Fringe starts off season two with quite a few surprises. When we left at the end of season one, we found that Agent Olivia Dunham had managed to travel to an alternate universe, one where things were the same, but different. She met up with William Bell (Leonard Nimoy), whose office was located in the still-existing World Trade Center twin towers in New York City. As shocking as that was, it wouldn’t begin to prepare us for what was coming this season.
It turns out that not only did she go to an alternate universe, when she comes back via a car wreck, someone from that universe is apparently already here, waiting to kill her. We’re introduced to a new element that we have yet to see in the series: some sort of shape-shifting being that can take on the appearance of anyone – provided they kill them first. We’re also introduced to a new character who I suspect will become a regular on the show, FBI Agent Jessup (Meghan Markle). Jessup is investigating the accident, along with Peter and Walter, when Dunham returns from the parallel universe, crashing through the windshield.
There are a few secrets that get revealed during this episode as well, such as the connection between the Fringe Division and Massive Dynamics. Apparently there was a tryst at some point in the past between Colonel Broyles, who runs the Division, and Nina Sharp, COO of Massive Dynamic. Say what? Yes, I did a double-take myself as they kissed on the steps of the courthouse. The governmental bean counters who are in charge of deciding the fate of funding for the Division had decided to shut it down and Broyles was on his way to try to save it. Nina was just giving him some good luck lip gloss, that’s all. This doesn’t happen, of course, since we have at least the rest of this season to go. The shape shifter does kill off another main character in the story line, however, but I’ll leave that up to you to figure out.
All-in-all it was a great start to what I hope will be another suspense-filled, mystery-laden season of one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll have to go back and watch it on Hulu.com to double check, but I don’t think the Observer was in this episode either. Hmmm … just another mystery we’ll have to solve!
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