The Fringe ride continues with Season 3’s second episode, entitled “The Box”, in which a seeming monster-of-the-week plot quickly turns out to be entwined closely with the show’s mytharc.  Altivia (Anna Torv) is in our universe and, with Newton’s help (played by Sebastian Roché), she gleans more information about our Fringe Division and infiltrates it even more. Working the case brings her closer to Peter, albeit unwillingly, and we start seeing little mistakes Altivia is making, mistakes which will hopefully clue the Fringe team in sooner rather than later.

While the production team seems to still be taking its time in giving us elements of the plot fans are anxiously waiting for, it is doing so brilliantly, teasing its audience with little bits and pieces as it has for the last two years. As a result, the episode manages to balance well giving its audience enough action to keep it interested while also teasing it just about enough with glimmerings of information. This is typical of Fringe’s rather unique and, at the end, satisfying storytelling.

While the nature of the show demands a constant flow of new concepts and storylines, it also calls for some level of repetition. For example, we had the return of the same neural stimulator that Walter used in Season 1’s “The Ghost Network” (Episode 3) and “Inner Child” (Episode 15). There was also the return of a highly familiar sound effect, i.e. that used in Season 2’s “Of Human Action” (Episode 7). In both episodes, when the characters’ hearing is affected, an interesting dampening effect is used that eerily simulates the sound I recall while my ears were plugged during a recent underwater expedition. There was also the effect The Box had on its victims, which paralleled a little bit what happened to victims of the computer program created by Dempsey in “The No-Brainer” (Season 1, Episode 12).

I also love the recurrence of certain themes in Fringe, including perception, duality, evil and destiny. We are shown various facets of their inner complexity, which allows deeper exploration – and hopefully, understanding of those ideas.

I like the hints that we are going to be seeing more of Newton, who is, like David Robert Jones, quite the polite baddie. But I like Newton’s rather dry sense of humor as well:

Man in subway: What’s this?
Newton: It’s a box.

I’m really looking forward to more of these one-liners.

The Observer was spotted in the subway station. Newton has just left the box behind and is exiting the premises when September comes in. As for the glyphs, they spelled out ‘Alert’. Is it simply a continuation of last week’s ‘Amber’? Or rather, is it a word to be taken on its own? I still remain convinced that there is more about the words we have yet to figure out, and am still waiting for a stroke of genius to hit me (hopefully not hard enough that I won’t be able to write about it!).

There are more and more questions surrounding Walternate’s weapon. First and foremost: why is Peter the subset of one the weapon responds to? I have the impression that it might have to do with the fact that Peter is from the alternate-universe, but lived most of his life in our universe. Somehow, this has ‘imprinted’ both universes’ electromagnetic field on him, which gives him unique abilities.

I still think that the weapon has something to do with the time difference between the two universes, and is using Peter’s ‘double electromagnetic imprint’ to somehow sync the two up – to the advantage of the alternate-universe, too. I also think that the machine could sync up the two universes to any one of their advantages. I posit that the universe in which the weapon is activated will be the one to survive.

At end of episode, the camera pans to the blueprint Peter is pouring over, and we clearly see written on it: “quantum flux parallel field generator”. Now I don’t know a lot about quantum mechanics or electromagnetics, but I’m still going to venture a guess that creating a parallel field could somehow separate one universe from the other, and destroy the universe that is being separated. Remember: the two universes exist in the same space and almost at the same time. If the weapon “pushes” one universe into another space that isn’t necessarily habitable, wouldn’t is destroy that universe?

It could also be that the universe that uses the weapon will be the one to impose its ‘field’ on the other; and  so, if we use the weapon, “gaps” in our world could be filled by what is in the alternate universe. However, in the end, most of our universe would survive, most of theirs would disappear. Again, this is just a theory – I look forward to getting more clues and honing it!

Another very interesting question is the one Broyles asks: why are there pieces of the weapon on our side? And well hidden, at that. It’s probably the same person who hid Newton’s head in a cryogenic facility – and that implies, quite strongly, that Bell had something to do with it. There is always the very slight possibility that the Observers helped with it, since they seem to be changing their mode of operation somewhat (think of August’s actions in the episode named after him, and September’s increasing involvement in the Bishops’ lives). Also, the fact that the weapon is ancient technology and yet does something totally futuristic makes it a reflection of all technology used by the Observers up to now.

Amidst all these theories, what seems certain is that there are more pieces hidden in our universe, as Altivia’s message to the Other Side implies (the one about Peter having the first piece). The rest of Season 3 seems to be gearing towards a race: will we manage to find the various pieces and secret them away, or will the Other Side get enough of them to be able to activate the weapon?

And what role is Walter going to play in all of this? He now has access to Massive Dynamic, which could mean access to top secret information. However, he still doesn’t have access to his memories. The theory I’m leaning towards is that Walter had something to do with the weapon and hiding the pieces. Perhaps it’s that Bell used typical hiding spots that only he and Walter knew about; or perhaps Walter is the only one who knows Bell enough to be able to figure out where the various pieces are.

Whatever the case, Altivia’s order to “being work on Dr. Bishop” is rather ominous, and makes me think of what Newton did to him in “Grey Matters” (Season 2, Episode 10).

The character of Newton, as an extension of Walternate into our universe, continues to shock and intrigue us. Two things in this episode are of particular interest to us.

The first is the juicy piece of information he gives us is when he tells Altivia he has been here, in our world, since she has been in high school. This means it has been at least 15 years he has come here, and sheds a bit more light on Fringe’s timeline.

Another interesting tidbit that might help us with the timeline comes from the two men who had been hired to dig out the box. While digging, they mention that this job is going to give them a lot of money, just like the one in Texas (which apparently didn’t go as well as planned). By the same token, Newton mentioned that he had already worked with them. This could imply that Newton might have been the one to hire them to do a job in Texas, but that the job in Texas got botched. Or perhaps there is no relationship between the two pieces of information. Does anyone remember if, on the map of Fringe events Olivia drew back in Season 1’s “There More than One of Everything” (Episode 20), the pattern of events extended all the way to Texas?