'Fringe' recap: The Times They Are A-Changing

By Zap2it Partner

November 14, 2011 2:35 AM ET

With the Fringe team investigating a series of time anomalies, Peter continues ingratiate himself into the day-to-day workings, except when it comes to Walter, who is giving his (sort-of) son the silent treatment. And because Peter's working on this case of people who are experiencing time jumps back to four years ago, that means the team isn't able to avail itself of Walter's mind (except until Walter can't stand everybody not being as smart as he is, so he needs to provide a key theory). In fact, Broyles decides that Peter himself is a fringe event (and let's face it, he's not wrong), so at least Walter gets to treat Peter like a lab rat.

As for the anomalies, the team traces them to Brookline, where a devoted husband (played by Stephen Root, who to me will always be Jimmy James -- and if not Jimmy James then the guy from Office Space who just wants everybody to leave his stapler alone) is carrying on the work of his wife, a theoretical physicist, and he's managed to create a time chamber that he keeps using to jump back in time to when his wife wasn't an Alzheimer's patient, so she can continue her work until she finally figures out how to fix things permanently (not that she's aware of what her husband is doing).

Peter saves the day -- preventing the drowning death of drivers in a tunnel that didn't exist four years ago -- and the whole notion of time and place is getting to him. Despite -- or maybe because of -- his dreams in which he and Olivia are happy fun in love again, he's come to accept that he's a man in the wrong time here, that the people he knew and loved are elsewhere. Olivia, though, still wants to convince Walter to try to help him out. Walter's got better things to do, though -- like listening to Styx.

» Read the full recap at Television Without Pity

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