Fringe – Abductions, double agents and giant cold cells

(Season 1, Episode 11 – “Bound”)

You know how we’ve been talking about how much more likable Olivia Dunham has become over the last few episodes? Well tonight, she upped the stakes and proved herself a real badass in the process. It won’t give away anything to come right out and say right here that our girl kicked some major ass, taking down dudes twice her size. And she even seems to have learned something from tracking the Pattern this long. She was smart enough to hide something so that it wouldn’t disappear as quickly as everything else seems to once the team gets too close.

Tonight was about auditing the Fringe Division, so why not bring in some guy that Olivia got convicted on sexual assault charges to be in charge of that? Makes perfect sense. At least it adds tension. Remember how Mulder was always doubted and seen as crazy on The X-Files? Is that the direction we’re going in with Agent Dunham? It seems a harder sell considering that she works in a division of the government that specializes in these bizarre things. But then again, I could see the government dumping millions of dollars into a division that they don’t even think is necessary, or necessarily believe in.

Perhaps it’s the special deal Fringe has, whereby they offer limited commercial interruptions, charging higher rates to advertisers, but it was nearly twenty minutes before we got to the intro sequence; I didn’t even notice all that time flying by. This was a very well put together episode.

Wasn’t it creepy seeing Mitchel Loeb tell Olivia how he was going to take over the investigation into her abduction considering he was the one who was jabbing needles into her? With Loeb on the team and Harris actively pushing Dunham away from investigating her abduction, it makes me a bit suspicious of Harris as well. Is he just someone with a personal agenda against Dunham or is he too involved in The Pattern? They kept it ambiguous enough for now that it could go either way.

Fringe Observations

• The voiceover into the second “chapter” was pretty lame.
  Broyles: “Agent Dunham, I know you’ve already had quite a day, but there’s been an event that requires our attention.”
  Dunham: “Okay. Where?” Maybe it’s just me, but it sounded really dorky the way she said “Okay.”
• Is there ever a college teacher on one of these shows that isn’t sleeping with one of his or her students?
• Helpful tip: Don’t wear the same shoes for your abducting and for going to work if you’ll be networking with the same colleagues/victims.
• What does Peter do other than hang out at the lab babysitting Walter all day? That must be pretty damned boring. Okay, well, considering Walter gives LSD to slugs and examines cold cells the size of Chihuahuas.

It’s nice that the Loebs have the whole family working together toward the same common goal. It made for a very exciting sequence in the Loeb household. Poor Olivia; she had no trouble taking out all those burly men when she was abducted, but Samantha Loeb turned out to be quite a challenge indeed. And in the end she even got to clock Loeb himself. I’m sure that was very cathartic for her.

Then, in the confession chamber, Loeb said a lot of cryptic things about how Olivia didn’t know who the two sides were and how she was abducted so she could be saved. Yay, things got even more complicated for the show. Who are the two sides and is Fringe Division even actively on either one of them? Perhaps there’s something brewing that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of.

Clacked by Jason Hughes
on Jan 21, 2009 @ 15:30 EST5EDT