Fringe (TV Show), A Love Story? **Spoilers**

**SPOILERS ALERT**

So, for me, Fringe was really a love story. Why? Because Peter is my hero, and the kind of love they shared is the kind of simple love that transcends time (and timelines), universes (both whole and shattered), and just overcomes all things that stand in its way. 

Here we have two people that have just simply given up on love. Peter can't be pinned down to one place, and Olivia has massive trust issues, especially after John Scott. But then, even John Scott was a strange occurrence in Olivia's life. The exception, not the norm. Olivia is someone who doesn't fall easy or so they present her. 

But I do question that, we see her romantic side 3 times in the show. With John, Peter, and beginning to form with Lincon. If she hadn't have started to get her memories back about Peter, that likely would have gone somewhere like it did with  Lincon and Fauxlivia. But all that is also explained in the show. Her training as a child had conditioned her to be bland and gray. To "hide" as it were. But as the show progresses she starts breaking out of that shell, largely due to Peter being in her life. 

I have a problem with the whole John Scott dynamic, however. We see the "warmer and vulnerable" Olivia in some scenes with Scott. I would have rather us to never have seen that side except with Peter. And not until much later in the show. That Olivia we see then just doesn't jive with the Olivia we see between Scott and Peter. I guess you could argue Scott started waking her up emotionally, and she shut back down after his betrayal.  But that's not how it felt. That Olivia we see with Scott just didn't feel natural. 

I did think the whole Olivia/Fauxlivia dynamic with Peter was brilliant. Just as Olivia is ready to start exploring her feelings for Peter she gets kidnapped and replaced with Fauxlivia. As a viewer, we feel robbed. Both for Olivia's sake and Peters as well. Olivia and Peter were finally getting somewhere, but it's Fauxlivia who gets to experience it. The fact that Fauxlivia ends up falling for Peter herself while trying to be a "spy" was a nice touch. And worked organically very well. 

When Olivia returns and finds out, she expresses all the feeling us as views had been having about the whole situation. And I feel for Peter. The differences in Olivia while she was Fauxlivia are completely understandable! He felt it was their relationship that had changed something in Olivia. And who doesn't want to feel they are bringing out a different side of someone they are with. To be fair, Fauxlivia was more warm, carefree, sexy, and open than Olivia. What man doesn't want to feel like his love brings those aspects out of the woman he cares for!?

But what he says later is spot on. It wasn't Fauxlivia he fell for, it wasn't her he had spent 3 years getting to know. He fell for Olivia long before Fauxlivia came along, she just swooped in and stole the benefits. And he has real true remorse, it really is Olivia he loves. So much so that when he returns to the timeline after being removed, and Olivia starts remembering him and their time together, he doesn't want to make the same mistake again. And almost screws it all up. I had already suspected what the show later confirmed, that this WAS his Olivia, and this WAS his timeline. He had been removed completely from the timeline, he had never lived. I think it was Olivia's love, and her Cortexiphan powers, that brought Peter back to the main Timeline. And the fact she was remembering it all on her own seals that for me. She "called" him back. The show presents it as all the people who missed him playing a part, but I think it was all Olivia. 

And how strong does a love have to be to pull someone back who's been erased from a timeline? I mean really? Pretty damn strong. And that's my whole point of way I admire this love story so much!

They had a love that literally transcended time, space, and universes. No matter what they always came back to each other, they fought for what they had, no matter the odds. And even when things were bleak, like during the fallout from Fauxlivia or when their daughter disappeared, they never doubted their love for each other. They just had to work through the issues. Things didn't have to be perfect, they just never gave up. They were meant for each other, and no force in the universe(s) was going to tell them otherwise. 


That folks is what love is all about.