Thursday, October 7, 2010

Review: Fringe 3.03 "The Plateau"

Patterns are consistent and predictable behaviors. They can be found in math as in human beings, and are based primarily on what can be known about the real world. But what happens when you break the pattern?

This week's Fringe, "The Plateau" attempts to answer that question on multiple levels. In one sense, the episode is about our Antagonist of the Week, Milo, who's been jacked up with so many intelligence-enhancing drugs that he can predict the patterns of human beings, enabling him to commit multiple murders simply by setting off a chain reaction using ballpoint pens.

Sounds like a Herculean task, taking him down. But nobody counted on Olivia -- and that's our Olivia, though she's having a hard time remembering that. With Olivia's story, the show also makes a meta-fictional appeal to the fans of the show. Remember "The Pattern"? It's OK if you don't; the phrase hasn't been used in connection to Fringe Division cases since at least late season one or early season two. Instead, we have alternate universes, which have shattered the pattern of television episodes. On Fringe, the "myth-alone" episode prevails, and it is presenting a fascinating challenge to the hybrid procedural/mythological television shows in the landscape. Our Olivia's memories are bleeding through, even guiding Fauxlivia's actions, to the point that she does not recognize a sign indicating lack of oxygen in a given construction site and instead plows ahead to tackle Milo -- an action that is outside Fauxlivia's normal patterns, and is ultimately Milo's downfall.

The other major theme of the episode is perception. How does Fringe Division perceive Olivia? How does Olivia perceive herself? Everyone's feeling a kind of cognitive dissonance here in Red Universe. Today, that dissonance saved Olivia's life. In two weeks? It could be her undoing. It's no accident that submerging Olivia in water was brought up again -- the show reaches back into its past (the pilot episode is likely the reference here, and it's definitely no accident that the word "pattern" was used specifically) to generate a new future, one that is outside the pattern of regular television, even the previous pattern that Fringe developed over the course of its first season. It also makes Broyles uncomfortable -- outside of the pattern means outside of control, and he doesn't want to risk losing another agent.

And that makes for one hell of an hour of entertainment. I need no further evidence of the show's alternating between universes -- this works on a level far beyond what I previously thought the show was capable of. The impossible truly has become real. But it's all part of The Pattern, now, isn't it?

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