FRINGE 2.21 - "Northwest Passage"

WRITERS: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Nora Zuckerman & Lilla Zuckerman
DIRECTOR: Joe Chappelle
GUEST CAST: Martha Plimpton, Christine Chatelain, Patrick Gilmore, Paul Herbert, Sebastian Roché, Marie West, Juan Riedinger & Mig Macario

[SPOILERS] Its hour of Twin Peaks referencing amused me (a Washington state small-town, a diner serving slices of pie, "Northwest Passage" was Peaks' working title and unofficial pilot name, the episode's music took on a Angelo Badalamenti-esque tone), and this was otherwise a decent showcase for Peter (Joshua Jackson) as a Special Agent Dale Cooper analog, but it was a pity the story didn't really make a lick of sense...

Having runaway to "find his place in the world", Peter passes through Noyo County in Washington State, and finds himself embroiled in a town's murder case when an attractive waitress (Christine Chatelain) who promised to hand-deliver him a "mix tape" is kidnapped, had a portion of her temporal lobe removed, and was dumped beside a river. Peter realizes the m.o is that of shape-shifter Thomas Jerome Newton (Sebastian Roché), who was likely extracting memories from the waitress in an effort to locate him, so agrees to help local Sheriff Tracy Mathis (Martha Plimpton) solve the case by entrusting her with his "crazy" explanations for what's going on.

"Northwest Passage" was close to being a bigger success than it became, mainly because it was great to see Jackson take centre stage for an hour that almost exclusively focused on Peter. The Twin Peaks overtones were nicely integrated, appealing to fans of that seminal series but probably going unnoticed by the majority of casual viewers. The main failing of this episode was the tenuous reason for everything; as it made little sense that Newton would have managed to trace Peter this far without leaving a trail of dead bodies behind, or even need to extract memories from people when he could get the answers in a manner that would provoke less attention. To its credit, this episode did attempt to answer that latter question, but in a very unconvincing manner. How hard could it be to find where Peter was staying in a backwater town, even if he was using aliases?

I assume the core silliness at this episode's heart is the reason four writers were credited, as the script perhaps needed heavy-duty patchwork to hide its leaps of logic, or was maybe passed between two writing partnerships to try and make a bad script work. Whatever the reason, I think they did a decent job with a story where the core premise was heavily flawed, and it was unfortunate the storyline had to tie-in with the series' mythos. It would have made more sense for Peter to be tackling unrelated fringe-y goings, but maybe the writers were forced to include Newton because we're now in sweeps?

Overall, "Northwest Passage" was a potential gem that didn't come together all that plausibly, but it was great to see Jackson being given more material (he's too often just a snarky sidekick), guest-star Martha Plimpton was very good, the story did a decent job of investigating Peter's mental state now he's discovered Walter (John Noble) isn't his real father, and the final moment when Newton appeared in Peter's motel room to introduce The Secretary (a.k.a "Walternate") was a fantastic climax to setup the remaining two-part conclusion of season 2.

Asides

• The reveal that The Secretary is Walter's counterpart from the alternate-Earth was very predictable, but nonetheless a very exciting development. And it was clear with just two words ("hello, son") that John Noble has found a way to present Walternate as someone far more confident and sane than the Walt we know and love. It'll be fascinating to see if Peter bonds with his real father, or the father he's known all his life. And will we get scenes of the two Walters together? Can't wait to find out.
• I can't believe this has only just dawned on me, but Thomas Jerome Newton is also the name of David Bowie's character in the 1976 sci-fi movie The Man Who Fell To Earth.
• You may remember Martha Plimpton from her role as a child actor in The Goonies, amongst many other things in adulthood.

6 MAY 2010: FOX, 9|8c