While J.J. Abrams (‘Star Wars: Episode VII‘,’Star Wars Into Darkness‘) may have been the original driving force behind ‘Fringe‘ it was J.H. Wyman (‘Almost Human‘,’The Mexican’) that finished the series in style. Recently while talking to the press about ‘Almost Human’, the former showrunner spoke up about the big death that occurred in the fifth season of the show.
For those of you who are behind and still plan on watching it, I must warn you there are huge spoilers below!
If you are still reading this, you either don’t care about spoilers or have already finished the show with the rest of us die-hard Walter fans. Also you’ll remember that we had quite a surprise about half way through the season when the show, out of the blue, killed Peter and Olivia’s daughter, Etta.
Actully, this wasn’t just done out of the blue and had a few important driving points that they wanted to hammer out which you can read in full below. The short version, though, is that everything has to come to an end. It also brought her narrative arc to a close which is something they didn’t feel they could do properly if they kept her alive considering the planned end to the series.
Here’s the excerpt of Wyman’s explanation:
“If you take, for example, when Etta died in Fringe, people were so upset. It was awesome! Number one, it was good because I knew they were feeling something, which was important. They were invested in her. But number two, they didn’t realize the larger picture, which I found alarming. Here is a woman that was born of two, essentially, warriors, who dedicated her entire life to bring her parents back to the living, so that they could save the world. If you asked that character, ‘Are you willing to give your life up for this cause?,’ her answer would be, ‘Yes, 100 percent. I would do it in a minute.’
The whole message of the piece was that possessions are transient. You don’t know if you are going to be able to have time with somebody, so you better be careful. She served her purpose in destiny, and she moved on. Ultimately, at the end of the show, we got her back. It was difficult to write when she died, and the way she died was extremely difficult to watch, perpetrated by such a terrible character. It effected people, but tragedy is a part of life. Life is painful sometimes. It touches everyone, so you may as well try to look for other answers and find peace. So, it is difficult to write those types of things because nobody wants to tell sad stories. I think that I’ll always tell stories about human hope. I would love to be able to tell somebody, ‘It’s okay. It’s all right. Be a good person.’ That’s what my job is, in life.”
With how much I loved (and hated, only because it had to end) the closure of the show and as painful as it was to watch, I do agree that they made the right call (even if they hadn’t retconned the entire thing at the end).
What did you think about his choice of how to deal with Etta? Was it the right one or was there another route they should have taken?
Source: Collider
