The Man from the Other Side (S02E19)
Airdate: 22 April 2010
Written by: Josh Singer & Ethan Gross Directed by: Jeffrey Hunt
Running Time: 44 minutes
The Man from the Other Side arrives at a curious juncture in Fringe's second season—just a handful of episodes shy of the finale—when the series finally decides to confront the elephant that's been sitting in the Bishop living room since the pilot. For months, both the characters and the audience have been dancing around Peter's true origins, and the show at last grants us a measure of semi-closure on this thorny matter. There's something almost perversely fitting, however, about the manner in which this revelation finally comes to pass. Rather than the quiet, intimate conversation that might have served everyone's interests best, Fringe being Fringe opts for maximum spectacle. The truth emerges through gunfire, dimensional collapse, and a near-apocalyptic crossing between universes.
Walter Bishop has spent the better part of the season working up the courage to tell Peter the devastating truth: that he is not, in fact, Walter's biological son, but rather an alternate version snatched from the Other Side after Walter's own boy died of a genetic illness. It's the kind of secret that festers, and Walter's procrastination has become almost painful to watch. Yet before he can finally unburden himself, the demands of the Fringe Division intervene in typically inconvenient fashion. Another case demands attention—two teenagers have met grisly ends after choosing what must rank as the worst possible location for a romantic rendezvous. Their ill-fated date took place near abandoned warehouse that happened to be serving as the arrival point for two shapeshifters from the Alternate Universe. When the Fringe team investigates, they discover something even more disturbing: a mysterious object that turns out to be a third shapeshifter, caught in a grotesque half-embryonic state, malformed during whatever procedure facilitated their interdimensional journey.
The investigation takes a turn when the team connects the teenagers' deaths to a massive disruption in Boston's television signals. Walter, applying his particular brand of intuitive genius, traces the cause to a signal emanating from the Other Side—a phenomenon that occurs when the two universes fall into synchronisation. The implications are alarming: the next such alignment is mere hours away, and Fringe Division quickly concludes that Thomas Jerome Newton, the calculating operative from the Alternate Universe, intends to repeat his earlier stunt with the New York buildings. He's planning to transport something across the dimensional divide, apparently unconcerned about the potentially catastrophic consequences for both worlds.
To pinpoint exactly where this transfer will occur, Walter takes a characteristically drastic step. He revives the malformed shapeshifter (Morris Chapdelaine), extracting from its damaged consciousness the name of its intended target: Daniel Verona, a medical examiner at a local hospital, portrayed by Shawn McDonald. The FBI manages to intercept Verona before the shapeshifters can eliminate him and assume his identity, but Newton's scheme proves more sophisticated than a simple identity theft. He required Verona merely as a means of accessing the hospital, so he fakes his own death to be transported to the morgue where he can conceal a device at a specific location. A second location, a bank, has already been compromised—its manager, Ben Allister (Peter Bryant), has been replaced by another shapeshifter operative.
When Allister's genuine corpse surfaces, Fringe Division grasps the pattern. Newton's plan involves precise geographical coordinates, and Olivia quickly triangulates the next likely site using the hospital and bank as reference points. The target reveals itself: a collapsed, derelict bridge spanning the Charles River, selected specifically because the water below will absorb the tremendous energy of the dimensional crossover. Walter frantically constructs an interference device capable of disrupting Newton's procedure, and the race against time begins in earnest.
The climax unfolds with characteristic Fringe bombast. The team converges on the bridge and engages in desperate combat with Newton's shapeshifter guards. Peter manages to reach the span and activate Walter's interference device, yet the crossover process still initiates. What follows is one of the series' more haunting images: a figure materialising from the Other Side while the same dimensional vibrations literally disintegrate an FBI agent standing nearby. Peter, knocked unconscious in the chaos, wakes in hospital to learn that the crossing succeeded—the man from the Other Side has arrived.
The episode's emotional core lands with devastating force when Walter arrives to check on his son. Peter, still processing what he witnessed on the bridge, delivers the realisation that has been building for two seasons. Since both he and the mysterious visitor remained unaffected by the vibrations that killed the agent, they must share the same origins. The truth crystallises with horrible clarity: Peter was abducted from the Other Side, and Walter is not his true father. The scene crackles with betrayal and grief as Peter informs Walter that their relationship is effectively over. Meanwhile, Newton confers with his mysterious visitor—the "Secretary" whose identity remains tantalisingly concealed—and Olivia delivers the final blow to Walter: Peter has discharged himself from hospital and vanished without trace.
As a piece of television, The Man from the Other Side sits frustratingly close to greatness, ultimately undermined by a handful of clumsy creative decisions from writers Josh Singer and Ethan Gross. Where they succeed magnificently is in their timing: finally dragging the Peter revelation into the light now rather than saving it for the season finale. This choice generates genuine narrative momentum and allows the final episodes to explore the consequences rather than merely the fact of the deception. Yet one cannot help but feel this could have been handled with more elegance. Walter had countless opportunities for honest confession, and the fact that Peter must instead piece together the truth during a life-threatening dimensional catastrophe—complete with gun battles and cosmic spectacle—feels like a missed opportunity for genuine character drama.
The episode also demonstrates Fringe's occasionally overzealous commitment to body horror. The malformed shapeshifter provides appropriately grotesque visuals, and Walter's revival methods carry unmistakable echoes of Dr. Frankenstein's infamous experiments. The subsequent power failure that forces Astrid to illuminate the lab with candles pushes the Gothic atmosphere into something approaching parody—Fringe seemingly unable to resist any opportunity for genre flourish, however tonally inconsistent.
Further complications arise from the continued unraveling of the Bishop family saga. The revelation that Elizabeth Bishop took her own life years prior adds yet another layer of dysfunction to an already tortured paternal relationship, edging the material toward soap opera melodrama.
What ultimately salvages the episode is Jeffrey Hunt's assured direction, which strikes a proper equilibrium between propulsive action and necessary exposition. The adversaries from the Other Side continue to impress as competent, resourceful threats rather than mere cannon fodder. And the closing cliffhanger—maintaining the mystery of the Secretary's identity—preserves substantial potential for the season's remaining instalments. The same optimism cannot extend to Peter himself, who must now grapple with the devastating psychological fallout of his discovery. Whatever resolution awaits in the finale, it will need to address the profound damage done here—a challenge that will require more than dimensional physics and laboratory wizardry to resolve.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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