Fringe, S5 Ep 7 – Five-Twenty-Ten

HOLY FREAKING-!!!  Okay, deep breaths.  I haven’t had this kind of a reaction to a Fringe episode since the season three finale.  And my response is, once again, “Peter! NOOOO!!!!!!” except this time for an entirely different reason.  GAH.

I mean, Josh Jackson is lovely enough to stop traffic, anyway, but Peter’s really freaking me out this week.

Knowing what we know now, the beginning scene takes on a new, even more disturbing feel than it had just when we knew it was Peter using his new Observer abilities: he’s using them to manipulate the Observer named Mueller’s timeline, just by knowing the patterns of Mueller’s daily life, watching him, and stepping into traffic at a certain moment to throw things off.  And now that I’m not watching, I’m also reminded of the season three episode “The Plateau.”  I don’t think Peter’s story will go the same Flowers For Algernon route as Milo, the main character from that episode, but yeesh, that doesn’t detract at all from how disturbing this is.

So, the other important part of this episode is that we get to see Nina Sharp again!  I’m very pleased that she’s back, and Blair Brown looks fantastic with older Nina’s silver hair.  Also, the continuity of the Nina-Bell-Walter dynamic, fascinating as always, is great.  I’ve seen some complaints about the retreading of this arc where Walter worries about losing his humanity, but I don’t agree.  If it were only that, without the heavy but poignant parallels with Peter’s arc, it might be irritating.  Then again, John Noble would probably still make it compelling.  My heart hurt when Walter told Nina that Bell never loved her, and Nina’s reaction was perfect (as was Blair Brown’s acting).  One quibble with this part of the story?  Walter insists that it’s his love for Peter (and Peter’s for him) that will save him – and doesn’t mention Olivia or Astrid?  Come on, now.

I didn’t want to believe this was coming!

Kudos for the gross-out, face-melting callback to the very first episode of the show.  I was not expecting it at all.  Okay, but that leads right to Peter.  OMG Peter.  Josh Jackson’s slow transition from being a little off, with a few quite noticeable Observer-y quirks, to the end complete with the head tilts, expressionless eyes, and bizarre intonation patterns was downright chilling – not to mention fantastic acting.  After he went and spoke simultaneously with Olivia, I should have seen the very end coming.  Instead, I actually screamed when he pulled away the tuft of his hair.  And poor Olivia backed out of the room that contained him.

This is not good, folks.  And it’s excellent TV!  Too bad we have three more weeks until we see what happens next.