Flash forward a couple of months to the series finale of Lost, another JJ Abrams series that I got completely immersed in, and was also chomping at the bit to see how this modern mythology would end.  Looking back now, my evaluation of Lost was affected by how much I loved the series and ended up giving the writers and creators way too much leeway with their finale. Looking back, I am disappointed in how they one of TV’s most original mythos and gave it not just a pedestrian ending but also a US ending where everything is fine in the end.  Ugh!  Lost should have been the epitome of tragedy, an island where all souls, no matter how noble or twisted, have already squandered their chance at redemption.

Yeah, I’m still bitter about it.

But now Fringe, the series that took over for Lost has a real chance to be more than an X-Files clone or another Abrams series, it can really be a hallmark for a lost art in US TV writing, a true American tragedy.

Spoilers ahead:

Coming in to tonight’s two hour finale, Fringe has set us up for the end game in the Humans vs Observers war with a few possible outcomes three involve tragedy and one scenario is the cop-out “We all live happily ever after.” Let’s take a peek:

WALTER DIES

This is the most obvious of the four since last Walter came out and said it in last week’s episode.  While obvious, it would still be the most satisfying for me since it makes the most logical sense: Walter’s hubris has been the source of nearly all the calamity in the Fringe universe.

In the ‘normal’ timeline, Walter stole Peter from the alternate universe in complete defiance to the laws of man, God and physics. Not only did Walter break the universe but he also ended up indirectly killing or maiming his wife, lover, best friend, adopted daughter while also alienating his best friend and newly adopted son.  The first four seasons of Fringe have been primarily Walter trying to repair the harm to both his family unit and the universe at large.  While actually succeeding on a surface level, our Walter never quite was able to fix everything.
In the ‘Other’ universe, Walternate set off a large-scale assault on the normal universe in response to his son being stolen.  Though it hasn’t been mentioned in the canon of the show, I kept seeing clues that Walternate set off a larger tragedy that the Other Side blamed on our universe in an attempt to give his Fringe division wider ranging powers.  Though Walternate has every justification to be pissed, he also shares our Walter’s hubris and has done his own fair share of universe breaking and family scarring.

And our current version of Walter is a little softer and just as goofy but started off as a killing science machine willing to do anything to destroy the Observers. His intellect so out of control that he craved a second forced lobotomy for fear his intellectual war with the Observers would lead him to abandon his humanity and challenge them on an individual level.

All to say, whatever he does, wherever he goes, Walter can’t help but break the fabric of reality apart.  This finale gives him the chance to stop tinkering with the rules of relativity and offer himself as sacrifice. It’s only fitting considering how much damage he’s done and the tragedy would be that he could never truly fix what he has broken.  This would also give John Noble a chance for one last over the top performance that may actually get him a richly deserved Emmy for crafting sci-fi’s most memorable Twizzler loving mad scientists.
PETER DIES

Gotta give Joshua Jackson a lot of credit for not banking in his Dawson Creek fame and finding a different challenging role which he has definitely done with Peter Bishop.

Peter has always been the person out of sync with the universe but ironically is usually the most natural guy in the room.  Jackson plays him very deftly even though the writers haven’t given Peter a whole lotta depth, they’ve given him a big chunk and important part in the mythos but it never feels like Peter has changed too much over the run of the series.  Making this the perfect time for him to sacrifice himself.  Well, this would be the second time he’s given up his life to save the universe(s) and while it bit shocking it wasn’t entirely tragic.

This season, Peter went over to the dark side and found out how much like his father he really is.  Maybe that added element and the resulting scene of Walter grieving can up the drama level and also give Joshua Jackson some added motivation.  While not my preferred ending I would be happy to see Peter, the boy who was always meant to die, find out he couldn’t shake fate no matter how hard his father and family tried.

OLIVIA DIES

The last few episodes have been definitely lacking in Anna Torv and that’s a damn shame given how much gravitas she’s added to the series.  Season after season, Olivia has been the character you could always count on to be put in danger and find her way out of it giving sci-fi a new heroine to cheer for.

But much the same way the progressive multi-cultural casting of Lost dwindle down to a few Anglo males and one Anglo women who loved them, the Fringe writers have forgotten that Olivia really has been the straw that’s been stirring the drink the last 99 episodes.

I hope they’ve just been playing their cards close and not revealing that Olivia, Walter’s metaphorical second child, is one of the biggest victims of Walter’s mechanizations.  Could her sacrifice be what finally forces Walter to stop playing God?  Maybe.  It would make for one hell of an end scene and leave the Bishop boys have to learn to live with each other without anyone else to help them.

NONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS DIES

This would be the lamest end the writers could dream up.  Even if Astrid or September or the boy Observer or the whole Other Universe dies in the place of our heroes, it would be just a slap in the face to the viewers. Well, the readers who like really drama, which seems to be a smaller and smaller fraction of the US viewing audience who seem to be more invested with ‘reality tv drama’ then staged drama.  Ironic, considering how staged reality shows are and how more true to life art can be.  Or should be.

Fringe has done a great job of showing us the horrors of a fractured multiverse all because one man wanted to save his son.  Bold. Noble. Wrong.  So so wrong and the viewers have gone through five seasons of the consequences of this most selfless and selfish of acts.  The reward should be watching one of the key characters finally feel the full weight of that act.  To do otherwise would cheapen the journey.

I only mention this because of the Lost finale.  I still shake my head when I think of the final scene between Ben Linus and John Locke, two wonderful characters played by a pair of brilliant actors who played off each other wonderfully, after six seasons of being at each other throats (literally) they all sum it up with an “I’m sorry” (for destroying all your dreams and manhood, betraying you at every turn and then choking you to death with my bare hands only to see your dead body used like a puppet) followed by an “It’s ok” (that you lost everything you ever cared about including any semblance of a soul only to be still trapped in this purgatory as a subordinate).

Luckily, Fringe has learned a lot of lessons from all the previous JJ Abrams’ series and didn’t hold out to long on mysteries, never let the mythos get ahead of the writers and always kept placing their bets on their three principal actors.  A great formula that has produced a great show and, hopefully, a suitably rich tragic finale.

Oscar Bermeo - Poetics, Process and (Getting) Published

Featuring -

Laura Jew is an Oakland native, a tough mudder, baking lover, and a student in her final year at Mills College. She is a proud fellow of Kundiman, a program for Asian American poets, and a recipient of CSU Chico’s annual creative writing award. Her poems have appeared in Watershed and, more frequently, on the desks of her professors.

Lauren Peck is a Southern transplant in pursuit of adventure and has one of those MFA degrees in Creative Writing. She’s primarily a poet, but is also currently writing a work of short stories about the misperceptions of monsters. She collects old love letters and lives in Oakland.

Born in Ecuador and raised in the Bronx, Oscar Bermeo is the author of four poetry chapbooks, most recently, To the Break of Dawn. He has taught creative writing workshops to inmates in Rikers Island Penitentiary, at-risk youth in the Bronx, foster teens in San Jose, bilingual elementary students in East Oakland, and to adults through the Oakland Public Library’s Oakland Word program. He is a Bronx Recognizes Its Own, CantoMundo, SF Intergenerational Writers Lab and VONA: Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation poetry fellow.

Thurs, Nov 8th at 6:30pm
FREE Event
Telegraph Café
2318 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94612
Full Menu of delicious sausages, baked goods, and beverages. Plus $2 PBRs.

Oscar Bermeo - Poetics, Process and (Getting) Published

Barrio Fiesta: A Literary Celebration

Irma Pampagna Restaurant
6:00 – 7:00 pm, Oct 13,2012
Presented by Philippine American Writers and Artists (PAWA)

PAWA is partnering with Irma’s Restaurant to bring you Barrio Fiesta: a reading where five writers will share work about a celebration. The celebrations will be culinary, cultural or focused on the community. In the spirit of every good Filipino Barrio Fiesta, lumpia will most likely be served. Featuring Lisa Abellera, Melissa Sipin, G. Justin Hulog, Jennifer Derilo, and Aileen Suzara. Hosted by Oscar Bermeo.

LISA ABELLERA earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco. Her work appears in The Southeast Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, and The Globetrotter’s Companion (Lion Lounge Press), an anthology of creative travel writing. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she is currently at work on a collection of short fiction.

JENNIFER DERILO has a BA in Literatures of the World from UC San Diego and an MFA in Literature and Creative Writing from Mills College, where she was its first Jacob K. Javits Fellow. She is the Creative Nonfiction Editor for Kartika Review and an English instructor at Southwestern College. She enjoys writing and reading about people and things unseen. She often has nightmares about zombies. And abandoned predicate parts.

G. JUSTIN HULOG writes stories about ruined gods, forgotten spaces and new worlds. Born in Baguio City, he grew up in California before leaving home to study Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has written for Hyphen, Remodelista, Karma Magazine and edits a Filipno food and bulul blog called The Palay. Justin is currently completing his MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University.

MELISSA SIPIN is a writer from Carson, California. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012 and her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Kweli Journal, Tidal Basin Review, and Kartika Review, among other publications. Melissa was awarded the full-tuition assistantship in narrative writing and community engagement at Mills College and is currently pursuing her MFA in fiction.

AILEEN SUZARA is a Filipina/American educator, cook, eco-activist, organic farmer and adobo champion. She finds inspiration in the power of story to create change — from the voices of climate change fighters to the oral histories of California’s AAPI farmworkers. Aileen’s writing appears in The Colors of Nature, Earth Island Journal, Growing Up Filipino II, and more. She blogs on food, memory and place at Kitchen Kwento.

Oscar Bermeo - Poetics, Process and (Getting) Published

What:

Where: Inside the Mission Cultural Center (Mission street between 24th and 25th), a venue that is celebrating 35 historic years of commitment to the community.

When: During Phase III (8:30-9:30) of the world-famous literary event, San Francisco LitCrawl (October 13th, 2012). More info on the event can be found at: www.litcrawl.org/sf.

Why: Because it’s an opportunity to listen to seven CantoMundo fellows that are part of an organization whose vision is to develop, sustain, and support a diverse community of Latina/o poets from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and sexualities. And because nuestras voces son fuertes!

For more information on CantoMundo, click on the link: www.cantomundo.org.  Apply!

Who Will Be Reading and Representing CantoMundo:

Javier Zamora is the winner of the Organic Weapon Arts 2011 chapbook contest, Nueve Años Inmigrantes (2012). His poetry has appeared in NewBorder, Spillway, and Phat’titude.

Angel Garcia has lived in several cities throughout Southern California. He has worked in the field of education for several years as a tutor, residential advisor, instructor, and most recently as a coordinator for an educational non-profit in El Monte, CA. Angel is currently completing his first collection of poetry.

Writer and educator, Leticia Hernández-Linares, has performed her poemsongs throughout the country, and in El Salvador, for over a decade. Her writing has appeared in newspapers, literary journals and anthologies. Since 1995, she lives, works, and writes in the Mission District, San Francisco. See more about her adventures: www.ciguanabaink.com.

Ruben Quesada is the author of Next Extinct Mammal. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Third Coast, Rattle, and Southern California Review.

Oscar Bermeo was born in Ecuador, raised in the Bronx, and now makes his home in Oakland with his wife, poeta Barbara Jane Reyes, where they co-edit Doveglion Press. He is the author of Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest, Heaven Below and To the Break of Dawn.

Manuel Paul López was born and raised in the U.S.-Mexican border region of El Centro, California. His work has been published in Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingue, ZYZZYVA, Hanging Loose, and Rattle, among others. He is the author of Death of a Mexican and Other Poems and 1984.

Raina J. León has authored two collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols (2008) and Boogeyman Dawn (2013). She co-founded The Acentos Review.

Lauro Vazquez grew up Santa Rosa. He is a CantoMundo fellow and an M.F.A. candidate in poetry at the University of Notre Dame’s Creative Writing program.

Oscar Bermeo - Poetics, Process and (Getting) Published

FIRST KNIGHT

The earliest anthology I ever devoured was the copy of Batman From The 30′s To The 70′s, a hardcover reprint of select Batman stories, my mother bought for me when I was about seven. Alongside the accompanying Superman anthology, this became my fantasy lit bible as I came into literacy. Both gave me a sense of history, how these two characters origin stories came from one set of creators’ imagination, and how subsequent writers dealt with the challenge of broadening that storyline without betraying the fundamentals of the character. Not only did the writing evolve but also the art advanced and I also learned a lesson not every artist applies — that evolution and technology do not always equal improvement. Even at seven I could see how narratives were becoming bigger and not better, just more ridiculous.

I could see this much clearly in the more reality based Batman over the fantastic Superman, who represented so many lofty ideals but was somehow never as cool as the millionaire vigilante who relied on his intellect and athleticism to avenge the death of his parents.

Well, at least until Robin came along and then Batman also had to be a surrogate father of sorts. And then came Alfred, which meant Batman also had to be a head of the household. And then came Batwoman, Batdog, Batmite, Batgirl, the Batman with the crazy color costume from an alternate dimension, and in all this we lost the millionaire vigilante and instead got the guy from the campy TV series who solved crimes because he got a call on a phone and not for any other reason. (Funny how the TV show never did go into that dead parent thing.)

NEXT KNIGHT

Then came my next literary lesson: Retroactive continuity, a pretty meaty academic phrase usually called ‘retcon,’ which means you can strip the excess and bloat of the last forty years and just keep the good parts. Holy editing, Batman, you mean we can start fresh! Oh, yes you can! And in the 70s Batman returned to a darker grittier primal version of himself thanks to sharper art and more focused storylines thanks to some great retcon courtesy of Neal Adams.

For those who don’t know, Neal Adams is to comic art Batman what Christopher Nolan is to cinematic Batman, the artist who saved an icon by going back to the source material allowing the Caped Crusader to become the Dark Detective. It was even cooler to bounce through the pages of my anthology and see how this Batman was more true to the noir stories of the 30s then the pseudo sci-fi of the 50s.

Sadly, kids grow up and put away childish things, and my beloved Batman anthology was set aside for a new group of contemporary heroes, the X-Men and their Marvel cohorts. Eventually all I was reading was Marvel and dismissed Batman and DC as those comics kids read. Luckily, I would grow up enough to learn to love Batman again.

KNIGHT FALL

The 90s was a time of big excess, for the country, comic books and me. I was making some good money and looked at comics as not only a hobby but also as an investment, so not only was I on the hunt for new comics but also ones that might become collectibles in the future. This led me to picking up comics not just from my beloved Marvel but also the newly glamorous Image, the gritty and well named Dark Horse, upstart Valiant and a return to the stalwart DC especially with their two high profile storylines: the death of Superman and a new Batman.

The Batman story originally put me off because of the introduction Bane, a new villain with a lucha libre look that had me thinking I was looking at one of my Batman reprints from the 40s. A quick read through Bane’s story quickly changed my mind and I was intrigued by this brawny character who had a political agenda and utilized a completely modern approach to dealing with the Dark Knight. Knight Fall, as the story would be known, proved to be a great reintroduction to Batman and his supporting cast of characters that helped to flesh out Bruce Wayne as opposed to tying him down.

This boom period in comics didn’t last long for me or the industry but Batman became one of my must-reads and stayed so even through the god-awful movie period that set a new definition for overwrought, trite, excessive fantasy yarns with not only a nippled Batman but also a Bane that was beyond laughable. Ironic for me that in the same way the cartoonish Bane character symbolized Batman’s movie fall, this version of Bane will define Nolan’s cinematic take on the Bat.

KNIGHT RISE

Christopher Nolas not only resurrected the Batman franchise, he changed the way critics and casual audiences viewed a “comic book” movie. The days of wanton CG and weak scripts were set aside (Sorry Green Lantern!) in favor of realistic effects, developed characters and tight pacing for both the action and character evolvement. My excitement over Batman Begins and The Dark Knight still carries to this day and I am intrigued as to Nolan’s final Bat film. Dark Knight played out a risky move for screenwriter Nolan, a total deconstruction of his new Batman mythos. At the end of Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne decides he must retreat Batman to the shadows and away from civilian eyes, that if he stays too long in plain sight, more lunatic copycats like Ledger’s Joker will emerge and who will stop them? The final scene of Batman in the mists left me puzzled, sad and applauding Nolan’s daring as a writer and director who could undo all his work, even as casual fans were cheering on what they thought was a triumphant Batman.

So what next? How does Nolan bring Bruce Wayne back? How has Gotham changed? Will the Gotham citizenry embrace the returning Detective or revile him? What lengths will Bane go to in order to draw out Batman from retirement? Can Tom Hardy bring the same intensity to Bane that Heath Ledger brought to the Joker? Will this movie live up to the hype?

Again, Nolan has painted himself into a deep corner especially since this is the movie fans will judge his run by. For context, see The Matrix trilogy and The Godfather.

Here are my expectations: I’m hoping The Dark Knight Rises is as good or better than Batman Begins with a deep explanation on the Bane character, background on what Bruce Wayne’s been doing in his “retirement,” a Gotham catastrophe of Biblical proportions, and Christian Bale finding a deeper level to Wayne/Batman other than just grunting through scenes. If all this comes through, we’ll have a great end to the Nolan trilogy. If it fails, then critics and casual fans will rip Nolan to shreds. If he can do it even bigger and better than Dark Knight, Nolan will get his Academy Awards.

Alright, bring on the movie!

Oscar Bermeo - Poetics, Process and (Getting) Published