‘Fringe’ Season 4 Episode 7 Review: Wallflower

To remind you : Peter is a stranger. prisoner and if you compare his treatment to how Olivia was treated in season 3, Olivia was abused and threatend with execution, cut to pieces etc. Peter gets a house, allowance and respect.

I loved this episode because of the reference to Olivia. There would never be a nice Olivia/Nina bond, that was clear from the start, as Nina does not have a conscience. Taking care of Olivia was just about using/abusing her.
I love this Olivia as she is more direct is questioning Nina;s motives concerning the boy, he would have been better of dead, Olivia as well?
Anna Torv once again amazing, such a difficult part to play, but you could feel her pain and the way she felt for Lincoln, U gene.

How come no one ever asks why the showrunners think it is normal to use and abuse and damage children , most  notably Olivia, with the exception of Peter.
Peter is treated with gloves, everyone cares and worries about him.
Olivia is being abuse, used and betrayed, and who cares about her?
And the stepfather is being set up as the bad guy, while I think that Walter and all the other Massive Dynamic scientists with Nina are far more evil, they deliberately use, abuse children, icecold as if they were rats or testtubes, but there is never any judgement about that.
Olivia in S1 andS2 had to small scenes to confront Walter, he starts crying and everyone goes Poor Walter and Olivia is the bad one.
Question to the showrunners: why is only Peter a child woth caring and saving, and why is Olivia (and the rest) no more then disposable garbage. Is it once abused always abused?
Oh and if this Olivia or the Olivia from the other timeline turns out to be anything else then the Olivia we love, you will loose your viewers.

Personally I love Lincoln and I like Olivia and Lincoln….not sure why you think most fans won’t like them together. Peter doesn’t care, and Lincoln and Olivia have this adorable little chemistry. I think it’s also been nice to see how quickly she opened up to Lincoln. Peter it seems is getting sidetracked….but there isn’t a lot to do with him right now. I’m not sure where the writers are headed with this. I initially thought it would be about trying to bring back the memories of him into the current timeline but Peter is so adamant that this isn’t his timeline, and that it’s not his Olivia so are we to assume he’ll somehow figure it out and go back to his timeline? Where will that timeline be? Who will they be? What will happen to the versions of Olivia, Walter, Astrid, and Lincoln that we see now? Not sure if they have a plan or if they are just waiting to see where things go, but it does end up sucking for Peter’s storyline right now. Also, I can’t believe Nina…EVIL!

No, in the previous timeline Olivia didn’t know Nina at all until the Pilot.  I have a sneaking suspicion though that Nina knew Olivia.  Besides the line she said in the pilot that I already mentioned, I remember Nina was very quick to offer Olivia a job at Massive Dynamic right after she first joined Fringe Division.  Anyway, we never found out what happened to Olivia after her mother died.  She either went into foster care or was taken in by a relative would be my guess.  I always thought it was interesting that they never told us.

I haven’t seen Lost yet so I can’t comment on that.  But I will say that this show has always been about the importance of choices.  The choice of Walter to take Peter from the other universe would culminate in nearly destroying both worlds.  The choice of Peter getting into that machine to destroy the other side (to protect ours) would culminate not only in our side being destroyed as well but Walternate murdering Olivia in revenge.  And I think this season is not only about the consequences of Peter bridging both worlds together which consequently also erased him from the timeline but how much one person’s actions or influence can shape another, for example Nina and Olivia or Peter and Olivia and of course Peter and Walter.  I think we will either return to the original timeline or that this timeline will somehow merge with the original one but either way I’m just enjoying the ride.  I do know what you mean though.  This show has so many twists and turns that it’s hard to keep up.  And yet I find it so compelling.

It was definitely cortexiphan they were dosing her with.  Well Walter said in “Subject 9″ that he and Bell gave the children lower doses of cortexiphan in this timeline and that “none of the children’s abilities lasted more than 24 hours after treatment”.  So I think she has been giving it to her since to activate her abilities.  That would definitely explain why Nina took her in as a child.  It would not only give her complete access to Olivia but Olivia’s guard would be down because wouldn’t suspect anything because she trusts her foster mother.   Also at the beginning of this episode when Olivia is getting her medication at the pharmacy she makes the comment that she was “hoping she wouldn’t need these pills anymore” indicating that she’s had migraines in the past but not for a while.

As for why she’s doing it?  That’s the question isn’t it?  I think she’s trying to keep her abilities active, possibly in that sense also trying to protect her or making sure she’s ready for gatekeeper responsibilities as Bell put it in Season Two.  And yes she does seem to be far more unaffected emotionally in this timeline but from what we know of Olivia’s abilities heightened emotions of fear and love are what triggers her abilities (at least in the old timeline it did) so I’m not sure why Nina would want to keep her emotions stunted.  I guess we’ll find out.  What I’m wondering is is Olivia the only cortexiphan child that’s being dosed as an adult or is Nina doing this to the others as well?   Walter said the other children didn’t handle the treatments as well as Olivia did, that’s she was always the favorite.  I don’t think it’s coincidence that David Robert Jones is coming back… we all know that he was very fond of Olivia in the old timeline…maybe in this timeline we’ll finally find out why.  I just keep going back to two lines from the first season.  The first from Nina who says to Olivia in the Pilot episode: “You should know what you’re getting into Agent Dunham.  I would say this to my own daughter.  Be careful.  And good luck.”  Then the line from DRJ in ‘Ability’: “Don’t worry Miss Dunham, if I wanted to harm you I would have.  Long ago.”

On that topic though, poor Olivia.  I’ve lost count how many times she’s been knocked out and experimented on against her will.  And now by Nina, her foster mother and the one person Olivia trusts the most in this timeline (and we all know how hard it is for Olivia to trust anyone).  I can’t wait to see what happens when Olivia finally finds out.  So bummed that we have to wait 8 weeks for the next episode.

Man, that was one boring episode. The “Fall Finale” is not the time for filler fluff, especially when the future of a show isn’t guaranteed.