Plot

Walter examines some bodies that have been infected with unusual worms. Olivia and Peter run an investigation after speaking with a survivor. Meanwhile Walter demands more independence from Peter.

When a group of Chinese clandestine is found dead at the seacoast, the fringe division is summoned to investigate. They find a huge worm and one a Chinese woman alive that explains that the group received pills for seasickness, but she had not swallowed hers. Dr. Bishop investigates the worm and concludes it has medicinal purpose. Therefore, the Triad gang is using the illegal immigrants to breed the parasitic worms and produce a drug for treatment of millionaires.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

After a cargo ship runs aground, the shoreline becomes littered with bodies hosting a giant squid-like creature. The Fringe team descends upon the scene to examine the bodies and discovers that the mysterious organisms are actually giant parasites. As the investigation unfolds, Walter heads back to the lab while Olivia, Peter and Broyles race against time when they realize the case has ties to a threatening organization.—FOX Publicity

Boston

A man stumbles urgently through Chinatown. He's trying to find a street. He asks directions in Chinese. He's buzzed into a building, where he asks the older Chinese man there if any of the others made it. The older man tells him he's the first. He thinks the others are dead, but the older man tells him there's hope. They might have made it. He leads him to a cot in back.

The man says his stomach hurts. He cries in pain. The older man puts on a long plastic glove and takes out surgical tools as what looks like a tentacle sneaks out of the first man's mouth.

The older man watches as a slimy, slithering multi-tentacled squid-looking thing climbs out of the now-dead man's mouth. The older man is pleased.

Dorchester Bay, Mass.

Peter meets Olivia, telling her his dad is now cooking for himself and trying to show independence. Peter asks Olivia how bad it is. She asks if he's eaten. Yes, he says. That's unfortunate.

Walter shows up separately from Peter. He thinks Peter was following him and doesn't trust him, never mind they were going to the same place.

Broyles does the briefing: A Chinese merchant ship caught fire and ran aground. There are bodies on the rocks: 27 so far.

They swam ashore. The first died of hypothermia, then they found bodies with squid creatures coming out of their mouths. Walter pulls one out, it's almost two feet long.

An agent finds a woman washed ashore who's still alive.

Back in the older Chinese man's shop, he surveys dead bodies and his squid collection and greets another boat survivor. He tells him none of the others made it.

At the hospital, Peter and Olivia meet with Tao Chen, from the Chinese consulate. The woman wasn't infected. The man on the boat gave everyone medicine for sea sickness, but she didn't take it. Her daughter and husband are missing.

There's another boat two days behind.

Back at the lab, Astrid weighs squids. One is up to more than seven pounds. Walter picks apart a dead squid as another swims, alive, in a tank.

Peter and Olivia join them and Walter tells them the parasite larvae could fit in a capsule and then grow inside a host. Olivia gets a text from Broyles that a suspect connected to the ship is in custody.

Back at the older man's shop, he removes an organ from the squid and puts it in a beaker then works with a powder.

At HQ, Peter reads the suspect's tattoos and sees he's part of Triad, a Chinese gang. But Olivia says they're known for smuggling heroin, not people. Peter wonders if maybe the squid can be made into a drug.

Then Olivia notices the suspect taking a razor blade out of his mouth. Before they can get to him, he has slit his own throat.

In the lab, Walter and Astrid wrangle a writhing squid as she extracts something from it with a syringe. Then the worm turns and wraps itself around Walter's arm and starts to suck on it. Walter lets it, saying it's pleasant. Astrid rips it off.

Broyles joins Peter and Olivia in the back. He tells them about the Triad leader John Su, who's underground. The Coast Guard is searching all the boats coming into the harbor.

Olivia finds a receipt for a payment made around the time the boat left China. They trace it to a house in the suburbs, where a teenager named Matt opens the door for them.

His mom says her financial adviser told her to invest with a Chinese construction company. She doesn't know John Su.

As Olivia talks to her, Peter looks around and sees tons of hand sanitizer and notices the windows are hermetically-sealed.

Back at the lab, Peter asks his dad what a clean freak could have to do with the worms. Walter has tested his blood since the bite and found his white cell count through the roof -- even his gas is gone. It's not a drug, it's medicine.

Their parasite is a genetically engineered species made from a hook worm the Chinese use to treat asthma. He says the parasite's lymph gland boosts immunity. He removes one and we see it's what the older man was removing earlier.

Walter has found three herbalists in Chinatown that sell the hookworm. He's going to get samples for genetic comparison to the bioengineered mega worm. He wants to go alone and warns Peter not to follow him, part of his burgeoning independence.

Olivia shows the dead Triad member's tattoos to the survivor. The man who put them on the fishing boat had one. She worries her husband and daughter are on the next boat.

Cut to the next boat, where her daughter tells her dad she doesn't feel well. They're surrounded by other immigrants in the boat's hull. One man sleeps with his shirt open and the girl watches with horror as his stomach starts bulging and pulsating like something's under the skin.

In the lab, Peter catches Olivia up on his clean freak theory about the woman, Elizabeth Jarvis. Peter has an idea.

Back at the house, Olivia and Peter approach Matt Jarvis. He knows he doesn't have to talk to the FBI, so Peter stays to chat instead. He tells him the people his mom gave money to are scary people. He asks Matt if his mom is sick with an immune deficiency disorder. Matt pulls up his shirt to show a long scar on his side. The treatments are for him.

In Chinatown, Walter spots Astrid following him. He tells her he wants to live his life alone, with some semblance of dignity and self-respect.

But since she's there, he invites her to tag along.

Peter and Olivia tell Broyles about Matt's disorder. He should be living in a bubble, but they just found him shooting hoops outside. Matt's injected with something directly into his spleen once a month. His next surgery is scheduled for two days, when the next boat is due.

Back in Chinatown, Walter has found his hook worms, and the older man who was harvesting the bigger worms. Walter tells him he hasn't seen anything until he's seen one four feet long. After they buy the worms, the older man makes a call.

We see a young, tattoo-covered man watching Walter and Astrid as they buy something at a food cart. But Walter sees something and wanders off.

Astrid calls Peter, telling him she lost him. Peter thinks Walter is just trying to prove a point. They think he'll make it home OK.

Astrid looks for him back at the lab, but she finds a couple of tattooed Chinese men instead. They've come for the worm.

In Chinatown, Walter uses a pay phone to try to call Peter, but keeps dialing wrong numbers. He runs out of quarters and looks around helplessly, scared and lost. He waits at a bus stop and tells an older Chinese woman who doesn't understand him that his bus hasn't come for two hours but that doesn't matter because he used all his bus fare to dial seven wrong numbers. He starts to cry.

Back at the lab, Peter and Olivia find Astrid on the floor amid a mess. She was knocked out but OK.

Peter gets a call from a woman speaking Cantonese which, luckily, he speaks. Walter's fine. Peter goes to get him.

Olivia visits Elizabeth Jarvis, telling her about the boat coming in and the two dozen people who have already died. Elizabeth says her son won't live long without the treatment.

Peter knocks on an apartment door in Chinatown, where the woman tells Peter they tried many numbers until they reached him. Walter's sipping tea and wearing a silk robe. Peter reminds his dad the numbers were in his pockets.

They leave and Walter mentions finding hook worms and telling someone about their four footer. Peter realizes that's how they followed Astrid.

Olivia calls and tells him the second boat just docked.

FBI agents swarm it. Down in the hull they find slept-in beds but no people. Olivia finds a child's toy.

They're too late.

The Bishops revisit the herbalist shop where Walter talked about the big worm. They see Triad members unloading people from a van. Peter catches Olivia up and they're on their way.

Peter tells his dad to stay put as he picks the lock on the herbalist's shop.

He hears voices inside and finds people tied down to beds as the older Chinese man cuts the clothes off one of them and picks up a huge knife. Peter jumps him from behind and starts to untie the woman but the older man fights back.

The next thing he knows, Peter is being restrained by a Triad and the older man is about to put a tiny worm down his throat. The FBI pulls up outside as Peter fights not to get wormed.

They drop it in his mouth and try to force him to swallow. He's fighting not to when Olivia and all the FBI bust in.

The older Chinese man reaches for a gun and Olivia shoots him. Peter spits out the worm just in time.

Back at his lab, Walter is beside himself to see that the Triad banged up Astrid.

At the hospital, the Chinese nationals undergo surgery and some look like they have a chance, including the woman's husband and daughter. The state department has granted them political asylum.

They found six other patients the older Chinese man was treating.

Olivia brings the young Chinese girl her toy.

Walter wakes Peter up in the dead of night. He tells him he wants to be independent and not have his son watching after him, but even after a year out of the institution, he thinks there are times he'll still get lost. So he implanted a tracking device in his neck.

He gives Peter the transponder. Peter watches it beep and admires his weird, wonderful dad.