Fringe Star Discusses This Week’s Tragedy

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

This week’s episode of Fringe, “The Bullet That Saved The World,” featured one very memorable and unexpected event, one that drastically changes the entire future of the series. If you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading and do so. We’ll see you back here in about an hour.


Now that that’s out of the way, we can continue.

The death of Henrietta Bishop (Georgina Haig) is big. You can read my thoughts on the matter HERE. She may have only been part of the show for a handful of episodes (though you can bet she’ll pop up in a flashback now and again, and when Olivia took a bullet to the dome it didn’t seem to slow her down much, so we’ll see how “dead” Etta really is), but her full impact has yet to be truly felt.

Fans aren’t the only ones with strong feelings about the decision to kill her off. Haig talked to TV Line about her character’s unexpected demise, and how she comes to terms with it as it happens.

Before she dies, there’s a moment of peace, almost like a relaxation, as she’s thinking about how she has finally been loved—and she doesn’t care that Windmark can see that, so she lets her guard down.

Etta played a huge role in the lives of her parents. Her disappearance as a child tore Olivia (Anna Torv) and Peter (Joshua Jackson) apart as each coped with the loss in a different way, and finding her brings them back together. But the reunion was not entirely one-sided. When Etta finally met her parents, it filled a huge hole in her life as well.

To be loved is the most basic of human needs, after food and shelter… And while she has had support through her life, and she’s had Simon [as a partner], it’s just not the same. She never felt really loved until she reunited with [her parents]. And that’s what makes her death peaceful in a way. She stops fighting [Windmark’s thought-reading ] and let’s that contentment wash over her.

She talks about being embraced as a member of the Bishop family, not only by the cast, but also by the fan base. Immediately welcomed into the fray, John Noble (Walter) offered up his insight and wisdom, Torv took her fellow Aussie around the set and made sure she met the crew before filming began, and Jackson showed her the sights in Vancouver, BC, where Fringe films.

Haig calls the choice to off such an important character so early “brave,” and refers to her death “an inciting incident.” From the look of the preview at the end of “Bullet,” she is certainly correct. Things are going to get crazy from here on in. There is sure to be some emotional explosions, desires for revenge, and all manner of intense mayhem as the Fringe team tries to defeat the Observers. Perhaps her death is the motivation they need to ultimately succeed.