Review: Fringe 3.02 "The Box"

Fringe's first Blue Universe episode of the season hits the ground running and never stops.

I think I speak for a lot of Fringe fans when I say that the procedural episodes of Fringe's earlier seasons were not always great. Especially after "There's More Than One of Everything", it was difficult to shift back into the mode of X-Files-esque case files when there's a freaking alternate universe with Leonard Nimoy waiting to be discovered. In response, the show's second season ran a string of episodes that started with "Peter" and climaxed in "Over There", essentially tossing procedural stories to the wind in favor of the dark and twisted tales of family and identity that the mythology of the show could provide.

This season is now proving why fusing these two elements works. The box, as referenced by the title of the episode, is on one level just an ultrasonic device that ruptures the inner ear, causes nosebleeds, and sometimes makes peoples' heads explode. (Shocking, that.) But as Peter discovers when he is disarming the device, this box is also a piece of the Red Universe's Doomsday device -- whose central component is Peter. Meanwhile, Peter and Walter are still working out their issues (which are admittedly somewhat odd -- Walter is technically father to a Peter, but not this particular Peter; I think Child Services's heads would also explode trying to sort this one out) and "Fauxlivia", as fans and critics alike have termed her, is working from the inside in order to fight a cross-universe Cold War of sorts, which should lead to all sorts of intriguing new takes on old sci-fi classics in future episodes. ("You don't have to remind me whose side I'm on," she quips to Newton at one point. Is Fringe competing with Nikita for most badass female spies in the same time slot?)

Indeed, Fauxlivia's earnest and upbeat demeanor (compared to Olivia's cold, rational facial expressions as she examines a crime scene) adds a refreshing new dynamic to the old team while also revealing the flaws in her deception. Olivia also doesn't like music, or at least talking about it, and (the bit I found most intriguing) Fauxlivia doesn't have Olivia's photographic memory. But the hanging question: will she be found out, or will she have identity crises similar to the ones Olivia is having on the other side?

Tonight's show was delightfully filled with meta-fictional lines as well. Bell's last message to Walter? "Don't be afraid to cross the line." Walter's favorite quote of Bell's? "Only those who take the risk of going too far know exactly how far to go." And Fauxlivia's helpful advice for Peter about Walter's confession is that he "can't expect it to go back to the way it was overnight." As the show settles into its new "myth-alone" storytelling, it also betrays the continuing Socratic method of morality and ethics embedded in the show's science. Was moving away from traditional procedural stories the right thing to do? Is there a chance that both universes can live in harmony? And what, pray tell, is "real" when two universes each claim to be just that?

We have engaged maximum storytelling potential. Run, Fringe, run!