Polite Dissent

A fairly light episode of Fringe, but an enjoyable one

The Plot:The Observer is patiently standing in front of a museum in Boston, taking notes, and spying on brunettes. After a few minutes, he finds the one he wants, grabs her, throws her in the back of a stolen car and drives off. Arriving at an out of town motel, he gags her and ties her to a chair, and then leaves.

With the Observer involved, the Fringe team is called in. The kidnap victim is identified as Christine Hollis, and seems to be an entirely normal young woman. They review the surveillance camera footage and realize that this is a different Observer than the one they first met. It turns out that the Observer accidentally left his notebook behind, so it’s turned over to the team; however, they are unable to decipher the code/language in the book. Astrid identifies over 1200 different symbols, without any repeats. Looking online, she discovers that one of the researchers at Massive Dynamics is also interested in the code. He has not been able to solve it either, but he has documented evidence of Observers at important historical events including the Boston Massacre, the beheading of Marie Antoinette, and the shooting of Archduke Ferdinand. Peter finds a drop of what appears to be blood in the Observer’s journal. Walter notes its orange cast and wonders if the Observer might not have hemophilia.

At a restaurant across town, a group of three Observers are meeting to discuss the actions of the rogue Observer, whom they call “August”. They mention a plane flight and imply that Christine is supposed to be dead, so they send an assassin after her.

August returns to the hotel room, unties Christine, and shows her the television news, which reports that the flight she had booked to Rome crashed en route with no survivors.

The labs tests come back and the drop in the journal wasn’t blood, but hot pepper sauce — and sauce from a particular hot pepper: the King Cobra Chili. Astrid is able to find the address of the individual who imported some last year, so Olivia and Peter head over to check it out. As luck would have it, the Observers’ assassin is there at the same time. There are some fisticuffs and Peter sustains a small wound, but the assassin escapes.

August meets with the other Observers. They tell him that Christine must be killed to set things right. This is not what he wants to hear. He manages to set up a meeting with Walter, asking for his help. All Walter can tell him is that he must somehow make Christine important to the Observers, so they won’t kill her.

August returns to the hotel room and unties Christine. He tells her that she must do exactly as he says. A short time later, the assassin appears at the hotel and in the ensuing battle, August is shot and critically wounded. Olivia and Peter arrive, and August gives his gun to Peter. Together, Peter and Olivia are able to kill the assassin. They find Christine and return her home.

The first Observer picks up August and drives him away from the hotel. As August lies dying in the back, he tells the other Observer that he had developed “feelings” for Christine, even loved her — and that is why he saved her. The first Observer tells August that she is safe now because she is responsible for the death of an Observer, and that makes her important.

Overall, the science — what little there was of it — was passable this episode, so I just have a few nit-picks an observations:

1. Hot, Hot, Hot
The King Cobra Chile is the hottest chile known to man, scoring 850,000 to 1,000,000 Scoville units. It is also known as the “ghost chile”, which should be familiar to you if you watch Man v. Food.

2. 15% Tip
Why would it be a surprise that the tip about August was called in from the same hotel? Would it really be a shock that one of the other guests, or an employee, saw him and phoned it in?

3. Color of Love
This is the first I’ve ever heard of hemophiliacs having orange blood, and I don’t buy it. Hemophilia affects the clotting of the blood, not the hemoglobin (which is what gives blood its red color), so why would the blood be a different color?

4. You Go That Way, I’ll Go This Way
I would not want to be Olivia’s insurance agent, and I hate for her to be my backup. Tonight she: 1) was easily distracted by the assassin, 2) nearly shot Peter, and 3) only avoided being shot by the assassin due to dumb luck and Peter.

A much better episode this week. The show does much better when they stick with the Pattern. There is a one-minute improvement on the Doomsday Clock.

Tags: television fringe observer hemophilia scoville