5x08: The Human Kind

[wendelah1]

I consider this episode to be the absolute nadir of the series, full of portentous dialogue, gross sentimentality, and terrible plotting. We finally get to watch Badass!Olivia out in the field doing something useful, and what does the writer have her do? Give a self-righteous lecture to someone about their belief system, for one. Walk right into a completely obvious trap, for another. At least she was allowed to get herself out of trouble.

Peter becoming an Observer was the worst plot device ever. That horrible montage of flashbacks, culminating in Peter sticking a knife in the back of his neck, was the last straw for me. If this series had not been ending in five episodes, I would have quit watching right there.

Here's an idea: why couldn't Walter, Astrid, and Olivia have tried to reason with Peter, get him to see that defeating the Observers was the only way to truly avenge the death of Etta? Why does everything on this series have to come down to pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo? That's what this country needs to hear: more anti-intellectual claptrap. Thanks, Fringe!


Air Date: 7 Dec 12
Written by: Alison Schapker
Directed by: Dennis Smith
Synopsis: Olivia brings home another piece of equipment needed to defeat the Observers, but not before walking into a trap. Peter takes the Observer tech out of his brain just in time. My God! He was already starting to lose his hair!
Most memorable quote: I can't think of a single line worth remembering from this hot mess.

Links:
Transcript
The A.V. Club
IGN
HitFix
Entertainment Weekly

Fanfiction: Let me know if you've read any, and I'll add it here.

All together now: "All you need is love, love. Love is all you need."

Comments

[sprocket]

It's my genuine desire to take S5 for what it is. But that's really hard here. "The Human Kind" should be a keystone ep, wrapping up Peter's revenge arc, and launching the viewer into All Plot All The Time (only five episodes left!) but it's a deeply flawed keystone.

What makes Peter's arc work so well is, knowing Peter, and knowing he is Walter's son, the viewers are in fact absolutely convinced that Peter is open to any number of mad possibilities. It's unfortunate that the writers feel obligated to waste screentime as Walter and Astrid rediscover what is already evident - Observer tech is not making Peter a better person - and doubly unfortunate that, once they've slapped the big honking gun on the mantlepiece, it's fired in the same episode.

Pacing isn't the fifth season's strength.

Even ignoring the ridiculous magical Negro thing that is even worse because it's so unintentional, Simone talks about faith in the universe, Olivia ends the episode talking about feeling and connection, and the link between these two concepts, the belief that emotion makes a difference, is missing. The fourth season happened! I like to pretend otherwise, but "A Short Story About Love" happened! September's ridiculous assertion Peter was loved back into existence is canon*! And it feels like the writers are flopping between pretending S4 never happened and finally embracing amberverse canon. Just... they're still missing that final step. Put in the missing link between "It's all just numbers" and "the love that we can share with her now is invulnerable to space and time, even to them.**" The union of faith and emotion is about to be really important as Walter and Olivia and Peter and Donald's collective parental emotions shape their belief they can complete the plan and make a better world for the people they love.

As much as I'd like to say the faith/belief theme dovetails Peter's descent to the Science Dark Side... nope. It doesn't cohere.

*"I believe you could not be fully erased because the people who care about you would not let you go. And you... would not let them go. I believe you call it 'love'." It's ridiculous, but it's canon. And it feels like "The Human Kind" is trying to invoke Fringe's Elementary Particle of Love without explicitly invoking that amberverse conversation.

**I really don't like that line. It makes no sense! Olivia is open to possibilities, but usually draws a bright line between the possible and the nonsensical!

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Something that's underplayed, to my dissatisfaction, is Olivia's ongoing ability to function under pressure. When a grief-stricken Peter takes off on his own, he spins out and nearly destroys himself and the Plan. When a grieving Olivia takes off on her own, she comes back with exactly what she set out to achieve, incidentally rescuing herself from some small-time bandits on the side, and on arriving with a giant magnet in a giant truck, moves with dispatch to talk her out-of-control true love off a ledge (almost literally).

Olivia Dunham: clearly the more competent spouse.

(But if you reuse bullet casings, they need to be reloaded... oh, why am I even trying.)

Interestingly, in an episode where Peter is in all-out attack mode against Windmark, there's very little of the resistance theme. Possibly because resistance is against a group or organization, and Peter's vendetta against Windmark is very, very personal.