Ah, last night was great for TV watching. Wasn’t home to see the new episodes of Fringe and Supernatural but I DVRed them and finally caught up to them today. Wow, both new episodes hit the mark(s) with some amazing, wonderful and disturbing developments.

Fringe began its run of the final eight shows for the season (and maybe the series unless Fox renews it for a fifth season) with “A Short Story About Love.” There were basically three storylines; one about Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) realizing the memories and feelings from the Olivia of Peter Bishop’s (Joshua Jackson) universe were supplanting her own. The problem is that Peter’s Olivia is in love with him, while the “regular” Olivia has no romantic feelings towards him. Meanwhile, Peter is following clues left behind by the Observer that apparently died in the previous episode. The third storyline was pretty average procedural junk about a deformed madman out to create a love potion from killing lovers. It was the kind of stuff you may find in a typical X-Files episode. Luckily, this storyline didn’t dominate the show.

The big reveals were pretty surprising. It turns out (SPOILERS AHEAD) that Peter is in fact in his own universe so that Olivia’s new feelings for him is probably the universe correcting itself. Luckily for us soft-hearts, Olivia independently decided to give in to her new memories and feelings and the end was so blissful and romantic. It was a heartwarming reminder to us cynics that love is the greatest force in the universe. Even on Fringe.

Supernatural began airing new episodes last week, and just as it all seemed hopeless for the ally-challenged Winchester brothers, Sam (Jared Padelecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Castiel (Misha Collins) returned!

Yay! Our favorite stoic Angel that supposedly died earlier this season (and gave rise to those dumb Leviathan baddies) is back. In this week’s episode “The Born-Again Identity” Sam is committed to a psychiatric ward because the Lucifer hallucination in his head has driven him crazy. Desperately calling anyone for help, Dean finds out about this genuine faith healer. So when he goes to the guy’s place it turns out the healer is none other than Castiel. It turns out that he lost his memory and doesn’t remember being an angel or anything else.

Anyway, he decides to help Dean out. It was so great to see our pal Cass, it helps that he’s easy on the eyes LOL. Eventually, he remembers who he is and is wracked with guilt over his previous actions when he tried to play God. He gets to Sam in time to save him from a demon. But it turns out he can’t cure Sam of his hallucinations so in an act of self-sacrifice he transfers the debilitating hallucinations onto himself and he winds committed. Frankly it sucks that they had to leave him there in that ward. I guess the producers still wanted the brothers on their own to take on those Leviathan. Still sucks anyway because I know Castiel would kick the Leviathan’s butt all over the place. It just makes me wonder why can’t the Winchesters find some supernatural allies to help them with the Leviathan? Hopefully, they will be done with when the season finale comes around.

Annette DeForrester