Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 7, Season 3, The Abducted
Posted by Karl Withakay on November 18, 2010
A Blue Episode
As always, an episode synopsis can be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent.
For the Search Engines
The complete prayer is as follows:
“Through suffering comes redemption.
Through sorrow comes exaltation.
Through pitch dark comes cleansing fire,
And through the fire we shall find the spring of new life.”
Is That a Good Idea For a Kid’s Game?
In Max’s bedroom , there was a copy of the other universe board game The Quarantine Zone, with the the tag line: “Can you escape before it’s too late?” on the front of the box.
And Knowing is Half the Battle
I can understand the need to conceal their identities, but why the Destro masks?
Other Universe News
Playing on the radio:
“Polls show that most Americans oppose the proposed law to limit the number of children to two per family, however leading politicians from two of the three major parties favor the law.”
So, they are working on population control and the have a three party system.
Another For the Search Engines
Apparently it took 5 years after the Peter Bishop kidnapping for the Peter Bishop Act of ’91, which states that every kidnapping must be treated as a possible Fringe event, to be enacted.
Is This the Alternate Universe in 2010 Or Ours In 1985?
So in a universe where they had the Motorola Razor super slim cell phones in 1985, they still have pagers in 2010?
One More For the Search Engines
The book in Max’s rooms was Burlap Bear Goes to the Woods, written and illustrated by Thomas Tomas Christensen. In our universe, I could find no Burlap Bear books, and I found nothing really of note by any author named Thomas Christensen. EDIT: I have been informed by Scott that this Fringe Author’s books have been seen in the show before.
Some Things Are the Same
Broyles’ son was listening to the Radio drama The Shadow featuring the characters (Lamont) Cranston/ The Shadow and Margo Lane, which are the same characters that appear in our version of The Shadow. It makes sense that a blind child might enjoy listening to radio dramas. It’s what I did as a child when I had a cornea injury and had to basically go blindfolded for a couple of days.
Some Things Are the Same But Later
I laugh at the backwards alternate universe that has only now advanced to the point of producing Red Vines which we have had since 1952!
Which Universe Was That In?
I wonder whether Olivia was remembering a Fauxlivia or an Olivia memory about a case involving a suspect that was draining hormones from pituitary glands?
Get Your Sugars Straight
You don’t have sucrose in your blood. Sucrose is broken down in the stomach and small intestine into its component sugars glucose and fructose before being absorbed into the bloodstream. I would guess that you’d also be dead from hyperglycemia (diabetes) long before your blood sugar was high enough to sweat that much sugar, sucrose or not.
Do they At Least Have Universal Healthcare In the Alternate Universe?
So not only do they have a small pox epidemic in the alternate universe, they also had an epidemic of the Avian influenza H5N1 as well.
Olivia’s Retained Her Crackerjack Investigative Skills
If Olivia was a good investigator, she would have asked not only for the names and addresses of all male church members, but she would have also asked for the records going back as far as the first Candy Man kidnapping to either look for someone who has been around that long, or to look for a pattern of a new member every two years.
One in Four Chance and Olivia Hits the Jackpot
So the Fringe Teams splits the list of over 40 names, and Olivia just happens to get Wyatt Toomy, the kidnapper?
Fringe Team: Multi-Universally for Sub-Par Agents
It’s not really a good idea to question people who could potentially be kidnappers by yourself without a partner for backup in case things go bad fast, as happened to Olivia. Also, it’s best not to let your guard down when you don’t know whether or not the suspect is still in the apartment, like Olivia did. She must be recovering her true personality.
Peter Is Either a Moron or Fauxlivia is REALLY Good In the Sack
If I were Peter, I could buy that Olivia had not seen Casablanca, but not that she didn’t know it starred Humphrey Bogart and not Ronald Regan. I have to conclude he is being willfully ignorant because the sex is so good and/or he just likes Fauxliva better.
Obligatory Tony Todd Reference
If Fringe Team wanted to find the Candyman, thet should have just looked into a mirror and said his name three times.
WordPress Problems
WordPress made some changes and it ended up screwing up some of the links in this post, as well as blanking out all the links in the Fringe review index page somehow including all previous revisions of that page since October. The links should be fixed and working now.
Cordial Deconstruction 
Polite Dissent » Fringe — Episode 7 (Season 3): “The Abducted” said
[…] This week’s Fringe cipher was: ESCAPE. A list of all previous Fringe reviews is available here. Karl, as always, has much more to say. […]
politescott said
That’s because it’s Tomas Christensen, not Thomas. His books have appeared in Fringe before.
Karl Withakay said
Aha! My Mistake.
Tangent128 said
Pretty sure the very second episode of the series had the pituitary case.
politescott said
I cannot tell a lie, I had help on that one: http://www.observersarehere.com/burlap-bear-ellas-book/2009/04/
Kelly said
So in a universe where they had the Motorola Razor super slim cell phones in 1985, they still have pagers in 2010?
Are you implying that pagers are obsolete in our now and when? Because that’s not true. Many emergency personnel use them since they don’t have the dead zone issues of cell phones. I actually work with police who carry both on a regular basis.
Karl Withakay said
What I am saying is that in a universe where they had Motorola Razor technology in 1985, pagers would likely be obsolete in 2010. I doubt we will be seeing much of pagers here by 2030. They’ve mostly disappeared in Europe already via the success of GSM.
Tuomas T said
Kelly:
I’m Finnish and I can’t remember seeing a pager, well, I can’t remember. Seeing them being used in American popular culture feels pleasantly alien. I could not find them on sale at Finnish internet stores. For all intents and purposes they are obsolete here.
Finland had NMT network 1982 and the world’s first GSM network 1991. Maybe there’s a chance for analogy, maybe there isn’t.
The Finnish authorities’ have their own network:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIRVE
Thiago said
Pagers obsolete in that universe? In THAT particular universe? I found that to be the exact opposite; there’s no other way to send text messages since the cellphones in the 2010 there are only a sort of tiny thing clipped in the ear, with no visor at all, probably with some sort of voice command dial as well.
Of course, then you might said that they need not to send text messages and should just use that communicator but hey, even in our universe people like the idea of having both options. And also, perhaps that pager is more high tech than we’ll ever know and can make a toasts as well.
2010 In Review « Cordial Deconstruction said
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