3x11 "Reciprocity" - Episode Discussion

justkickit wrote:

Hey, there Elliot.

Uurgh, to the writing I agree. The writing was muddled too for Peter's other episode last season. What? Can't they get good writers for Peter.

Agreed with most of your post. Let's just hope we are right. To me he has cracked. He's just not thinking rationally at all. He's on a mission, but I do think the machine has enhanced his mission mentality. I just hope they keep on dropping little seeds in the background of the episodes from now on. So, that we see this storyline continuing to develop each episode. Rather than, not show anything for many episodes, then come back to it and expect us to accept the development that has happened. (They've done that previously in other seasons).

I would really like to see Peter and Olivia bond over this bleakness that is consuming Peter. It doesn't have to be sappy or romantic (I'd hate that), just well written scenes with Olivia helping/supporting and trying to understand Peter and what he is going through. I think it would go along way to cementing their relationship with the audience.

These, all of them. We need the 'breadcrumbs' both in plotting and relationship, to make sense of what is going on. (That was one reason of many the fakelivia sex scene was stupefying; if Peter and Olivia had been doing more than eye sex before, it wouldn't have been so jarring.)

And if we'd seen any evidence of Peter cracking up before he started killing, that would be easier to believe as well.

And I don't disagree the machine is affecting him, I think though that he is affected by all of what has happened to him too, that he is more than a mechanical thing, not just a fated object, what would be the point? Whereas a human struggling with emotions and shock would be more vulnerable to the lure of power.

Hmmmm maybe he will plot to destroy the other universe before walternate can destroy ours?

Elliot wrote:

?not very net?

I do not think the machine changed him. He was killing th shifters before he was in the room with it.

sorry, i think I use the french word, how could i explain what I meant ?
In Irak, in the pilot, we could imagine he has already deal with not very legal things, maybe had to kill some people (to save his life or just his business...) . In the first season we had some clues to think he's not afraid of breaking the laws , arent't we?) . So this time, it's so important that he might have think he HAS to kill them to find the shapeshifter's mission.
But you're also right...

Elliot wrote:

I think he realized the fake and his father had taken her from him again, this time not by killing her as his father had nearly accomplished before, but by killing their relationship. That malice--and the fact the fake was sent not to take him home but to manipulate him for getting the machine & its parts, would be enough to tip you over the edge. Olivia's ties to him will anchor him, bring him back.


And I don't disagree the machine is affecting him, I think though that he is affected by all of what has happened to him too, that he is more than a mechanical thing, not just a fated object, what would be the point? Whereas a human struggling with emotions and shock would be more vulnerable to the lure of power.

Elliot wrote:

The messiness in writing bothered me a bit, but not as much as the terribly shaggy cosmology & physics does. Peter left mercury smears all over that last house, just before Olivia got in, and the FBI forensics missed that and his blood under the doctor's fingernails... unbelievable. And that he never questioned any of the shifters, just slaughtered them, yet he took the info disks---bad writing.

I think, as the disk are full of the information about shapeshifter mission and so on ... just having them is as usefull as an asking session , with no risk of liying

Elliot wrote:

Hmmmm maybe he will plot to destroy the other universe before walternate can destroy ours?

I don't think so, or that mean he would destroy his mother, I can't believe it.
No I think he just wants to blow out the walternate's project, or just kill and destroy him and Fakelivia , but not all his universe.

Hi fringerfan!

He's always done illegal things, that's no surprise... what was surprising was not him hunting the shifters so much as that he doesn't even try to interrogate them first. So I think anger and fear are making him careless, and stupid. That's normal enough, human.
But coupled with the power inherent in being the power behind the most powerful weapon ever invented....... the phrase drunk with power pertains here, possibly. 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'.

Do I think Peter will fall all the way down that well? No. But anger and feeling alone will tempt him. (And that is certainly what we are supposed to worry about him doing.) Peter will never be the big bad, but they will try to make us think so.

Thoughts of his mother........ yes, that will affect him, but he doesn't really know alt-Elizabeth anymore, he was raised by the other one, and she's dead a long time.
The one he's missing is the dead one. The same way the Olivia he loves is the blue universe one.

He is in fact much closer to Olivia, as far as someone he's spent time with. There's a big difference between blood ties and love, they are not dependent on one another. You can be related to someone and neither know nor love them.
I don't think alt-Elizabeth will be betraying Peter, but she knows things she hasn't told him, and has perhaps in a way already betrayed him by not telling him.

But that's OK, according to Pinkner, the other side is completely blameless for everything they do, and better than everybody in the blue universe.

Quote :

I don't think alt-Elizabeth will be betraying Peter, but she knows things she hasn't told him, and has perhaps in a way already betrayed him by not telling him.

When I saw over there part 1 I thought alt-elisabeth didn't know about the machine, I think she knows the same version that walternate told peter....also walternate and alt-elisabeth are not close...there is a reason they are still together that we will find out in episode 15.

Yeah, I saw that about 'a reason they are still together'. But she came close to, and stopped herself, telling Peter something... when she wouldn't call Walternate Peter's father. I agree, they are not close, and it will be a relief to see some light shed on the whole "wouldn't it have been better if Peter had stayed over there."

Well......... on rewatching, I see he WASN'T killing the ss until the machine hurt him. And realized that with the datadisks, he doesn't need to question them, everything would be in them. We don't know if he found anything in the last one (I wanna see the disk reader he made at home!)

While I think they will try to scare us (and poor Olivia) with the
killer Peter (this is where the show really calls back to 'Altered
States', isn't it?)---I know he and Olivia will figure out a way to fix
things. It's who they are, what they do.

Rewatching I was also able to see that Peter wasn't just happy that
Olivia forgave him and apologized for cutting him off, he was
overjoyed. He needs her to love him the way he loves her. He kept
grinning at her.... they may as well have taken a pink highlighter and
drawn heart bubbles coming out of his head.

Elliot wrote:

Well......... on rewatching, I see he WASN'T killing the ss until the machine hurt him. And realized that with the datadisks, he doesn't need to question them, everything would be in them. We don't know if he found anything in the last one (I wanna see the disk reader he made at home!)

While I think they will try to scare us (and poor Olivia) with the
killer Peter (this is where the show really calls back to 'Altered
States', isn't it?)---I know he and Olivia will figure out a way to fix
things. It's who they are, what they do.

Rewatching I was also able to see that Peter wasn't just happy that
Olivia forgave him and apologized for cutting him off, he was
overjoyed. He needs her to love him the way he loves her. He kept
grinning at her.... they may as well have taken a pink highlighter and
drawn heart bubbles coming out of his head.

I agree with you. Jasika said the survival of both worlds are in olivia's and peter's hands. you now there is mantra that appeared for the first time in "abducted" and reappeared in "firefly", and I think it's related with the future of both worlds:

The fire!! The fire from Peter's eyes in the prophecy!
And....the dark....O__O

yes!!! and " the pitch dark comes the cleaning fire" reminds me mathis' words..."in the darkness there is always a crack ...is how the light gets in"....

racoca wrote:

yes!!! and " the pitch dark comes the cleaning fire" reminds me mathis' words..."in the darkness there is always a crack ...is how the light gets in"....

yes!! and the "new life" could be a new (but always the same) peter or a new universe

Wow, racoca and jade!

Outstanding!

I need to go back to bed, but I need to think about what you're saying.........

Oh another little observation: the sentence "find the crack" is YELLOW and is written on a PEN!!

"Find the crack" could also men "find the answers inside you" ....."find your real identity"

thanks cathy!!!I want to know more about the machine but i think we will have to wait to the end of the season.

*blushes* Hee, hee!

jade86 wrote:

Oh another little observation: the sentence "find the crack" is YELLOW and is written on a PEN!!

"Find the crack" could also men "find the answers inside you" ....."find your real identity"

.About "find the crack" meaning...now we know Peter will go to a dark path, i will say it means that even when you are in the dark there is always a way to "get out".But to achieve that, Peter will have to "find the answers", like you said ,and also the most important thing: according to the mantra "the cleaning fire! only will come trough the pitch dark..so i'ts necessary for Peter to go this way to find "the light" or "the crack".

It's how the light gets in.

racoca wrote:

jade86 wrote:

Oh another little observation: the sentence "find the crack" is YELLOW and is written on a PEN!!

"Find the crack" could also men "find the answers inside you" ....."find your real identity"

.About "find the crack" meaning...now we know Peter will go to a dark path, i will say it means that even when you are in the dark there is always a way to "get out".But to achieve that, Peter will have to "find the answers", like you said ,and also the most important thing: according to the mantra "the cleaning fire! only will come trough the pitch dark..so i'ts necessary for Peter to go this way to find "the light" or "the crack".

Exactly

From a review on Fringe Television:

Quote :

And now I’ve got a question for you: how much of this “First People”
stuff are we supposed to believe? Three books, evidently published
within the past 150 years, about a group of people who pre-date the
dinosaurs…are we supposed to find that to be compelling proof? Is it
because of an implication that the author of the books is himself a
First Person? Or are the First People a red herring, too?

We know who is one of the first people

And from another review/recap:

Quote :

I have plenty of questions about the Machine. Presumably, the First
People built it, split it into pieces, and then buried it--or, after
they wiped themselves out with the Machine, someone else disposed of
it. But how did Walternate first learn about it? I suspect William Bell
may have had something to do with that, as we learn in "Reciprocity"
that he looked into the book about the First People some time ago. We
also know that despite his stated desire to prevent a war between the
two worlds, he designed weapons and shapeshifters for the other side in
order to gain Walternate's trust.

That's a very good point, and either a big thing to be answered, or a big hole in the plot, due to bad writing. I lean to the latter, as the pieces would not have been where they were found (the coordinates would refer to places long since changed geologically).

The fact that Bell did researches about the first people makes me wonder if the whole story about the war written in the ZFT came from the first people. And if Peter is one of them, a sort of chosen one or a god, here's why bell told olivia that she needed him in this war.

I believe bell knew about peter's nature before walter. In "peter" episode Bell was in "europe" while walter was presenting their project to the militaries.Even when peter dies, Bell is unable to go o the funeral and nina was unable to comunicate with him. Remember walter asked nina how many times did she speak with him.

What I think is Bell invented a machine or a way to cross over before walter did...If we for example look to "reciprocity" and other episodes is like Bell is always a step forwrd compared to walter.I'm speaking about wlter's phrase:"very clever, wish I thought it" he also said that again when he was examinating a shapeshifter.
My theoty is bell cross over before walter but maybe in a save way.

About peter's nature. I think is important Bell introduced elisabeth to walter, I don't think it's a coincidence.

I also think that Bell was over there before Peter1 died. Maybe he was over there to know something about the first people and peter...

So... did Bell just waltz up to Walternate and say, "ohai I'm from the place that stole your boy, wanna give me a job?" -- surely he is a far bigger wasp in the jam than we've realized. And since Walternate knew where he was from, why did he not ask for his boy back?

maybe bell found out some first people were alive and he was looking for them. I'm thinking....Sam Weiss. Nina knew him at lest since she had this "accident" with her arm. And we know Bell was who design her arm, so bell told nina about the nature of sam weiss and he could help her.