"Open your mind or someone may open it for you!"In "The Arrival" episode, we watch as Raygun Man and Observer Man pry open cranky Peter's closed mind after he tries to worm out of helping Olivia and get back to his life of global trekking and spy games. The cause of this revolves around one of my all-time favorite SciFi elements: the mysteriously appearing, impenetrable, foreign metal object that emits odd lights and sounds. It's an old SciFi standby, but still fun here, I thought. This time it has a twist though, it doesn't come from outer space as usual, it's boring it's way through the earth to and fro, manifesting in various locations, and then boring back into the ground as oddly as it surfaced. It disappears from the episode as well without leaving us with any explanations, so now we get to add this to the list of running experiments and mysteries that we learned involve the bald Observer Man, who we've seen since the beginning (see FringeTV).
Of course the mystery cylinder figures into Walter's past, and so does the Observer as we find that they have met before in the Bishop family's history. The cylinder also "visited" Quantico in the 1980s before continuing on its tour through the earth. We don't know of it showed up anywhere else between then and now. Creating the conflict around the subterranean silver bullet is Raygun Man, an unknown grungy guy who is tracking down the cylinder for some reason, using a plasma type shooter (and another invasive electronic mind reading setup) to carve a path and locate this episode's uber-science subject. 
Peter gets to be confronted by both Observer and Raygun Man, and comes to the conclusion that he should stick around to help with all these bizarre things that are going on, after a mind-reading session with the Observer that shakes him up (and opens his mind). Shortly before, Raygun Man captured him and picked his brain via electronics, because he knew that Pete was Walter's son and wanted info on the cylinder.
Olivia tracks them all down into the woods and saves Pete, but not before the cylinder slips away again down into the depths of the dirt. The Observer seems to disappear into the ether, but we'll probably see him again soon. Meanwhile after all has settled down, Walter tells Pete how he first met the Observer, and Olivia gets some visitations from a certain dead guy!
8 comments:
This was far and away my favorite episode. I thought the opening was fantastic. The Observer dumping the pepper on his roast beef was great. And I'm glad Peter finally got to do something and has some reason for being there, thin as it is.
My only slight pick was how easily Raygun Man as you call him took out a dozen armed and armored men in the warehouse, but doesn't take out Peter and Olivia in the graveyard. That stretched credulity quite a bit. I would have preferred his weapon to have been set to stun so to speak in both instances. And do you think the Observer had a version of that same weapon that he used on Peter? It was also disappointing to me that RM was apparently just some random bad guy wanted for murder in Seattle. And will they ever figure out what he did to the guy in Virginia? They never returned to that. Okay, looks like I had more than 1 pick.
I'm looking forward to the next episode, and hope they'll stick with this darker, less frivolous tone.
Good points. It's my favorite ep so far I think too! Maybe because it seemed more straight forward, plotwise. Yes, our introduction to Observer was pretty funny. As well as the eye-rolling that his requests drew from the waitress. I don't know what to think about him, or what kind of weapons he has, his binocs were pretty impressive if that's any indication!
Yeah, I just called him Raygun Man because I didn't catch if they gave him a name, and, because I really liked his nifty plasma gun. You're right, his background was kind of lame. I think over at FringeTV they are calling him Rogue. Maybe the gun was on stun for the guy in Virginia too, didn't he shoot him at first and then later he was interrogating him?
It's beginning to scare me how much I think like Walter. And a few times I'll say what he says before he says it. :-o I must be a crotchety old nut job myself.
This was a great episode (they do seem to be getting better and better)!
I like how they are using The Observer as a character and a seemingly important part of the story. They're not stringing this out and keeping him in the background.
Who do you guys think he is? An alien with no taste buds? LOL
There are definitely some plot points that defy credibility. Olivia constantly goes into situations without backup! And why did Raygun Man (lol) have to bring Peter to the cemetary. He already read his mind and got what he needed.
But I don't care about these "little details"...I'm just enjoying the ride!
LOL Maven. Well, the X-Files fan in me wants to believe that he's an alien. But, I don't know if this show is going there, so for now I'm assuming he's just some freakazoid clone drone working for a shadow government of the "One World" Illuminati or Bilderbergs or Skulls...pick your conspiracy group.
That's a good question about why he had to drag Pete along with him (instead of killing him, as Memphish suggested, heheh). I guess it was just for drama. :o)
I don't think there is a new ep next week, so we won't know anymore for a couple weeks unless the Fox site gives us some clues. Keep an eye on FringeTV, they'll ferret out whatever might be there.
Tantalizing recap - sounds mysterious.
This one sounds interesting and I'd like to give it another try maybe. Can I enjoy this one at all if I haven't been following?
It doesn't SOUND gory. :)
Totally! The only thing creepy about this ep is the mind reading machine, it's kind of an electrical hookup. But it's just electrodes, no blood, guts, loose eyeballs, etc. :-)
Yes, this one you could enjoy knowing what you know from just reading about it online. It's way out there, with the drilling machine and all, but interesting. And of course, Walter is a lot of fun as always.
Okay - you finally convinced me. I liked the opening of 1.04 so much that I went back and watched the ones I'd missed before I finished watching 1.04.
The majority of the cast is pretty good - it's just Olivia that uhm, well - she just seems kind of cold to me.
Shouldn't Global Dynamics give some of those fancy weapons to the people chasing the bad guys though?
Good point! Why can't MD give them some supersonic rayguns too?! They surely make some, they make eerything else.
Yeah, Olivia's got to get a little more lively for me to like her better.
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