Contains mild Spoilers!

2021/02/11

Note: From this date on regarding the blogs, what I will write about seasons or complete series, will be shorter, more compact. It will contain some small spoilers perhaps but not so that it will ruin your viewing pleasure. It will be an overview of the season(s) in question without giving away too much detail. Sorry it took me awhile to get there…it is a process, I guess.

In season 4, episode 19 Letters of Transit we already saw a glimpse of what season 5 would look like. The Observers, whom you see over the course of 4 seasons often in the background in episodes even though they didn’t really were a part of that particular story. Of course, we more and more got to know more of them as the series progresses. The Observers came from a possible future, their own world is damaged beyond repair and unsustainable. What we didn’t expect throughout the first 4 seasons till episode 4.19, is that they become hostile toward the humans in our time. They wanted a totalitarian power and they assumed that in 2015.

From what I gather from Rotten Tomatoes is that the fifth season hasn’t been as well received as the other seasons. I have to say I am not one of them, I really appreciate the fifth season, it was different, but I found it to be very interesting and exciting. The Observers as bad guys, perhaps you wouldn’t expect that, and because they do not have any emotions, you could perhaps think these are boring adversaries, but that definitely not the case. Especially the leader of the Observers on earth, captain Windmark is one hell of a creepy guy. The way he presents himself, the emotionless leader (not so emotionless we learn in the final episode), who can read most people’s minds so knows immediately if the one being interrogated is lying. He is relentless and has a lot of power.

In 2036, 21 years after the Observers assumed control over our planet, our heroes are in amber, self-chosen because Walter, with the help of observer September, devised a plan to get rid of the ruling Observers. September was a kind of rebel in a sense, a resistance fighter among the Observers. Etta, Peter and Olivia’s daughter is working in Fringe Division but secretly of course she is working for the resistance. We see in flashbacks Peter and Olivia loose Etta in 2015 mainly Peter couldn’t cope with her loss and kept searching for her. Olivia went to New-York to try and save our world, but Peter could not give up his search for his daughter. Etta is the one who frees her mother and her father from the amber to fight against the Observers. I have to say those are very sweet and emotional scenes where Etta re-connects with her mother and father after all these years.

To avoid being read about his plan to get rid of the Observers, He and September worked on the plan and after they completed each component the information was scrambled in Walter's mind, a precaution against being read. He told his plan on several VHS tapes. This so that if the resistance would get captured, they did not know the whole plan. Via tunnels the team can resume their work from the university lab. This again is mostly their home base. The lab has partially been ambered, on purpose by Walter. Which means they must carefully un-amber that part of the lab to uncover the VHS tapes.

I have to say I found Etta, short for Henrietta, a very nice addition to the team, brought some change in the dynamic and it also was nice to see that family thing happening between those 4 characters and of course Astrid belongs to that same family. I thought this season she finally got a little bit more to do, she’s been underused too much in the first four seasons if you ask me.

Brings me back to the beginning of this blog, I really enjoy this season, more so than season 4 and season 1, although these both are good seasons also. This season it is literally more futuristic and this appeals to me more perhaps. Of course, it is not a future I would like to live in. The reason perhaps why this works in season 5 is because it’s a short season, 13 episodes instead of 22 or more, which means normally there is not room for a filler episode, it is a 13-part storyline. Fringe has a nice ending, rather would have had a few minutes more after the time was reset, but you know they have succeeded in their plan and presumably all has been set right. Nice touch was the envelop Peter took from the mailbox, one was from W. Bishop with a clear message and satisfying message.

What are my favorite episodes? Well, that’s very hard because as I just said it’s a 13-part story and there are no filler episodes, so it’s blurs quite easy into one big episode. I will try though:

• Episode 1, Transilience Thought Unifier – I thought it was a very good season opening. Season 4 episode already established the setting, but I thought it was very well executed. Etta searching for her family because she knows they had ambered themselves intentionally. Also, a fun storyline of Markham, played by Clark Middleton, who died October last year. He was the man who owned the bookstore where Peter came to if he needed info. When one time he brought Olivia with him, he was in awe with her. This has been nicely touched upon in this episode.
• Episode 4, The Bullet That Saved the World – Old Fringe team sees an old friend back for the first time this season and there will also be a terrible loss.
• Episode 7, Five-Twenty-Ten – Walter is changing back to his old self, to the scientist he was from before. Walter begs Nina to help him. Peter now has observer tech inside himself and is beginning to change more and more. Olivia notices changes in him.
• Episode 10, Anomaly XB-6783746 – Nina is in trouble, she just left her office when Windmark and other observers come to question her. The search for victory over the Observers has led the Fringe team, so what seems to be a child Observer. He should be able to help them find Donald…
• Episodes 11-13 – these are the final episodes, sort of blend in one another even more as the rest of the season.

Final word: Fringe is a series which has a real big rewatch factor! Because it’s so complex, interesting, so many things happen over the course of 5 seasons. This is one of the best TV shows in the last 20 years of you ask me. So take out the Blu-rays, the DVD’s or if you don’t have it on physical media, see if you can catch it streaming anywhere, it really is an amazing show!

Screencaps taken from: kissthemgoodbye.net/Fringe