Fringe is back, Baby!

Welcome back, Fringe!

Everyone should be this excited to see Fringe back - because it's a darn good show! This season, they aren't messing around. As Peter said at the end of last night's episode, "From now on, we’re calling the shots; we’re done reacting.” Hopefully this means Joshua Jackson will have a little more to do this season, and we don't just mean Olivia - OH SNAP! Ok, that's just wishful thinking.

Fringe really knows the way to our hearts. This is evidenced by two X-Files references in one episode!

When we first saw the shape shifting soldier take the form of his first unfortunate victim in the dimension, what should be playing on the TV in the background?

The X-Files! It went by very quickly, so it would have been easy to miss - but we sure didn't! We were even able to correctly identify it as the scene from the end of episode Dreamland II. This was a two part episode in which Fox Mulder and Morris Fletcher (played by Michael McKean) switched bodies. So the outside world looked at Fletcher and saw Mulder face. An allusion to the shape shifter in this episode? You bet ya!

Reference number two came when Broyles was sitting before a senate committee who was trying to determine whether or not they should keep the Fringe Division open. They referenced that they have wasted enough money on both Fringe and X Divisions. Holla! The senators shut down Fringe, but by the end of the episode Peter rounds up some technology from the shape shifter that is sure to get them reinstated. See Fringe, don't worry! The X-Files got shut down plenty of times, but it always found its way back.

On a non-X-Files related note, we felt bad for Charlie - but totally saw it coming. The fact that the actor who plays Charlie famously twittered about his character being written out this season might have helped us out, but we choose to believe we are smart. Let us have it!

And the real pay-off of the episode:

We've been waiting for that for weeks, ever since we saw this promo picture - and it was everything we could have hoped for.

And for those of us keeping track of the Observer sightings, here he was in Last night's episode:

This was right after the shape shifter fled from the accident in the very beginning of the episode. We'll admit it - we totally missed this. To be fair - we were eating cake at the time. Thanks for hooking us up, internet!