so last week i was complaining about the lack of Massive Dynamic and the absence of Nina Sharp in recent Fringe episodes… et voila! this week we get the full package of the most exciting stuff: Nina Sharp is back, so is Massive Dynamic, Cortexiphan plays an important role… and yes of course William Bell and the alternate universe. guess they did hold back and broke out the big guns for the winter season finale and February sweeps.
anyway, it wasn’t overly clear to me why “they” (the people of the alternate universe) did send an entire building to “our” universe. Walter and William Bell did the same thing with a car 25 years ago and i assume that was a test to see if it is possible to pass objects through the “gateway” between the two universes… well, from what we have learned so far it is very well possible (i guess the car was just an ethical test subject) since we know Peter (the current version of him) is from the alternate universe and Olivia herself paid a visit to Mr Bell in the alternate universe and returned.
it does make sense though that if you send an object/person/whatever to the other universe, something of “equal mass” will return since both universes are in balance. i assume there is a certain time frame until balance will restored (the car of the original experiment returned within 35 hours) and that explains why Olivia could briefly visit Mr Bell in the alternate universe. my assumption would be that the corpse of “our” Peter is buried in the alternate universe to maintain equilibrium.
i love it when Walter concocts weird drug cocktails but i was surprised to see Cortexiphan being administered intravenously. guess that speeds up or amplifies the effects of the drug. and i knew the moment when Walter mentioned that Olivia will be able to identify objects from the alternate universe by seeing them having a “glow” that Peter will glow sooner or later. however, the hotel from our world that was eventually pulled into the other universe shouldn’t have had a glow unless Cortexiphan made Olivia detect anything related to the alternate universe…
all in all a very enjoyable episode that did answer some questions and created even more questions. if there is a war coming between the two universes, why don’t “they” just send an invasion force over? why swap two buildings? to test the procedure of crossing universes further? granted, the special effects with the man who survived the first swap and ended up with two heads, four arms and four legs was kind of impressive but still… it was never really answered why?