Fringe: Power Hungry   Rewatch 
June 25, 2014 6:19 AM - Season 1, Episode 5 - Subscribe

A young man's emotions get the better of him as both his love life and the tech he uses doesn't seem to be working for him. Olivia is tough but baffled, Walter likes food, and Peter is a smart ass.

A lovelorn messenger–and REO Speedwagon fan!–with the power to disrupt electrical devices with his mind, ends up standing beside his crush in an elevator and bad things happen. Olivia hangs out with John while new mysteries appear, more bad things happen, and they try to solve a case.
posted by P.o.B. (18 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
This is the episode of Fringe that made me a fan. I already liked the show, but using REO Speedwagon cemented it for me.
posted by Servo5678 at 7:04 AM on June 25, 2014


Yeah, I'm officially hooked at this point.
posted by moira at 10:46 AM on June 25, 2014


LEO: "You know your elevators!"
Peter: "MIT drop-out!"

Is this a joke I'm out on not having gone to MIT or Harvard? Or just herky-jerky character-building of Peter by Peter, turning him away from the 'International Conman of Mystery' slot and towards the 'Subtle Genius Handyman Love Interest' bracket?

More dialog that pricked my rears:

Dunham: "I thought you left hours ago."
Broyles (setting down a cup of coffee that he deliberately brought Olivia): "I could say the same about you."

Er, you could but then you'd be totally lying and obvious and weird because you just brought her specifically her who was staying late and you'd noticed so you brought her coffee. *sigh* But then I guess that's the way people talk small-talk in my office too, it's not like I don't hear a mangled trope or two on the daily in my cubicle forest.
posted by carsonb at 12:35 PM on June 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


REO Speedwagon watch: no Red Vines

3:55 It is a very sad and dismaying comment on society when a person can BUY a Brownie badge instead of earning one. She deserves to die.

4:28 September

14:32 Pigeons fly south for the winter, everyone knows. That's why there are no pigeons in London on Xmas day; they are all in Africa. Or Peckham. #science

16:01 I'd fire him too. Jeez.

23:47 1440lbs - 1275lbs= stalkery loser #maths

42:11 Milk!

This episode's glyph word is SOGGY referring to the whiskey soaked cornflakes which are still all over Olivia's kitchen floor. Next episode we will find out if alcohol voids the 2 second rule.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 12:42 PM on June 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


LEO: "You know your elevators!"
Peter: "MIT drop-out!"

Is this a joke I'm out on not having gone to MIT or Harvard? Or just herky-jerky character-building of Peter by Peter, turning him away from the 'International Conman of Mystery' slot and towards the 'Subtle Genius Handyman Love Interest' bracket?
This bugged me too. I mean, why would Peter mention his MIT dropout status in the context of this conversation? Either it's a complete non sequitur OR ... MIT has some prestigious Lift Studies programme I don't know about, because I'm not from the greater Boston area.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:49 PM on June 25, 2014


Other thoughts on this episode:

7:30: Cornflakes ... Whiskey ... Gun. Good times.

23:15: Fan service. There's nothing sexier than a topless Joshua Jackson blinking uncertainly into the light like some blind albino cave creature.

28:37: Wait a minute. If Meegar caused all the bulbs in his mother's apartment to blow, why are all the lights still on the next day?

29:36: There's really rather more REO Speedwagon in this episode than strictly necessary.

35:00: Astrid is so right about about that.

And, hang on ... Is Walter's motto "stranger things have happened" or "you're not going to accidentally fry one of those pigeons, are you?" Script is ambiguous.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:59 PM on June 25, 2014


Subtle Handyman Genius Love Interest bracket FTW!

Like Al from Home Improvement.
And Schneider from One Day At A Time.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 1:02 PM on June 25, 2014


Really he's the best foil for Olivia. For instance, imagine if Peter had somehow come along with her when she went looking for John Scott's hidey-hole. I can see him picking the lock to get them past the door (shab security, BTW, for an FBI Pattern Special Agent extra-secret hidey-hole don't you think?) and her standing back, gun out, thrumming. But Olivia by herself? That girl shoots what gets in her way, as mentioned before, pretty much every time. Alone, confronted with a locked door, her service weapon is out and blazing and nothing stands in her way.
posted by carsonb at 1:12 PM on June 25, 2014


(I skipped ahead to next episode, I'm having trouble not bingeing here.)

Next Ep we find out she hesitated once, she will never make that mistake again.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 1:18 PM on June 25, 2014


Is anybody else a little bit disoriented by the flattening effect from using a long camera distance with extreme zoom in a several of the shots? (I'm certain there is a technical name for this, I just don't know what it is.) I wonder why they would choose to use that effect.

(Also skipping ahead.)
posted by moira at 2:25 PM on June 25, 2014


Completely innapropiate lens flare during the foot chase scene.

I liked the accident scene inside the elevator, the flashing lights really set it off.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:02 PM on June 25, 2014


"Wool socks."
posted by P.o.B. at 4:27 PM on June 25, 2014


I noticed that lighting in the lift too, the red and blue police lights reflected off the side of Olivia's face.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 12:04 AM on June 26, 2014


Is anybody else a little bit disoriented by the flattening effect from using a long camera distance with extreme zoom in a several of the shots? (I'm certain there is a technical name for this, I just don't know what it is.) I wonder why they would choose to use that effect.

It's just a very long lens, Kurosawa was well-known for using it all the fuckin time.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:31 PM on June 26, 2014


I though the MIT line was a reference to elevator hacking, which seems like something Peter would have done.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:50 AM on June 29, 2014




On re-watch it's interesting to see the observers everywhere.
(In this episode coming out of the lift before it drops.)
posted by fullerine at 6:10 AM on July 5, 2014


The lights were actually still on in Meegar's flat. He just made them flicker long enough to distract his mum into having a pacemaker meltdown.

Also there's a line in there where Walter complains about how frustrating it is to have pieces of your brain missing. Indeed!
posted by Athanassiel at 6:28 AM on October 8, 2014


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