Fringe: White Tulip Artifact 1

Fringe is a television series created by J. J Abrams,  Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Fringe follows the casework of the Fringe Division, a Joint Federal Task Force supported primarily by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which includes Agent Olivia Dunham; Dr. Walter Bishop, the mad scientist; and Peter Bishop, Walter's estranged son and jack-of-all-trades. They are supported by Phillip Broyles, the force's director, and Agent Astrid Farnsworth, who assists Walter in the research. The Fringe Division investigates cases relating to fringe science, ranging from transhumanist experiments gone wrong to the destructive technological singularity to a possible collision of two parallel universes. The Fringe Division's work often intersects with advanced biotechnology developed by a company called Massive Dynamic, founded by Walter's former partner, Dr. William Bell and run by their common friend, Nina Sharp. The team is also watched silently by a group of bald, pale men who are called "Observers". The White Tulip episode is about how Walter will finally tell Peter that he is not from this world, but that he took him from the other universe. (Walter's son died in his universe, and was unable to save him. However, in the other universe, the other Peter was still alive. Walter found a cure for saving him, and so he took the other Peter from the other side back with him to save him). The Fringe team is dealing with a case about how a man is trying to time jump back to the past to save his wife from a terrible car crash, but in the process is killing the people around him, depending on where he lands in the past.


The stories that Fringe tells about human purpose is that whoever is controlling these events does not care about human life at all. As they described in Fringe, "Whoever is doing these events is using the whole world to test their experiments". Some of the Fringe episodes deal with few to many people losing their lives because of the events, and the team has to inform their next of kin what has happened to them. The nature of evil and redemption in this series is the events that occur and even though they solve the case, each episode leaves them with more questions to answer than they started with. As they uncover more secrets, it always results in more questions. 


Fringe reveals that life in the empire is not always perfect. There are questions that we cannot answer, and yet we are not truly satisfied with that. The empire is dirty, broken, all encompassing, etc. And that is the way that things are in the Fringe series. Their universe is filled with all sorts of evil and they are trying to find out in what ways they can stop the evil events from occurring. 


Question One: Should we be satisfied with the questions we want answered, or should we always be longing for more answers even though we cannot get them?


Question Two: 
Walter: "Everything that had happened to me since, was God punishing me. I've asked God for forgiveness, a specific one: a white tulip."
Alistair: "Tulips don't bloom this time of year, white or otherwise"
Walter: "But He's God"
Alistair: "God is science. God is polio and flu vaccines, etc. If you're a man of science, then that's the only faith you will need"
There are two ways to approach how we see God. We can see Him doing miraculous things, even when it doesn't seem possible, or we can see Him as the science in the world, and how He created the terrible illnesses that hurt lives. Should we see God as both things? Or do we favor one more than the other?

I encourage you to watch this short clip in the episode. I thought it was very moving! :)
White Tulip Scene