“Snakehead” is episode nine of season two of Fringe.
In Boston’s Chinatown at night, a soaked Chinese man asks someone where Ping-On Street is. He arrives at a building and is let in. The man asks the older man if anyone else made it; he’s told he’s the first. The man who arrived thinks they’re all dead; the other tells him that there is still hope and leads him to a room with a bed and tells him to lie down. The other says his stomach hurts as the man who greeted him gets a long rubber glove and implements. There’s squirming inside the man and something with tendrils comes out of his mouth, apparently killing him in the process.
Peter arrives at Dorchester Bay Inlet and greets Olivia. Walter has arrived separately in a taxi; he’s wanting to become more independent. Peter asks if it’s bad. Olivia asks if he ate breakfast. Yes. She tells him that’s unfortunate. Walter greets Olivia and says Peter was following his taxi. Peter tells him they were coming to the same place.
Broyles tells them a Chinese merchant ship out of Hong Kong ran aground and caught fire. There are 27 bodies on the shore. It was thought that they’d died of hyperthermia, but each has the same thing erupting from their month as the man from earlier. Walter thinks it looks like a parasite found in livestock. But bigger. He pulls one from the mouth of one of the bodies. An agent calls that they’ve found a live one. Walter says if she is infected, they need to get the organism out.
There are more bodies in the place at Ping-On Street, and the man is collecting the organisms. Another person arrives upstairs. He’s told he’s the first to arrive.
Tao Chen from the Chinese consulate meets them at the hospital. The woman, Mei Lin, is from outside Hong Kong. She wasn’t infected. Tao Chen translates; Peter speaks Cantonese and reassures her they aren’t going to arrest her. Mei Lin says everyone but her was given a medicine for seasickness; her father was a fisherman and she didn’t need it. And her husband and daughter are on another ship, two days behind.
Astrid and Walter are working with the worms – they have one live one – when Olivia and Peter arrive. Peter asks if the worms could have been in a medicine capsule. Walter says yes. Humans would be used as incubators to allow them to grow on the journey. Olivia gets a message from Broyles; they have someone in custody from a local shipyard.
The man is now cutting the worms open, removing an organ and sealing packets of powder.
The dock worker who was brought in had burnt every document. He’s not talking; Peter says he’s triad. The triad in question smuggles drugs, not people. Peter wonders if they are still dealing with narcotics; some parasites secrete opioids. The dock worker has a razor and he slits his throat before anyone can get to him.
Walter is imagining what the narcotic secreted by these worms might be; Astrid tells him he’s not smoking it. The worm wraps around Walter and bites his arm, feeding on him. Walter finds it rather pleasant. Broyles arrives as it’s being removed; he’s looking for Olivia.
Broyles joins Olivia and Peter with everything they have on the triad. There was also a transfer of $500K from a private account on Beacon Hill to a triad-connected company. Olivia and Peter head there and the teenager who answers the door calls for his mother, Elizabeth Jarvis. She explains it was an investment made on the recommendation on her financial advisor; Olivia explains the human trafficking. Peter has noticed lots of hand sanitiser, medical grade vents and hermetically sealed windows.
Back at the lab, Peter asks Walter what the connection between an obsessive compulsive germophobe and their worms might be. Walter explains that the worm that bit him benefited him. It’s not narcotics; it’s medicine. They’re a new species of bioengineered hookworm, designed to grow in humans. He assumes the parasite’s lymph gland boosts the immune system. There are several herbalists in Chinatown – hookworms are used in TCM – and Walter is going to check them out.
Mei Ling recognises the triad tattoos. She’s worried about her daughter. Rightfully so; others are being affected by the worms. They’re really cutting it tight with their growth cycle. If the next batch of people aren’t found in time, the worms are going to kill them.