Fringe Season 4 Episode 2 “One Night in October” (contains plot spoilers)





(SPOILERS)

The episode ‘One Night in October’ starts off with what looks like a counselling session at first, but with a man appearing to be shivering. The camera moves towards the back of his head and you can see that he has a big tube connected to the back of his brain, with a sort of blue mixture being pumped in. His ‘counsellor’ is asking the man questions about his son, I believe, as he looks at a picture of him in his wallet, asking the man to recount happy memories of when the picture was taken. Then all of a sudden, the man stops, and his skin and eyes look like they have been frozen and he dies!! Freaky start!!

This episode was quite an exciting one, as it brings both universes together to solve a case, much to the frustration of Olivia. The scene at the beginning of the episode was taking place in the other universe and Fauxlivia approaches Olivia and Broyles as the killer, John McClennan, has gone missing, who they believe is also responsible for 21 other murders, and she thinks that they might be able to find him if they talk to his parallel, John, in Olivia’s universe. Olivia reluctantly agrees and pays the good John a visit. It turns out that he is a professor of forensic psychology, specialising in serial killers funnily enough, where she explains that she can not disclose any details of the case and that he will have to be tranquilized as he can not know where he is going! Nice! I’m not sure if I would agree to being tranquilized by a person who I had just met, authority or not!!!

Anyway, good John is transported to the other side, into killer John’s home, and Fauxlivia (dressed as Olivia!!! Bloomin heck) accompanies him, with Olivia waiting outside with the parallel Agent Lincoln. Obviously he starts recognising certain things that he has as in his own home, including a favourite chair!!! He starts to undertake a profile analysis and tells Fauxlivia that the killer is jealous of people who are happy, something he can relate to as he had similar tendencies when he was younger until he saw the light. He then comes across a picture of his own father in the house! Obviously he doesn’t understand what’s happening, and in a fit of rage, storms outside with Fauxlivia chasing after him, and comes across Olivia in the street!!! Game over really, and Olivia has no choice but to explain that there are two universes! Contrary to Olivia’s instruction that the good John is not to seek out the killer, he escapes and tracks killer John down in the old farmhouse where they used to live, and killer John is about to kill his next victim. Killer John is obviously freaked out when he sees his parallel self, and they exchange similar events that happened to them in their childhoods, apart from one, the good John met a woman, Marjorie, when he was a young boy who showed him the light, gave him reason to control his dark urges, something that killer John had not experienced, and separated their lives down different pathways. Killer John in his envious manner, attacks good John, and proceeds to drain all the good memories from him using the liquid machine into his own, and you can see the release in the killer John’s eyes!! He’s feeding off his victims to relieve his own dark mind! Olivia and parallel Agent Lincoln storm the old farmhouse in time to save good John, and killer John commits suicide after realising the pain he has caused!

Back in Olivia’s universe, the parallel person is in hospital and both Olivia and Broyles are concerned as it becomes clear that the memory of Marjorie has been deleted from good John’s mind, the one thing that kept him in the light. But after a conversation with Olivia, it becomes clear that an imprint of her is still in his mind, as he tells Olivia that in dark moments, one only has to step into the light!!! Aww, all is good again!!!

What is interesting about this episode is during Fauxlivia’s conversation with Olivia and Broyles at the beginning, she mentions that her Broyles, the one who was killed in Series 3, wasn’t too keen on using the good John either!!! I thought to myself ‘eh’ what’s going on!! But I then thought, Broyles was killed when he was pursuing Peter, which if Peter hasn’t existed, well he wouldn’t have lost his life, would he? I then started to think, if that’s the case, what else has happened where Peter has had an impact, such as the baby with Fauxlivia. And low and behold, as the episode moves on, we see that Fauxlivia is still with her old boyfriend Frank, and yes you’ve guessed it, not a baby in sight!!! I got quite excited at this point!!! But then I started to think, Peter hasn’t been fully destroyed, so what’s going to happen when and if he reappears? Will Broyles mysteriously die? Will Fauxlivia have a baby land on her lap? Dunno, I’m looking forward to watching where this one goes………

On the Peter subject, Walter spent most of the episode covering up anything that had a reflection!! Not to mention calling Agent Lincoln ‘Kennedy’ instead of Lincoln. Brilliant!!! And Broyles makes a reference at the end of the episode after we found out that good John still remembered some of the good things that Marjorie had done, that some people in life make an inerasable mark on your soul!! Is this why Peter hasn’t been fully destroyed? Has he touched souls such as Olivia and Walter so much that part of him can’t be destroyed? More questions……… This is when having to wait another week for the next episode becomes painful!!!

3 Comments

  1. Excellent review, but they really need to stop this build up with Peter because the show is poorer without him!

  2. Olivia and Broyles at the beginning, she mentions that her Broyles, the one who was killed in Series 3, wasn’t too keen on using the good John either!!! I thought to myself ‘eh’ what’s going on!! But I then thought, Broyles was killed when he was pursuing Peter, which if Peter hasn’t existed, well he wouldn’t have lost his life, would he? I then started to think, if that’s the case, what else has happened where Peter has had an impact, such as the baby with Fauxlivia. And low and behold, as the episode moves on, we see that Fauxlivia is still with her old boyfriend Frank, and yes you’ve guessed it, not a baby in sight!!! I

    😯 😯 🙄

    Can you imagine people who have never seen Fringe reading that…they be like WTF 😀

  3. Haha!! Yeah I can see that, its certainly not a series you can start watching if you haven’t seen the others!!! I do wonder how long they will drag the Peter thing out. Hopefully, it’ll start developing more in the next couple of episodes!! Otherwise it just gets annoying 😕

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