Just my guess but this may be explained by what they showed in the previews. I’ll spoiler it in case someone doesn’t want to know.
Olivia is shown falling out of the window of the WTC (I think) of the alternate Earth. My guess is that before she falls very far she is transported back to her car and carries her momentum with her causing her to be launched through her car window. It doesn’t explain why no one commented on it but would explain why she was launched through the window. And she better be transported quickly or the momentum of the fall would make her street pizza.
I think it was to make the assumed death of the shapeshifter appear to be more plausible. After all, why would the shapeshifter leave the device? And if the device was unable to be found… where was it?
When Peter gives the device to Broyles at the end he makes a passing comment that it is broken. It could be the shapeshifter left a damaged device there to make it look more as if Charlie had killed the shapeshifter. (I still lean towards the two-shapeshifter theory myself.)
As for Jessup, I think she has known about Fringe Division (or something like it) for some time. She mentions “waiting her whole life” for them to come along, she got that password to access the Fringe Division’s files from somewhere and her correlating the Division’s cases to the Bible implies that she had at least some idea that something was going on.
She also makes a comment to Peter at one point that her father was a soldier and that they never give up. I’m not sure if she meant a “normal” soldier or if her father was a soldier in the battle between the universes like the shapeshifters and that the ZFT document mentioned. I think she knows more than she is saying.
Yeah, but that presumes that the shape-shifter knows that they know about the device. I see no reason why he’d assume that they knew, as far as I know they don’t tip their hand they just are trying to stop someone from killing Olivia.
Peter and Jessup (at least) knew that some kind of device existed, based on Walter’s discovery of the holes in the victims mouths and the tape he showed. Presumably they could have filled in Charlie on what they were dealing with between the time they left the morgue with the second victim and the time they got to the hospital.
So was there anything that indicated that the shape-shifters acquire knowledge that the victim has? I don’t think that’s implied or logical even within the pseudoscience of Fringe. I’m not thinking Charlie was getting interrogated before he got whacked and slurped.
I was really disappointed in this episode. It spent way too much time on sad Olivia in a coma - it was really depressing and dragged and was way too much with the sentiment. Leave that stuff for season finales. Premieres need to hit the ground running! The timeline for the shapeshifting at the end was ridiculous unless there’s two shapeshifters. I also didn’t get why he had to smoosh his face up before he used the device.
And all the contrived ‘we’re gonna shut down your department stuff’ was infuriating. I mean, hello, extensively documented case files! Yes let’s fire 5 people, that will save the FBI sooo much money. No wait, most of them will just get transferred to another section. We’ll just let the regular FBI agents deal with weird cases that deal with matters of top secret issues. Yeah…It did work as a interesting way to introduce the new agent, but otherwise it was just silly. I didn’t even really get what the justification was. Disbelief in the nature of the cases? Budgetary? The handing over of the device seems to imply that the FBI wanted them to be procuring technology. But it was a whole lot of stupid. The crimes, cases, and weird shit is not going to stop happening because you stop investigating them.
The nurse jumping to the ground was very well done. The X-files references were fun. Olivia suddenly smashing through the windshield was creepy but exciting. The trippy video was fun. Walter was at his kooky best. Peter was almost gallant. Glad the sister is still around. The shapeshifting device looked cool and the typewriter was freaky.
I missed the observer but I caught the secret codeword: TOWER
That was kinda sick. The answer is probably that they just thought it would be cool to have some guy smoosh his own face but I was speculating with my wife that maybe he has to break the bones of his face to allow the shapeshifting process to properly mold/rebuild his face to the same facial bone structure of the person he is taking over.
Oh, sorry. I was running from my earlier assumption that there were two shapeshifters and that Charlie had been replaced at some earlier point. You’re right; there is no evidence that the shapeshifters can absorb knowledge (unless that’s what the boxes are for and why they plug them into the top of the mouth).
I haven’t seen anyone discuss this here, but I wanted to complain and get responses from other on the lack of imaginationon the part of JJ…
“Some one close to the main character is really a shapeshifter bad guy”
I just started watching the show (caught up on HULU) because I heard from some friends it was good, and this season starts off with the “Allison Doren” plot from “ALIAS”.
And then when Olivia comes to, she spouts off something Peters mother (from the other dimension) used to say to Peter. Obviously she is still alive in the other dimension, and when Peter meets her this season he can be played by Lena Olin.
And How much does anyone want to bet ZTF, is a sister organization to FTL.
The answer is probably that they just thought it would be cool to have some guy smoosh his own face but I was speculating with my wife that maybe he has to break the bones of his face to allow the shapeshifting process to properly mold/rebuild his face to the same facial bone structure of the person he is taking over.