Fringe, Season 3, Ep 8 "Entrada"

[cahn]

So ase has somehow convinced me to watch Fringe, not least by referencing the ep list here, which, yeah, the "high points" version of Season 1 of any canon is usually the right tack to take with me. (It does mean that occasionally I get stymied by a character point that might have been a little more obvious if I'd stuck around for all the episodes, but if I'd stuck around I would never have gotten this far, so.)

Anyway. It took me a really, really long time to watch episode 1 of Season 3 (almost a month, I think?), and the next episodes took a while as well, but lately I've been going through a lot. (And yes, getting a lot of chores around the house done :) )

So capslocking flailing last night to ase wasn't good enough and I must share. I'm still reeling from watching the last half of 3.7 (thanks for the kiddie torture, show!) and 3.8 last night.

My actual reaction to the episode climax, in real time:

...well, crap.
Wait, was that BROYLES?
WHAT
THEY NEEDED AN EQUIVALENT MASS
CRAP

BROYLES
AT LEAST IT WASN'T CHARLIE I will ragequit this show if alt!Charlie dies too!
[I am still bitter about Charlie. Charlie is still my favorite character. Super-platonic Olivia-Charlie partnership is still the relationship on the show I am most invested in. (I am nothing if not predictable!) And I still, after "Bound," want all the Peter-Charlie wacky hijinks casefic IN THE WORLD.]

Comments

[seekingferret]

Alt!Broyles's choice in Entrada is one of my favorite moments in all of Fringe, because my thing about Fringe is that it takes choices seriously and explores the idea that choices have both good and bad consequences and you have to live with both. And Alt!Broyles is the secondary version of a secondary character on the show, and yet the narrative gives him this choice and takes it and him seriously. It's an incredibly heartbreaking moment, but it's such a brave storytelling moment because it is not about Olivia and it is not about Peter and it is not about Walter. It's about Colonel Broyles making a decision with the weight of two universes standing on his shoulders, and not regretting his choice even though it has brutal costs.

[cahn]

It is a shocking and horrible moment, and I'm never gonna forgive them for it, and it's just right. Like you say, alt!Broyles OWNED his death. He made the choice and he made it willingly and knowing the consequences, and that made it... well, not okay with me that he died (because NOT OKAY), but it made it work really, really well as a narrative choice.

And yes to it not being about Olivia or Peter or Walter. (And not about Twu Luv, which totally caused me to facepalm at the climax of Season 2, because Peter going back to his own universe? NOT ABOUT TRUE LOVE, OLIVIA. ABOUT SAVING THE UNIVERSE.)

Broyles is so great, though. (Almost as great as Charlie!) He may be a secondary secondary character, but they sure have been working hard since the pilot to make sure we viewers appreciate how great he is. <3

[ase]

I regret nothing. I got an Olivia-Charlie fangirl out of a little pimping? AWESOME.

(Okay, I regret that I have set you up to be disappointed by S4. But that is not my fault, that is the show's fault for making some very poor storytelling decisions.)