TV Recap: ‘Fringe,’ “Earthling”

Fringe is back! And before we get to the recap of this week’s effort, I wanted to touch on the ratings, which if you didn’t see, were awful this week. “Earthling” dipped to a pretty pathetic 1.7 in the 18-49 demo with a little less than 5 million viewers. That was worse than Vampire Diaries. Yeah, Fox’s buzziest show going into this season is now getting thumped by the CW. Now, a lot of people are claiming that the World Series de-railed the ratings, especially because most of us probably figured that Fox would air a re-run if there wasn’t a game seven (even though all the ads said differently). There’s other talk about various cable services not updating in time, blah blah blah.

The point is the ratings for the program have been weak all season. Fox showed confidence in putting it on during the most competitive timeslot, but it’s time to re-think that strategy for when Idol and 24 return after the new year. With Lie to Me not doing that hot either, you’d think Fox would want to save the show that most people like over a pretty run-of-the-mill procedural. But, one is a 20th Century Fox show and one isn’t — which means bad news for Fringe. Color me worried. Not that worried, but definitely worried.

ANYWAY, onto this week’s episode which prominently featured Broyles!

Though nowhere near the season’s best, “Earthling” was certainly a fun-as-hell hour of television. The way people were being killed in this one — by being turned in to ash — was freaking brilliantly done and any time Lance Reddick gets to do more than look sternly at Anna Torv then it’s a good episode. Speaking of Lance Reddick (and I know other people have mentioned this), but that opening scene where he plays a little game with a young child and then smiles — is that the only time he has smiled in his major television roles? Throughout his time on The Wire, Lost and this one I can’t remember a smile. Let me just say, kinda creepy Lance. I can see why you play these type of guys.

Anyway, it turns out that the case the team is on — you know, the people turning to ash — reminds Broyles of a case he worked four years ago. In that time, Fringe Division saw its budget cut and so Broyles dedicated himself to do the best he could to save people with the small amount of resources he had, but in the end all it got him was some divorce papers. So with Broyles vested interest in this case more than others, there was at least a bit of emotional urgency found within it.

After a sluggishly-paced first half, things picked up when Broyles found out from a Senator that the prime suspect’s brother was a cosmonaut.  Walter’s investigation into the bodies and a chemical formula found during some digging reveals that the villain is some sort of shadow man that is sucking the radiation from its subjects. Wait, what? In a nice little twist, the shadow was a “thing” from space that had attached to the cosmonaut and was projecting itself outside the hosts body. Very cool.

Eventually it was discovered that the cosmonaut’s brother could not separate the shadow from the cosmonaut without killing him, which was kind of sad, but hey, they’re Russian! And killers! Fuck ‘em. The brother finds this out the hard way, as the shadow ends up killing his ass and setting his sights on a little girl (how dare him!). Thankfully, the team is following, breaks down the door and Broyles kills the cosmonaut without blinking. Phillip!

In the end, Broyles goes and visits his ex-wife just to tell her that he solved the case. She’s moved on and re-married, but the two clearly remain more than cordial with one another. She tears up a little and tells him “I’m happy for you” and then asks him to join her and the new man for dinner* but Broyles declines. Then when he’s walking back the car, he’s confronted by a CIA agent for interfering in the investigation in the first place. Whatever happened to the cosmonaut originally, the Russians and by extension the CIA wanted to keep it a secret. Broyles doesn’t really budge to the threats and the CIA fella walks away. Could trouble be a-brewin’ for Broyles?

*Why do people always do this in movies and television shows? This doesn’t happen in real life does it? I would never invite an ex-girlfriend to dinner with my current one.

Other things:

• As nice as the Broyles stuff was and as cool as the case was, I felt like Peter and Olivia weren’t even in this episode. Seriously, I don’t remember one thing that either of them said. And though that is usually the case for Olivia, not so for Peter. After putting him in the spotlight early on, he’s been pushed aside again and that sucks.
• I tweeted this (@corybarker, for your information), but one thing that bothers me: Peter wearing the leather coat instead of the peacoat. I know that’s really stupid, but it just bothers me.
• Uh, where the hell is Jessup? Did the writers seriously realize after the premiere episode that it was a waste of time, considering they don’t even like to focus on the main characters that often? I mean she did suck but c’mon.
• Good to see the Russians involved. They suck.*
• I like the standalone efforts, but with the ratings sinking, the show needs all the help it can get, and for me, that means getting back to some more mythology-based stuff. Or at least more heavy material for the Bishops

*No they don’t. For the most part.