CHRISTMAS MID-SEASON FINALE: While Olivia copes with migraines, she and her team investigate an invisible force which kills its victims and causes the body to turn a ghostly white. As they trace the pattern of deaths, the Fringe team realizes that the force is linked to someone who died of an unknown genetic disorder.
Fringe airs Friday nights at 9:00 on FOX
Bad form, Fringe. Bad form.
When you're heading into your Christmas break you're supposed to leave us with a strong episode that provides healthy forward movement and leaves us with an exciting cliffhanger. We want to be left needing the next episode.
Unfortunately, "Wallflower" was so nauseatingly, cloyingly, sickly-sweet it was difficult to watch. The clichés came fast and furious and the final shot of the lonely invisible man finally getting noticed by the lovely lady just before he dies made me want to throw something at the TV.
It was horrible.
None of the characters were given anything to do (Peter (Joshua Jackson) goes shopping, for Pete's sake, and Walter (John Noble) does practically nothing), although Lincoln (Seth Gabel) and Olivia (Anna Torv) get a few moments together that hint at romance to come.
The real failing is with the Invisible Man who is murdering people and stealing their pigment. Yes. Stealing their pigment. Every word that comes out of the character's mouth is a cliché and somehow he has the scientific know-how to create an elaborate contraption in which he submerges himself in order to become visible.
Or something like that.
None of it really makes any sense and is so saccharine it's sickening. I may have gotten diabetes just watching the damn thing.
The only thing of any interest happens in the final minute or so of the episode, when Olivia, who has been complaining about migraines (I can't remember if this is something that's been mentioned before or if, like seeing Peter in her dreams, it's something they've just mentioned now that the plot requires it) is gassed and injected with something by Nina's goons.
Yes! Nina is a bad guy! I'm justified in being creeped out by her niceness!
But 70 seconds or so does not a successful episode make. The trailer to the next episode (Fringe will be back in January) takes us back over to the other side and introduces Peter to the new versions of Fauxlivia and Walternate. Now that's an episode that I want to see and would have left me longing for more.
"Wallflower" was just a waste of time.
Paul Brian McCoy is the writer of Mondo Marvel and a regular contributor to Shot for Shot, Streaming Pile O' Wha?, and Classic Film/New Blu, all here at Comics Bulletin. His first novel, The Unraveling: Damaged Inc. Book One is on sale now for Kindle US, Kindle UK, and Nook. He is unnaturally preoccupied with zombie films, Asian cult cinema, and sci-fi television. He can also be found babbling on Twitter at @PBMcCoy and blogging occasionally at Infernal Desire Machines.