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fringe_rewatchGrrrrr, said an entire fandom. and ARRRRGH.
Writer: David Wilcox, Matthew Pitts
Director: Ken Fink
Originally aired: October 14, 2010
Synopsis:
Thomas Newton enlists a dormant shape-shifter to deal with the consequences of a recent accident involving a high-ranking politician. Walter and the team gather evidence and move the investigation to Massive Dynamic to deal with the revelations following the accident. Bolivia continues her espionage and subversion.
Most Memorable Quote:
Links:
Episode transcript
AV Club
Polite Dissent
Pop Culture Nexus
Fanfiction:
Fic on AO3 that references this episode
Writer: David Wilcox, Matthew Pitts
Director: Ken Fink
Originally aired: October 14, 2010
Synopsis:
Thomas Newton enlists a dormant shape-shifter to deal with the consequences of a recent accident involving a high-ranking politician. Walter and the team gather evidence and move the investigation to Massive Dynamic to deal with the revelations following the accident. Bolivia continues her espionage and subversion.
Most Memorable Quote:
PETER: I've been thinking about it. Maybe she did notice, and she just made excuses for herself not to have to deal with it. Or she came up with ways to explain it to herself. Kind of like I've been doing with you.
BOLIVIA DUNHAM: With me?
PETER: Yeah. With all the little differences ever since you got back from the other side. And you did tell me that your experiences on the other side changed you, but since you got back, it's like... it's like you're a completely different person. You seem less burdened. You're more patient with Walter. Don't get me wrong, I like it. The change is good. But... it's different.
Links:
Episode transcript
AV Club
Polite Dissent
Pop Culture Nexus
Fanfiction:
Fic on AO3 that references this episode
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 01:35 pm (UTC)Peter's got game: "Hey, isn't it great when two people who like each other decide to have sex for the first time? ...but I'm going to make an awkward excuse so you have time to think about that, mmmmkay. At your leisure. BUT MY BODY IS READY."
Otherwise, I was sorry to see Newton go. I adored his snark, but his work here was sloppy on all counts. (Machine arrogance!)
But most of all, all my liking or empathy for alt!Liv evaporates until s4's timeline shift. (The fact that Newton goads her into it is even worse. Liv's a soldier, she'll do what's necessary; but this wasn't necessary.) I hate this trope. Hate it. And it occurs THREE TIMES in this episode! Peter, Patricia, "Ray's" wife. Which makes this the rape-iest Fringe episode ever.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-14 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-15 11:26 pm (UTC)John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Grrrrr, said an entire fandom. and ARRRRGH.
No, actually. Not an entire fandom.
I'm surprised no one's yet mentioned the significance of the title. It refers to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" the Philip K. Dick novel that inspired "Blade Runner," a movie about what makes humans--human. This was a key thematic thread, along with the usual Fringe focus on what people are willing to sacrifice to achieve their objectives.
According to Newton, the perfect undercover agent is machine-like, amoral, and willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of the primary mission, in other words, him. Spending some time with his head in a freezer no doubt helped him stay...unattached. He's convinced that Altlivia isn't ruthless enough to get the job done. "You're good at that," he tells her. "At continuing to try to convince yourself that you don't care. But you do care, don't you? Every night when your head hits the pillow, in the last moments before you go to sleep, your emotions betray you, and you question your ability to pull this off. Words like, integrity, self-respect - they haunt you. They form a line that you're unwilling to cross and that will lead to your undoing." Newton is perplexed, even resentful, because though he's the one who is good at his job, he's still being sacrificed for the cause. "But I suppose that's not my problem anymore."
No, Newton, it's not. We all know that spying makes for unheroic heroes. The better they are at their jobs, the less admirable they become. They give up their humanity in order to keep doing the work. Living a lie, killing ruthlessly, exploiting another person's need for love: it takes a toll on a person with integrity, no matter how important the cause. There is no better example of this to be found than another series I've become obsessed with: The Americans. Despite years of training and experience in the field, all the spies, regardless of their country of origin, are breaking down from the stress. And they have all have a support system: the FBI agent has an entire government bureaucracy at his disposal--and a family, until he destroys it with his web of lies. The Soviet spies have contacts, and weapons, an embassy--and each other, to depend on and keep them safe and alive and reasonably sane. Altlivia has no one, really, not unless you count Newton. He was devoted to the task of destroying our universe, but not so much to supporting her. And as far as we ever find out, she's had no training to speak of--she was thrust into the role of Secret Agent Dunham at the whim of Walternate. Yes, she is committing a wrongful act, especially since it's motivated as much by her need to prove herself as by duty, but that doesn't make her a less interesting or sympathetic character in my eyes. Her mistakes make her flawed. Her flaws make her real.
As to whether or not it was necessary for her to seduce Peter in order to achieve her goals, well, sure, I suppose the writers could have found another story to tell that didn't involve Altlivia having sex with Peter. But that creative decision reverberates through the rest of the season and beyond. It changes all of their relationships. For better or worse, it's the driving force of the Fringe mytharc in this season, because their sexual relationship ultimately results in the birth of a child, whose bloodtie to Peter enables Walternate's use of his weapon of mass destruction. Eliminating that element would change--everything.
That's why I don't think Altlivia's seduction of Peter fits "The Bed Trick" or "Double Standard Rape: Sci fi." No one is obligated to like this plotline or think it was a good creative choice. Frankly I'm usually the person on the other side of this argument. But it's not the same as turning rape into a joke the way the renowned Vince Gilligan does in The X-Files episode "Small Potatoes" and again at the end of "Bad Blood." What happens to Peter is not trivialized in any way. This is serious life-changing stuff--for both of them.
I'm also disturbed by this paragraph at TV Tropes.
Whatever this writer, or Fringe fandom--or media fandom in general--might desire, the extension of the definition of rape to include deception and/or fraud is by no means universally accepted in the US by legal experts in the field, let alone by the laypersons who would sit on a jury, nor is it likely to be in the foreseeable future. I'm not a lawyer so my reading has been limited to what I can pull up with Google search, but it did include articles and rebuttals (and rebuttals to the rebuttals) on the subject in the Yale Law Review. For what it's worth, I remain firmly unconvinced. YMMV.
To return to the larger themes, of the two most sympathetic and fully realized characters in the episode, one is a human woman and the other is, ironically, a shape-shifter--an entity part mechanical and part biological. I was moved by each of their scenes. Patricia Van Horn's--beginning by addressing the shape-shifter as an object and ending by apologizing to her long-dead husband for not recognizing he'd been replaced--was heart-rending. The shape-shifter responding by spitting out what turns out to references to "their" anniversary was startling. That scene is book-ended by two other equally moving scenes. The first is the conversation the shape-shifter who has been impersonating Ray Duffy has with the boy he clearly thinks of as his son.
RAY DUFFY: You know... sometimes... monsters aren't all that bad. Sometimes... if you get to spend some time with them, they can be very surprising. They can be, um, incredibly sweet and pure and capable of great, great love. And then, one of them might actually become your very, very best friend.
NATE DUFFY: But you're my best friend.
RAY DUFFY: Yeah, that's right.
The other is between Newton and Duffy.
THOMAS NEWTON: (as the agent returns home and parks in the driveway) You didn't shift.
RAY DUFFY: I didn't have to. I got it. (hands-over the memory device)
THOMAS NEWTON: Don't worry about them. I took care of it. We're clean.
RAY DUFFY: (angered) Why did you do that?
THOMAS NEWTON: I didn't. I couldn't understand your hesitation. I saw it, but I didn't understand it. I do now. It's -- it's them, isn't it?
RAY DUFFY: I got the disk. I found a way...
THOMAS NEWTON: ...and now it's time for you to move on.
RAY DUFFY: No. This is my life...
THOMAS NEWTON: ... and now you'll have another life, just like you had another one before. This is simply a way station for you. A stop along the way. It's what we do. It's what we're made for. (calm, but concerned he is losing an asset)
RAY DUFFY: No, no, no. (genuinely attached to the family of the officer he murdered) It means so much to me and I've come to mean so much to them. How can you ask me to give them up?
THOMAS NEWTON: Well, I suppose I can't. (turns away, turns back and shoots Ray in the forehead)
Altlivia and Newton, Duffy and the boy, Patricia Van Horn's tragic situation--I simply cannot reduce those moments, those characters, and their relationships, to something that feels as overly simplified to me as a "rapey" TV trope. This episode might not have been entirely successful but it was a serious, non-exploitative attempt to address important questions about what makes us human.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-16 06:32 am (UTC)I'm surprised no one's yet mentioned the significance of the title. It refers to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" the Philip K. Dick novel that inspired "Blade Runner," a movie about what makes humans--human. This was a key thematic thread, along with the usual Fringe focus on what people are willing to sacrifice to achieve their objectives.
The Fringe writers didn't throw in a PKD reference just for Walter (appropriate as it might be). Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is about humanity, about empathy and connection, and also about deceptio. Rachel Rosen sleeps with Rick Deckard as a play on his empathic response, intending to prevent the death/destruction of other androids.
Deception's a familiar theme on Fringe, and is laced through this episode: the two shapeshifters, Duffy and Van Horn, build (or take over?) relationships, connections, families in the blueverse, but Van Horn's accident reveals his lie to Patricia Van Horn, and Duffy's reactivation indirectly destroys his life with his wife and son. Over and over, Fringe tells stories where lying to the people you love has tough, sometimes tragic consequences. And then it tops off two examples of those consequences with redverse Olivia lying to Peter about their relationship. Ouch.
I think the relationship does have exploitative elements. The dialogue lays it out in the first scene: I think I just understand transactional needs. . . each party has something the other party wants. She gets security, he gets her. And later it challenges a basic quid pro quo interpretation, Olivia sleeping with Peter because it's the easiest path: Your emotions betray you . . . words like integrity, self-respect - they haunt you. Newton is not above goading her, playing on her emotions and connection back to her world to jump her where he thinks she ought to go. Redverse Olivia wants to do the right thing, to fulfill her mission and protect her world, but her definition of "right" is not a fixed point. That friction is what makes her an interesting character in these episodes, for me.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-16 06:15 pm (UTC)She's not just lying to him, and not just about their personal relationship. Her entire presence in the Blueverse is an elaborate deception, so it's not hard to imagine her thinking this is the safest and easiest way to get to Peter. But just like the two shape-shifters, Duffy and Van Horn, AltLivia begins by imitating our Olivia's emotions, but ends up falling for Peter despite herself, which I think in her eyes makes it a far worse sin. The sex was just sex when it was a means to an end, but by falling for Peter, she's cheated on Frank emotionally.
Given how deception generally plays out in Fringe, it can only go from bad to worse. And does!
I agree that their interpersonal relationship begins as exploitation, but I don't think the plot line itself is exploitative. It takes her actions seriously and shows us the consequences.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 05:12 am (UTC)I'm not sure she does - look how hard Edison pushes her before she jumps into Peter's arms.
Given how deception generally plays out in Fringe, it can only go from bad to worse. And does!
Why yes it does. :-)
I agree that their interpersonal relationship begins as exploitation, but I don't think the plot line itself is exploitative. It takes her actions seriously and shows us the consequences.
Very mixed feelings about it: the plot arc had a lot of great moments, but the "Mata Hari" aspect is a very overused trope. Using it reinforces certain expectations for character types and behavior that aren't terrifically progressive. On the other hand, as you point out, the show plays the consequences out to some interesting conclusions, and it seems to be very aware of what it's doing. The MotW stories reflect that: Duffy and van Horn here, the twin-swap in "Amber 31422", the kidnapping plot in "The Abducted".
no subject
Date: 2014-10-19 04:34 am (UTC)It seems like there's this sense that Newton goaded Liv into what she does at the end of this episode. But I'm not so sure that's the case. I think she already had those worries, and rightly so. Peter has already questioned her actions a few times and in this episode he flat out tells her he sees the differences.
Like Wendelah brought up, Liv's had no training. For all that she said she and Olivia weren't alike, she's been banking on the similarities to keep her cover. She can't learn everything from video tapes after all. Her worries about her cover don't strike me as unreasonable, especially considering how very high the stakes are. Maybe Newton's remarks did move her to act sooner, but I think she realized that Peter was going to keep analyzing her and their relationship, so she changed the nature of it.