1x01: Pilot

Let's go, I guess! The pilot episode of Fringe aired on September 9, 2008 (14 years ago, holy shit) and was movie length, being a full 81 minutes long. This is the only episode I've seen relatively recently (I tried to start a rewatch a couple years ago that fizzled because my rewatch partner was uninterested in continuing. Life gets in the way, I guess), and I remember it as a pretty intriguing, if not particularly special, introduction to this world. My other main impression is that Broyles is kind of a dick in it? For no reason? And his arc revolves around defending his sexual predator friend whilst being as sexist to Olivia as humanly possible?? They sure retconned THAT real fast!! Anyway, let's dive in. 

The recap

In a plane high in the sky, a mysterious man injects himself with an unknown substance, then everyone promptly starts turning into goo and falling apart. Like, literally falling apart. I cannot stress this enough. Jaws are falling off all over the place. It's insanity. 

In some seedy motel (even if the sign outside proclaims it as "squeaky clean" I am still comfortable calling it seedy because is there a single motel in the world that isn't seedy? The word seedy was invented for motels specifically), we meet two of our protagonists, John Scott (Mark Valley) (don't get too attached) and Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) (feel free to get attached, but only if you want to SUFFER). They're FBI agents and they're having a very illicit, forbidden office affair. John says the big "I love you" and Olivia is like "uhhh well okay" and very conveniently avoids saying it back. 

Suddenly a phone call comes in about the plane and Olivia leaves to investigate. At the airport, she meets fellow agent Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) and learns that the plane landed safely on autopilot, but there are weird stains in the windows, no signs of life, and the CDC has ordered the jet not to be opened until they arrive. John arrives just then, and is just finishing up a mysterious, definitely not evil phone call as he exits his car. (See, I told you not to get attached.) 

Everyone's boss, Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick), shows up and starts giving orders, sending Charlie and John into the plane but leaving Olivia behind. Olivia protests and Broyles relents but is kind of a dick about it, starting up this weird-ass little arc about how Broyles secretly hates Olivia's guts because she.... well, because she... let's just discuss it later because I frankly don't have the strength right now. Everyone goes into the plane and witnesses goop. Just, goop, everywhere. Goop, goo, and some very impressive special effects from the makeup department. Later, Charlie learns that a guy at a storage facility saw "two suspicious Middle Eastern men" and Broyles sends Olivia to check it out. Olivia is like "THAT'S my assignment?" because seriously, what the hell. Broyles replies, and I quote: "Yeah, honey, would you mind?"

I don't know how to respond to that in words, so please just take this reaction image I chose at random.

John and Olivia head to the storage facility to check it out, and it's here where we learn... oh boy. Olivia drops the bomb that Broyles is just being petty because his best friend sexually assaulted THREE PEOPLE and Olivia was the one who put him away for it. 

Once again, I don't know how to respond, so just take this image again.

Please keep in mind that Broyles is a MAIN PROTAGONIST and that he doesn't act anywhere near this much of a dick in the rest of the series, and that as far as I remember, the sexual assault storyline never crops up again after a few episodes. This is just the worst. WHY. I'm gonna have a hard time pretending I do not see it!

Anyway, let's try to move on, for the love of God, please. John and Olivia start having a conversation about the I love you thing, and truly, is there a more romantic location on Earth than outside a Massachusetts storage facility in the dead of winter? Honestly these two have the chemistry of two soggy French fries, which is weird as fuck considering the actors were literally engaged at the time?? This is another Bennifer situation, I guess. John is like, fine, but it's difficult to care about him or this relationship, half due to the writing (adequate and nothing better), and half due to the fact that Mark Valley has like... no charisma to speak of. I've never seen him in another role, so I'm not gonna judge him, but in this particular role, he's oatmeal. It's whatever. I can put up with it knowing that he gets killed basically immediately, so it's fine. 

The two start opening up storage units and find one full of shady shit, including lab animals in cages and computers all over the place. They find a suspect (who appears to be the same man on the plane from earlier) and pursue him, but the suspect detonates a bomb and the agents get blown sky-high. Olivia wakes in a hospital, mostly unhurt, but learns that John was exposed to some mysterious chemicals that turned him gooey like the people on the plane. He's still alive, but he's in a coma and, like, he's not looking his best.

And this, kids, is why we have a skincare routine.

Olivia does some research about dissolving-flesh-related shit in the FBI database and sees that one name keeps cropping up: Dr. Walter Bishop. She tells Broyles that she believes Bishop might have answers about what happened, but he's been institutionalized for the last 17 years after a fire killed his lab assistant. She's also like "hey are you mad at me?" to which Broyles responds, and I QUOTE: "A man who serves his country for thirty years has a few drinks and a small lapse in judgment—" This is in reference to his buddy that sexually assaulted three people!! Olivia interrupts him here and thank God, too.

Have this image again. I am SO tired.

Anyway!! It's revealed that Bishop is banned from having visitors other than immediate family, so Broyles instructs Olivia to find Bishop's next of kin—namely, his only son—and get to him that way. Said son, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), is in Baghdad, so Charlie and Olivia head over there to find him. It's said that he's a genius with an IQ of 190, but a misfit and a nomad who can't hold down a job and who falsified a degree from MIT one time. Meet the straight man and the voice of reason of the series. I'm not kidding. 
  

They find Peter and ask him for his help. Peter is like "thanks but no thanks," refuses to listen to Olivia's begging, and calls her both "honey" and "sweetheart" across the span of like 15 seconds, which is a GREAT start to this character, obviously. Olivia makes reference to a mysterious file that has everything on Peter and threatens to tell "certain people" where he's at, which convinces him immediately. Score one for women! They get on a plane back to the States, where Olivia explains that Walter's work was "primarily in fringe science" (roll credits!). They go to the mental hospital to meet him, but Peter, who is estranged from Walter, refuses to go in, and Olivia heads in alone. 

Thus we meet Walter Bishop (John Noble), who is introduced by a dramatic swelling of music as he slowly turns around and the camera zooms in dramatically, and honestly, this is fitting, as Walter is the best character on this show and one of the all-time greatest characters in TV history and I am NOT fucking around about that. Walter is elderly and clearly mentally ill as all hell, and constantly says weird eccentric shit, which, obviously, rules. Olivia is like "Please save my partner I beg you" and Walter is like "They serve HORRIBLE pudding here." Which sets the tone for this character perfectly. Truly, he is always saying the most random shit that will make you choke on your water or whatever you happen to be drinking. 

Walter asks to see Peter, and Peter calls Olivia "sweetheart" AGAIN before reluctantly going in, and at this point, is it too much to hope for Peter and Broyles to simultaneously get hit by a bus? Walter's very first words to Peter are "I thought you'd be fatter," which, see above about the choking on water thing. Walter demands to see John in person before he can diagnose him. Then Peter calls Olivia "sweetheart" A THIRD!! TIME!!! At this point just kill yourself, man. I don't even know what else to say.

They sign Walter out of the hospital. During their car ride, William "Belly" Bell gets name-dropped for the first time; he's the founder of the company Massive Dynamic, so basically Bill Gates 2 in this universe, and apparently used to be Walter's lab partner. They take Walter to John so the doctor can examine him.

During this examination we also meet Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole), Olivia's assistant and another of our main characters for the next five seasons. I have to mention that Jasika Nicole recently spoke up about being treated very poorly on the set of Fringe, and of course I stand with her and believe her 100%. The optics of this—one of the only characters of colour being the assistant whose main job is to run and fetch things, and there being a running joke about Walter never getting her name right—have..... not aged well, to put it super mildly. Anyway, Walter starts waving a scalpel around and Peter stops him and is like to Olivia, "Does this not concern you??" and Olivia is like "Nah, let him do his thing," and I think this paragraph accurately sums up every main relationship dynamic in the show, actually. 

Walter asks to test John's skin in his lab, located in a basement at Harvard University, but he's informed that his lab has been shut down for the past 17 years, which righteously pisses him off and he starts knocking stuff around all over the place. Olivia, the consummate enabler, heads to Broyles to ask him to reopen Walter's lab, to which Broyles says, and I QUOTE, "It would be nice to think that your tenacity in this case is the byproduct of a remarkable and robust professionalism, but I can't help but wonder if there was something going on between you and Agent Scott." Which... I mean, he's not WRONG, but...

Have this image again.

ANYWAY! Broyles agrees to have the lab reopened, and you'd better get comfy here, because this lab is our main setting for the rest of the series. Upon entering Walter says the immortal line "So much happened here, and so much is about to," and... this pilot kind of rules, actually? I mean, it's because of Walter breaking his back carrying this show so far, but some of these lines and moments are genuinely great, especially given the fact that I'm watching this with full awareness of what the series will become later. It's just good stuff, man.

Peter and Olivia have a conversation where she reveals the "file" she threatened him with never existed, and he reveals that he owes a lot of money to a mafia guy named Big Eddie, which is a plot point you'd expect to be, like, important, but as far as I remember it never comes up again, so yeah. Later, Walter estimates that John only has 24 hours left before he dies, and suggests that a "shared dream state" is the only solution, wherein someone would link their brain with John's to find out what the suspect looks like (as Olivia didn't see him). Walter suggests going on LSD, ketamine and Neurontin to induce this dream state. Peter is like, "Hey, Olivia, what the fuck, maybe DON'T drop acid on the suggestion of a madman," and Olivia is like "No, let's hear him out," and remember what I told you about Peter being the straight man around here? Olivia agrees to take the drugs, and Walter gives yet another immortal line: "Excellent! Let's make some LSD!" 

They bring John over to the lab, gooier and more translucent than ever. Charlie shows up, having no idea what the fuck is going on, and he's like, "Is that a cow?" and Olivia goes "Yeah, that's Gene," because yeah, that's right, there's a cow in the lab, his name is Gene, he is here for basically no reason, and if you have a problem with that, you'd best get over it real quick. They inject Olivia with the crazy cocktail of drugs and shut her in a sensory deprivation tank, and then wait around for a while, and then suddenly...

In case you didn't already know this was a JJ Abrams show from 2008, here are 100 billion lensflares to help remind you. 

John and Olivia meet up in their mindscape or whatever, and John manages to show her the face of his attacker. She quickly learns the face she saw was a passenger who died on the plane, but that he had a twin brother whose most recent employer was Massive Dynamic. I for one love me a good twin-brother-all-along twist! Olivia heads to Massive Dynamic, and for a split second outside, we see this guy:

If you were unfamiliar with the show, this could easily slip past you. It's just some guy, right? Actually no, this is an Observer, an integral part of the show's mythology. In most episodes. a bald guy wearing a suit will be seen, usually for a split second in the background. They even made some outside appearances. For example, on American freaking Idol. And at a baseball game, too. 

If you didn't know about Fringe, this would just come off as insanely creepy. Actually, it does in context, too.

At Massive Dynamic, Olivia meets up with Nina Sharp (Blair Brown), the executive director, to get info on the suspect. Nina has a robotic arm designed by William Bell himself, and honestly this CGI has aged pretty well and still looks pretty cool, I think.

Not half bad.

Nina namedrops something called "the Pattern," but clams up when she realizes Olivia doesn't know what she's talking about, and instead just offers a vague warning. Meanwhile, back at the lab, the gang are watching SpongeBob.  

He GETS it.

They head to the suspect, Steig's, house and raid it. Steig escapes and everyone runs after him and there's lots of police sirens and aggressive music et cetera. They catch him and start interrogating him, but Steig refuses to talk, so Peter goes in and commits some dubiously legal acts until he does. They figure out how to cure John and get to work in the lab. Later, Broyles tells Olivia "we" are impressed with her work on this case (shocker to me, as I was halfway expecting him to stop just short of telling her to get back in the kitchen). Broyles spills the beans to her about the Pattern, a series of weird, inexplicable events that might be interconnected, and asks Olivia to come work for him investigating the Pattern, but she declines, and I mean, like, fair enough. 

John wakes up and seems to be okay. Olivia visits Steig in the hospital, who says that he was threatened by someone from the FBI and claims to have buried a recording of the conversation. Olivia digs up the tape and is shocked to hear John's voice on the recording. It turns out that John's mysterious phone call from way earlier was to Steig, and he's been evil the whole time. Which is honestly a relief as John is boring as all hell and this was a clean way to get rid of his ass. Back at the hospital, John smothers Steig with a pillow and then escapes. Olivia catches him leaving and pursues him, but during the chase John's car flips and he's mortally wounded. He tells Olivia to "Ask yourself why Broyles sent you to the storage facility" before promptly dying in her arms and leaving the show forever, thank God, no offense to him or anything but yeah.  

John's death convinces Olivia to take up Broyles on his offer. She tells Peter that Walter needs to stay out of the mental institution investigating shit, which means that Peter has to stick around, too. Peter agrees, albeit being a huge stick in the mud about it, and thus our status quo is established for the rest of the series. Except season 5. And season 4, kind of. And some of season 3. It’s complicated. 

Meanwhile back at Massive Dynamic, John's body is being wheeled in on a stretcher. Nina asks how long he's been dead, learns it's been five hours, and then says two extremely chilling words: "Question him." 

And that's the end of the episode!

Impressions 

I don't have any, like, profound revelations to offer. I'm sure someone way smarter than me could write an essay about the post-9/11ness of it all, but sadly all I have to offer are surface level observations. And I actually think "Pilot" is great. 

It's long, yeah, but not a moment of that runtime feels wasted. It's cinematic, globetrotting, thrilling, and manages to tell a self-contained story while setting up literally dozens of plot threads for the rest of the series. It has a lot of funny moments courtesy of Walter, decent special effects, and some absolutely disgusting horror too. Walter is obviously the best character in the whole thing from the get-go. It's funny how they set up Peter as a bad boy and con man but then spend the rest of the episode establishing him as the only sane character and voice of reason in this whole situation, but as the only sane character and voice of reason, he's pretty great. And Olivia doesn't have much personality at this point, to be honest, but that's only because we don't know much about her... yet. Overall, "Pilot" is an intriguing setup that left me wanting more.

Most disgusting moment 

Oh, this one gets it going immediately. From the very beginning, the plane scenes are just..... wrong. So, so gooey. Projectile vomit everywhere. People's body parts just falling off all over the place. If Fringe was a worthy successor to X-Files in one way, it was in being as nasty as network TV would allow them to get away with. 

Nicest moment

Walter, Peter and Astrid watching SpongeBob while eating Chinese food together with Gene right behind them. :) 

Shit Walter says

"They have this horrible pudding here."

"I thought you'd be fatter."

"I just pissed myself. Just a squirt."

"The only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you need milk. Then you really need a cow."

"Surprisingly profound for a narrative about a sponge."

Foreshadowing!

The Observer! Belly being constantly namedropped while not appearing! Massive Dynamic! Nina! The Pattern! Walter's past! Peter's past! John's past! This episode is nothing BUT foreshadowing. 

What did the glyphs spell?

So, fun fact: at every commercial break on Fringe, a cipher will appear on the screen, one of several symbols that each correspond to a letter. For each episode, they spell out a word when decoded. They look like this:

The glyphs in "Pilot" spell out OBSERVER. Dun dun dun. 

Rating

Solid 7/10. Nothing mind-blowing, but pretty good. I'm excited for more.