Fringe — Episode 9 (Season 4): “Enemy of My Enemy”
The second cat-and-mouse Fringe episode in a row, and the second good one in a row. Coincidence?
The Plot: Fauxlivia and otherLee arrive at the warehouse they learned about at the end of last episode, and find David Robert Jones waiting for them inside. He makes a not-so-subtle threat by killing one of his own shapeshifters, and then surrenders himself to them and asks to be taken to their leader.
At Fringe HQ, Peter recognizes Jones as the man he thought he killed, and watches alternaBroyles’ interrogation of him. Peter even does a little interrogation of his own, a situation that seems to unnerve Jones, even though he doesn’t recognize Peter. Jones asks for a certain hard drive hidden by the shapeshifter Brandon, and when it does not arrive in time, kills an ER full of people. He then demands to be released or he will kill more innocents. Walternate agrees, and the team has just enough time to slip a tracker into Jones so he will be easy to follow. They track him to a crowed public plaza but it is clear he knows he is being watched. He grabs a package from a nearby trash bin containing a thermos and a stack of money. He starts handing out the money to passersby and drinks from the thermos. All the money has trackers identical to his, and the liquid in the thermos knocks out his tracker, so he is able to escape when dozens of extra subjects show up on Fringe’s trackers, but he no longer does.
Looking over the information contained on the hard drive Jones wanted, the Fringe team finds dozens of satellite geographical pictures. Peter realizes Jones is looking for Amphilicite, a rare but potentially very dangerous mineral. They determine one particular quarry is the most likely spot for the mineral so they race to beat Jones there. At first, they believe they’ve beaten him to the punch, but then they realize the satellite pictures are from our universe, not the alternate one. Jones has crossed over and is harvesting the mineral from our side. Peter and Agent Lee cross back to our universe and join the rest of the Fringe Team in trying to capture Jones. As usual, Jones is one stop ahead of the team and is able to escape back to the alternate universe with nearly a hundred pounds of the Amphilicite.
Meanwhile, Walternate’s wife Elizabeth has arrived in our universe to talk Walter into helping Peter, and ultimately, he agrees.
Walternate helms an emergency meeting between both Fringe teams as they realize they have to work together to stop Jones.
As the episode ends, Jones is communicating a secret partner about phase two of their plans, a phase that has to do with a certain unnamed “her.” The final shot of the episode reveals his partner to be Nina Sharp.
1. Bad Feng Shui
I’ve never known an Emergency Room with only one entrance. There are usually a half dozen or more. Strange and dangerous things can happen in ERs and you need lots of room for people to rush in, or out.
2. Spares, Just In Case
Are there just extra guns laying around in Fringe division vehicles?
3. Continui-what?
How many of the previous adventures have the various Fringe teams not experienced?
Nobody recognized Jones.
Walter’s comments about no sign of forgives makes me think he never received the eponymous white tulip.
4. Big Bang Dune
Mentat Astrid seemed less Mentat-like and more Sheldon like this episode.
5. What is the RDA of Amphilicite?
Has Amphilicite been mentioned in the show before? I can’t find any mention of it in my notes so I’m just wondering.
6. A Little Too Trusting
Once again, everyone is way too trusting knowing there are shapeshifters all around. Walternate is even suggesting that Fringe team is compromised, but doesn’t check if the person he’s telling is the real alternaBroyles (probably not, but I wouldn’t put it past the writers to try and pull a fast one).
Another good episode. As always, David Robert Jones makes an excellent villain. The Fringe Doomsday Clock retreats a minute to 11:52
This week’s Fringe cipher was: DEATH.A list of all previous Fringe reviews is available here.As always, Karl has more to say over at his blog.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
[...] comments Polite Dissent … on Deconstruction Review of Fring…Kevin on Deconstruction Review of Fring…mpatrick65 [...]
January 21st, 2012 at 4:16 am
The last time, when Peter and Lee crossed over to the Altaverse in the theatre, Fringe could detect the anamoly. This time, they should have been able to detect when David Robert crossed over and stationed a team there, to capture him when he returns? Or even better, inform the other universe of the transfer point…
January 21st, 2012 at 6:54 am
This was the first episode I’ve seen of Fringe since season 1, although I have been reading your reviews of all the episodes. I do have a few observations:
1. Jones mentioned something about 47 shapeshifters so far. How many shapeshifters have been encountered/killed so far, both pre- and post-Peter Crisis (haven’t heard a term describing the old timelines vs new one(s))? Assuming the guys backing him up at the quarry were more shapeshifters, would could add a few to the total.
2. When explaining the amphilicite, Peter mentioned some guy who’s name rang a vague bell.
3. Coming in cold, they seem to imply that the alternate black guy (Broyles?) was a shapeshifter or at least working with Jones. Of course, the other scripted series I’ve watched recently is 24, where you have dozens of double, triple and quadruple agents, so I might be reading into it. But when Jones was shaking the Fringe survelliance, it seems the black guy was looking right at him while acknoledging they’ve lost him.
January 21st, 2012 at 7:24 am
No distracting product placements this week, were there? (What was it last week, the Leaf?)
I’ve realized that we can’t talk about “our” universe in the show, because neither timeline is actually ours—right? The changes we’ve seen in the Fringe Standard Universe aren’t just the result of Peter’s absence.
Having missed (intentionally) a large chunk of the first season, I had no idea who this villain was. I feel like a little something more by way of flashback/explanation was needed.
I wondered if Other Astrid was meant to be seen as a different character than the Mentat Astrid we’d grown accustomed to; again, these aren’t the same characters we knew from the Other Side. However, I’m not sure people interacted with Mentat Astrid much, so maybe we hadn’t been given an opportunity for that kind of back-and-forth. Also, we were supposed to see that she was freaked out by the very idea of Peter. (Although–why?–given that she already knows there are alternate timelines.)
A script tweak I’d make: I can’t hear people saying “universe” every time they talk about the damage to their timeline. “World” seems more like the word people would use. “Universe” is too stiff. Can’t the writers or directors hear that?
January 21st, 2012 at 1:02 pm
You know, I really wish that they’d been using a different credits set for these last two episodes, set mainly on Earth-Yellow’s Earth-Red (Orange would be on-the-nose, I guess…)
January 22nd, 2012 at 1:40 am
I believe there has been a reference to that mineral before. I think it was in the first or possibly the second season: Nina Sharp was talking with Peter, and she did him some favor, and she said that all she would ask in return was that he use his connections with a mineral prospector in South America to get her the reserves of that mineral — inert and useless on its own, but she said she had a use for it. This was before the first mention of David Robert Jones.
We haven’t seen AlternaCharlie in this new timeline, have we? In the old timeline, AlternaCharlie lived with bugs in his blood — bugs that our universe’s Charlie had gotten (I thought) from his run-in with Jones.
The old Jones abducted Olivia to test her for Cortexiphan and to recruit her for the ZFT army; this Jones is working with Nina, Olivia’s foster mother, who’s been dosing Olivia with something. What do you want to bet it’s Cortexiphan?
My money is on Broyles as a shapeshifter or as a ZFT devotee.
Why didn’t they search the warehouse and capture the dormant shaleshifters when they arrested Jones?
Jasika Nicole has stated that her character, Mentat Astrid, has Asperger’s. Yet Mentat Astrid didn’t seem to mind when Peter touched her shoulder and made eye contact with her. Those aren’t universal symptoms, but still…
January 22nd, 2012 at 10:37 am
Not enough action in this one to distract from the plot holes. Given they were going to swarm the quarry in one universe, why didn’t they post people there in the other universe? Why didn’t anybody add 2 (shapeshifters) to 2 (leaks from Fringe Div) and get 4 ? Walter is supposed to be a paranoid genius in both universes, but Wallternate didn’t get it (or he’s playing a hidden game).
Note also that when the guns started blazing, they got out of the SUV’s on the side towards the enemy. Are the directors that clueless?
This show tied the season low for ratings (see TV by Numbers) and we haven’t even got to ep. 13 yet. The Fox Doomsday clock has to be getting close to 11:59:59.
Leave a Reply
Contact Me
About
Subscribe:
The Best Of...
Special Topics
Archives
Categories
Twitter
See Also
Comic Blogs
Medical/Science Blogs
Currently Reading
Arbitrarily Interesting Medical Condition
Syndrome
The Net:
Contents may have settled during shipping. Past results are no guarantee of future performance. No animals were harmed during the production of this product. Void where prohibited by law. All rights reserved. Not valid with other offers or specials. Professional driver on a closed track. Your financial institution may impose other fees. All models are over 18 years of age. Employees must wash hands before returning to work. Results not typical. Many suitcases look alike. 18% gratuity added to tables of six or more.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
© 2004-2012 Polite Dissent. Powered by WordPress