Fringe – Recap & Review – Olivia

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Fringe
Olivia

Original Air Date: Sep 23, 2010

Rachel – Sr. Managing Editor
rachel@thetwocentscorp.com

If the “Previously on Fringe” didn’t make your brain explode, then you are a better person than I. Seriously. This show makes my head hurt (but in the best possible way). We get the red credits, so this much I know: the Season 3 premiere will take place Over There.

The show opens on a Terminator 2-esque counseling session. Olivia is asked again and again to explain her side of the story to Dr. Anderson (X-File alum Gabrielle Rose). How could she be from an alternate universe if nothing like that exists? It all science fiction, really. And her partners Charlie and Lincoln? Surely, she remembers them? What about her mother? Or her Olympic gold medal in marksmanship? Does she remember any of those? Um, no.

Watching the whole session in a very Big Brother sort of way is Walternate. Apparently, “the treatments” being performed by the alternate MD Tech Guy (what’s his name?) are not working. Another dose could kill her (of course) but Walternate orders it anyway. Part of the treatment (are they putting Fauxlivia blood cells into her?) is administered but a fake case of anaphylactic shock and a syringe to the throat later, Olivia escapes into the night (and Hudson Bay) with nothing but a gun and a hospital gown.

Enter Henry, cabbie extraordinaire. He buys her clothes and takes her to the Opera House. Sure she has a gun pointed at him the whole time, but he’s really cool. When the Opera House gets encased in amber (something that they do Over There to seal off a portal), he takes her to Massive Dynamic. Maybe an alternate Nina is there and can help Olivia… nope. The building doesn’t even exist in this reality. It’s the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Eldridge Cleaver Memorial Park (WE Have a Dream: nice touch). Olivia seems stuck in this world of dirigibles and old JFKs. That is until she remembers the address of a Safe House in Tarrytown.

Meanwhile, Other Broyles heads up the team to find Olivia. It seems that no one is aware of the switch and thinks she is Fauxlivia with a bad case of PTSD. Charlie and a pretty badly burned Lincoln are determined to bring their friend home and help her through this crisis. They track Olivia via a taxi low jack system to a gas station in Chelsea. Olivia gets away by shooting a gas gauge from 200 feet, blowing up the tank but not hurting Charlie. Wow, what a shot! Something only an Olympian could make. Hmm…

So Henry drops Olivia off at the Safe House. They part ways on good terms; he offers to help her more, but she sends him home to his family. He leaves her with some sage advice: Sometimes, you’ve just got to believe what you can’t see.

Olivia breaks into the house, only to find that it is the childhood home of Fauxlivia. Then, with what I can only imagine being a total shock to Olivia’s system, her mother walks in. Her mother who died when Olivia was 14. The emotions, the adrenaline, the situation triggers something in Olivia. She remembers the house, she remembers her boyfriend Frank, she remembers being Fauxlivia.So Olivia silently slips into life Over There. She thinks she is Fauxlivia… “the treatments” worked, transferring the memories into her subconscious. Now she is an unwitting soldier in the battle against her world.

It should be noted that Henry didn’t leave. He stayed to watch what happened at the Safe House… and hes none to happy with the outcome.

Cut to OUR Washington DC where Peter is being debriefed of his experiences Over There. All seems well: he saved the world and he got the girl. Too bad it’s the wrong girl.

What do YOU think? Anyone see The Observer? How in the world is Olivia going to get home now? Give us your Two Cents in the comment section below!