that didn’t seem to find correspondence with his old friend), of how subtle the show can be. In hindsight at this point, the significance of the numbers might refer to the trip to the other side, or the recovery of Peter, or maybe the alternate Olivia’s infiltration. I’m sure we’ll find out more later.

Wow, so this was definitely an escalation of the mythology. This marks our first real look at the alternate universe, after many glimpses, brief visits, and suggestions about what it’s like, well, over there. Mind-blowing would be a good way to put it.

Nearing ever closer to the end of the second season, it can be properly said at this point that ‘Fringe’ is well established. Being the third genre series hatched from the mind of J.J. Abrams, there were many more expectations for it than, say, for ‘Alias,’ which was a pleasant surprise for everyone, and even ‘Lost,’ which was completely unexpected, but was well beyond cult status before its first season was over. While ‘Fringe’ has had its share of critical acclaim and support, it has yet to properly break through the popular consciousness. If it can be said to resemble ‘The X-Files,’ in this sense it is certainly no ‘X-Files.’ But as I was saying, at this point, it is so well established in its own right, the things it’s doing now, if anyone is paying attention at all, it’s kind of hard to continue ignoring ‘Fringe.’

Yes, I’m saying this as a fan, and as someone who has been reviewing it since the start, but when there’s this much momentum, it breaks through the subjective barrier, at least in some sense. Exploring the alternate reality for the first time is a pretty big deal, at least for current fans, something that manages to be bigger than “Peter,” the episode from a few weeks back that saw how Walter came to bring his son, so to speak, back from the dead.

Just as far as talk about cool factor, “Peter” was pretty awesome, but “Over There” tops it. In the alternate reality, where we’ve known since last season the Twin Towers still stand, they have airships, yes, and a bunch of cool technology like shape-shifting, but they have MLK on their twenty dollar bill, instead of Andrew Jackson. They don’t even know who Old Hickory is! We see alternate versions of Olivia and Charlie Francis for the first time, not to mention Broyles and Astrid, and learn that Walternate is actually Secretary of Defense. We meet Peter’s real mother, too, and in that way we know instantly that this is not going to be a series that’s going to take anything like a simple approach to alternate realities. They’re not all going to be “evil duplicates.” They are going to be people we can sympathize with, which is kind of weird, considering most of our practical experience with them has been men like Thomas Jerome Newton, who might as well be called Ethan Rom now, with Walternate cast in the role of Benjamin Linus, his wife as Juliet Burke, and William Bell as Jacob, or Richard Alpert at worst. That’s for folks still jonesing on ‘Lost,’ because hey, that show has only a few weeks left.

But ‘Fringe’ is still going strong, and with a little support, could last six seasons, too. We still haven’t met Olivia’s father, even though we’ve had lots of hints. We do know that when we finally reach that point, it’s not likely to be disappointing, because ‘Fringe’ rarely seems to mistake the possibilities of the things it sets up (much like ‘Lost,’ and a step up from ‘Alias,’ which frequently misplayed things like what Sydney Bristow’s dad was doing engineering her to be a spy, which ‘Fringe’ has improved with Olivia and her complicated past with Walter, as is demonstrated again during this episode).

There are old characters we catch up with, including Brandon the recurring Massive Dynamic lab tech who’s good to explain things, and potentially new characters we might get to explore in future episodes, and yes, William Bell, allowing Leonard Nimoy to make another brief appearance. Bell is always appearing like that, and it works every time. He’s a specter of answers; he’s like a more forthcoming Jacob. You don’t have to wait years to find out what he knows, only in increments throughout this season. Next week, the conclusion of the season finale, promises much more.

‘Fringe’ is all about possibilities, but possibilities that are grounded in gritty reality, and this is a fine episode to demonstrate that, their full range, and the arc of the series. I don’t write reviews that cover every detail point for point. Sometimes, like with this kind of show, it’s really worth just watching this stuff for yourself.

“Find the crack.” Maybe that phrase is another of those perfect metaphors ‘Fringe’ seems to find so easily, or maybe it’s just a private joke between some guest characters. Could be just a nice thing to find written on a pen. Anyway, this is another episode that could be mistaken, like last week’s, to be somewhat unessential, while at the same time be completely essential. If you really care for these characters, you’ve got to think the latter.

Like a lot of shows that are basically procedural in nature, ‘Fringe’ can often be easily understood week to week by the, ah, pattern it typically follows, whether it’s in the cases or how the characters relate to one another. Much of the work the series has done solidified the character relationships a long time ago, and those have remained mostly unchanged since the start. Of course, the big change recently was when Peter Bishop found out he came from the alternate reality, which caused him to bolt town first chance he got, which would have been perfectly typical behavior for him at any point prior to the first episode of the series. Last week, he was mostly absent, except for his representation in his father Walter’s story, but here he’s squarely in the spotlight…where he just so happens to find himself exactly in the kind of circumstances he might have thought to have left behind.

Because of the often-procedural nature of the show, and how it relates specifically to our characters, we might be forgiven to take a number of things for granted. This season we’ve been given a number of opportunities to remember not everyone just accepts Walter’s eccentricities, but it’s not often the nature of the fringe investigations need to be explained. Peter finds that he has to do exactly that, which is a fine way to make a guy nostalgic about something he’s trying to escape. But the real fun of it is how quickly he gets sucked into the mystery, which happens to revolve around the brain games of “Grey Matters” from earlier in the season. Newton makes a cameo, as if he thinks he’s the Observer or something, nothing too flashy for him this time.

The more important guest turns out to be the local cop Mathis, who manages to spin herself into a veritable regular presence in fairly short order (a remarkable achievement for any one-off character), walking us through Peter’s experiences as he suddenly realizes what a small world he’s left behind, an exclusive, privileged company. Anyone, and I dare say most people, who has ever wondered why it’s so hard for others to understand them when under other circumstances they have plenty of sympathetic souls to lean on, can gleam from this episode an entirely different lesson, and they don’t need to have watched any previous episode. But they will probably want to see more.

Walter, meanwhile, is quite beside himself, like Mr. Burns wondering about the difference between ketchup and catsup, unable to cope with the sudden responsibility of looking after himself, an unexpected side-effect of Peter’s desertion. It brings to very stark reality what real danger he’s in of sinking back into the far worse psychoses that left him in a mental institution for two decades, and is a clever addition to the episode, which leads to a possible way to track Peter, which he tries to sabotage for fear of actually confronting Peter, only for Olivia, via a conversation with Broyles, who has been contacted by Peter, to make it easy and say they can just go to Washington already…The whole episode is heavy with pathos, the kind Walter is often prone to anyway, but all the more elevated because of the strain on these relationships everything depends on.

And then, of course, Walternate shows up to claim Peter again. It’s an episode that, once again, really just needs to be seen. I don’t think that’s a cheap way out of putting up my own review, but rather an indication that ‘Fringe’ very generally is doing things right. Early in the series, it was okay to let the procedural elements takes the characters on the ride, but as the series has progressed, the reverse has increasingly become the case, and that’s exactly what should happen in a series like this. What kind of series is this? Well, the episode does seem to point out how different ‘Fringe’ has turned out from, say, ‘The X-Files.’ You decide.

Well, for those keeping score, the second season will officially be longer than the first season of ‘Fringe.’ This same episode count was the complete set last year, and as the preview for next week reminded everyone, there’s still three episodes to go. It’s too bad, too, because there’s such an incredible momentum, so much potential just in what’s been going on, that you might expect so much more of the season left to be told. But that’s the strength of this season, that it has successfully expanded the series to the point where it seems easy to have a third season at the very least. If the audience still hasn’t realized it, “Brown Betty” is here to explain everything once again, just how much depth is there.

I want to first expound on the number of levels just the name of last week’s episode works on. “The Man from the Other Side” could refer to Peter, who finally learned the truth of his existence; it could refer to Newton, who made a welcome return during the episode; it could also refer to the man who crossed over from the alternate reality at the end of the episode, who is, presumably, “Walternate.” Anyway, an exceedingly clever episode title, another testament to the depths that have become so apparently within this series.

“Brown Betty” is all about depths. It is, of course, the highly anticipated “musical episode,” but in typical ‘Fringe’ fashion, expectations are completely subverted, because the singing is almost exclusively incidental, a byproduct of Walter’s state of mind as he’s telling a story to Ella, Rachel’s daughter and Olivia’s niece, who has stopped by for a visit with her “uncle” Walter. You can think of “Brown Betty” as ‘The Princess Bride’ if you like, because that’s pretty much how it works. It’s even Walter’s idea of a love story, because that’s how he views Olivia’s life. The entire episode, of course, is built around Walter’s perspective, just not exactly in the way, yes, as was expected.

Because the episode is built around Walter’s attempt to deal with the disappearance of his son, disappointed by the revelation of his past, by imbibing drugs (“brown betty” is his own brand of marijuana), people thought we’d be spending this hour inside his head, but instead it takes the form of a story, with Olivia in the starring role of an old-time gumshoe trying to navigate her way through an allegorical version of the ‘Fringe’ story. It’s all pretty awesome and surprisingly insightful (I entreat those still skeptical about Astrid’s worth to pay particular attention), even dropping unexpected clues now and again (you’ll be paying all the more attention to Nina Sharp and the Observer, for instance) about developments still to come.

Speaking of the Observer, he makes appearances both in Walter’s story and outside of it, presumably referencing back to the events of “August,” one of two episodes I missed earlier in the season. For those who might still believe that the episode can be skipped for viewers already up to speed with everything, it’s scenes like this that suggest otherwise.

Leonard Nimoy makes an unbilled appearance, and even Mark Valley, at least in a photograph, as his character John Scott is referenced for the first time in ages (I still hope he’ll be revisited).

“Brown Betty” is a treat for fans, certainly, a change of pace that must, as these things are often designed to be, have been fun for the cast, a chance to display some different talents (singing, which most of them do quite admirably, but with the restraint I suggested; this is no flamboyant affair, which is strange on one level, because “flamboyant” is usually a word that could be considered synonymous with Walter Bishop). It’s also ridiculously poignant, a powerful demonstration of the relationship between Walter and Peter, and yes, another indication that Peter and Olivia may eventually become romantically involved (which on some level is exactly the story Walter was telling all along).

But, it is still something of a diversion. We’ll be diving right back in next week…

As important episodes go, this one was pretty inevitable, and is probably best considered for how it works with the rest of the season, the series, and the run of episodes since “Peter” at the beginning of the month. I wouldn’t say it’s as essential as that one, or even last week’s “White Tulip,” so much as something that needed to happen. Simply put, Peter finally finds out the truth.

Just as recent episodes have been driven more by the serialized side of ‘Fringe’ and bringing arc elements to the core of the stories, “The Man From the Other Side” brings back Thomas Jerome Newton, last seen in “Jacksonville,” the episode that aired before the two-month break “Peter” ended, and featured Olivia’s first inclination of the truth behind Peter Bishop’s origins, which Walter had already revealed to Astrid, and had been hinted at and played with since last season. Newton is the season’s main villain, the thrust of the conflict between our and the alternate reality Olivia stepped into and conversed with William Bell in, and where Walter snatched Peter from after his own son died. The episode also brings back the shape-shifting foot soldiers originally introduced in the first episode of the season, “A New Day in the Old Town,” which Olivia helps remind the viewer this week happen to be the reason ol’ Charlie Francis is no longer around.

And aside from the fact that Peter finally finds out and reacts badly to the revelation that all this time, he’s been bonding with what he now considers a monster, this really is sort of a letdown compared to the material that we’ve been getting in the latter half of the season, and really it’s because this is not the interesting part, it’s really just the thing that had to happen. For that reason, I don’t have a lot to say, because it’s an episode that needs to have happened, but perhaps on its own isn’t by that token all that important (strangely), almost as if this week, our regular characters are the poor victims of random fringe science of the week.

Next week is a musical episode that will delve directly into the mind of Walter Bishop, something that perhaps some of us have been waiting for since the first episode of the series, because there is hardly anything quite as fascinating as the inner workings of this mind. We’ll get his version of reality, and certainly his reaction to this momentous development, and then there will be three episodes left.

I guess I’ll also add that this week we take a trip to Massive Dynamic for another of the consulting figures the show likes to visit now and again, and that’s another interesting aspect of the series for me, that even with such a strong figure as Walter, who has routinely solved on his own many a mystery, there are still ways and reasons to take on the perspectives of others, from Olivia to Peter to Broyles, and even Astrid, as well as Nina Sharp, Sam Wise, William Bell…‘Fringe’ is, in some ways, the show ‘Lost’ might have been if it’d taken its approach strictly from the Dharma Initiative, and I suspect that is hardly a suspicious without basis in reality.

…No matter how strong it can sometimes be…

Here’s another big difference between ‘Fringe’ and other J.J. Abrams shows like ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost.’ Where the others eventually lost interest in continuing any particular character drama and suspense from episode to episode, favoring instead a greater arc that drove the whole story forward, ‘Fringe’ has maintained and seems destined to continue maintaining a real sense of its characters as people who experience and develop from their actions on a regular basis. That’s what makes it more serialized than episodic, more than the mystery that has been at the heart of the show from the start, what exactly lies behind the pattern of fringe science they’ve been investigating. We know, increasingly, that Walter Bishop is behind most or all of it, unfortunately. Now we’re exploring how personal it really is.

Now that we’ve been living with the full revelation of Peter’s past for a while, the series has begun turning on the inevitability of Peter himself learning about it. “White Tulip” spends much of its time ruminating on the fact that Peter knows something’s up, because Walter’s been depressed, and the relationship they’ve managed to build since the start of the series means Peter is genuinely concerned. He’s gotten past a lot of things, not the least being Walter’s eccentricity. What’s bothering Walter is known to both Olivia and Astrid (though to this point, Astrid is still much the supporting character who, as some have argued, is not all that significant, not as much as Charlie Francis had been, and look where that got him), but not to Peter. Recently, it’s been Olivia who wanted to tell him, because Walter couldn’t conceive of how he might do it and not ruin everything. But in “White Tulip,” he seems to have mustered a resolve to do it, no matter the dread consequences. He writes a letter, which he believes will make it easier, at least for him, to explain.

Except this is ‘Fringe,’ so there has to be an episodic element, a mystery to be solved, and it’s a particularly good one, because it involves time travel, time loops, and the implications of messing around too much with science. Peter Weller, now aged into an instant and minimalist presence, is the perfect name actor to throw into this kind of scenario, filling the story with everything it doesn’t need to actually explain, because it’s mostly allegory for what Walter is currently dealing with. It’s probably one of the best episodes of the series.

Anyway, Weller’s character helps Walter over the hump, helps him vocalize, at least, some of what has been tormenting him, how he’s cursed himself since bringing Peter into his life, drove him mad. It may be just about Peter, and it may be about his life’s work, which has been plaguing him constantly for the past two seasons. Either way, as I said, this is important, necessary material, the kind of work ‘Fringe’ has been working toward and doing so exceptionally, what sets it apart from ordinary television and even its own genre predecessors. Where others are content to tread around, ‘Fringe’ walks right through, resulting in, well, Shakespearean material.

I’m not taking away from ‘Lost,’ for instance. I still believe ‘Lost’ is unparalleled genius in its own right. But ‘Fringe’ is something that has proven entirely different, and an episode like “White Tulip” helps to illustrate not only how, but why. I might at this point mention Abrams’ penchant for “big red balls,” which manifested in ‘Alias’ as one of the culminations of Milo Rambaldi’s work and in ‘Star Trek’ as red matter. Here, it’s a hot air balloon, a symbol for Weller’s character (the way some people were describing some of the minimalist bliss in Pixar’s ‘Up’ is an accurate way to describe how this part of the episode ultimately resolves itself, some of the most exquisite and beautiful storytelling I’ve ever seen on TV).

There’s not a whole lot more to say about “White Tulip.” It’s an hour of television, maybe not just of ‘Fringe,’ that simply needs to be seen. In the context of the series, it’s just another, albeit important, step, and represents everything that the series does right. As far as television goes, this is an example of how to do your best work, and make it look effortless.

Before I get to this week’s episode, I remembered tonight what I forgot to include in last week’s review, namely the retro opening credit sequence that featured 1980s style music and graphics. That was pretty awesome, the kind of touch this series routinely does, the details that help make everything work so well. But that’s nothing compared to the work done this week, layering and layering established threads so that the whole episode feels like a symphony, or a waltz of season and series story arcs marching forward, working so well you can’t imagine ever wondering why you questioned the show. Okay, so maybe that’s just me talking. Then again, these are my reviews. Who else would be?

Decision. Consequence. Since this week’s HYGOTS features ‘Alias,’ and this episode seems to make it so appropriate, I thought I would begin the review talking about how ‘Fringe’ has been developing in the context of other J.J. Abrams series. On ‘Alias,’ it was always about how Sydney Bristow would handle the latest curveball in her life. On ‘Lost,’ it has always been about peeling back the next layer of the big mystery of how and why Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on the island. With ‘Fringe,’ it seems the show has been going out of its way to spell out certain arc elements, with the intent to let the characters as much as the audience soak them in, the full gravity of the situation. On ‘Lost,’ consequence has always been a pretty important thing. On ‘Alias,’ decisions were almost more important than consequence. Yet on ‘Fringe,’ a balance of decision and consequence (these two words were important to something I saw within the last year, and I can’t remember what that was; if you’re reading this and know what it was, you get bonus points that will be mailed to you in the form of a copy of the Beatles “Help!” CD, non-remastered), never quite as evident than this week, especially on the heels of the events depicted last week. Olivia now knows Walter’s big secret, and throughout this episode, she struggles with it, worrying about whether and how she can possibly tell Peter.

Olivia visits with my old friend Sam Wise, who may not actually be my friend, but who is at least one of my favorite new elements from the second season, someone she can turn to when she can’t talk to any of the regulars about something. Sam helps her realize she can’t sleep because she can’t bring herself to tell Peter the truth. He appears again later in the episode and helps give it the odd title, inspired by the classic board game “Clue.” Seriously, if this guy were made a regular, I would not complain. Through Sam, we also get a few more hints about Olivia’s background, which is sure to be a major element of later episodes.

She also visits with Nina Sharp, and finally gives voice to everything regular fans have been wanting her to say since first meeting the enigmatic director of Massive Dynamic, all the doubts and concerns that have hung over Nina since the start (even though recently she’s seemed as innocent as Astrid). But Nina turns the table on Olivia and makes her realize that as suspicious as she is, she’s still one of Olivia’s best assets, someone she trusts to understand things without necessarily having to be involved. Nina suggests that Olivia really visited her because she wanted Nina to talk her out of revealing the truth to Peter. Any number of scenes revolve around this dilemma, some involving Peter himself.

Part of the regular fun of the series has undeniably been the dynamic between father and son Bishop, how their relationship has improved leap and bounds from the strained, almost totally alien distance between them in the pilot to the good-natured buddies they’ve been lately. Olivia knows just as well as Walter that if Peter found out, that would go away in an instant. There’s a part of Peter that’s clinging to an illusion, too, which rests on the pity he began feeling for his father’ alienation and the genuine affection that replaced it. The Peter we know today is domesticated, someone who is as alien to the one we originally met as he once was with his father.

Again to decision and consequence. Whereas on ‘Alias’ or ‘Lost,’ once discovered a secret can become common knowledge within the very episode it’s revealed. It’s hard to keep. On ‘Fringe,’ it’s kept hidden for longer. It has more value. This arc with Peter has been playing out since last season, and it’s still going strong, and will fuel many an episode for the foreseeable future. That’s the real value of the approach the series has taken from the beginning, why it was so important to introduce everyone as deliberately as the series did, why it’s still important that Astrid may still seem trivial to some viewers. Her value only increases with time. That’s the mark of a good television show, where time is precious, time can make everything so much more rich. In a way, the thing I have valued so much about ‘Lost,’ the flashes, has been like cheating, at least compared to how ‘Fringe’ approaches the same material.

The episode also touches on the drug trials Walter performed on Olivia and others twenty years earlier, as it unravels its usual fringe science elements, this time concerning another of the people touched by Walter’s past, and specifically those trials. Like Sylar in ‘Heroes,’ this man realized a terrible potential, and nearly destroyed his life because of it. That was another beauty of the episode, how organically the fringe-of-the-week worked in with everything, not just the personal drama, but the mythology of the show. In counterpoint to the antagonist, we also find Walter running into a former student, who thinks well of his experiences in that classroom, which inspired his own future scientific pursuits. That’s the kind of detail that makes a well-rounded character that much more real, no matter how throwaway it seems.

I can’t forget that Diane Kruger, recently seen in Quentin Tarantino’s WWII masterpiece ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ made a cameo in the episode’s teaser, the latest name actor to grace the season (next week it’s Peter Weller!). The prestige of the show, its reputation, has already snagged noted screenwriter Akiva Goldsman as a fan and creative collaborator. Whatever the actual viewership, quite a level of respect has been earned to this point, which has no doubt helped its continued renewal fortunes.

I cannot speak highly enough about the show’s ability to evolve, and to maintain the spirit it premiered with, a confidence that came with the pedigree behind the scenes, and the quality of the material that is continually sustained. I’ve gone on somewhat endlessly about how ‘Fringe’ straddles the line between episodic and serialized drama. This week is another fine example of the advantages to this approach, how exceptionally they can be utilized, the unexpected benefits. There are still six episodes left in the season. Care to bet on the chances of the show somehow managing to disappoint?

I don’t want to say I’ve been backing the right horse, but hey, I’ve been backing the right horse. From the start, I knew the creators of ‘Fringe,’ had a pedigree that would at least result in something intriguing, but for the past two years they’ve developed one of the most emotionally complex and compelling shows on TV today. Much of this has centered around Walter Bishop, the brilliant mind released from a mental asylum in the first episode, and his relationship not only to the mysteries investigated every week, but his son Peter, whom viewers gradually learned wasn’t who he seemed. But as misdirections go, it wasn’t Peter’s own ambiguous talents and activities that ultimately proved to serve as the driving force of his story, but where he came from and how he came to be here.

“Peter” is the episode everyone has been waiting for. I go on a lot about how ‘Fringe’ constantly walks the balance between episodic and serialized storytelling, but the truth has always been that there has only ever been one direction, from the start. It was only a matter of everything falling into place, and as much as many things have been revealed throughout the course of the series, the one constant throughout all of it has been the story of the Bishops, the bond neither is ever entirely comfortable acknowledging, but is always there. Without Peter, no matter how much Dunham and Broyles could use Walter, he never would have been available. But the truth is, without Walter, there never would have been a Peter, at least in our reality.

Once it was revealed last season that the series arc depended on the confrontation between two realities, the truth of Peter’s existence has served as one of the biggest tickets for the show to exploit, and finally we’ve reached the point of no return. Much of the episode takes place in 1985, when Peter originally, well, died, at least in our reality. Walter couldn’t do anything to save him. Except his work had allowed him to open a window into an alternate reality, where he observed everything was much the same except the technology, which didn’t quite match up. Zeppelins were still in use there, and their phones were twenty years ahead of ours, for instance (oh, and Eric Stoltz starred in ‘Back to the Future’). Their Peter was dying, too, and Walter fixed his window and his counterpart’s lab, where he could observe his progress (along, of course, with the Observer, part of a cabal of such figures). “Walternate” missed the crucial moment he found the cure, but Walter didn’t. He determined that Peter must be saved, even if he had to do it himself.

Except opening the door between realities was equally determined to have catastrophic results. Nina Sharp was called in by Walter’s assistant. It was during these events she lost her arm, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Walter from crossing over. (If you want an episode of ‘Fringe’ to have purely science fiction elements, this is a good one to watch for that, too.) William Bell is referenced, Walter arguing that he would agree that these actions are necessary, but a rift between the men is also evident, presenting all kinds of questions not only about the past, but also the present, where we know both Nina and Bell are well aware that Bell currently resides in the alternate reality.

Anyway, so Walter, as we always knew he would, saves the alternate Peter from death, having brought him back to his own lab. At this point, it’s necessary to discuss another important figure of the episode, Elizabeth Bishop, who in both realities is wife to Walter, mother of Peter. To this point, we’ve never seen her, and it’s still a mystery as to her fate (much as we’re still waiting to meet Dunham’s monster of a father), but here she’s very much a part of the story.

And what a story. As an episode set mostly in the past, it becomes such a mindbender of a period piece that, thanks to John Noble’s ever-present, distinctive accent, you can almost imagine him as a nineteenth century scientist, Victor Frankenstein. The Walter of this period is far more confident in himself, of his actions, at least until his son dies and he becomes more desperate. The Walter we’ve known has so many reasons to doubt himself, both from the time he spent without full control of his faculties, and the mistakes he made along the way that led him to that point. He’s always known he was a genius, but he wasn’t always so eccentric about it. It’s not to see the transition begin around these events. He loses the respect of his assistant the more he insists on this course of action, and when his wife sees the alternate Peter for the first time, Walter understands immediately that all his best plans, of returning this boy back to his home, are lost. He’s entered an irreversible path, no matter what he’s been telling himself.

In this reality, it’s Walter who shows Peter the trick of walking the silver dollar along his fingers. In the alternate reality, it’s Elizabeth. Maybe that’s telling. There are so many possibilities suddenly open, thanks to this episode. Even though we already know that these things happened, it’s important to see them, to not just see the impact they have as they happen, but the implications still left hanging, of what still awaits everyone.

In ‘Alias,’ this sort of scenario was often tried, or at least teased, but it was never quite pulled off, and ‘Fringe’ has been easy to compare to the earlier J.J. Abrams-launched series, moreso than ‘Lost,’ which always took its serialized approach more directly. But the benefit ‘Fringe’ has always had has been that from the start, “Peter” has been inevitable, even if its form wasn’t always evident. Each time Walter could unexpectedly count on Peter, he couldn’t help but be surprised. In many ways, he probably never deserved it. Just as the audience has been asked to sympathize with him, or at least derive some humor from him, it’s never really been in question how important Walter is to everything. But this episode introduces the idea that Peter might be equally important. In what way who knows? Walter made Dunham pretty important, and that’s been something that’s been explored for some time, to the point where, two months ago, last time we saw a new episode, she discovered the truth for herself, making this discussion necessary. Everything that was comfortable taking for granted, it’s all going to change, just as this season has been promising from the start, when the person of William Bell and his conversation with Dunham was first teased.

Present Peter is never seen, nor is Broyles, nor is Astrid. It’s basically the Walter Bishop show, with cameo scenes for Dunham, and without question, Noble easily pulls it off. The man is constantly compelling, and has been a good argument no matter the material from the start, a good reason to watch ‘Fringe’ all by himself. For any number of reasons, this is an essential episode. Thanks to the very format that makes it such a gamble for some viewers as to whether or not this series is really worth committing to, it was always possible, always waiting to be seen. And if ‘Fringe’ can do this, just imagine what else it’s got up its sleeve.

It appears that we’re headed back into strictly arc-driven territory, something this season has been reluctant to do, even though last year ended on so many notes that would have suggested its inevitability. This was the “winter finale,” the last episode until April, at which point there will be eight episodes, leading to 5/20/10, which happens to be numbers Walter mentions this episode as important for reasons he can’t remember…

I don’t know, maybe ‘Lost’ spoiled me, because it’s been all arc, all the time, even when it’s been difficult to see where everything was going (I like to bring it up, but there really was a point during the first season of that show where I wondered if they still knew what they were doing), and while I’ve been making a case throughout my reviews that ‘Fringe’ works exceptionally both as an arc show and as a procedural, I’ve always preferred to think of it, hoped that it would eventually become, strictly an arc show. Now, on a show like ‘Lost,’ that’s fine. ‘Fringe’ has always been more ‘Alias’ than ‘Lost,’ where the random events of an episode have as much the chance to be relevant as the purposeful developments do. The problem is that all too often, the random events haven’t, long after the point where it was made clear that ‘Fringe’ has the potential, in so many ways, to be more ‘Lost’ than ‘Alias.’ If the creators, if not pivot absolutely everything around Walter Bishop’s past, then slowly reveal how everything in the Pattern becomes increasingly relevant, ‘Fringe’ could become a truly dizzying spectacle, ‘Lost’ on a still more grand scale, instead of limited to an island, a study of the entire world, how it works as very few understand it. I’ve become increasingly impatient because all this potential has had the increasing possibility of never truly being explored, because the ratings just aren’t there, and well, this is a Fox genre series. Maybe that’s why we’re suddenly leaping directly into some really large arc points…

Since last year, we’ve known two of those points pretty clearly: 1) there’s an alternate reality, 2) Peter is from that alternate reality. Now, the alternate reality seems to be home base not only for William Bell, Walter Bishop’s former friend and lab partner, but for the nefarious activities of those behind the Pattern. That much has been explored almost extensively, and this was certainly an episode where you couldn’t help but notice, and the season’s villain, Thomas Jerome Newton, is glimpsed and referenced throughout. But the whole Peter issue has been on the backburner for a long time, the kind of extended tension the creators did on a smaller scale at the start of the season when they made us wait to experience Olivia’s encounter with Bell, which was finally revealed in the fourth episode, “Momentum Deferred,” at which point Newton was also introduced, a far more potent if mysterious version of last season’s Mr. Jones. Now, I will confess and reiterate (as an absence of a review will continue to attest) that I haven’t seen the big Observer episode earlier in the season (“August”), which for various reasons was teased for quite a while (I think there have been more scheduling issues than the “lost” episode from last season mysteriously airing earlier this year will truly represent), so I don’t know what it did for the series arc, though I imagine it was fairly important, though not apparently as important as when Newton got his hands on Walter and extracted the bit of brain he and Bell had spent a lot of time preserving, memories of Walter’s doorway between the two realities.

Wow! Anyway, so what “Jacksonville” does is deliver on the promise of a few episodes earlier, “What Lies Below,” when Astrid stumbled on Walter’s big secret, just as Olivia does here, that Peter, as was frequently hinted last season (including, well, a gravestone) in this universe died very earlier, which led to Walter stealing the alternate reality’s version of his son, perhaps in some way instigating all of the problems they’ve been dealing with since. (To a lesser degree, there’s also been Nina Sharp on the backburner since last season, but at least as far as Massive Dynamic’s connection to Bell goes, I guess there hasn’t been a specific reason to revisit her greater role since.) Peter, of course, doesn’t know, which Walter wants to keep that way, but now that his two biggest allies not named Peter Bishop know, it seems impossible that he’ll continue to have it his way.

Speaking of Walter and his past and trying to keep everything as shiny and rosy as possible, we return to another parallel ‘Fringe’ has with ‘Alias,’ perhaps the chance ‘Fringe’ has to significantly improve on something ‘Alias’ sort of dropped the ball on. During the third season of ‘Alias,’ it was revealed that Jack Bristow basically engineered his daughter Sydney to be a spy, which is great and creepy and all, but it was never really explained (though I could always go back and rewatch the entire series, which I will do at some point anyway) how that tied in with her connection to the Ramaldi prophecy and Sloane’s obsession with solving it. Last season on ‘Fringe,’ we learned that Olivia as a little girl was involved in some of Walter and Bell’s experiments, which gave her the ability to see and significant connection to the alternate reality, something that hasn’t really been explored since. Another reason why “Jacksonville” is an incredibly significant episode is that it taps back into that territory, Olivia’s anger at being used, as a child, by Walter, this despite the real bond she has forged with him as an adult. At one point, she blatantly chastises him for doing such horrible things to children, and it’s not hard to empathize with her. ‘Fringe,’ at its best, doesn’t shy away from too many things, and that means it’s probably one of the best shows on TV to find genuine human emotions and experience of what it’s like to have them. Sitcoms will often place characters in situations where they’re forced to confront them, but it won’t matter next week. Dramas will often touch on them, but mostly with guest characters. ‘Lost’ has been a haven to explore such things, but you kind of expect it after a while, which is why I believe viewers were basically burned out after its first season. ‘Fringe,’ however, and this is the blessing of its pacing, constantly surprises its audience. That’s why it really isn’t a bad thing to sometimes let the characters just carry on as if they’re leading ordinary lives (admittedly in extraordinary circumstances).

It’s not hard to imagine that Walter isn’t done answering for the decisions of his past, which also has the remarkable effect of allowing his redemption in the present that much more potent, since he is always living with the consequences, which manifest in a variety of ways, from sheer comedic moments (like asking Peter to retrieve some…pretzels) to the increasingly frequent acknowledgments of just how difficult his years at St. Claire’s really were, both for himself and Peter, their sense of family. But sometimes, it’s easier to gloss over and try at a semblance of normalcy, and this is certainly the kind of life where that’s possible, because sometimes, alternate realities kind of force you to concentrate and figure out which building is going to disappear.

“Jacksonville” is a truly essential episode, both for the series and viewers who might be wondering why they should be watching. Where ‘Lost’ has constantly been asking its fans to wait for the big answers to reveal themselves as its characters seem to experience it the same way they do, ‘Fringe’ has been busy allowing its viewers to see how the involvement of its characters has been so crucial, and at times heartbreaking. If ‘Fringe’ were to take a ‘Lost’ approach, it might be unbearable, because at times, it seems like one tragedy after another, not the kind that needs the FBI to investigate, but one that needs Olivia Dunham, Peter Bishop, and his father Walter, specifically. That’s the true genius of the show, to know where and when things that need to be revealed can be revealed. If you’re still wondering how ‘Fringe’ is different from a ‘Twilight Zone’ or an ‘X-Files’ (which, after all, liked to tie with the emotional hook of Mulder’s sister’s abduction), it’s how intrinsically and purposefully its characters are involved in the greater scheme of things. Yes, it can sometimes be a procedural kind of show, but it’s always so much more than that.

So, we return to the way the rest of the season is going to play out. We have to wait until April 1 for the next episode (two months!), but we already know, we already have the hook that it will be another arc episode, and thanks to Walter, we know that the second season finale is going to be quite significant, for reasons that are of course mysterious, but also undeniable. The moment he spoke the numbers, I suspected they were going to be translatable to a date ‘Fringe’ is going to air on, and a quick reference with a calendar confirmed it. Then the preview brought up the fact that there will be eight episodes airing when the show returns, and the alignment places 5/20/10 as the date of the season finale. This has been a remarkable second year for a number of reasons, truly methodical for one, a worthy set of answers to the first year, certainly. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see just how significant the season finale truly will be. Maybe some viewers will come and see where these episodes lead, and we won’t have to worry about Fox letting us keep ‘Fringe’ for a good while longer…

(Strictly for the record, “Jacksonville” instigated my longest ‘Fringe’ review to date.)