“Oh, you can’t hurt him – he’s dead.” – Walter
You see a lot of things when you live between Fringe universes: paradoxes, the odd time loop. shapeshifters, hybrid monsters, and bald men in suits. But there’s nothing quite like seeing an alternate version of yourself dead and buried. Although, I’m sure watching a man levitate, and then collapse to the ground with bone-crushing impact sure competes.
Despite the implicit “parallel” similarities between parallel universes, each side has been relatively isolated – chains of events in one universe do not necessarily happen in the other. David Robert Jones (Jared Harris) has found a way to manipulate this divergence, achieving a breakthrough neither pairs of Walter Bishop and William Bell could have imagined. When three businessmen “over here” are synchronized with their doppelgangers “over there” while their plane crashes, Walter is given an opportunity to cross over and help investigate.
Given the circumstances of this bizarre trans-universal investigation, Peter and Olivia coordinate with Walter, Lincoln, and Fauxlivia through Astrid and Alt-strid, who meet at the bridge between worlds. Once again, the coordination between the actors and the show’s editing team is nothing short of a revelation; there are both stark and subtle differences between character interactions, and it’s becoming clearer that their similarities may yet prove to be important.
Convinced that DRJ has a mole in the Department of Defense, Fauxlivia pursues evidence from Linc-two’s murder in between their investigation. She shares her concerns with a visiting Walter while he makes her hangover eggs, finally landing on their suspicion of Colonel Broyles. When the Nina “over there” confirms her hunch, they track him to the bridge between worlds where, though on assignment from Jones, turns himself over to the custody of his counterpart.
It would seem that there was very little character development for the traitorous Colonel Broyles (Lance Reddick) until this episode, but that’s not really the case. Since learning of his involvement with David Robert Jones, I assumed he was a shapeshifter, given little else to go on other than his menacing looks and the knowledge that he was working with this season’s Big Bad. It turns out, however, that everything that we needed to know about him we already knew from past seasons.
Motivated to see his son returned to health – he has been dying following his victimization by a soul-sucking serial killer – the Colonel has been accepting medication from DRJ in exchange for his obedience. If the Nina “over there” is correct in her judgement, Broyles is nothing but a pawn in Jones’s grand plan, which appears to be coming to fruition as the universes begin to bleed into each other. The endgame is in sight, but I can only hope that it’s not the end.
Some stats and info about Fringe, “The Consultant”
TV SHOW – Fringe
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 4, Episode 18
AIRED ON – April 13th, 2012
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
GENRE – Science Fiction, Drama
CREATED BY – J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci
CAST – Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, Jasika Nicole, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.