I've seen some people say "omg she is giving up her agency!" which, no, I do not see it that way, I don't see how a woman making a proactive, determined decision to do something and damn the consequences constitutes a lack of agency. But as her logic-stream pretty much amounted to "I am willing to give up everything I am to have a chance to be with Peter," it does not exactly make me happy, and I don't think it was very Olivia, either.
I don't even think it's the decision to embrace these new memories and chance losing the old ones that's bothering me. If her explanation and attitude had been different, I wouldn't have found it problematic or out of character. I mean, if it had been more like, "I want to hold on to this new me even though it's risky because I like this new me, and I don't want to give up on loving Peter, but I am going to do all I can to hold onto you [Nina] and the life I've lead in this timeline too," I would have been satisfied. But it wasn't. Instead it was totally a case of "my romantic love for a man is more important than everything else in my life."
The fact that since about half-way through S3 it's been more like Peter is the main character of this show instead of Olivia doesn't really incline me to give them the benefit of the doubt, either. (SRSLY, WRITERS. I watch this show for Olivia! OLIVIA. Remember, your main character, Olivia?)
So while I am a hopeless romantic sucker for the whole "love that transcends time and space" theme, this episode kind of left my feelings in a big ball of confusion.
But as an aside: If you did not see the "but you've been home the whole time!" reveal coming, you need to work on your comprehension of narrative. Sorry! BUT YOU DO. <-- Prompted by a bizarre collection of posts on tumblr both before and after this episode that amounted to "NOOO I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT HE IS HOME AND THAT THIS IS HIS OLIVIA STOP KISSING HER OMG." Why for the love of CHEESE did you think Olivia and Walter had been dreaming/hallucinating about him? Why do you think he ended up here in the first place?! Did you really think he was just going to "go home" and they were just going to discard everything from this season?!
Relatedly: I really like the idea of this timeline being a palimpsest. The old timeline is still there, just faded and beneath the surface. And I wonder why September said something so silly as "there is no scientific explanation." I mean, it must be something like this - you can handwave Olivia's memory of and feelings for Peter with "LURVE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN SCIENCE" if you want, but she's not just remembering Peter, she's remembering everything.
Also: Despite all the problematic elements with this season, I really, really like the Nina and Olivia dynamic, like, a lot. DON'T SCREW THIS UP, WRITERS. (Although I love how Nina is such a dubious character that we couldn't be sure that wasn't really her doing all those horrible things to Olivia! That was kind of genius.)
Anyway, regardless of all that, "They hid the universe from me. :|" is going down as one of the most epic Fringe quotes of all time, imo. XD;
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Although, I think that Peter has always been the main character of Fringe - just that we're now settling into this idea in this season.
I do agree that "they hid the universe from me" is an epic quote, though, even if the writers can't make September into a being that tries to scientifically analyze love.
And yeah, I've heard that the writers intended this to be Peter's story, but regardless of what they intended, what they actually did was place Olivia at the center from the beginning - there was no way not to see her as the main character. So in effect what they've done is subvert yet another woman's narrative for the sake of a man's, b/c of course his must be more important and interesting. It's really exciting to find a sff show with a lady front-and-center, especially such a genuinely good sff show, so taking that away makes me feel kind of betrayed.
(It annoys me all the more b/c Olivia represents something I've been complaining about the lack of in fiction - a magnetic, larger than life personality in a female protagonist. Women don't usually get to be so intense and BIG on the screen unless they're side characters, b/c a lady protag always has to be ~relatable~ or some such nonsense, while dude protags get to be larger-than-life all the time. But that's another rant entirely.)
Lol, I honestly don't have any problem with the "LURVE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN SCIENCE" concept in theory - I mean, this is Fringe, if what you're looking for is scientific plausibility, why are you even here - but that "there is no scientific explanation" line seemed kind of lazy, all things considered. XD;
I agree with you that changing the story to be about Peter instead of about Olivia(s) makes it less than what it has been for the first two seasons. I thought we had made some of those larger-than-life personalities in other SF shows before - Commander Ivanova, Officer Sung, Major Kira, Toph, for examples - but there aren't enough of them, and especially not as main characters, like you said.
I wonder, with Olivia, the way she said she was going to let the other memories overwrite her made me think of it as a "Well, it can't be helped, so I may as well stop fighting it, and as a bonus, I get to fall in love with someone, so it's not all bad."