Fringe team explores Chinatown to reveal a giant bioengineered hookworm smuggled using Chinese people as human incubator.  The episode is filled with horrifying scenes, amazing dramatic performances and… subtitles.  Sadly though even if it is such an awesome episode, you end up wondering what is the point of the episode… and yes, because it is a stand-alone.

What we have learned from the episode?

1. Walter wants independence.  Or at least, he wants some trust from Peter.  This makes me wonder if the episode previously August had something to do with this?  Walter’s escapade and meeting up with August could have triggered Peter to put Walter in his “cage”.  Having the desire for independence made Walter realized that he can’t be on his own after all – he got lost, he forgot Peter’s number, and he even caused Astrid’s assault.

2. Peter knows how to speak Cantonese; that’s besides from Farsi (from Pilot) and Arabic (from Fracture) (and obviously English).  It makes me wonder if Peter actually knows more language than linguistic major Astrid?  In this episode, we also see his natural talent in getting information from people; it has been shown in many episodes of this season that whenever Olivia cannot do it, Peter steps in and manage to “interrogate” people.  And of course, other than those, he always get lucky that he is saved in many ending scenes.

3. Not all fringes are “pattern-related“, and this season showed that the fringe sciences do occur outside of United States.  This made me wonder if what we are seeing as non-related “international” fringe sciences could play out in a later development of the stories?  Would those stand-alone episodes actually come back and shock us in a later stage?

Like it or not?

I just realized from this episode that the whole season of Fringe was set up to develop our main characters.  I was actually hoping to get a lot of answers from the questions laid out from the previous season.  But sadly that is not the case, the writers are doing the slowburn move of teasing us with small pieces of the puzzle and taking time in letting us feel who are our main characters, how does the case affects them and reminds us that they are humans.  As such, I would say that this season made me more understand the main characters.  Having said that, I would say that I’ll put the bar according to the whole point of the episode – is it a mythos?  Is it a character development episode?

So, the only problem with this episode is that it is stand-alone.  This made everybody think that if you miss this episode, you are not in a deep trouble.  In fact, in the long run, it can be a forgettable episode because of miniscule story arc relation.  Looking at the episode, it is only the last scene where Walter put a tracking device on him that we can consider as related to the storyline.

On the other hand, there’s so much to love in this episode.  I love how the show utilized the great cast ensemble – we saw character development from Peter, Walter, Astrid and even Olivia (with that little kid).  It is also no doubt that despite the budget cut, we still have amazing effects; the worm looks great and realistic.

The whole story is grounded in true problem of the society – the smuggling, black market, and triad.  In fact, the fringe science is also realistic.  There’s an on-going research trying to identify what does helminths (such as hookworms) have that suppress many auto-immune diseases.

The After Thoughts

1. Who made the creature? Perhaps, that is the biggest question of the episode.  The only facts we have is that they seem to be “funded” by those people who are suffering from auto-immune diseases.  The creature also tied with the triad.  The implication seems to be that the triad got their own scientist.  However, I had a feeling that this might not be the case.  Is it possible that Massive Dynamic could be connected in some way?  We know that MD has a “branch” in Hongkong, it is possible that they are working on the genetically engineered hookworms.  And maybe the scientist who is involved in the project could have been tied with a triad.  It is just interesting to speculate on that.  It can also be noted that the Russian involvement with Broyles is never explain.  We don’t know who headed the space mission and the exact reason for the mission.  But again, Massive Dynamic got a Russian connection too.

2.  Eastern vs Western? We have two international connections to Fringe, we have Russia and Hongkong; both of which falls down in the “eastern hemisphere”.  This made me wonder if this is to remind us that the world is bigger than we think.  Before we knew that the whole fringe is “pattern” related and now, we found out that there is the alternate universe and fringe science in the other part of the world.  This also led me to relate the fringe science in the east is somehow a reflection to the “alternate universe”.

3. The parasite coming out of the mouth. The first time I saw the parasite coming out of the mouth, it reminded me of Resident Evil 5.  The worm forcing on Peter also somehow related to the game.  There’s a scene in the game which the parasite was forced into the mouth of a poor men, transforming him into a zombie.

4. Reality. The most surprising thing about the episode is that it is how real the story was told.  I came from a Chinese family so I am quite knowledgeable about the alternative medicine.  Chinese people packed their powder or whatever medicine in a paper and fold it like what we see in the show.  The smuggling of the Chinese people in a crowded ship also resembles real life event.  The most amazing thing is how Joshua Jackson delivered Cantonese very well.

Easter egg and clues

1. Snakehead.  Many would thought that the snakehead refers to hookworm coming out of the mouth.  But I’m actually convince that it actually refers to the gang located in Southeast China that smuggle people out of the country.

2. The observer.  He appeared in the Chinatown, just right after Ming Che made the call and the triad member went out of the door.

3. Graffitis.  There are a lot of weird drawings in this episode.  I can’t make out what is it.  But the phone booth drawing could be the genetically engineered hookworm.

4. Lion’s den. The song Walter singing in the car is the same line he sings in the Unleashed episode.

5. Hidden glyph.  The glyph spells out HIDDEN.  And guess what we have a hidden leaf glyph!

I enjoyed it so I’ll rate it 7!