Fringe 1.04 "The Arrival"

FRINGE EPISODE 1.04 "THE ARRIVAL"

The Gist:

Bald guy in suit walks into bar, east a meat sandwich, watches construction site across the way blow up. The result? A strange pod like structure about three feet tall left at the site, that has the Fringe team stumped. Along the way our ominous bald man pops up over and over, and we discover that he's been popping up in pictures of similar accident sites for years. Also in this episode, an ominous guy in a trenchoat with some sort of space-laser, who wants to get his hands on the pod thingy. We also discover that a simliar object was discovered in the 1980's, but it disappeared 48 hours later.

The Fringey Science

Subterranean bombs my friends, that's what this episode is about. Basically, explosives that are capable of traveling through the crust of the earth and popping up at any given location to blow the crap out of things. It also seems capable of giving off vibrations that enable to the object to be tracked. Seems far fetched, until you start thinking about all the wacky ways our Government cooks up to kill people.

Also, in this episode we continue to get strong themes of mental telepathy spread throughout. Each week now there has been at least a mention of reading someone's thoughts, as well as minds being "connected" in some way.

The Mythos

- After threatening to leave altogether, Peter spends the episode fighting with his father, until the emotional moments at the end of the show eventually have them mending fences, and agreeing to stay on. Dunham gives Peter his credentials, meaning he is officially a paid consultant for Homeland Security.

- Strong suggestions that good Dr. and his son have a strong mental bond, even able to read each other's thoughts on some level.

- I got strong vibes in this episode that this series will ultimately have something to do with aliens. The bald man? Decidedly alien. Weird space laser guy? Definitely out of place on earth.

- When Peter was a child, his family got in a car accident on Thanksgiving morning. It is (presumably) how his mother died. While in the freezing water they had crashed into, it is revealed at the end of the episode that the bald man from the diner had actually rescued both of them. This is only after Peter meets the bald man in the woods, and the man is able to read his thoughts before he's able to speak them.

- At the very end of the episode, Dunham's supposedly dead partner shows up again, fully alive in her apartment. The show ends on her gasp.

MY THOUGHTS

I was very enthused by this week's Fringe. They ditched the overly formulaic plots from the past two weeks and instead gave us a much more intriguing storyline. I highly enjoyed the way they mixed it up. The bald guy was honestly kind of stupid, although I enjoyed what his character actually means to the show (ie, a bit more meat to the mythos).

I was encouraged by the slight hints this week that the show will at some point contain aliens. It's been so over the top at this point, I would almost be disappointed if there weren't some little green men thrown in there at some point. This week's episode also gave me strong "X-Files" vibes, something which I've mentioned often will probably be important to this show's ultimate survival.

So, thoughts? I wasn't feeling good about "Fringe" going in to this week's show, but there was a nice energy and manicness about last night's episode that has me reinvested in the whole thing. Will next week continue this trend? Guess we'll just have to wait and find out.