Fringe Finally Breaks On Through To The Other Side

Here's a cool thing Netflix has done: pretended that Season 1 doesn't end with "There's More Than One Of Everything," but instead rolls right from that FUCKING CRAZY World Trade Center cliffhanger into "Unearthed." When I bitched about this last night on Twitter, I was corrected:

@TaraAriano @netflix That's the actual production order, wont affect viewing.

— Greg French (@greg_french) July 2, 2014

"Won't affect viewing"? Affected viewing enough that I stopped it after five minutes to see what the hell the deal was! Let's not fanwank Netflix. Even if "Unearthed" was supposed to have aired in Season 1, that can't possibly be the "actual production order"! No sensible person could think it was supposed to air right after "There's More Than One Of Everything"! There's some pretty relevant story arc stuff that follows the actual S1 finale in the first few episodes of S2; "Unearthed" is not part of that sequence and it's fucking bizarre to end "TMTOOE" and proceed to "Unearthed."

BUT ANYWAY. The six episodes I happened to get through this week (not including "Unearthed"; I'll watch that one after "Grey Matters," just like AMERICA did) turn out to be a pretty exceptional run. "Midnight" is kind of a yawn (maybe just euthanize your wife instead of feeding her all your spinal fluid, bro -- and, also, a good reminder for all of us NEVER to trust anyone with freakishly pale eyes!), other than confirming the William Bell/ZFT connection, but then we get Harris's fiery demise and more of a glimpse of the Cortexifan story in "The Road Not Taken," and...well, everything in "There's More Than One Of Everything." The only things I knew about Fringe coming in to the series were that (a) our universe's Peter died, so the Peter we now know was an import from another universe; and (b) that Olivia visits the other universe and figures out where she is when she realizes she's standing in the South Tower of the WTC...so now that I've gotten to both of those -- sort of; I assume Peter and everyone else will find out his deal at some point, and his and Walter's little kindnesses to each other are making me pre-sad about the reveal whenever it occurs -- everything else yet to come will be a surprise for me.

On that tip: I like the way the show is slowly sketching in Olivia's recovery from her trip to the other side, and the way her continuing trauma affects the way she investigates the monsters-of-the-week (and I couldn't be happier that her weird bowling sensei Sam Weiss is played by Kevin Corrigan). Peter's concern for her health is giving Joshua Jackson something new to play, which is probably good for him; I can imagine the first season's worth of eye-rolls at Walter got a bit boring. And speaking of boring: poor Kirk Acevedo! They finally figured out a way to use his character, but he had to know it would mean he was heading toward being killed off...twice. At least he got to show off some decent typing skills, which is more than most actors can claim.

Most Horrifying Indignity Visited Upon A Human Body Part: Not too psyched about either "cut in half by portal to parallel universe"...

...or "apparently quite painfully crystallized before exploding all over a train station."

But at least they're both fast.

Favourite Character Actors From The HITG! Pantheon: This round doesn't really have any guest stars who went on to get way more famous, other than Suits series regular Meghan Markle, of whom I am...not a fan. So I'll use this space to shout-out character-actor all-stars Clint Howard, Charles Martin Smith, and Kevin Corrigan, the last of whom REALLY needs a regular TV gig again.

Heartbreakingest Walter Moment: For Walter himself: when Olivia confronts him about her part in the Cortexifan trials and makes him cry. For me: when I see how many years I could have spent, if only I'd known, obsessing about the foxy Young John Noble!