Fringe: Anyone for Calamari?

I’ve been watching CSI since day 1, and I readily count Dexter among my favorite shows, so I’ve seen some pretty grisly, squirm inducing stuff in my day. So it’s no small distinction when I say that this week’s Fringe had some of the gnarliest moments of horror I’ve ever seen network TV get away with. On top of that, it was Walter’s best episode ever in terms of character development and emotional evolution, Astrid mattered, and Peter speaks Chinese!

A man clearly in great pain staggers through Boston’s Chinatown looking for a certain street. He’s greeted at his destination by a friendly seeming doctor, but since he’s played by Tzi Ma, 24’s ultimate figurehead of Chinese menace, you just know it won’t go well. Something’s creeping around under the poor bastard’s skin that casts an icky tentacle out of his nose before bursting though his mouth looking like a three foot long version of the kraken from Dead Man’s Chest. I proceed to squeal and assume the fetal position in my papasan.

Fringe Division arrives at the scene of the victim’s origin, a tanker ship run aground bearing a cargo of Chinese illegals. They litter the beach, all dead next to their own personal head squid. Olivia finds a lone survivor, spared thanks to her refusal of a “sea sickness remedy”. But her husband and daughter are due to arrive soon on a second ship, likely harboring the same slimy hitchhiker in their guts. Back at the lab, Walter theorizes that the GMO beasties are internally generating opiates, hence their desirability on a market so black they don’t mind killing dozens of innocent refugees. But when a specimen takes a bite out of Walter (yet another image that will haunt me) it doesn’t get him high, but rather supercharges his immune system. Pete & Liv follow a financial maze through a Triad gang banger willing to slit his throat wide open instead of talking (that’s 3 cringes induced) to the unsettlingly clean suburban dwelling of a mother willing to turn a blind eye to mass murder if it means getting super drugs for her immunodeficient son– but some smooth talking and male bonding from Peter convinces the kid to help take down the smugglers.

Walter, craving some independence and responsibility, heads down to Chinatown by his lonesome (okay, so Peter has Astrid tail him on the sly) but only succeeds in inadvertently tipping off the baddies to the location of the lab and putting Astrid’s life in danger before getting lost and spending his bus money on a heart breakingly futile quest to remember Peter’s cell number at a payphone. John Noble gives his best performance yet as he sweetly conveys Walter’s desire for the freedom and higher brain functions that he once enjoyed but that now lie locked away behind equal parts genius and insanity. His obsessions with dessert, bodily functions, and hallucinogens may be delightful, but it’s really satisfying to see beyond the quirks now and again.

Everyone gets their happy ending when the intel from Walter and the rich kid overlap enough for the feds to raid the Triad lab in time to save the 2^nd round of immigrants and, in a twist that could only be heartwarming in the world of Fringe, Walter implants a tracking chip in himself with a receiver for Peter in case he wanders. This was a standalone ep at its absolute finest: memorably disgusting, subtle character development, and standout performances from an already sterling cast. If I had my way, John Noble would already be making shelf space for an Emmy.

Season 2, Episode 9: Snakehead (originally aired December 3, 2009)

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Thursdays at 9/8C, Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro