This week, our assignment was to watch the episode “Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?” from Season Three of Fringe. (You can read the Television Without Pity Recap here, while the AV Club has their recap of the episode here. The post dedicated to the Season Three season premiere episode is here and the posts dedicated to the following episodes are here and here.)
As always, here are the ground rules: nothing that we have seen so far is considered a spoiler, anything that we have not yet seen should be considered a spoiler. Crazy nutbar speculation is *NOT* a spoiler, but confirming or denying said confirmation would be.
Here’s my idea for spoilers: please rot13 them. That’s a simple encryption that will allow the folks who want to avoid spoilers to avoid them and allow the people who want to argue them to argue them. We good? We good! Everybody who has seen the episode, see you after the cut!
Opening with a date between Fauxlivia and Peter where they’re being catty about the other people at the bar. Maribou and I, for the record, did *NOT* do this when we went out on dates. I’m trying to think if anybody I know did this on a date. It just screams “I will be this catty when I break this date down for my bffs later.” WHICH IS A WARNING SIGN. Which Peter *MAY* have caught… he did, of course, end the date by saying that he had to get home to Walter rather than asking Fauxlivia if she wanted a nightcap. Then again, maybe he just wanted to get back to Walter and they could be catty and say that Fauxlivia was like Cate Blanchett with all of the sinister drained out.
Now there is a lovely little interaction between Senator Van Horn and some of the little girls in his neighborhood where he overpays for some roadside stand lemonade and “forgets” his change. We’re all smiling despite ourselves until we realize that the Senator’s cheerfulness as he looks in the rearview means that he doesn’t look both ways as he drives through a cross street and gets t-boned. At the hospital, the medical staff is freaking out because he doesn’t have a pulse, but he’s still breathing. The senator’s wife is there and she’s freaking out because nobody will tell her anything and Broyles is freaking out because he hears gunfire. Where did the gunfire come from? Newton freaking out. During the showdown between Broyles and Newton, we see Newton take a hostage, Broyles growl something Broylesy, see Newton shoot the Senator in the face then jump down a stairwell… and we all see that the Senator is bleeding mercury.
Blue credits mean that we’re in the real universe.
So this was a *VERY* strong episode. We’ve got all kinds of identity issues.
Fauxlivia pretending to be Olivia and failing.
Peter noticing that something is going on with Olivia and then talking himself out of it.
The Senator’s wife for failing to notice that something had changed and then regretting it.
The family shapeshifter trying his hardest to meet his obligations to Newton in such a way that would allow him to get back to his obligations to his family… once his pretend family but now his, seriously, for real family.
Newton meeting his obligations by eating that little chip that caused his mercury to leak out all over the floor. Dang. He was my favorite bad guy since Cancer Man.
One of the things that I kept feeling vaguely bad about was how the shapeshifters (who weren’t Newton, anyway) forged new relationships and made the most of them to the point where they were willing to turn their backs on their old universe. The family man? He loved his wife, he loved his kid, he went out of his way to do what he needed to do to go back to them OR, at least, to keep his family safe. The Senator? He loved “his” wife and his interaction with the kids betrayed, if I’m not mistaken, genuine affection for the kids on his block. That was a pretty wide smile, even for a senator, and especially for one who figured he wasn’t being seen. He was just glad to brighten the day of those kids by overpaying for some lemonade.
Some sort of Stockholm Syndrome? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s more like the shapeshifters are warned “hey, the other universe has declared war on us!!! GO AND PROTECT ALL THAT YOU KNOW!!!” and then, once they get over here, they realize that most everybody is just a normal schlub trying to get by, drink coffee, play sudoku with a pencil rather than a pen, and watch wrestling on Monday nights. While it might be possible to feel contempt for that if you’re a Walternate-type, that’s not the norm. The normal schlub routine is… it’s cozy. Even if you’re a shapeshifter.
Even if you’re Fauxlivia.
Which means that, when you think about it, the other universe is just a bunch of schlubs themselves.
And now I’m spending as much time feeling bad for the folks in the other universe as I am worrying about the folks in ours.
All in all, a mind-opening episode.
So… what thinks did you thunk?
I love the parallel in this one between the shapeshifters and Fauxlivia. They are both doing the same thing and both can fall for the new world. Now the question is will Fauxlivia fall as they are teasing or will she buckle down and fight for the red team in the end?
I do have to wonder about this whole war thing though. I can understand why Walternate has turned it into a war for him, but why is everyone else buying it? You hop over to the other world and they are oblivious to what is goinjg on. That is obvious. Hell, Fauxlivia is in the “evil” team that has declared war on them and she has seen nothing of the sort happenning. When does the doubt creep in?
The only people who haven’t evidenced any doubt about the war on the other side despite spending a good amount of time there are Newton and Fauxlivia (and, let’s face it, Newton spent a good chunk of that time as a head in a croyogenic storage site).
The sample size of shapeshifters we have gotten to know personally tells us that Newton and Fauxlivia are the exceptions rather than the rule (and we don’t even know about Fauxlivia).
We watched “The Plateau” last week; I was relieved to find that the review’s about “Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?”, but the first sentence needs editing.
This is a stunning episode. The parallels between characters’ experiences (Peter and Patricia van Horne both being fooled by someone who isn’t what they think they are, and the questions it raises about how well they knew the person; Fauxlivia basically having to walk the same tenuous line as the shapeshifters do) are very clearly drawn but never cross the line into being annoyingly blatant.
It becomes increasing apparent that Fauxlivia is way out of her depth. Which shouldn’t be too surprising: we’ve seen nothing to indicate she’s ever had any training in infiltration, she’s simply been sent over because she’s the one who had her double show up on the other side. And so she’s panicking and just trying to stay afloat for most of the episode.
It’s amazing apparent to the viewer that she’s not Olivia, to the point where Peter seems a little thick for not picking it up. Their voices and the way they talk sound different. Olivia never wears her hair down in the way we see it in the first scene. Olivia wouldn’t give up on chasing a shapeshifter that quickly. And so on.
I like the addition of the shapeshifter who just wants to stay with his family, especially because it’s not clear, from the conversation with his son, whether the “monsters” he’s talking about are the shapeshifters, or the people from ‘our’ universe who he was told wanted to destroy his world. Or both. It’s really the same path the viewers are on; as we get to know the people from both sides, neither are monsters.
V’z qvfnccbvagrq gung guvf gurzr bs gur funcrfuvsgref’ uhznavgl vf arire sbyybjrq hc, abg rira va gur rcvfbqr jurer Crgre’f xvyyvat funcrfuvsgref naq vg’f gerngrq nf, jryy, onq (ur’f orpbzr zber ehguyrff), ohg abg erzbgryl ubj uvz tbvat ba n xvyyvat fcerr bs erny crbcyr jbhyq or gerngrq. Gung’f gur prageny ceboyrz bs guvf frnfba sbe zr – fb znal vqrnf ner oebhtug hc naq gura fvzcyl qebccrq. Bguref vapyhqr: Jnygre ercnvevat uvf oenva, gur znpuvar znxvat Crgre ehguyrff, gur vqrn gung Crgre ergnvaf srryvat sbe Snhkyvivn, naq gur pbzcyrgryl cbvagyrff Oryy-cbffrffvba cybg. Sbe n frnfba jurer gur cybg nep vf fb znwbe, n ybg bs guvatf ner oebhtug hc fvzcyl gb or yrsg unatvat.
For our disturbing question of the day: does Fauxlivia having sex with Peter qualify as rape, or come close to that line? Same question for the van-Horne shapeshifter and Patricia van Horne. In both cases it’s clearly only happening because the victim has no idea that the person they’re sleeping with is not their actual significant other. (It reminds me of this really creepy movie, which I’ve only heard of, where a woman gets amnesia and a guy takes her home and convinces her she’s really his wife. Which is, as a premise for a romance movie, really, deeply creepy.)
Fixed! (Sorry about that.)
Your rot13’ed paragraph is spot on. Jura V jnf bevtvanyyl ng guvf cbvag va gur frevrf, V unq n pbairefngvba jvgu zl Sevatr Sevraqf nobhg gur fubj naq ubj njrfbzr vg jnf gung Frnfba 3 jnf nobhg ubj rnpu bs gur Byvivnf erpbapvyr gurzfryirf gb gur bgure’f havirefr. Zl sevraqf chefrq gurve yvcf naq fnvq fbzrguvat gb gur rssrpg bs “hz, V’q fnl gung gur frnfba vf zber nobhg Gur Znpuvar”.
Naq gurl jrer evtug. Naq gung’f gbb qnatrq onq.
There is a category called “rape by deception/fraud” but it’s only recognized in a handful of states. The movie I think you’re thinking of is “Overboard”, starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.