You’re going to read stuff that sounds like critical judgment, positive and negative. This recap isn’t really a recap of the last two episodes - it’s wrestling match with my own conflicted feelings and still-in-flux thoughts. But to be clear: That dissonance is personal, and irrelevant to the question of the quality of the episodes (I think), and more, my feelings continue to change the more I reflect. The fact that I had such dissonance at all leaves me disappointed with the finale – I wanted to be lost in the story I wanted a clean, unqualified win. As you read this recap, you will encounter a Fringe fan who was alternately pleased and pissed, elated and exasperated by what he saw on screen. The Fringe finale experience was defined by paradoxes, intellectually and emotional. So I’m grateful for this “stolen time,” for this lingering goodbye hug, for this humble, lonely flower – a white tulip – of deep feeling and remembrance. Yes, I wished it was more than that… although given the limitations of time and budget, I’m not sure how much more Fringe 5.0 could have been. It was a sweet, sentimental, sincere gesture, in a season that was basically one giant sweet, sentimental, sincere gesture, for better and worse. Their embrace was an implied group hug that included all of us who have stuck with the show through parallel universe thick and Rebootlandia thin. The fifth season was “stolen time,” to use Walter’s words, a generously bestowed bonus period that gave us 13 more hours with a “favorite thing,” to use Walter’s slightly awkward if rather apt term of affection for his son. Looking back, I now think – and certainly feel – that the Fringe saga officially ended with the last episode of the fourth season. This hasn’t been Fringe’s greatest year, and the last two installments (which aired back to back on Friday night) fell short of the show’s finest hours. More, the scene produced language that framed this swan song season in a way that helps me to appreciate it for what it was, not what I wanted it to be.
Fringe season 2 episode 13 series#
What followed our viewing of the tape was overwhelmingly powerful, and exactly the kind of thing you want from a series finale. It was a video goodbye letter, produced around 2015 or so, when the elder Bishop thought his master plan to rid the world of The Observers would go differently.