This being nine years after the episode premiered and the middle of a pandemic there are probably more important things to be concerned about but after frequent rewatchings of this series over the last decade I have become of the opinion that whatever the strength of this episode, the glaring spotlight it shines on what had always been a very shaky timeline regarding Olivia and the Jacksonville Drug trials in relation to when Peter was taken from the other side. We are initially told that Olivia was exposed to Cortexiphan when she was in daycare when she was 4 years old. This placed the trials somewhere in the early 80s. Then we are told that the trials happen after Peter came over from the other side when he was 8 years old in 1985. Then we see this episode where we are treated to a 13 year old Peter who has been in this universe for six months and a 12 year old Olivia who has recently been treated with Cortexiphan discovering her abilities. As nice as it is to have this interlude about a pre-pubescent Peter and Olivia meeting up and profoundly impacting each other's lives in a way that they do not recall when they meet again decades later, the story just creates more confusion about the past and how it exactly played out. Obviously this episode could have been acted out by an 8 or 9 year old Peter working with a 4 or 5 year old Olivia but it wouldn't have landed the romantic through line as effectively because of the age difference and creep factor and all sorts of things but at the very least it would have maintained some fidelity to what the chronology would have to be to stay consistent with everything we had learned up to that point. But really they should have just gotten rid of this episode and given us the flashback episode we never got that sketches out Peter's past in some way that isn't just vague story lines about Big Eddie that go nowhere. Let us see him running a con, let us see him working in a meat packing plant, let us see him meet Markham and tell us that story., how did he become this Jack of all trades? Instead we are treaty to what is essentially an episode of The Muppet Babies, what Peter and Olivia would be like as kids together even though we have never had any prior expectation that they met as children. And we get the fake uplifting ending of Walter confronting Olivia's stepfather ever though we know that the Olivia stepfather story ends with him nearly beating Olivia's mother to death, Olivia shooting him, him surviving and sending her birthday cards every year. Episode is not great but better than most television.
Review of Subject 13
