This is gonna set up a great season 3... Fringe just keeps delivering these last few weeks.

Note the "new offices". Given they cut budget from season 1 inc the old Fringe office this is a pretty clear indicator the network is fully behind the show and the budget is being ratcheted back up.

Hell, that shot where it goes through the skylight and shows the alt-NYC skyline with the zeplins proved that.

Fringe's current quality of writing with a larger budget is really really exciting.

Btw this puts an end to the last page's discussion on whether our universe is more "bad" than the other universe. We have screwed them HARD since the first doorway was opened.

I thought this episode was great.. but then again.. naaah [kinda]. The whole part with Peter and Real Mommy was just a little out of place for me. I thought they should've left it out til a later time maybe or don't show it at all. Who cares about Peter's mom anyways? Biological mom or not, it's not an important part of the show. We get to see Peter with his real mom.. but no Walternate??! What happened to "Hello, son."????!


I'm just stoned and ranting because the season's ending. Carry on..

I thought that was super-important, as it looks like Peter is a central part of the story. Having his mother back and alive on that side has to be amazing.

I loved this, Broyles had a line like "securing our funding" which seemed like such a sweet double meaning.

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Gotta love JJ & his "end of the world" Rembaldi devices. Makes P2 seemingly easy to predict....really, really hoping for something non-cliche

I don't think this is necessarily the case - alternate Walter is almost certainly a nasty guy, whilst our side's Walter didn't know the outcome of what he did. Our side don't recognise what they're doing, whilst the alternate side has a much better idea.

Walter had a pretty good idea what opening that doorway would do. Even Nina knew there would be serious consequences.

I see nothing to suggest Walternate is a nasty guy. He may have the doomsday machine that will destroy our universe but it can easily be interpreted as an retaliatory attack upon us to stop the inevitable destruction of their universe from the rips in the universe.

If things were reversed would we not do the same? Is this any different to the nuclear deterrent?

Also our Walter is an extremely nasty guy, he is basically identical to Walternate. This was shown when he had the pieces of brain reinserted into him with the dramatic personality change to the guy who experimented on unknowing subjects including children. Walter as he is now is pretty loveable but dont mistake him for being more a mad scientist than an evil genius.

He's likely nasty because he appears to be in charge of the shapeshifters and he's likely in charge of most of the bad things the alternates have done in our reality. He also obscured the motives of our side in doing damage to the alternate world when he likely knows full well that Walter stole his son, when that was his whole motive.

I'm not saying he isn't justified in being nasty, just that his motivations are different to our Walter. I also agree that our Walter used to be nasty and quite possibly still would be if he had a choice between saving his son and saving (say) our world.

The shapeshifters didnt do anything particularly bad however. They defended themselves against agents of a hostile government and attempted to assassinate one such agent with info on the action of Bell.

I mean they killed those kids and they arent morally above reproach but in the terms of them being soldiers working deep behind enemy lines they didnt do a great deal wrong. They werent opening up tears in the middle of Brooklyn and risking the lives of 10 thousand people and the untold deaths since the tears started appearing since the mid 80s.

Alternate Walter knows that there is nobody on our side trying to fight him. He knows that what happened was an accident, and he's sending agents and soldiers and trying to kill people on the other side anyway. He's fighting people who have no idea who he is or what he's doing (i.e, innocents). His motive is revenge.

Our Walter thought that what he was doing might have side effects but did not know for sure. His motive was to bring his son back to life. Of course he was a bastard about it, but he's not knowingly killing people left right and centre.

I agree that our side has done a lot more damage to the alternate side, but none of it was on purpose. However, their retaliation is certainly intentional.

Liking the moral ambiguity and lack of Cliched Bad Guys right now. Both sides are doing what they think is right to protect their people from harm without the details on what's going on. The only ones with the complete picture of what's happened are Walter, Walternate, Bell?, Nina? Alternate side Fringe team is just as good in a moral sense as the primary side and have every reason regard our Our Side fringe team as an imminent threat.

Not sure how much to forgive Walter for starting all this. Yes, he was mourning the loss of his son, but he transferred that loss to another family (and may or may not have known it would endanger an entire other world of living, breathing actual people). That's what the scenes with Peter and his biological Mom were all about -- showing the emotional damage to both her and Peter that resulted from Walter trying to assuage his own pain over not being able to save his Peter. Both Walter pre-brain surgery and post-brain surgery are willing to do terrible things to other people to advance his agenda. Just because Walter is now a doddering, sympathetic old man doesn't forgive the things he's done to the lives of other people.

Likewise Walternate has apparently kept the full story hidden on the other side and is now willing to endanger the lives of everyone on our side without letting anyone else in on his decision (I think).

Loving the look and feel of the Alternate reality, would love to have a few episodes next season occur entirely on that side through the point of view of those characters fleshing out their history and backstory.

On a related note, why did Walter take Peter back? I thought the idea was to tell alternate Walter how to create the right compound.

(I fast forwarded parts of a few episodes, the "science" bothers me)

Anybody got a screen grab of the Alt-USA map on Walternate's wall? I meant to go back and look at it. Things looked ... different, like much of California was missing.

and for fellow none Americans, and public school educated Americans , here is our America:


That green bit above WI? The state lines are different, with Texas being most notable.

Bonus screen cap:


That is a LOT of effected areas.

More budget = surely they will.

With money they now have a LOT of doors opened to the. I would assume the plan for season 3 was always to show some of the alt universe and develop from there, but now they can do what they want without limiting themselves in sets and on location shooting (which is hugely expensive).

Im SO glad i stuck with this show, it took a little effort at first but now its paying dividends.