Serve Dirty, With Two Olives

This series on Fringe is my first Marathon Diary and now I know what it feels like when you praise an attribute of the show only for that attribute to dry up and blow away, making you look the fool. I did ask you all not to tell me if Peter and Olivia eventually got together romantically, and you didn't -- and for that I thank you -- but now I know all of you who already watched these episodes in 2010-11 read that line and chuckled at my naïveté. Thanks a lot, Fringe, I'm supposed to be GOOD at TV.

So, yes, the Season 2 finale (which is where I left off last time) does feature Olivia telling Peter that he has to come back to Universe A because she belongs there with him, and kissing, and yeah, I guess I tried to erase the memory of the time even earlier in that season when they almost kissed. But before embarking on Season 3, I guess I thought they could still walk back from that, but no: the ongoing X-Filesification apparently required our paranormal investigators to get hot pants for each other. And if one of them ended up in another universe in her attempt to rescue the other from a hellscape where Broadway's hit musical is about DOGS of all damn things (see what they did there?), then as far as he's concerned someone who's genetically identical to her and also pretending to be her for mole/sabotage purposes will be fine.

The worst thing about the Olivia/Peter/Fauxlivia love triangle isn't how expected it is (though it is verrrrrrrrry expected), but that it is gumming up the fun twist of Season 3: two shows under one roof! The Olivias didn't have to trade universes for there to be lots of interesting material in Universe B, which is where Universe A would be headed in terms of physical/environmental instability if not for the work of "our" Fringe Division. If we were just watching Olivia B going through her daily life and cases like Olivia A is pretending to do while pining for Peter, it still would have been an interesting show. How has it changed Olivia B to have grown up with a mom but not a sister? What more is there to know about Lincoln, and about Charlie Francis B? What kinds of crazy shit does Olivia B's epidemiologist boyfriend get to study in a universe where CRAZY SHIT IS HAPPENING ALL THE TIME?

I'm only halfway through the season so I guess there's still time for some of that to happen now that Olivia and Fauxlivia have switched back, although I'm not that excited about a "MY BABY!!!!!!1!!" plotline. (Can this baby be plugged into the First People's doomsday machine instead of Peter? If so, throw the baby away, problem solved, do I have to do everything.) Baby aside, though, I'm much more interested in Olivia B at this point in the season than I was when she was being Fauxlivia. I'm sure it was fun for Anna Torv to get to do things that let her do more than look sad or guarded or whatever, but her mole-y activities weren't really that NEW for the show except for the fact that it was an Anna Torv character doing them; shapeshifters have been fucking shit up in Universe A for at least a couple of seasons now, so the only difference was that she had better access and started to fall for Peter -- as who wouldn't? Joshua Jackson is very lovable; Peter at his whiniest can't negate that.

Anyway, now we're at the phase of the TV love triangle where there isn't really any impediment for the two people you're supposed to want to get together to get together, except for stupid hurt feelings on one side or the other and also the fact that the third person is surprise-pregnant, not that the other two know it yet. I mean, I thought Torv did a nice job with her breakdown about Fauxlivia and the destruction she wrought: "She ruined everything!" is a simple line, but a very affecting way to end that speech. But like, who cares if Peter still has feelings for her, she's LITERALLY IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE. Of course I know that people cross between the two all the time, but it's not quite as easy as getting on a bus, so Olivia should either trust that Peter ALSO likes her and eventually will like only her since THIS OTHER LADY'S NOT REALLY A VIABLE OPTION, or else quit it with the wounded-kitty routine and start doing it with Broyles. The man's divorced and he's cut from marble. What are you, stupid?

Most Horrifying Indignity Visited Upon A Human Body Part: While I'm not thrilled with what happens to Universe B's Colonel Broyles...

...at least that was probably fast, unlike being used as an unwitting human host for the gestation of beetles that then eat your way out of your guts.

Favourite Character Actor From The HITG! Pantheon: Tough call for a run of episodes that features Kevin "Marshall" Weisman, Russell "Mr. Wrench" Harvard, and Phyllis "The Child Molester's Mother From Little Children, Also A Great Salty Law & Order Nurse" Somerville, but I have to give this honour to the great Andre "Bubbles" Royo as Universe B's cab driver/guardian angel Henry Higgins.

Heartbreakingest Walter Moment: It's pretty rough when Walter discovers that Peter's the one who's been exterminating shapeshifters, and yet that didn't hurt my heart as much as the moment when Walter's reunited with Cortexifan study subject Simon Phillips, who experienced the drug side effect of being able to read minds. First of all, poor Walter is discovered on Simon's property when he's just finished peeing, like, leave him alone, he is an OLD MAN. Anyway, Walter's face lights up at the sight of Simon, but he doesn't even have to verbalize what he's thinking, because Simon knows, and spits, "No, I wouldn't call it 'wonderful' at all."

Oh, Walter! If your shady drug trials had given me the power to read minds, I wouldn't be such a crybaby about it and I would always think it was wonderful to see you.