X-Files S2E3: They're out for Blood

Sestra Amateur: 

This week’s episode takes us to Franklin, Pennsylvania, or at least, Vancouver’s version of Franklin. A postal employee named Ed Funsch is inputting zip codes into a computer when he cuts his finger. A short time later, Ed’s boss has to fire him due to cutbacks. Sucks to be the low man on the totem pole, Ed. He really should have turned that cut into a Worker’s Compensation claim so he could buy himself some time. 

But Ed takes another approach. Since the boss took pity on him and said he could finish out the work week, Ed goes back to inputting zip codes. Shouldn’t bosses do the layoffs at the end of Friday’s work day just to avoid these kinds of conflicts? The digital display on Ed’s computer tells him to “Kill ‘Em All.” Now I’ve got Metallica’s "Seek and Destroy" in my head. Pretty much the same idea that is now in Ed’s head, but for very different reasons. 

Meanwhile, something similar is occurring in a crowded elevator in another part of Franklin. A claustrophobic man is getting violent instructions from the control panel. He follows through and kills four of the passengers. Local law enforcement calls the Feds for help. Guess who arrives. Sheriff Spencer tells Mulder that seven Franklin residents have killed 22 people in the past six months. That’s really going to hurt Franklin’s tourism business unless they decide to advertise it as the murder capital of the United States. Those seven killers are believed to have induced cops to kill them to stop further violence. 

The crime scene is still active when Mulder arrives, even though Franklin is at least 300 miles from Washington, D.C. I hate when they do that. Why not give us a throwaway line like Mulder was in the area for a Penguins game to explain his quick arrival? (This episode originally aired Sept. 30, 1994, so it could have been a preseason game.) 

While Mulder is assisting Sheriff Spencer, poor Ed is getting kill commands from his friendly neighborhood ATM. Seems like blood is a catalyst when Ed sees the digital commands. But Ed continues to resist. Good for you, Ed! 

Scully is studying Mulder’s review of the Franklin homicides. Her facial reaction when Mulder concedes it’s not aliens is priceless. Mulder notes damaged electronics at the crime scenes and starts to put the pieces together – not literally. Meanwhile, a woman goes to pick up her car from a creepy-but-not-criminal mechanic and kills him out of fear that he will rape and kill her. You know, she might have been able to convince a jury to believe her. But Mulder and Spencer interview her and she slashes Mulder with a knife after the microwave tells her they know what she did. Spencer shoots her dead. That makes the count eight killers and 23 victims --  or 31 victims.

Scully conducts the autopsy on the woman and determines the killers experienced an LSD-like state during phobic incidents. That’s an overly simplified description of what’s really going on with these people. You can compare my summary to Jurassic Park, in which the novel uses a good 15 pages of exposition to detail how dinosaurs of the same sex manage to breed, but the movie gives you the line “amphibian DNA” to answer all of your gender swapping questions. But enough of the science stuff. Let’s check in on Ed.

The good news is Ed is out job hunting. The bad news is he’s in a department store when multiple televisions encourage him to kill. And of course, this store has a sporting goods department where Ed can buy a rifle and ammunition. Out for a run, Mulder finds city workers and dead flies. That leads him to the Lone Gunmen who give Mulder some leads regarding governmentally banned pesticides. 

Mulder and Spencer confront the county supervisor, who admits the sprays were used to protect the crops that are part of Franklin’s economy. Mulder later gets hit with pesticides during an illegal spray. He goes to the hospital, and while watching the TV screen, thinks he’s picking up subliminal messages. Hey, Sestra Pro, wouldn’t this have been a good place to revisit Mulder’s pyrophobia? The sheriff convinces the mayor to stop spraying and discreetly get people tested. 

A blood tester ends up at Ed’s house, where he's already broken his computer monitor, calculator, watch and even his doorbell. Was the ding dong starting to sound like “kill kill?” Mulder gets to Ed’s house, but he is gone. Since Mulder realizes Ed’s fear is blood, he thinks he’s heading to the hospital. The agents await Ed at the hospital, and Scully hides behind Mulder -- mainly to cover Gillian Anderson’s pregnancy belly -- because there is absolutely nothing tactical about their positioning. 

But Ed has decided to go to the blood drive at the college instead. He goes up the clock tower with his rifle while Mulder and the sheriff head that way. I don’t know why they didn’t call campus police to let them know a paranoid psychotic with a rifle was heading their way. Based on their lights and sirens, it’s not like the sheriff was striving for discretion. Luckily, Ed is the worst shot ever. He took out some innocent bottles of orange juice, but I don’t think he hit a single human. Let’s give Ed the benefit of the doubt and think he’s still trying to resist the urge to kill. Mulder manages to subdue him without killing him. Mulder calls Scully and his cell phone screen reads, “All done. Bye bye.” My old Nokia never said that to me. Even scarier, Mulder’s phone is in roaming mode. Wonder how much that call cost him.

Sestra Professional:

It's The X-Files twist on going postal. And while this episode hasn't traditionally gotten a lot of notice, it is a fine example of the show really hitting its stride. The script -- by the tried-and-true duo of Glen Morgan and James Wong -- addressed disgruntled postal workers, random shootings and the fear and paranoia caused by insecticide sprayings. Darin Morgan, last week's mutant worm on camera, gets his first writing credit after helping develop the story.

Everything hinges on a committed yet somehow still sympathetic performance by William Sanderson, but a ton of kudos are also due to show's musical genius Mark Snow. First, he creates a genuinely creepy mood, then raises the stakes with music cues that substantially ratchet up the tension in the scariest moments.

Different chemicals, same stunts: Still working apart a great deal of the time, both Mulder and Scully fare very well in this one. Mulder intuits that gadgets have gone wild, while Scully finds the cause. Then they have The Lone Gunmen back to geek it up, comparing the Los Angeles sprayings to DDT testing in the '50s. Of course, back then effects started showing decades later and quite as quickly.

The county supervisor is following political protocol by believing everything he's been told, but miracle of miracles, the sheriff actually believes Mulder. We're finally making some progress. Maybe that's another reason why the show seems to be playing on a higher level, Sculder are not the only ones who believe the results of their investigation.

Of course, there still is room for traditional Mulder-Scully conflict. They can't agree on absolutely everything. So when Mulder claims insecticide heightened the killers' previous phobias and electronic messages made them carry out violence to prevent their worst fears from coming true, Scully kinda thinks it's garden-variety Mulder paranoia.

Fear. It's the oldest tool of power: Another strong point is that it doesn't take until the final 10 minutes to figure everything out. As mentioned, Sculder make their observations, and then all that's left is to find a man who has eluded testing. Is it too soon to say they're firing on all cylinders?

It does get to be a bit too much when Ed ascends a clock tower similarly to the infamous 1966 University of Texas massacre, like they're throwing everything but the kitchen sink into one episode, but it's a minor complaint about a strong episode. The most chilling X-Files have always played upon our own fears. This one delivers upon that premise and then some.

"We know more about what happened to him than he does," the sheriff said when Mulder still wants to question Ed after the denouement. (And in the back of my mind, I wonder if the affable John Cygan tested for my favorite role in the series -- said character makes his debut in the very next episode.)

A bit of meta, the tag -- "ALL DONE ... BYE BYE" -- was used as the final shot for the second season's gag reel. But that scene got me wondering whether Mulder continued his treatment off camera, since he obviously wasn't quite over his dosage of LSD. And yes indeed, Sestra Am, I do believe it would have been an excellent time to harken back to Mulder's fire fear.

Guest star of the week: As previously pointed out, it's definitely Sanderson, perhaps best known as the two Darryls' brother Larry on Newhart. He does standout work as the fired postal worker trying to fight off the forces inducing him to do harm. His screams of pain in the clock tower are harrowing. And since he's the only one of the killers who didn't commit "suicide by cop," we'll say job well done for Ed and particularly well done by William.

X-Files S2E2: The Host with the mostest

Sestra Amateur: 

I’m sorry to say we’re not talking about Lorne the Host from Joss Whedon’s series Angel; that character won’t exist for about six more years. This host is on a Russian cargo ship in the Atlantic Ocean, a tad east of New Jersey. It’s causing toilets to overflow, so of course, some hapless sailor gets sent to fix the plumbing problem. I wonder how you say “I’ll be right back” in Russian. The impromptu plumber gets grabbed by something reminiscent of the underwater creature from Leviathan ... and Deep Star Six ... and Endless Descent. 1989 was a bad year for sea creature horror movies. Too bad for this guy it wasn’t the luminous, well-meaning alien from The Abyss.

Meanwhile, back in D.C., Mulder is still pulling wiretap duty. Never piss off your superiors. Mulder’s eating his sunflower seeds and drinking his Shasa cola. That’s not a typo. They couldn’t get the rights to use the Shasta brand name? That’s pretty sad. Mulder finally gets liberated from wiretap purgatory to investigate a not-an-X-File case. 

Mulder and Newark Police Detective Norman head into the lovely, fragrant Jersey sewers to see the dead body. Mulder thinks he’s getting his chain yanked and has the foul-smelling corpse sent to FBI Headquarters, care of Assistant Director Skinner. Speaking of Skinner, I really hope the wardrobe department eventually dulls the reflection on his glasses because you can practically see what the TV show’s crew is wearing in the lenses. Mulder lets Skinner have it and continues down a path of career suicide. Scully agrees to autopsy the stinky sewer corpse because, well, that’s what Scully does. My XF trivia knowledge is improving -- the John Doe number is Chris Carter’s birthday, right, Sestra? So whose birth date is the case number 112148? During the procedure, a slimy tentacle reaches out from inside the corpse. Scully grabs it with tongs and gets into a tug of war with it. For a moment there, you think Scully is going to lose.

Back in beautiful downtown Newark, there’s no Prudential Center in sight. Hell, the thought of it probably doesn’t exist yet. A sewer worker gets bit by the creature, so we should probably just write him off. The doctor treating him thinks a tetanus shot and antibiotics will help. The worker tells Mulder he thinks a snake bit him. Scully calls Mulder to tell him about the parasite she found. How many of you have seen Parasite starring Demi Moore? It really is one of the most awful movies out there and not in a good-awful way. It’s essentially 85 minutes of WTH. ... But I digress. Mulder then takes a cryptic call from Deep Throat 2.0. He says Mulder has a friend at the FBI, then hangs up. Good, because someone’s going to have to start saving Mulder’s career again. But what kind of friend just hangs up without saying goodbye? Rude!

Scully introduces Mulder to the Turbellaria, which may finally swear me off rare steaks forever. This type of worm acts like a parasite, feeding off the organs. Mulder shows Scully a picture of bite marks on the sewer worker. They appear to be the same except for one pesky discrepancy -- they're supposed to be really tiny. The one that bit the sewer worker ain’t tiny. Scully says flatworms (or flukeworms) don’t go around attacking people, but since the sound of Scully’s voice changes because of looping technology, I’m not so inclined to believe her. (Yes, I’m manufacturing an excuse. No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.) Meanwhile, things quickly go downhill for the sewer worker who coughs up a flatworm which goes down his shower drain.

At the Newark County Sewage Processing Plant (I don’t think there is such a place), an employee finds a flukeworm in the system but it’s more humanoid – and human-sized. Let’s call it Fluke Skywalker. Back in her office, someone slips a tabloid under Scully’s door. The sensationalistic rag contains an article about the Russian cargo ship incident. I actually took a moment to pause the episode and read the article. Looked like the writers really made an effort with that prop. I’m sure Special Correspondent George Lister is some type of inside joke. This show is just loaded with Easter eggs. So Scully links the stinky sewer corpse to the missing sailor through a tattoo. Wouldn’t it be funny if the anonymous tipster was giving Scully the magazine to relate it to a different case? Scully should use that issue as a reference all season, because there’s a chance more X-Files cases are addressed in there. Mulder calls Scully so she could see Fluke, who has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Middlesex County. Interesting detainer choice, Jersey.

The next morning Mulder meets with Skinner to discuss Fluke’s fate. I really wish they scripted the scene of Skinner and federal prosecutors talking about how to prosecute Fluke. Skinner begrudgingly admits this case should have been handled as an X-File. Meanwhile, Fluke is being transported by U.S. Marshals in an ambulance ... at night ... on a deserted road ... by only the driver. Freakin’ morons. It’s like the government wants Fluke to escape. Hmmmmm…

The marshal pulls off the road in front of a live bait shop. How apropos. Fluke finds his way to a portable toilet – yeah, won’t be using those anytime soon either. A truck arrives to empty the toilet and Fluke gets sucked out like Unger and Dunn in Airplane 2. An hour later, the truck passes Mulder at the ambulance crime scene. Mulder gets another cryptic call from his secret friend, who is even less helpful than the original Deep Throat.

Mulder goes back to the sewage processing plant hoping Fluke will return there. Scully warns Mulder that Fluke could multiply if it finds a new host. Another worker falls in and Fluke attacks him, so Mulder jumps in to help. Hope Mulder retires that suit because dry cleaning won’t save it. Mulder saves the worker, chases Fluke and cuts him in half. Now if this was Leviathan, that would just mean one monster became two. But we see the lower half sink. Hope they recover both parts and dispose of Fluke properly. By the way, what is the proper way to dispose of a human-sized flatworm?

Sculder meet later to discuss the case. Scully tells Mulder the parasite is still capable of spontaneous regeneration just like any flatworm, but she’s doing that weird looping voiceover thing again. Sestra, did you read anything about why they needed to keep dubbing parts of Scully’s dialogue for this ep? In the end, Scully blames science, not nature for the ... fluke. From her description, Fluke should be more like Godzilla. But Fluke Jr. (the coughed up flatworm) is apparently still out there. Or is it the one Mulder cut in half? Or, as usual, is it left open to interpretation?
 
Sestra Professional:

It really has to be some kind of Fluke that the guy in the costume for this episode -- Darin Morgan -- turned out to be my favorite television writer of all time. There was just no way of knowing that would come to pass, although when you hear the tale of how he sat down next to David Duchovny on an airplane and asked for an autograph, "To my arch nemesis," you could see the penchant for creativity. Much, much more on him to come. For now, he's stuck in what was purported to be spectacularly uncomfortable worm wear.

In the meantime, there are Easter eggs to be deciphered. You're correct about Chris Carter's birthday, 112148 is the birthday of his wife, Dori, and that was used a few times as dates and times during first-season episodes. I don't have anything specific on George Lister, but during the show's run, combinations of names were created, so maybe this was a variation on that theme. Sorry, even less intel on the looping.

I wouldn't want to step in anything: The creep factor is high on this episode. It does throw a little bit of fear into a person, although not quite in the same way The Carol Burnett Show once scarred me for life with a toilet shark. I don't remember being particularly more frightened by what was lingering in the waters when I was residing in Newark, although there's always been some kind of uneasiness about porta potties.

Awww, Mulder's first present for Skinner -- a mangled corpse drenched in raw sewage. Fox is pretty rusty if he can't recognize an X-File when he sees one, for he used to see X-Files in his breakfast eggs. Now he also has to be talked into solving a crime, sitting around taking notes of wiretaps has really taken a toll on this guy.

With Deep Throat gone, it's time for Mulder to have a new friend in the FBI, because someone's got to point Sculder in a direction when they don't have anything to go on. And that's not the only relationship on the up and up. The agents definitely get a glow about them -- not pregnancy-related -- while discussing fluke worms and how big they can get. Yeah, no subtext there. Mulder says the only reason he can find to stay is his relationship with Scully. She later counters with, "I would consider it more than a professional loss if you decide to leave." What it lacks in warmth, it makes up for with sincerity.

And let's break some new ground with Gillian Anderson's burgeoning belly. We've seen all kinds of ways of hiding pregnancy on the air -- flower pots and big purses and the like. Utilizing a gross corpse in an extended autopsy scene must have been a breakthrough in both science and entertainment at the time. 

I'd like to give some props to props, makeup and Matthew Bennett, who played the sanitation worker. When the fluke starts to take control, the poor sucker -- or should that be suckee -- empties the contents of a toothpaste tube in his mouth to get rid of the bad taste. That scene ends with a fluke worm emerging from his mouth and slipping down the drain -- the greatest gross-out on the show since Tooms' liver-eating bile in the first season. And according to The X-Files Episode Guide, credit also goes to Carter, since he not only wrote the ep, but fought with Fox -- the network, not the agent -- to get that scene aired.

It looks like I'm going to have to tell Skinner his suspect is a giant bloodsucking worm after all: There's a lot of information stuffed into the epilogue, about how man and not nature created that destructive worm with a "primordial soup of radioactive sewage." Chernobyl gets shoehorned in, although perhaps it's not as clunky as it might have been considering the use of a Russian ship earlier in the plot. And Mulder ponders: "Three species disappear every day, you wonder how many new ones are being created." A lot of information for the end of the show, but it's hard to complain about one that really had very little let-up from ominous start to perhaps-even-more-petrifying conclusion.

Guest star of the week: No, duh. It's Darin Morgan. In addition to getting much-needed paycheck at the time, playing this part on the show also gave the future writer/director insight into what it's like for the actors who get stuck in a costume on a set for hours and hours at a time.