The Firefly (S03E10)
Airdate: 21 January 2011
Written by: J. H. Wyman & Jeff Pinkner Directed by: Charles Beeson
Running Time: 44 minutes
Following a month-long hiatus at the midpoint of Season 3, the producers of Fringe apparently endeavoured to turn over a new leaf. In this, they largely succeeded with The Firefly,"although one might reasonably argue that this episode's triumph owes as much to the sharp emotional contrast it provides as to its own intrinsic merits. Coming on the heels of Marionette—a decidedly disappointing instalment that felt more like a grotesque procedural than the emotionally resonant science fiction the series had cultivated—this return to form felt like a breath of fresh air, reminding audiences precisely why they had invested three years in these characters and their increasingly labyrinthine narrative.
The plot brings the Fringe Division to a Boston nursing home following an incident involving Roscoe Joyce (Christopher Lloyd), a retired rock musician. Roscoe, who suffers from sleepwalking, appears to have been visited by a figure bearing an uncanny resemblance to his son Bobby (Nick Oulette). The difficulty, of course, is that Bobby perished in 1985. Video evidence of this impossible encounter brings the Fringe investigators to the scene, though Walter Bishop greets the case with rather more enthusiasm than usual—Roscoe happened to be the keyboardist for Violet Sedan Chair, Walter's favourite band, whose limited-run vinyl releases he treasures with near-religious devotion. The investigation stalls, however, as Roscoe cannot recall what his late son, or indeed his apparition, actually said to him. Walter elects to circumvent this obstacle through hypnosis, allowing Roscoe to express himself through music in the hope that melody might unlock memories that conscious recollection cannot reach. As the session unfolds and Roscoe's fingers find the keys once more, an Observer known as September materialises unbidden in the laboratory and demands immediate audience with Walter.
Their subsequent conversation proves rather more illuminating than Walter might have wished. September reminds Walter of the circumstances surrounding his rescue of both the Observer and Peter, immediately following Walter's fateful trip to the Alternate Universe all those years ago. He informs Walter, with the dispassionate precision characteristic of his kind, that his decision to snatch Peter from the other side set in motion a cascade of events that altered history itself in ways both subtle and profound. Three months after Peter's arrival in the Prime Universe, the boy captured a firefly; the girl who was destined to catch it consequently failed in her task. She wandered far afield in search of another specimen, and her father, venturing out to find her, struck a pedestrian with his vehicle. Having delivered this revelation with the emotional warmth of a clinical report, September vanishes, leaving behind the cryptic instruction: "Give him the keys and save the girl."
Walter subsequently returns Roscoe to the nursing home, their strange consultation complete. The old musician thanks him with genuine warmth for the opportunity to play after so many years of silence, describing how he dissolved Violet Sedan Chair following his son's death in a traffic accident—that the music simply died within him when Bobby died. He recalls his final conversation with his son, in which Bobby described a vivid dream in which he visited his father as an old man. In this moment, Walter realises with dreadful clarity that Bobby was the pedestrian killed in that 1985 collision, and that the Observer's manipulation of time itself has created this impossible reunion between father and son across the decades.
Meanwhile, and entirely unbeknownst to the Fringe Division, September has embarked upon a series of actions quite uncharacteristic for his kind—actively involving himself in human affairs rather than merely observing from the shadows. This includes thwarting an armed robbery at a jewellery shop and saving the life of Victoria DiMiri (Olivia Chen), a shop employee, who suffers from asthma and finds herself unable to reach her inhaler during the chaos. When Walter learns of the Observer's unprecedented interference, he dispatches Olivia and Peter to bring Victoria to the laboratory for protection and examination. Yet September, in a manoeuvre that suggests calculated ruthlessness beneath his impassive exterior, deliberately rams the police vehicle transporting her, trapping her in the wreckage without access to her medication. As September flees the scene, Peter gives chase despite his father's explicit warnings to remain at the laboratory. Walter manages to improvise an inhaler from a plastic bottle, his scientific ingenuity overcoming the immediate crisis. Peter, meanwhile, corners September on a rooftop. The Observer offers a curious observation—"It must be very difficult, being a father"—before incapacitating Peter with energy weapon and disappearing before Olivia arrives to render assistance.
As Walter and Astrid convey Victoria to hospital, Olivia and Peter return to the laboratory. Peter, still recovering from his encounter and suffering from a persistent headache, takes aspirin and what he believes to be a bottle of milk in the refrigerator. The liquid is, in fact, a serum Walter had concocted to enhance his own mental capacities to equal those of Walternate, whose cognitive abilities remain undimmed by years of institutionalisation. Improperly prepared, the substance poisons Peter, who begins convulsing violently on the laboratory floor. Following Walter's increasingly desperate instructions over the telephone, Olivia improvises an antidote from available materials and saves Peter's life by mere moments. Walter later realises, with the terrible clarity of hindsight, that the same serum would have proved fatal to him; Peter survived only by virtue of being younger and possessing a healthier constitution. He becomes convinced this was all part of the Observer's elaborate design—a test of Walter's willingness to sacrifice what he loves most. We later see September conferring with his brethren, noting that Walter was willing to let Peter go, despite the mortal danger, and speculating that he might do so again when the stakes become even higher.
Although not the first Fringe episode to employ time travel as a narrative device, "The Firefly" approaches the concept with a rather more than obvious nod to arguably the most beloved time travel film ever committed to celluloid—Back to the Future. Christopher Lloyd, who starred as the iconic Doc Brown, delivers a moving guest performance as the elderly rock star, and the year in which he lost his son—who experienced his own temporal displacement thanks to the Observer's machinations—coincides precisely with the film's 1985 premiere. The meta-textual resonance is impossible to ignore and frankly rather delightful.
In one scene, Walter sports a pair of rather strangely coloured spectacles that immediately draw the eye. When Astrid inquires about them, he explains they were a gift from his friend Dr. Jacoby of Washington State. This is a clear reference to Twin Peaks and its eponymous character, who wore identical glasses. The allusion suggests the rather intriguing, if unlikely, possibility that the two series might share the same fictional universe—an Easter egg that rewards the attentive viewer without disrupting the narrative flow.
The episode is well-written and brilliantly acted, with John Noble and Christopher Lloyd sharing scenes of genuine emotional weight. That said, the violent armed robbery serves as an all-too-convenient and all-too-obvious excuse to inject some physical action into proceedings—this time through the rather unexpected display of the Observer's martial arts capabilities. One senses the writers felt compelled to include a set-piece confrontation, even if it sits somewhat awkwardly with the episode's more contemplative themes.
The Firefly was well-received by critics, who praised its deeply humanistic plotting and Lloyd's masterful performance. Most viewers would probably concur with this assessment; the episode succeeds because it remembers that the best science fiction grounds its fantastic elements in recognisably human emotion. With this instalment, the series began to regain some of its footing after the stumble of Marionette, suggesting that the second half of Season 3 might yet fulfil the ambitious promise of its parallel-universe mythology.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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