For the team at Fringe , the end is truly here, as production is currently underway on the final episode, which began filming Monday. At the show’s big 100th episode/finale party this past Saturday night, I spoke to most of the cast, just a couple of days before production began on that final episode, to get their thoughts on the journey coming to an end – and some hints on what we might expect along the way.

Joshua Jackson (“Peter Bishop”) said that when it came saying farewells, “That process has begun. [The finale] is a very big episode, as you can imagine. In my recollection of the last time I did this [on Dawson’s Creek], it doesn’t start to hit you until you come into the home stretch, and then all of the sudden everybody looks up and goes, ‘Wow, this is it. We’re about to say goodbye.’ That being said, we have an unbelievable gift, which is so unusual in television, that we know that it’s goodbye. So we’ve had from a storytelling standpoint the proper opportunity to put our story to bed. Also, from a community standpoint, the people who have been working on Fringe all these years, an opportunity to enjoy this time with each other as much as we possibly can and work to put it to bed in the right way.”John Noble (“Walter Bishop”) told me that when it came to his spirits regarding filming the finale, “It’s good! It’s good because it’s such a fun episode. There’s still such a spirit in the company. We’re not going out with a whimper, we’re going out on our own terms with a great episode. I can’t think of a better way to go. And you know, the show has a life beyond us. It’s already running on Science Channel. I was saying about 12 months ago that I think we might have been one of the great science fiction shows of all time, and now having done this season I actually think we have. When this is reviewed, they’ll go, ‘Oh my goodness, that was extraordinary.’”For her part, Anna Torv (“Olivia Dunham”) explained, “I haven’t quite processed it and I’m not quite in it… I don’t know. But I’m bad at all of that stuff. I like to make smooth transitions into things. In a couple of months I think I’ll look back and go, ‘Oh my Gosh, I just totally finished that five-year chapter of my life.’”Jasika Nicole (“Astrid Farnsworth”) told me that when she thinks about Fringe coming to an end, “It feels amazing, at this point. I’m sure on the very last day of shooting it will be emotional because it will be the very, very last time that I am with that group of people in that moment. That’s not going to happen again. But overwhelmingly, I just feel a sense of pride that we completed this monster of a show. Talk about an ambitious show, where every single season is bringing up something different that you weren’t anticipating. Maybe the other actors knew, but I had no idea what was going on at any given point. So it just feels like, ‘Man, we did this’ I will eventually have five DVD sets to show the hard work and toil that we all put into this, and that feels good. It just feels good right now.Examining Season 5, Jackson noted, “It’s been a pretty dark path. This has been a pretty bleak year for the Fringies, but I have to give credit to Joel [Wyman]. It’s probably the best storyline that I’ve had in the five seasons of the show, and it gave me something to really sink my teeth into here in the fifth year and put a through line -- even before the Observer stuff, having the family, falling back in love with Olivia, having his child back and then having that torn away from him again -- it gave me a really clear episode-to-episode line for where to take Peter through the fifth season. He continues down that path in a couple of different permutations throughout the rest of this season. I can’t tell you how, obviously, because this is Fringe, but there’s a lot going on. The next couple of episodes still deal very heavily with Peter the Observer, but then the story is broader than that, so the broader story is very much a part of the buildup to this climax. Then this climax is really the summation of the five seasons.”Both Peter and Walter have been transforming this season, for better or worse. Said Noble, “Isn’t that a beautiful thing, to see the two men, one fighting his renewed intelligence and the other one trying to achieve it? I just think that’s the most interesting storyline possible. You have these two Bishop boys going in this direction -- one doesn’t want to go there, the other one desperately wants to go there. And yet, in a sense, they both need to go there in order to do what has to be done. But it resolves itself.”Said Jackson, “I think the reason [Peter] resisted his father, and still resists to such a degree, is because he’s so much like his father. So he is committing exactly the same sins his father committed all those years ago and not learning from the benefit of his father’s mistakes, which is a very hard thing to do anyway. So I think it’s a very interesting journey these two men are on together. While Walter is going through his transformation and battling his own demons, Peter is, out of that exact same pain and hubris, committing almost the same sin.”When it came to Olivia’s state of mind, Torv told me, “I think probably Peter’s transformation, at the moment, has taken precedence. I think she’s just focused on that. When you’re grieving or when you don’t know where you are, the only thing that you can do is just keep doing whatever you’re focused on, and that’s the plan. It’s like, ‘Okay, what do we need? We need this? What’s on the next tape? We need to do that!’ I think she’s just doing what she does best, which is just being very straight forward and follow through.”Hinting at what’s to come, Nicole told me, “It’s dark, and it gets darker, let me tell you. I was like, ‘How deep are you going to dig this hole?’ Because it seems like it’s going to be impossible for them to get out of it. Obviously, there are sacrifices that have to be made, and that’s okay because we’re saving the world - and that is important! [Laughs] It gets a lot worse before it gets better, but when it gets better it’s so worth it. It is so worth it.” She added, “There’s something about the satisfaction of, in the moment, knowing what the culmination of all these seasons of television watching have been. You will have that experience watching this show. It will feel as good as you think it’s going to feel -- if you like to feel good!”When I mentioned to Noble that Nicole told me things would get even darker, he replied, “Yes, but that’s a good thing. Sure, it’s a crisis, but it’s an essential crisis in anyone’s life, to come face to face with yourself. Otherwise, we don’t go anywhere. It’s a life wasted unless you can get some reconciliation in your life. So I don’t see it as a dark time. I actually love doing that stuff. To me, it’s a gorgeous payoff, having played the character for four-and-a-half years. To actually be able to then, as a human being and an actor, to reconcile all those aspects -- and the writers have given me that -- I feel very privileged about that.”If you’ve been wishing Olivia would be more assertive and proactive lately, you’re not alone. Said Torv, with a grin, “Yes, I’ve been wondering what happened with all of that stuff too!” But don’t worry, Torv -- like Fringe showrunner J.H. Wyman when we spoke at the same event -- hinted that things are going to change. I noted that Olivia has gone through some very tough times lately, adding, “But people still want to see her…” and Torv quickly replied, “Yeah, kick some ass! Yes they do. So I’m gonna go do that!”Recalling what he thought when he read the finale, Jackson said, “My reaction was ‘That’s exactly what it should be.’ It does an excellent job. It satisfies the necessities of this year’s story. It’s hugely ambitious - like, radically, radically big from a production standpoint. And it gives each character their opportunity to say their piece, to have their moment of closure. Whether it’s positive or negative, everybody gets to a settled place. I have a funny feel that because of the passion that the fans of the show have for it, I think it will probably sort of live on in the fan fiction world. But the show portion will end and be complete. I think, I hope, I imagine that the resolution will be a satisfactory place for the characters to finish.”“You never know what’s going to happen,” remarked Noble. “You always think, ‘Oh, it’s not going to do this, and it’s not going to do that.’ I read it, and I’m going, ‘Wow.’ Even before I read the end, which was held back for awhile, I thought, ‘God, this is brilliant!’ Then I had in my mind a wish of how he would finish the finale. And he did it! I went, ‘Yes!’”As for Nicole and her reaction to the finale script, she reveled, “I loved it. I absolutely loved it, and I had no idea what was going to happen. I just didn’t know what was going to be lost. Like I said, sacrifices have to be made, and it’s going to be a tricky thing to tie up. There’s a lot of ends that we’ve had in the past five seasons that we have to tie up, but I thought it was riveting and exhilarating. I was super excited to film it.” She paused and grinned, adding, “Okay… so I’ve set the bar really high!”

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricIGN and IGN at ericgoldman-ign