Jasika Nicole

Finally, after four seasons of Fringe, Astrid is stepping into the spotlight when the Astrids from both universes come together.

Early in Fringe's run, Astrid's conspicuously minimal dialogue became the topic of many a wager — with fans betting how many lines she'd have in an episode — and even spawned a drinking game in which viewers would take a drink every time Astrid was in a scene, but never spoke a word.

"It's a great drinking game," portrayer Jasika Nicole jokes, but cautions that her juicy story line in Friday's episode won't be offering opportunities for audience inebriation. "You are going to be so sober by the end of [Friday's] episode, you might even be disappointed."

TVGuide.com caught up with Nicole to find out what's in store for the Astrids' meeting, the David Robert Jones (Jared Harris) showdown and Peter's timeline troubles.

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What can you tell us about the Astrids coming face to face?

Jasika Nicole: They're so fundamentally different than each other, more so than the rest of the characters on the show. I thought that them meeting would be really just incredible and beautiful and weird, because I couldn't imagine what it would be like.

The Astrid that we're familiar with, the over-here Astrid, she's really personable, charming, emotional and she's a caretaker. The other Astrid from the alternate universe is none of those things. They serve as lovely foils for one another. The alternate-Astrid comes to this universe because something really traumatic had happened to her in her home universe, and she has no idea where to go from there. Interestingly enough, I think that alternate Astrid and Walter (John Noble) are also very similar because they're really uninterested in what other people think about them. They're super-focused people, they're really smart, and they're completely in their own world.

What do the two Astrids learn from each other?

Nicole: I wonder if the alternate-Astrid assumed that the Astrid over here was "more normal," you know, didn't have Asperger's the way that she does. Some part of me thinks that she probably assumed the other Astrid was different from her, but I don't think that this Astrid had any idea that alternate-Astrid was as different from her as she is, so it's really shocking for her to see her that way. They also have different relationships with the people in their lives, and that's another reason that they end up being brought together.

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Now that the two universes must work together to take down David Robert Jones, what will we see in the coming episodes?

Nicole: He is still a part of what's going on, and as soon as we think that we've got his number, and that we know how to move on from that, something else ends up happening that kind of takes us two steps back. So it becomes really integral to both of the Fringe teams to be able to work closely together and not let ego stuff get in the way, and this ends up becoming really significant between the two Lincolns (Seth Gabel). We're starting an episode that's filmed heavily with the two Lincolns and their relationship with each other, and trying to pinpoint how different the humanoid shapeshifters are: Why they're different in both worlds and how we can get a handle on all of them, so that we can stop all the death and devastation that's happening.

Peter (Joshua Jackson) is so desperate to get back to his time line. What will we see for the resolution of that story line?

Nicole: We actually are in a point in our season right now that deals with this very specifically, and I think that the resolution is going to surprise a lot of the fans because it definitely surprised me. There is this kind of push and pull with the two time lines, with which one is better, which one has characters that the audience members relate to more. We ended up solving this problem in a really creative, interesting way, and I can't wait to find out how everybody reacts to it. I don't want to say that everything merges together, but there's going to be a balance between the time lines that I think will probably be pretty satisfying for people.

Fringe airs Fridays at 9/8c on Fox.