Snakehead (Fringe)
Encyclopedia
"Snakehead" is the ninth episode of the second season of the American science fiction
drama
television series
Fringe
. The episode followed the Fringe team's investigation into horrible deaths caused by large parasitic worms erupting from their victims' mouths. The case soon leads them to a Chinese
gang and a black market of immunodeficiency
medicinal drugs.
Co-executive producer David Wilcox
wrote the episode, while Paul Holahan
served as its director. Andrew Orloff, the episode's visual effects supervisor, strived to makes the parasitic worms look as real as possible with the help of the actors and camera angles. It featured one-time guest stars Tzi Ma
, Colby Paul
, Ingrid Torrance
and Jack Yang.
"Snakehead" first aired on December 3, 2009 to an estimated 6.94 million viewers in the United States. Reviews of the episode were generally negative, as multiple critics expressed their dissatisfaction that little was learned about the series' overall mythology.
washes ashore; all of the crew members seem to be infected with squid-like creatures which soon erupt from their mouths, effectively killing their hosts. Other survivors flock to a contact house in Boston's Chinatown
, only to suffer the same fate in the presence of a man (Tzi Ma
). While investigating the crime scene shore, the Fringe team discover a healthy young Chinese woman, who tells them all of the passengers but her were given pills for their perceived seasickness, and that another ship is expected in two days. In the lab, Walter
(John Noble
) posits the creatures are gigantic parasitic worms, a modified version of Ancylostoma duodenale
, that needs hosts for their gestation period, hence the distribution of parasitic pills. One of the still-living worms bites Walter, boosting his white blood cell
count and making him suddenly feel better.
The Fringe team discovers a Triad gang member and ties to several shell companies the gang has set up in the US. They interview Elizabeth Jarvis (Ingrid Torrance
), one of the companies' large investors, but she seems unaware of her investment's criminal background. While at her house, Peter
(Joshua Jackson
) observes signs of obsessive compulsive and germaphobe characteristics such as large quantities of hand sanitizer. Walter informs him the worm has a medicinal purpose, not a narcotic one as they previously believed. These two discoveries lead Peter and Olivia
(Anna Torv
) back to Jarvis' house, and they learn that her son (Colby Paul
) has an immuno-deficiency disorder. To allow him to be able to go outside, his mother and doctor have been giving him an injection to his spleen
once a month, though he is unaware of the medicine's origins.
Meanwhile, an invigorated Walter ventures out to Chinatown to find a herbalist
for his research; unaware of the clerk's connection to the case, Walter casually mentions the giant worms. Walter manages to lose Astrid (Jasika Nicole
), who was sent to follow him out of worry for his ability to travel alone. She goes back to the lab, but is attacked by Triad gang members intent on getting back the remaining worms. Unaware of this, a distraught Walter becomes lost and wastes all his bus money on wrong phone numbers, causing Peter to have to pick him up. Olivia talks to Jarvis, who finally admits to being aware of the medicine. She tells Olivia the whereabouts of the incoming ship, but they find it already empty. Peter and Walter return back to the herbalist shop and discover the remaining passengers. The FBI storms in and the survivors are sent to the hospital for care. Feeling remorseful about the trouble he caused, Walter injects himself with a tracking implant and gives Peter the transponder.
, who had also written the season's third episode, "Fracture
". The episode gave television director Paul Holahan
his first directional credit for the series.
The episode's visual effects supervisor, Andrew Orloff of Zoic Studios
tried to make the parasitic worms look as real as possible. He explained, "What it means is that we just don't have any shots that seemed staged for the camera or any hint of being a visual effect. One of the big effects, like the parasite that crawls out of the guy's mouth, are interacting with actor's performances and they're shot with a very loose camera style and we have to have the tentacles of this creature coming out of the guy's mouth and all the deformations that are in his stomach and in his throat and in his chest." Orloff continued, "And we had to create a proprietary workflow here of what we're calling performance transfer of tracking 2D points, and putting those 2D tracked points onto the formation of 3D inter-geometry. So we're transferring not just the camera motion but also the performance of the actors on set onto 3D pieces of geometry so we can deform them and warp them and have our effects interact with them because the mandate is all about making it look as natural as possible, so that means a lot of optical tricks and atmosphere put in as seamlessly as possible."
The episode featured one-time guest appearances by actors Tzi Ma
as Ming Che, Colby Paul
as Matt Jarvis, Ingrid Torrance
as Elizabeth Jarvis, and Jack Yang as Tao Chen.
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, helping the series earn a 25 percent ratings increase since the season premiere
.
writer Josh Wigler noted the week's Fringe case for "delivering an absolutely grotesque mystery of the week — even if the actual plot surrounding the worms was thin and unimportant in the long run". He believed the best part of the episode was John Noble's performance, as "he kills you with laughter just as easily as he kills you with tears," but disliked the focus on Astrid, believing the focus would have been better spent on Olivia. Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly
called the case "pretty X-Files
-ish" and Walter's storyline "the true heart of the hour." Other critics also spotlighted Noble's acting. AOL TV
's Jane Boursaw believed the worms were "seriously freaky" and the opening scene "cringe"-worthy. Writing for the magazine New York
, critic Tim Grierson called the focus on Walter the episode's best moments, but wrote that after the audience "adjusted to the ew factor, the plot wasn't all that interesting. The story line about rich, ailing Americans paying Chinese gangsters for miracle cures appeared to be a ripped-from-the-headlines commentary on hot-button issues like human trafficking and illegal immigration, but the execution just seemed silly."
Conversely, Noel Murray of The Onion
s A.V. Club graded "Snakehead" with a B+, explaining the focus on Walter was a "smart choice by the Fringe team thematically". Murray continued, "Ordinarily I'd be griping that this episode was yet another mythology-free time-waster, with a plot that—two-foot-long parasites aside—could be passed along to any other procedural show currently on the air. But I really enjoyed 'Snakehead,' both because of the way the story reflected who Walter is and because of all the little touches of character development and scene-setting.
Though not appearing as depicted, the species is a real-world hookworm
that infects a large number of Earth's population, which as said in the episode, has been used by some as an alternative treatment for asthma
and other allergies. Popular Mechanics
published an article assessing the episode's science; they concluded that the worms depicted "Snakehead" - "hybrid parasites, a new species bio-engineered from an intestinal hookworm" - cannot grow as quickly nor as large in real life, though it is possible for hosts to die from "parasitic asphyxiation". A George Washington University Medical School
doctor noted that some scientists are researching the healing potential of parasitic worms.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Fringe
Fringe (TV series)
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
. The episode followed the Fringe team's investigation into horrible deaths caused by large parasitic worms erupting from their victims' mouths. The case soon leads them to a Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
gang and a black market of immunodeficiency
Immunodeficiency
Immunodeficiency is a state in which the immune system's ability to fight infectious disease is compromised or entirely absent. Immunodeficiency may also decrease cancer immunosurveillance. Most cases of immunodeficiency are acquired but some people are born with defects in their immune system,...
medicinal drugs.
Co-executive producer David Wilcox
David Wilcox (screenwriter)
David Wilcox is an award nominated television writer and producer, best known for working on series such as Law & Order, Dragnet, the American remake of Life on Mars, and the FOX science fiction series Fringe.- Fringe :...
wrote the episode, while Paul Holahan
Paul Holahan
Paul Holahan is an American film/television director, cinematographer, producer, and photographer.He has directed episodes of Witchblade, Numb3rs, Las Vegas, Shark, Ugly Betty, Burn Notice, The Mentalist, and Fringe. As well as producing and directing episodes of Without a Trace, The Ex List and...
served as its director. Andrew Orloff, the episode's visual effects supervisor, strived to makes the parasitic worms look as real as possible with the help of the actors and camera angles. It featured one-time guest stars Tzi Ma
Tzi Ma
Tzi Ma is a Chinese American actor who has made numerous appearances in American films and TV series.-Life and career:Ma was born in Hong Kong...
, Colby Paul
Colby Paul
Colby Paul is an American actor. Since 2005, he has worked on a wide range of television series, including Night Stalker, Supernatural, Ghost Whisperer, Pushing Daisies, The Mentalist, and Fringe...
, Ingrid Torrance
Ingrid Torrance
Ingrid Torrance is a Canadian actor best known for her role as spokesperson on NBCi.com....
and Jack Yang.
"Snakehead" first aired on December 3, 2009 to an estimated 6.94 million viewers in the United States. Reviews of the episode were generally negative, as multiple critics expressed their dissatisfaction that little was learned about the series' overall mythology.
Plot
In Dorchester, a damaged cargo ship from ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
washes ashore; all of the crew members seem to be infected with squid-like creatures which soon erupt from their mouths, effectively killing their hosts. Other survivors flock to a contact house in Boston's Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
, only to suffer the same fate in the presence of a man (Tzi Ma
Tzi Ma
Tzi Ma is a Chinese American actor who has made numerous appearances in American films and TV series.-Life and career:Ma was born in Hong Kong...
). While investigating the crime scene shore, the Fringe team discover a healthy young Chinese woman, who tells them all of the passengers but her were given pills for their perceived seasickness, and that another ship is expected in two days. In the lab, Walter
Walter Bishop (Fringe)
Walter Bishop, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by John Noble. Noble also plays Walter's counterpart in the show's parallel universe, who is referred to in the show as Walternate.-Arc:...
(John Noble
John Noble
John Noble is an Australian film and television actor, and theater director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia and is currently starring as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe.He made occasional appearances on the...
) posits the creatures are gigantic parasitic worms, a modified version of Ancylostoma duodenale
Ancylostoma duodenale
Ancylostoma duodenale is a species of the worm genus Ancylostoma. It is a parasitic nematode worm and commonly known as Old World hookworm. It lives in the small intestine of host such as humans, cats and dogs....
, that needs hosts for their gestation period, hence the distribution of parasitic pills. One of the still-living worms bites Walter, boosting his white blood cell
White blood cell
White blood cells, or leukocytes , are cells of the immune system involved in defending the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials. Five different and diverse types of leukocytes exist, but they are all produced and derived from a multipotent cell in the bone marrow known as a...
count and making him suddenly feel better.
The Fringe team discovers a Triad gang member and ties to several shell companies the gang has set up in the US. They interview Elizabeth Jarvis (Ingrid Torrance
Ingrid Torrance
Ingrid Torrance is a Canadian actor best known for her role as spokesperson on NBCi.com....
), one of the companies' large investors, but she seems unaware of her investment's criminal background. While at her house, Peter
Peter Bishop
Peter Bishop is a fictional character on the Fox television series Fringe. He is portrayed by Joshua Jackson.-Fictional character biography:...
(Joshua Jackson
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Carter Jackson is a Canadian American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. He is best known for playing Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, Pacey Witter in the television series Dawson's Creek and Peter Bishop in the television series...
) observes signs of obsessive compulsive and germaphobe characteristics such as large quantities of hand sanitizer. Walter informs him the worm has a medicinal purpose, not a narcotic one as they previously believed. These two discoveries lead Peter and Olivia
Olivia Dunham
FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series Fringe . Olivia first appeared in the pilot episode on September 9, 2008. She is portrayed by actress Anna Torv....
(Anna Torv
Anna Torv
Anna Torv is an Australian actress known for her role as FBI agent Olivia Dunham on the Fox television series Fringe.-Early life:...
) back to Jarvis' house, and they learn that her son (Colby Paul
Colby Paul
Colby Paul is an American actor. Since 2005, he has worked on a wide range of television series, including Night Stalker, Supernatural, Ghost Whisperer, Pushing Daisies, The Mentalist, and Fringe...
) has an immuno-deficiency disorder. To allow him to be able to go outside, his mother and doctor have been giving him an injection to his spleen
Spleen
The spleen is an organ found in virtually all vertebrate animals with important roles in regard to red blood cells and the immune system. In humans, it is located in the left upper quadrant of the abdomen. It removes old red blood cells and holds a reserve of blood in case of hemorrhagic shock...
once a month, though he is unaware of the medicine's origins.
Meanwhile, an invigorated Walter ventures out to Chinatown to find a herbalist
Herbalist
An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....
for his research; unaware of the clerk's connection to the case, Walter casually mentions the giant worms. Walter manages to lose Astrid (Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole
Jasika Nicole is an American actress and illustrator from Birmingham, Alabama. She is most famous for portraying the character of Astrid Farnsworth in the TV series Fringe....
), who was sent to follow him out of worry for his ability to travel alone. She goes back to the lab, but is attacked by Triad gang members intent on getting back the remaining worms. Unaware of this, a distraught Walter becomes lost and wastes all his bus money on wrong phone numbers, causing Peter to have to pick him up. Olivia talks to Jarvis, who finally admits to being aware of the medicine. She tells Olivia the whereabouts of the incoming ship, but they find it already empty. Peter and Walter return back to the herbalist shop and discover the remaining passengers. The FBI storms in and the survivors are sent to the hospital for care. Feeling remorseful about the trouble he caused, Walter injects himself with a tracking implant and gives Peter the transponder.
Production
"Snakehead" was written by co-executive producer David WilcoxDavid Wilcox (screenwriter)
David Wilcox is an award nominated television writer and producer, best known for working on series such as Law & Order, Dragnet, the American remake of Life on Mars, and the FOX science fiction series Fringe.- Fringe :...
, who had also written the season's third episode, "Fracture
Fracture (Fringe)
"Fracture" is the third episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe. The episode followed the Fringe team's investigation into a man who mysteriously hardens and then explodes, killing those around him...
". The episode gave television director Paul Holahan
Paul Holahan
Paul Holahan is an American film/television director, cinematographer, producer, and photographer.He has directed episodes of Witchblade, Numb3rs, Las Vegas, Shark, Ugly Betty, Burn Notice, The Mentalist, and Fringe. As well as producing and directing episodes of Without a Trace, The Ex List and...
his first directional credit for the series.
The episode's visual effects supervisor, Andrew Orloff of Zoic Studios
Zoic Studios
Zoic Studios is a visual effects company based in Culver City, California. They specialize in visual effects for feature films, episodic television, commercials, video games, advertising design, and interactive online media...
tried to make the parasitic worms look as real as possible. He explained, "What it means is that we just don't have any shots that seemed staged for the camera or any hint of being a visual effect. One of the big effects, like the parasite that crawls out of the guy's mouth, are interacting with actor's performances and they're shot with a very loose camera style and we have to have the tentacles of this creature coming out of the guy's mouth and all the deformations that are in his stomach and in his throat and in his chest." Orloff continued, "And we had to create a proprietary workflow here of what we're calling performance transfer of tracking 2D points, and putting those 2D tracked points onto the formation of 3D inter-geometry. So we're transferring not just the camera motion but also the performance of the actors on set onto 3D pieces of geometry so we can deform them and warp them and have our effects interact with them because the mandate is all about making it look as natural as possible, so that means a lot of optical tricks and atmosphere put in as seamlessly as possible."
The episode featured one-time guest appearances by actors Tzi Ma
Tzi Ma
Tzi Ma is a Chinese American actor who has made numerous appearances in American films and TV series.-Life and career:Ma was born in Hong Kong...
as Ming Che, Colby Paul
Colby Paul
Colby Paul is an American actor. Since 2005, he has worked on a wide range of television series, including Night Stalker, Supernatural, Ghost Whisperer, Pushing Daisies, The Mentalist, and Fringe...
as Matt Jarvis, Ingrid Torrance
Ingrid Torrance
Ingrid Torrance is a Canadian actor best known for her role as spokesperson on NBCi.com....
as Elizabeth Jarvis, and Jack Yang as Tao Chen.
Ratings
"Snakehead" first aired on December 3, 2009 in the United States. It was watched by an estimated 6.94 million viewers, earning a 4.2/7 household ratings share and a 2.5/7 ratings share for the 18–49 demographic. Fringe aired against repeats of Grey's AnatomyGrey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy is an American medical drama television series created by Shonda Rhimes. The series premiered on March 27, 2005 on ABC; since then, seven seasons have aired. The series follows the lives of interns, residents and their mentors in the fictional Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital in...
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, helping the series earn a 25 percent ratings increase since the season premiere
A New Day in the Old Town
"A New Day in the Old Town" is the season premiere and first episode of the second season of the American science fiction drama television series Fringe, and the 21st episode overall. It was written by co-creator J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, with Goldsman also directing...
.
Reviews
Critical reception for the episode was generally negative. MTVMTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
writer Josh Wigler noted the week's Fringe case for "delivering an absolutely grotesque mystery of the week — even if the actual plot surrounding the worms was thin and unimportant in the long run". He believed the best part of the episode was John Noble's performance, as "he kills you with laughter just as easily as he kills you with tears," but disliked the focus on Astrid, believing the focus would have been better spent on Olivia. Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
called the case "pretty X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
-ish" and Walter's storyline "the true heart of the hour." Other critics also spotlighted Noble's acting. AOL TV
AOL TV
AOL TV was the name of both a thin client which uses a television for display , and the online service that supports it, both of which were launched in June 2000 to compete with WebTV....
's Jane Boursaw believed the worms were "seriously freaky" and the opening scene "cringe"-worthy. Writing for the magazine New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
, critic Tim Grierson called the focus on Walter the episode's best moments, but wrote that after the audience "adjusted to the ew factor, the plot wasn't all that interesting. The story line about rich, ailing Americans paying Chinese gangsters for miracle cures appeared to be a ripped-from-the-headlines commentary on hot-button issues like human trafficking and illegal immigration, but the execution just seemed silly."
Conversely, Noel Murray of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
s A.V. Club graded "Snakehead" with a B+, explaining the focus on Walter was a "smart choice by the Fringe team thematically". Murray continued, "Ordinarily I'd be griping that this episode was yet another mythology-free time-waster, with a plot that—two-foot-long parasites aside—could be passed along to any other procedural show currently on the air. But I really enjoyed 'Snakehead,' both because of the way the story reflected who Walter is and because of all the little touches of character development and scene-setting.
Though not appearing as depicted, the species is a real-world hookworm
Hookworm
The hookworm is a parasitic nematode that lives in the small intestine of its host, which may be a mammal such as a dog, cat, or human. Two species of hookworms commonly infect humans, Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus. A. duodenale predominates in the Middle East, North Africa, India...
that infects a large number of Earth's population, which as said in the episode, has been used by some as an alternative treatment for asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
and other allergies. Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
published an article assessing the episode's science; they concluded that the worms depicted "Snakehead" - "hybrid parasites, a new species bio-engineered from an intestinal hookworm" - cannot grow as quickly nor as large in real life, though it is possible for hosts to die from "parasitic asphyxiation". A George Washington University Medical School
George Washington University Medical School
The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences was established in 1824 due to the need for doctors in the District of Columbia but formally opened its doors a year later in 1825. It is the eleventh oldest medical school in the country and the first medical school...
doctor noted that some scientists are researching the healing potential of parasitic worms.
External links
- "Snakehead" at FoxFox Broadcasting CompanyFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...