Of all the mysteries swirling around Fox’s mythology-heavy
Fringe, few are as haunting and as creepily unnerving as that of the Observer, a lurking presence who takes voyeurism to new extremes. This bald, solemn, sad-eyed man always seems to be on the scene when something of major import occurs, forever watching but never engaging in the history that unfolds before his steady gaze.
Before this week’s terrific episode of
Fringe is over, viewers will have a much better sense of who these Observers are. (Why is another story.) I’ve had many responses to the weirdness of
Fringe in its two seasons on the air, but never before have I actually been moved. There’s an unusually emotional desperation to this episode, titled “August” (not after the month, although time is certainly an issue), which explores the aftermath of an unprecedented event: an Observer emerging from the shadows to take action in broad daylight, abducting a young woman for reasons unknown.
Our Fringe Division experts aren’t the only ones wondering what makes this girl so special, and why a creature that usually just watches would do something to call attention to itself. Peter is especially keen to get to the bottom of this Observer mystery. He believes “these people have the answers”—about William Bell’s warnings to Olivia, as well as answers about his own past, which his father Walter is desperate to keep secret.
Before this story reaches its poignant, then foreboding, end, we’ll learn that there’s much more to the Observer than a fetish for hot sauce. (Which is echoed by Walter’s own epic quest for the perfect strawberry milkshake.) It’s one of those episodes that’s destined to be discussed and debated as long as
Fringe tickles our imagination.
Another more insidious phantom, the serial killer known as Red John, re-emerges this week on an especially intense episode of CBS’s hit crime drama
The Mentalist. It starts off like the usual lark, with two of the CBI agents cuddling in bed before everyone is called to a crime scene, where a corpse is found in a cemetery crypt naked except for a bushel of strategically placed flowers.
The light tone takes a drastic dark turn when an even more shocking crime is discovered on their home turf that hits everyone hard—especially Patrick Jane, who’s frozen in shock as he once again takes the measure of the nemesis who slaughtered his wife and child. Many weeks, you might think
Simon Baker coasts on his star charisma to make this show a winner. This week, he earns that Emmy nomination he got last season (as a reward for the show’s breakout status) as Jane takes such extreme measures to get closer to the elusive menace of Red John—no smirking this time—that he’s eventually forced to see he’s not that much different
“The way you look at people and see right through them, that’s just spooky,” Jane is told by a person of interest, who has fallen under the master criminal’s spell. Red John, we’re told, is on a mission. And so is Jane, whose pain resurfaces in a pivotal episode that also gives some fine moments to
Terry Kinney (as Jane’s FBI adversary),
Gregory Itzin (as the bureau’s Special Agent in Charge) and
Robin Tunney as Lisbon, Jane’s long-suffering overseer.
The Mentalist usually feels like the light soufflé that comes at the end of a long and busy Thursday night of TV. This week, it’s more like the main course.