Wednesday, November 24, 2010

FRINGE: Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep? (S3E4)

"Unless you can put yourself in another man's shoes, I don't think you can really judge these situations." - Peter Bishop.

Senator Van Horn's car is hit by a truck and his body shot to death by Newton when Newton fails to steal it away, revealing that Van Horn was a shapeshifter. Walter is entrusted with the task of repairing and attempting to extract whatever data is left in the shapeshifter's body. This alarms the Alternate Olivia (Olivia from alternate universe who's currently roaming Boston as FBI agent) because Van Horn knows everything about Alternate Olivia's identity. Van Horn's data chip has to be retrieved asap at any cost if Alternate Olivia is to keep her cover safe.


This time, instead of taking the chip himself and risking his life again, Newton calls on one of his minion shapeshifters who has stayed dormant for the past five years. To carry out the task, this shapeshifter has to leave his current life and takes on another shape again. All remnants of his old life has to be discarded but it turns out that during the five years he acts as normal person, the shapeshifter develops emotional attachments for real so he decides that he'll complete his mission without shapeshifting again which is bad move, really, but I guess he can't help it. He loves his family. 

Newton ends this shapeshifter's 'shift' (lol, can't resist saying that) but en route of escaping with Van Horn's chip, Peter gives a hell of a chase so Newton has no choice but to crash his car and turns himself in, but not before he passes Van Horn's chip to Olivia, to Olivia's relief.

Once behind bars, there's nothing he can do but to perish. Olivia slips Newton a self-destructive thin film and with that, Newton is gone. Olivia's voice of ugly conscience is gone :( 
What Newton says about Olivia's true feelings and doubts scare her - that somewhere deep in Peter's mind, he knows this Alternate Olivia is not His Olivia - so Alternate Olivia makes plans to sleep with Peter to convince both Peter..and herself. I don't know how sleeping with him would be a step towards convincing either of them that they are the real them or how it would help to drive her mission forward, but then again I don't have Olivia Dunham's mind, you see. Enlighten me please.


This episode feels like a feeler to me even though it drives the plot forward...
It does reveal some things about shapeshifters though -
that they can develop sincere feelings and attachments, that their brains are located in the lower base of the spine (or what Walter calls "ass") and that their blood is made of mercury. 

My favorite part of this episode is when the shapeshifter police who has to carry out Newton's order goes into his son's room to say goodbye but his son says he's afraid of monsters, so the police who's a shapeshifter/monster but loves this son immensely, tells him:

"You know, sometimes, monsters aren't all that bad. Sometimes, if you get to spend some time with them, they can be very surprising. They can be, uh, incredibly sweet and pure, and capable of great, great love. And then, one of them might actually become your very, very best friend."

and his son answered, "But you're my best friend."

It's such a heartbreaking moment.

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