The Oncoming Hope

THE ONE MINUTE VERSION

Fringe turns into yet another completely new show, and this may be the best yet. I didn't even miss Peter what with all the FunLivia times and gripping standalone mystery.

THE FIVE MINUTE VERSION

Walter infodumps all over our faces, but it's ok, because in Walter's mind, Fauxlivia's biggest slight is that she bought her way in with his precious pastries. "No! Not the pastry vagenda!" Additionally, Walter has learned new ways to misremember companion names (Cleveland! Clinton!). I wonder how many Presidents Walter will get through? I'm guessing about 14. Though if he calls Lincoln "Taft," I will be impressed. No one remembers that guy.

Over at the Bridge, it's time for some Olivia on Olivia action. I dream of a sitcom called My Two Olivias, with the two Olivia's bickering incessantly and Broyles attempting, and failing to keep the piece. Every episode ends in a fistfight.

But I digress.

The plan is for Olivia to bring Our!CreepyScientist to Earth Prime to give insight into Alt!CreepyScientist. Nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan.

Fauxlivia goes blonde, wherein we all learn that Ourlivia will definitely end up dating Alt!Lincoln, which is fine by me. Again, I take pause to note that Anna Torv may be the best actress on television today.

Meanwhile, Walter moonlights from Fringe to travel to a classic Memorex ad:

Memorex! Allowing mentally ill scientists to communicate beyond the grave since 1953!

Back at the House of Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, Fauxlivia leads the profiler through his Alt!House. Alt!Profiler continues to kidnap people for his own...amusement? Happiness? Dark passenger? I miss Dexter.

Penny's in the air...and penny drops. Our friendly profiler realizes that all is not kosher with this profiling gig when he spies a photo of his father.

Daddy issues! This means it's OurLivia time.

Alt!Broyles, who is somehow alive, lacks a sense of humor about, well, anything, but especially the fact that our friendly profiler ran away to find himself. Literally.

Our intrepid heroes find them just in time, but not before the killer steals the memory of Marjorie, the one person who kept him from crossing over to the dark side.

And thusly we learn that even if people are gone from our memories, the lessons they taught us will always remain. I'm sure this has no relation to the ongoing story arc whatsoever.

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

Olivia killed her father in this reality, presumably because she never met Peter as a child, and the abuse became worse. But more importantly, we learn that Fauxlivia's childhood was not just different in certain details, but in totality. Because she never had the brutal stepfather, she was never in Jacksonville, was never in Cortexiphan trials and therefore, doesn't have Olivia's magical healing powers.

This episode was a master-class in how to do a standalone episode while still incorporating elements of the larger arc, and functioning well as both. Are you listening, Doctor Who? While Walter obviously thinks he's going insane, what if the harassment by ghost Peter actually leads to some sort of psychotic break? Asteroid doesn't seem able to calm him, and Olivia barely does.

Carry on in the comments, folks!

Fringe is finally back, after one HELL of a game-changing cliffhanger. I would like to write intelligently about it, but plenty of other people do that, so you get humor instead. It's a hard life for all of us.

1 MINUTE REVIEW

Peter's really gone, which has made Walter even crazier than before. Lots of plot happens, but all that pales in comparison to the luminous presence of sexy Lincoln Lee, who joins the show full-time (squee!).

THE 5 MINUTE VERSION

Previously on Fringe, there was a totally different show. I miss that show, but I'm excited about this new show we're introduced to today.

But some thing's don't change: Olivia vs Fauxlivia is still the most fun anyone could have without taking their clothes off. In the brief flash we see of Peter, I imagine he's thinking of doing both.

The Observers are California Dreamin'. Over a nice bottle of Tabasco, they decide that Peter isn't quite disappeared enough, and September emoes for the camera.

Sexy Lincoln Lee declares a jihad on toast in the family of Hey! It's That Guy!. Unfortunately for That Guy, he's killed before we have time to say anything more than Hey!

Now we all remember that this show has evolved into a superior version of Doctor Who. And now that Peter's gone, Olivia needs a new companion. Luckily for us (mostly me), Sexy Lincoln Lee auditions for the job. He impresses Olivia with his cleverness, his curiosity and his humanity. Yup, Doctor Who.

Which brings us to Walter, of course, looking lustfully at his pet cow while tinkering with chemicals. That's never a good sign for poor Gene.

We know something is horribly wrong in this world because Walter calls Astrid Astrid, not Astroturf or Assturd or any of his wonderful alternate monikers.

Lots of plot happens in the middle, but we don't care about that, right? What's important is that we're returning to a dropped plotline from season 1: how Olivia was quite literally able to see through John Scott. Apparently it's another kind of shifter.

We conclude as Olivia tries to convince Fauxlivia that Walternate's back to his old tricks. Fauxlivia responds with the smirkiest smirk we've ever seen, and gives bedroom eyes to Sexy Lincoln Lee.

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

What's important is that all these people are missing something inside themselves and have no idea what. As a result, they're impacted in particularly different ways: Astrid is more hands-on, Olivia is back to being her hard season 1 self (and yet she wears a softer look?), and Walter is more nuts than before.

I assume the revitalized dead bird is a metaphor for something...perhaps that Walter is seeing dead people (or nonexistent people, in this case).

We don't know why things have developed the way they did in this version of events, but I look forward to finding out.

Earth-3, here we come.

 

1 MINUTE SUMMARY

Lots and lots of creepy things happen, including dead men who float and faces that bleed, but nothing is more creepy than Nina's shipper smile (although Cameron's mustache gets a close second).

THE 5 MINUTE VERSION

Walter and Hurley get high and reminisce about the good old days, aka the 1970s. Hurley fails to mention that for him, the 70's meant being shot at by deranged scientists under the employ of the Dharma Initiative. Walter bedded Yoko. Who had the worst 70's experience?

Walter than pops in on Nina to discuss how to save the universe, but Nina is distracted by the news about Peter and Olivia, and spends the rest of the conversation squeeing in her brain. (Also, it's fairly odd that she hasn't told anyone else about Sam Weiss's prophecy. I guess she just needs that private squee.)

Then we get A-plot, A-plot, A-plot. Usual stuff, until the dead man starts floating. Looks like Walter and Hurley aren't the only ones who got high (get it? get it?)

Peter performs his annual pretense of being a scientist, until Olivia calls and seduces him with 'street fair.' I think we're all thankful we don't have to see them dancing at a street fair when Broyles cockblocks them (hippie-blocks them?).

We are then tortured with about five minutes of exposition, including an all too detailed sum of the properties of "osmium". And I stop listening for a while, and am entertained by Olivia's giggles at the floating body.

Oh, look, it's Alan Ruck with a mustache! (Apparently Cameron from Ferris Bueller grows up into Thomas Friedman). Again, I lose interest. Sorry guys, this is the first time the A-plot has nothing to do with the continuing storyline, and thusly I have no interest in it.

Astrid and Walter do that annoying thing that makes anyone not want to tell a single person about new relationships: basically it involves creepy and knowing smiles.

Then Friedman!Cameron starts expositing, which is only fun because his audience literally dies of boredom.

The floating man falls to the ground, and Walter gets off one of his best Tom-Bakerisms yet.

Ok, I'm sorry guys, while I am fully in support of all the angst and the character drama, I actually find the whole Olivia and Peter actually being together really squicky. Olivia just seems weird, we've seen her in love before (anyone remember John Scott?), and it wasn't so...cutesy. Blech.

Sorry, I missed a scene or two, and now we move to Fried!Cam recruiting at a Special Olympics event.

Then more lab!stuff, and Peter and Olivia play hooky again! Seriously guys, this is why office relationships are bad! And then Nina, with the creepist shipper smile yet. What has happened? Why has this 'ship turned everyone into Stepford Wives?

The next scene reminds us, yet again, that Walter is the best character on this show; the hijinks of the older generation are what makes this show tick. They are the Olympic Gods, everyone else is merely a plaything.

Then lots of A-Plot stuff happens, and yes it's all very moving, but I still don't care.

Eventually, Peter confesses to Olivia about his shapeshifter side job. Before Olivia even has a chance to get angsty, something happens that nobody could expect in this farce of people behaving out of character. Basically, while everyone else turns into a Stepford Wife, Olivia turns into...wait for it...LEONARD NIMOY!!! It's uncanny, and VERY, VERY DISTURBING. I DO NOT KNOW IF I CAN SIT THROUGH A WHOLE EPISODE OF THIS NEXT WEEK!!!

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

I think I know part of what's making me so squicky about Olivia/Peter. We know that Peter is still thinking of FauxLivia, that on many levels he does think she's better than OurLivia. And so we have this weird Hitchcock Vertigo thing going on, where he only wants her because he can pretend that she's the doppelganger that he actually fell in love with. I know he didn't intend to fall for FauxLivia, he did originally want OurLivia, but I'm not convinced that's still the case. He's just biding his time now, knowing (or at least believing) that this is his best option.

 

1 MINUTE SUMMARY

Fringe rips off a new-Who plot wholesale, but they did it with grace and originality so I don't really care. Olivia tries to set a record for how many times she can replicate the exact same conversation about Fauxlivia with Peter (maybe Walter's right! She's been replaced with an android! Liv-bot Smash!) until finally they're both tired of it and decide that making out would be more exciting for the viewers (they're right!).

THE 5 MINUTE VERSION

Fringe is not a show renowned for its small talk; whether in plotting, dialogue, or characterization, nothing is extraneous. Everything happens for a reason (lets leave season 1 out of this). So when the show opened with like ten minutes of small talk by random characters, we knew that the longer they bored us, the more horribly it would all end (karma-Fringe!*). And they're sucked through the floor of the apartment balcony and tossed to their deaths.

Then Walter connives to help Peter seduce Olivia using the magical power of breakfast. Olivia and Peter doth protest, until they get called to investigate the apartment deaths.

So it turns out that the apartment building in question is all wrong; it shakes unexpectedly, water pipes burst when there's no reason, holy lights shine down on all the residents, etc. Walter figures that the Rosencrantz building is the first evidence of damage done to Earth Prime following his earlier shenanigans (I would have loved it if the building was known as the Guildenstern in the alt-Verse). Walter's solution? "AMBER THAT BITCH LIKE MY NAME IS WALTERNATE!"

Olivia and Peter wisely decide to continue investigating again (but can I say, WOW has the power of Massive Dynamic gone to Walter's head?). Peter, however, gets bored before they even start, and suggests they hit the nearest bar instead. Lending credence to my theory that Ourlivia has been replaced by a robot, Olivia does not immediately jump in the air shouting 'yay scotch!' But then they get to the bar, and I swear to God I thought Olivia was going to browbeat Peter again, but she kisses him instead.

But Olivia doth protest (this seems to be her chief role the past few episodes). Peter, annoyed, looks like he's trying to figure out why he ever liked OurLivia in the first place. (Frankly, after last week's awesome Fauxlivia episode, so are we. Remember the wonderful days when OurLivia was incredibly awkward instead of incredibly emo?). Apparently, Peter glimmered, and unlike every other female or gay male in history, this does not add to the magic of the moment, and instead makes her run out of the bar. Where she conveniently notices that...

...One room in the building is especially well-lit, and there we meet Alice Merchant, who literally sits through earthquakes to catch astral glimpses of her dead husband (now repeat after me, "a footprint is not a boot." Of course, as cranky as David Tennant could get, he does not hold a candle to Walter.)

Walter believes this is a sign that the two universes are crashing into each other (or whatever), so he still thinks they should amber that shit up. Then he and Nina make sex eyes at each other, as they do so well, even while discussing the destruction of the universe.

Peter and Olivia converse pointlessly to reveal something the audience already knew: that the alt-version of Alice's husband lost Alice. And then we get 'spooky action at a distance,' aka Einstein also made up shit when he felt like it. But once again, I am impressed because Fringe at least pretends to be grounded in the laws of physics. Except that Olivia decides that the rift is not caused by Walter's actions, but by the strong pull of emotion between Alice and her alt-husband, and that breaking that connection will stop the growth of the vortex (or whatever).

So that's fine then. It's a beautiful and emotional scene as Peter and Olivia try to break the connection between the two, but thankfully alt-husband handily finishes the job for them.

And then Peter and Olivia have sex (I know!). Apparently, the world's most successful pickup line is: "I thought you were Walter."

*Be grateful you're not me, because when karma-Fringe came to mind, karm-Olivia soon followed. And now I'm imagining the ten incarnations of Olivia coming to save the Universe. Don't tell NBC, or they'll make it into their latest attempt to recapture the audience of Heroes.

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

This has been my favorite episode of the New Year, because it's gotten back to one of the things that made me love the show: its heart. For all of Olivia's awkwardness, she had an amazing talent for empathizing with the broken and the weak and the sad and the despairing. She is so full of understanding, for so many things, that it felt out of character for her to keep harping on Peter like she has been.

Also, as we learned a season ago, no matter how different you are from your alt-self, you do think in exactly the same way. So of course Walter will end up thinking in the same way as Walternate. And it's possible that they're both wrong. Olivia may yet save the day by focusing on the details (each case, each person harmed) while the Walters struggle with the larger questions and start making decisions based on 'logic' and 'strategy.'

No Fringe for a couple of weeks yet! So naturally I had to rewatch the Marionette episode to rev up. And I found yet another thing to love about Fringe - despite being a genre show, it's so honest about humanity. I've always admired how it doesn't dwell on melodrama, because in reality, most people don't, at least not after a certain amount of wallowing. So when this episode came out, the drama was fully earned.


Prior to Marionette, all the facts were set up; there was a rush against time. No time to be overcome by emotion. Lesser shows would skip this part of the narrative (the emotional fallout), or would consign it to a throwaway line in the next episode. But as Fringe never addressed the emotional toll on their characters in an in-depth way before (at least not Olivia), it was earned. And it was handled brilliantly.

I didn't notice the first time around, but just as Peter doesn't conceal the harsh truth about Faux-livia being in some way...better than Olivia, Olivia doesn't hide to Broyles that Broyles that his now-dead  doppelganger led a more fulfilled life with a wife and son. At first I may have cried, "oh the insensitivity!" but now I realize that it's probably for the best. It's better to give the whole truth when they're receptive to the whole truth, than to have a stray detail snap back hit them in the back of the neck when they least expect it.

Also? This is what humans do, I think. They either lie sociopathically (it's a word, damnit, and if not, then don't tell me), or they tell the whole truth because they can't help it. White lies are a form of cowardice. There's an urgency, in some cases, to provide as much information as possible. Like when a man feels guilty about an affair and that guilt compels him to confess. It's not just enough to confess, he has to confess every last awful detail; to him it's just a matter of twisting the knife a couple of centimeters further when it's already 2 inches in.

Yes, this is an act of self-preservation on his part, but for the recipient? It means you get one big, bad wound, all in one go, and let it heal. Otherwise you risk reopening the wound again and again, or God forbid, create new ones.

I cannot begin to explain how simultaneously exciting and frustrating it is to see Fringe on schedule now (there's no way to spoil myself, and I get the pleasure of being shocked by each new revelation). BUT WHY ISN'T NEXT WEEK HERE ALREADY?!?

OLIVIA/BOLIVIA/FAUXLIVIA

One of the things that makes Fringe great is that the way the story has developed, minute character developments can be just as mindblowing as big reveals like the Twin Towers in the parallel universe. We watch Fauxlivia closely for any betrayal of her true identity. We watch, desperate for any character to show a glimmer of recognition that Fauxlivia is not Ourlivia. Part of the reason this storyline works in this show, when it has failed so completely in other shows, is that it is not completely obvious that it's the wrong Olivia. There are slight moments when she's a little 'off,' but that's it. We know it's not her, but we can't really fault any of the other characters for not knowing, owing to Anna Torv's fantastic parsing of the two Olivias.

We can't fault poor hapless Peter, who's obviously blinded by romance. We can't fault Walter, for obvious reasons. Astrid only ever dealt with Olivia on a professional level, so it's not surprising that she doesn't detect the nuances. But Nina. Oh Nina. She is the first to really cotton on that something's not right, which makes perfect sense. She and Olivia have always had an adversarial relationship, and so she has probably studied Olivia extensively to understand how to manipulate her. And Olivia has never been as forthcoming to Nina as Fauxlivia was in this episode, so that probably sent up some kind of flag. While it's slightly surprising that she didn't say anything during her heart-to-heart with Walter, we all know that Nina plays things close to the vest.

(Unless of course, as other commenters have suggested, there's a massive long con going on where Walter, Nina and Peter already know that it's the wrong Olivia, but that's too convoluted even for this show.)

THE ACTUAL EPISODE
The only way to get through the opening scene is to pretend it's Ourlivia, which makes it cute and fun, otherwise the whole thing is pretty squicky. But it is sweet, and mercifully short. I like that Fringe doesn't dwell too much on melodrama, instead using emotional moments for short and sweet effect, rather than using character drama as a substitute for a plot (cough cough LOST!)

There was a lot happening this episode (I am very grateful to Fringe that it advances the plot every episode, and doesn't treat it's mythology as the be-all and end-all of the entire show, unlike that other J.J. Abrams show). This episode gave us the first hints about how this particular storyline might resolve: Fauxlivia shows the first sign of hesitation about whether her mission is actually the righteous one. Between Nina, Walter and Peter, we learn about a key difference between Earth Prime and Alt-Earth: hope still exists in Earth One. Science can be used as a tool to help humanity, and not just for destruction. We get the sense throughout that Fauxlivia has only been exposed to science as a tool for military dominance, for keeping society in check, not as a constructive device in its own right. So when Peter tells her, Doctor-style, "There's got to be another way," you can see her almost start to believe it.

FauxLivia breaks cover on three separate occasions in this episode, each one not enough to blow it completely, but hopefully are sufficient to create a few scratches on her facade. The first is what I mentioned earlier, that she won't confront Walter directly, but asks  Nina to do so instead. We all know Olivia is ridiculously brusque with Walter when he gets goopy (hence in Alt-Verse, all she has to do to prove that she's Ourlivia is yell at him, hilariously.) The next two are with silly Peter: first, she doesn't remember Ed Markham, midget bookseller extraordinaire. Then, more obviously, she betrays the fact that she doesn't have Olivia's photographic memory, when she struggles to recall the fateful numbers of Lost (sending me into shuddery flashbacks of hatred of Lost).

This episode also introduced an exciting new element: the First People, a race of humans that theoretically existed before even the dinosaurs. According to the only source, one Seamus Wiles, they were far more technologically advanced than modern man, and thusly proceeded to wipe themselves from the face of the universe. Also, most importantly, and I take absolutely no credit for noticing this, but ANAGRAM AHOY! Seamus Wiles = Samuel Weiss, who you will recall as being 'older than you think.' Before someone cracked that anagram, I assumed that the First People are one and the same as The Observers, but now I don't think so.

Finally, we get a tantalizing coda in the Alt-Verse, where we learn that Olivia is in imminent danger. And then I yelled at the tv for ending the episode. Cause shit be goin' down next week. 

FUN STUFF
 
Walter and Nina, sitting on a bench, sharing a joint and lamenting 'kids these days.' It was a wonderfully warm scene with two characters we wouldn't normally associate with warmth.

Astrid actually has a role! And that role is channeling Alt-Strid and being a numbers whiz (seriously is there anything this girl isn't an expert in?) Sudden increase in screentime = red-shirt alert...

RANDOM DISORGANIZED BELOVED THINGS ON FRINGE SO FAR (mid Season 2):

-Walter and his friendship with Astral/Asteroid/Asterix. His inability to remember Astrid's name despite his obvious affection for her makes me giggle everytime. My all-time favorite misnomer though is Ostrich.

-The whole concept of the Observers is so Classic Who that it makes me squiggle with glee. Mystery creatures living outside of time. The Observer-centric episode is definitely my favorite episode so far.

-The organic development of the Bishops' Father-Son relationship. There's something very deep (in Walter's case, so deep that there must be something supernatural involved) driving their love for each other, and that shows in every single scene; it's not like other shows that rely on cheap sentimental plot points to develop family relationships.

-Anna Torv's acting: I know some people think it's absolutely terrible, but the weird awkwardness as Olivia makes the character interesting and fun to watch despite the fact that THE WRITERS REFUSE TO DEVELOP HER BACKSTORY OR FRONT-STORY (though I hear this changes dramatically toward the end of the season).

-Most shows, especially genre shows, expand their main cast in the second season. Fringe seems to have taken the opposite route, where everyone's a red shirt apart from our Fringe team and Lance Reddick (I'm sorry, I have to refer to him by the actor's name. I don't know the character's first name, and I can't keep typing 'Broyles.' Seriously, it drives me nuts: "We gotta tell Broyles." "We need Broyles's permission." The only way I will get over this is if there's an episode where Broyles invites the gang over for BBQ in a very special episode called 'Broyles Broils'.)

-LEONARD NIMOY!!

-Mainly, I like the fact that the show is well and truly science fiction, complete with wibbley-wobbleys and timey-wimeys.

-Walter. Period. Has there ever been a more entertaining character on television? And it's even better as we learn, more and more, that he really used to be a quasi-evil bastard with no regard for ethics or the good of humanity; it's all about him and his science. So it's simultaneously saddening and heartening that that kind of misbehavior is rewarded with complete madness, reducing Walter to an almost doddering fool (with an insane hankering for processed foods). Ironically, the more that Walter's sanity returns to him, with accompanying guilt, the more we learn about how twisted he truly was.

Fringe became my replacement for Lost even before Lost ended. When I gave up hope that the truth about Lost would be even half as cool as the fan theories, I transferred all my theorizing nerd energy to Fringe and it actually exceeded my expectations. This spring when Lost was steadily traveling downhill to arrive at the most disappointing finale ever, Fringe was coming into its own, correcting some of the first season's missteps and establishing the mythology early on for the rest of the show (long may it run). The Season 2 finale, "Over There," was spectacular and raised the bar for Season 3 to an almost unreachable height. And while I had a few minor quibbles with last night's episode, overall I was very impressed. And I'm still too excited about the return of my new favorite show to get quibbly about it.



I was surprised and intrigued right away by the revelation that Walternate and his team were trying to convince our Olivia that she was the other Olivia. (On a side note, this show is hard to write about coherently. No name for the alternate characters is as good as Walternate, and it's tiresome to always have to say "the other Olivia." I think the writers call her BOlivia, which looks stupid to me, but I'll go with it for clarity's sake.) I expected them to interrogate her, torture her for information about Walter and Peter and our universe in general. I don't quite understand the motivation behind implanting her with BOlivia's memories, but it was chilling to watch the treatments take effect. She didn't just acquire BOlivia's memories, she acquired her skills and personality as well. Olivia could never have made that shot. Olivia would never have painted a room yellow. The question that remains is whether Olivia is still in there, aware of what's going on in her mind, able to compartmentalize her own memories and personality somewhere. I hope so. Anyway, it's nice that she got to see her dead mother before she was reclaimed.

I love the alternate universe. I love scanning the background for differences. I love that they have nanites and zeppelins and daily flights to the moon and that the script doesn't beat you over the head with them. You just catch a glimpse of a billboard for the hit musical Dogs or a snippet of a news bulletin on the radio that former President Kennedy is stepping down as ambassador to somewhere. I love the dark banter between the Fringe Division agents over there and what it reveals about what's normal for them. I love that Charlie's still alive and that Walter's the Secretary of Defense and that Astrid is an emotionless human calculator. And as much as I love it and as wonderfully disorienting as it is to be there, how much would it suck to live there? Bus and taxi drivers can't put their vehicles into gear until they've swiped the passengers' ID cards so they can be tracked: the government always knows where you are. The ID is called a Show-Me and (even though they ask for it with a redundantly polite "Can I see your Show-Me, please?") the association with "Show me your papers" is creepy.

Toward the end of the episode, though, I was getting antsy to return to our universe. Fun as it is to play spot-the-differences over there, Fringe isn't complete without our Walter and Peter, and they're over here. The tantalizing final scene was just enough and nicely established what was happening over here. The higher-ups aren't taking the team any more seriously than they have before, Walter's eating Oreos, Peter's kissing BOlivia and doesn't know she's not Olivia. That part made me really sad, actually - the real Olivia is trapped in the AU having her mind altered while the impostor is over here getting a new relationship that doesn't belong to her. Olivia sacrificed so much to get to the AU, rescue Peter and tell him how she felt, and he didn't even notice that it wasn't her who came back.



It should be noted here that Anna Torv is a much better actress than I originally gave her credit for. Her style takes a little getting used to, I think, but she has risen admirably to the challenge of playing essentially four characters at times (Olivia, BOlivia, Olivia-as-BOlivia, and BOlivia-as-Olivia). I thought John Noble was going to make her look bad because of how well he distinguishes Walter from Walternate - primarily with his posture, but also with his voice and his expressions. But Anna Torv does almost as much with nuances using just her eyes. As I said, it was chilling to watch Olivia slowly transforming into BOlivia against her will, but it was equally interesting to watch BOlivia consciously pretending to be Olivia. She just found out about this universe and she only had a brief encounter with Olivia on which to base her performance. She smiles a little too much. She's a little too bemused by Walter. I'm already a little disappointed in the other characters for not seeing it. She's going to slip up and get caught soon, or I will be most annoyed with not only the characters but the writers as well.