Brown Betty (Fringe)

"Brown Betty" is the 19th episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series ''Fringe'', the 40th overall episode of the series, and is the only one of the series performed as a musical. The episode was written by co-showrunners Jeff Pinkner, and consulting producer Akiva Goldsman. It was directed by filmmaker Seith Mann. As the episode begins with Peter's continued disappearance, Walter consoles himself by smoking a strain of marijuana called "Brown Betty." Most of the episode is then told from his drug-addled perspective, in which Olivia is a 1940s noir detective and Peter is a conman who ran away with Walter's glass heart.

The episode first aired in the United States on April 29, 2010 on the Fox Broadcasting Company and was seen by 5.551 million viewers in the United States. The episode was part of the network's "Fox Rocks" campaign, in which musical elements were incorporated into various shows in their lineup for a week, a concept that was panned by critics before the episode aired. Nevertheless, "Brown Betty" garnered mostly favorable reviews, with many noting the musical element as a strong point. Various cast members also stated that they enjoyed the musical aspect of the episode. It was ranked the fourth best episode of the entire series by ''Entertainment Weekly''.

Plot

Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble) smokes his own strain of marijuana, "Brown Betty", while Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) attempts to find his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson), who disappeared at the end of the previous episode after learning Walter stole him from a parallel universe. Because Dunham's sister Rachel (Ari Graynor) is unavailable, she brings her niece Ella (Lily Pilblad) to the lab for Walter and Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) to look after. To pass the time, Walter tells Ella a detective noir story in which Olivia is a private investigator.

In the story, Rachel approaches Olivia to find her boyfriend, Peter, who has gone missing. During the investigation, Detective Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick) leads her to Massive Dynamic, where the CEO Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) informs her that Peter is a conman and industrial spy. Later, Rachel is found murdered, with her heart taken. Olivia finds a check signed by Walter Bishop, who in the story, is an inventor that has created "everything that is wonderful in the world" in order to benefit humanity (hugs, rainbows, bubblegum, singing corpses). Questioning Walter, Olivia learns that Peter worked with Walter, who treated him like a son. One day, Walter made a glass heart but Peter later stole it. Were the heart not to be found, Walter and his ideas would die. To help find Peter, Olivia calls her assistant, "Esther Figglesworth" (Farnsworth).

Later, Olivia follows Nina Sharp, only to find herself kidnapped by a "watcher" (the Observer, played by Michael Cerveris) working for Sharp. The watcher attempts to kill Olivia by placing her in a wooden crate and sending it out to sea. Fortunately, Olivia is rescued by Peter. After taking her to his hideout, he reveals that the glass heart was his by nature of having been born with it, and that after working with Walter, Peter loved him enough to donate it to him. However, he took it back after learning a terrible secret behind his inventions: they were stolen from children's dreams and replaced with nightmares. Later, the house is under attack by an army of watchers. Olivia fights them off, but not before they manage to take Peter's heart with them. After placing batteries in his heart cavity to act as a temporary measure, Olivia discovers that Walter set up the attack. In the confrontation, Walter apologises for his misdeeds and promises to change. However, Peter does not forgive Walter and leaves him, ending the story.

Ella is disappointed by the ending, as that is not how she believes stories ought to end, so she proposes an alternate ending: when Walter says he can change, Peter believes him and splits the glass heart in two, and together they " lived happily ever after." At the episode's end, Olivia returns, having found no leads on Peter's location. Farnsworth returns Walter to his home, where the Observer watches from a distance and notes Peter's disappearance.

Production

The episode was originally called "Overture", but was later changed to "Brown Betty" as a reference to Walter's marijuana habit. It was written by executive producers Jeff Pinkner along with consulting producer Akiva Goldsman. Seith Mann served as the director, his only directional credit for the series. For Sweeps Week, the Fox network announced the "Fox Rocks" campaign, in which various shows within their lineup were encouraged to produce musical episodes in the same vein as the sophomore show ''Glee''. Along with ''Fringe'', ''Family Guy'', ''Bones'', ''The Simpsons'', and a few other Fox series took up the musical theme. The episode was already in development before Fox's announcement. Jeff Pinkner

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