Veiled Vesta

So Victoria Frances lives in Victoria, Canada? Cool. And Gillian is expecting another baby? Awww, good for her. Is she married or is it with a boyfriend? Hmm... I don't know that much about her or much about David for that matter. I guess it's because I like Mulder and Scully a bit more than David and Gillian.

Glad the next viewing party is in two weeks so it will give me a chance to get started on the first movie and season 6! (I just finished season 5 today. I trust we'll still be able to see the whole series before the second movie?)

First episode of the viewing party has been recapped: (Always love all your feedback and how you like these things, girls. Just so you know.)

Unruhe

(**Special Note: Once again, Scully is trouble but unlike the previous episode, Mulder actually runs to her help. Lucky for Scully, the weird German killer knows nothing about girls named Samantha, Alien Bounty Hunters, and/or Truth carrots. Plus, he gives me free German lessons.**)

A couple is a hideous yellow car pull up in front of a drug store in grey, rainy Michigan (BTW why are so many places in the X-Files so grey and rainy?) The blonde woman, Mary, is there to get her passport photo, while the dingy mustachioed driver, Billy, grouses at her for fixing herself up a bit, claiming it's not a magazine cover, just a passport photo. Hey, any photo that you have to show to people is as important as a magazine pic. Billy tells her to act natural which just heightens my already high suspicions of him. She gets out and gets her picture taken by an old white haired man. She gives a big smile in her photo then leaves to get the money she forgot in the car. Just want to note that around this time, someone in a bright yellow raincoat walked inside. Where's your curious pet monkey, sir? Anyway, Mary walks out into the rain and her umbrella keeps her from seeing the person in the bright yellow raincoat who bumps into her. Mary is upset and possibly injured. When she gets to her car she's sees dingy mustachioed Billy, dead. It was The Man with the Yellow Hat! I knew he had a dark side! Mary is shocked but then falls down, crawling along the rainy parking lot in a dramatic way. If you have to die in the rain, might as well go out in agonizingly wet style. Before she passes out she sees the evil person in the yellow raincoat. Inside the drug store, the old white haired pharmacist is developing the pictures, old-school. When he sees the photo he recoils in horror: it's not the smiling photo of Mary, rather it's a dark distorted image of her screaming with little weird things in the background. I think he could sell it as modern art and make a killing, pardon the pun.

Opening Credits! Or if Yahoo Babel Fish is to be taken accurately: Offene Blankokredite! Normally I'd try and look for a song in honor of today's episode theme but the only famous German song I know is the 1980s hit: '99 Luftballons'. And if you thought The Pretenders had a formula for a song to get suck in your head, wait until your hear Nena's deceptively upbeat and catchy post-apocalyptic song!

On the road again and reviewing their case files in the car rather than in the office where I would think it would be more convenient to do so. Mulder asks Scully's thoughts on the screaming Mary photograph. (BTW: Wouldn't Screaming Mary be a cool band name?) Any evidence they may have gotten from the crime scene has been washed away by the rain. Perhaps her agonizingly wet style did not pay off in the long run. Her boyfriend, Billy, had been stabbed in the ear with something long and sharp. Hearing that it pierced his eardrum and went into his brain makes me wince in sympathy. If I had a top ten list of ways I'd least likely want to die, piercing of the eardrum and brain would make it into my top five. Clawing my eyes out would make it there too and so far, it's been a close call with this show. I'm just saying, there's regular TV gross and then there's DEAR GOD WHY, CARTER!? gross (insert naked Krycek or naked Diana Fowley in here for emphasis. Or rather, since you're all pretty much going to pick the latter, think of the former to stave off painful blindness). Scully wants to know where their X-File comes in, thinking that the photo of the screaming woman was taken by her abductor but Mulder tells her that it was actually just taken by an old pharmacist in what was to be a normal passport photo. She wasn't screaming in the passport photo. Scully remains skeptical, thinking maybe the person who took the photo had something to do with Mary's disappearance and Mulder is inwardly rolling his eyes, thinking it's just another day with his scientifically rigid partner. But we all know he totally loves that part about her.

When they finally get to the drug store, they check out the pharmacist’s camera. The old pharmacist thinks he may have done something wrong while developing it but Mulder assures him he probably did it fine. Of course that's probably because he wants to believe the photo was caused by something supernatural. Scully notes that his film is out of date and after a bit, the old pharmacist who has a bum leg for extra sympathy factor, leaves to take a phone call. Mulder teases her about her initial suspicions regarding the old pharmacist so Scully revises her theory: maybe his expired film, along with heat damage, distorted the image. She continues valiantly with her theory, Mulder's just smirking and clearly thinking 'Queen of Skeptical Overthinking, much?' Scully finally asks for his theory but he doesn't have one. Yet. An officer finally joins them in the drug store only to tell them that they may have been called in for nothing. That's not something a taxpayer likes to hear.

Mulder and Scully are now at Mary's house, joining a few other officers and being told by Inspector Puett that Mary and Billy were, like, the white trash postal worker version of Bonnie and Clyde. They stole credit cards from people's mail and committed a whole lot of fraud with it. It's assumed by the local PD that she faked her disappearance, killed her boyfriend and left town. Mulder refuses to believe that simple explanation so he and Scully go up to her bedroom (Oh yeah!), look for a camera (Still good...) and take some random pictures to see what pops up (Darn it.) All the Polaroids Mulder took come out as the same screaming Mary photo from the drug store. While Mulder snapped his photos, he explained to Scully the concept of "thoughtographs" which is just someone concentrating on film and making it show what was in your mind. And what it you had a mind like Mulder's? Would you get "naughtigraphs"? Or maybe "angstographs". I think I'd prefer the former. Mulder starts profiling, imagining Mary's stalker, thinking the guy got close enough that his thoughts affected the film in her camera. Scully does not believe Mulder's "psychic photography" theory, opting for the more plausible "he doctored and planted the photos in that camera." Mulder is just fascinated that the photos may show him a peak into the guy's mind, his darkest fantasies if you will.

Over on a highway we see a nightgown-clad Mary who definitely wouldn't be caught dead in any Vogue spreads. She's all pale and zombie-like as she walks along the road. Police finally get to her and soon she's wheeled into a hospital. Mulder and Scully are there along with her. They find out Mary has been rugged with a dental anesthetic known as 'twilight sleep'. That's too pretty for the horrors of dentistry. Scully wants the doctor to do a PET scan on her and that's when they discover that the reason she's been non-responsive is because she's been lobotomized. An ice pick lobotomy done horribly wrong. I wonder what would constitute as the right way of shoving a sharp instrument into someone's brain and cutting off a chunk of it? Suddenly, Mary starts muttering something. She's uttering "unruhe". Before they can comment on that, Mulder and Scully get told there's been a second abduction. The second woman who has been abducted is currently tied to a chair with duct tape on her mouth. She's in a semi-dark room and a man is coming towards her with a long ice pick/needle instrument. He's speaking German which sounds like he's reassuring her but it loses it's reassuring quality when the victim doesn't know German and, oh yeah, about to be lobotomized!

Scully gets to a building which is still being built or fumigated and she finds Mulder inside, along with a few other officers checking out the scene. The body wheeled out a moment ago is that of a public accountant who was killed in the same way dingy mustachioed Billy boy was killed. Definitely the same MO. His secretary was the lady who was kidnapped. They weren't dating like the first pair (or were they?) so who knows what pair this guy could get to next. Mulder starts thinking about what Mary was saying in the hospital, "unruhe". Scully tells him that it's German for "unrest" (she took German in college. Nice.) While Scully thinks their killer might return to the scene of the crime Mulder is nt so sure since the photos would've been affected. Scully is a bit annoyed that he's still harping on that "psychic photography" theory of his and Mulder says that with no evidence presented at this crime scene or the first one, the thoughtographs are all the evidence they've got and only because their killer may not realize he's got the ability to do that or he wouldn't leave the pictures behind. Scully then spots something outside. She shows him a sign outside that was apparently also found in the photos of the first crime scene. Since its a sign for a construction company, she believes their kidnapper worked construction and that's how he picked his two victims. Mulder thinks she should check out that possible lead while he heads to D.C to get the screaming Mary photos analyzed. Oh Mulder. Scully is now also thinking that it's just another day with her crazy, spooky partner... who will of course be right which makes it even more frustrating.

Our second victim, named Alice, is still in that chair. The German speaking killer is really taking his time with that lobotomy. She tries to yell at him when her duct tape slips off but he quickly puts some more duct tape on her mouth and speaks some more possibly soothing but seriously terrifying German. I bet Alice wishes she took German in college. Meanwhile in the FBI lab, Mulder is getting his photo examined by a surprisingly good photo clearing program. Well, good for the 90s. They see that the weird things in the background are evil Jack Skellington style skulls. Looks like Tim Burton is an X-Files fan. Scully is following up her lead by talking to the construction boss at down at the station. They're trying to find a list of all the employees that worked both job sites neat where the kidnappings took place. The construction boss thinks his foremen might hire day laborers which would add to their list of suspects. Scully wants to canvas all the sites with the laborers and employees at both job sites, then she asks for the foreman who worked the second crime scene. Over at the D.C labs, the tech is still working on the picture. Okay, it may be good software but it's kind of slow. Mulder tries to get the tech to clear up another shape in the photo, a non-skull shape. They both see what looks like a small elongated shadow behind screaming Mary. Mulder makes some assumptions as to why the shadow is there and looks like it's time to check on Scully. She's at a building that's mid-construction, looking for the foreman. She sees a man on stilts (is that necessary for construction or is it more to boost the workers' morale? Wouldn't a ladder be more efficient?) The man on stilts, Gerry Schnauz, is the foreman Scully is looking for and she tells him she needs to ask him some questions. Scully's cell phone rings at that moment and it's Mulder who deduced that Mary's kidnapper/killer is a man with long legs. She takes a good look at Gerry's stilts and makes a Mulder-esque leap when she points her gun at the foreman. Like a good Mulder-esque leap, it turns out to be right and Gerry runs pretty quickly for a guy in stilts. Perhaps he worked as a clown to pay his way through college. Wait, he works in construction. Never mind. He jumps across half done floors, falls off his stilts, and only stops when Scully fires in his direction. She walks over to him and orders him to put his hands above his head. When she checks his pockets, she quickly draws back, poking herself on something. Then she carefully re-checks his pocket and finds a construction metal spike thing. It looks like the ice pick instrument he brandished at second victim, Alice.

Mulder and Scully are now interrogating Gerry, asking about Alice. He denies knowledge but Scully wants an explanation for the murder weapon. He says it's used to make holes in sheet rock. Scully says he used it to make holes in dingy mustachioed Billy and Accountant Charles. She keeps drilling him (heh) on his victims but when he continues to profess his innocence, Mulder brings up his rap sheet. Seems that he attacked his dad iwth an axe handle and left the old man wheelchair bound. Gerry says he wasn't in jail, he was in an 'institution'. Well, crazy killer is not really a better option than calculating killer. Geez, they’ll let anyone into the construction business. Gerry's father passed away recently and his sister committed suicide in he same year. Mulder asks what else happened that year, and Gerry shoots back that John Lennon got shot, and how about Mulder get to the point and lay off his Freudian analysis. If he was really doing the Freudian analysis thing he'd mention that the ice pick tool seems to compensate for the killer's manhood and his attack on men while 'penetration' of women with the tool is meant to bolster his sexual ego... any psych majors wanna tell me if I was close on the Freudian thing 'cuz I totally just BS'd it. Gerry thinks Scully looks troubled. Uh oh. I don't like that look he has. Oh, BTW, in case I didn't mention it before, Gerry's eyes have been really twitchy through out the whole interview. And not nervous twitchy, but bizarre and unfocused twitchy. I wonder if that was something the actor added to make his character seem even more unsettling. Mulder shows him the enhanced photo of screaming Mary and points out a face in the photo (so it has Jack Skelling-skulls, a long shadow, and the semi-hazy face of an old man). Gerry is shocked to see the face, asking where it came from and Mulder tells him he left it for him to find, guessing that it's what Gerry sees when he closes his eyes. Mulder wants to know where their second victim is. Gerry says she's safe from "the howlers". That's crazy-talk for botched lobotomy.

Looks like Gerry finally gave up the hiding place of Alice, as a bunch of police cars drive through a country road. They find Alice's body, clad in a nightgown and looking as zombified as Mary did. She did not survive the lobotomy and Scully is upset. She leaves for the car and a while later Mulder gets down there to offer more thoughts on the meaning of the word "unruhe" and how the evil things in the photo aren't part of Gerry's fantasy but rather part of his nightmare. He probably thought he was saving those women from the evil things in the photo, known to him as howlers. Scully really doesn't care about the case anymore and just wants to get out of there. She starts up the car and Mulder figures that he should probably follow orders lest he piss her off even more. Good plan, Spooky.

Over at the police station, Gerry is getting processed and ready to get his mug shot taken. The print out of the photo shows the officer instead of Gerry, and the officer in the photo is not exactly smiling for the camera. Gerry takes the cop's confusion as a chance to grab his gun and shoot him... just like shot cop in the photo. Mulder and Scully arrive at the scene later, correcting me by pointing out the officer was shot in the neck which doesn't match the photo of the officer shot in the forehead. Thanks guys. Scully informs Mulder that there was a robbery at the drug store where the first victim was taken. Scully tries to get the statement from the old pharmacist while Mulder marvels over a phone booth and pays for some pictures. If he weren't on a case do you think he'd get inside and moon the camera? That'd be hilarious. Especially if Scully would catch him mid-moon. Oh yeah. After Scully gets an positive ID fro the pharmacist on their perp, Gerry, she tells him that a bunch of drugs (morphine and the like) as well as needle syringes were stolen. He's making more twilight sleep for his future victim(s)... maybe a red head who should be more careful. Scully wants to go but Mulder waves her off, telling her to bring the car around. You'll live to regret that, Mulder. Nothing good happens from Skeptic Scully separation! She walks outside and calls for some back-up to check out the previous job site. When she walks to the car she gets stabbed from underneath! Thank goodness I don't on a car. Scully stumbles back and falls, trying to get to her gun but the twilight sleep gets to her and she loses consciousness. That jerk, Gerry gets out and stands over Scully while Mulder finally gets his photos. Scully is the person screaming in the photo! Oh crap, Mulder finally realizes what happened and he runs out spotting the car rushing off. Mulder runs after the car and you'd think he'd learn after all those times he tried to out run a vehicle (unsuccessfully) and tried running chase after a vehicle (also unsuccessfully)... but then again, this is Mulder we're talking about. His hard abs are no match for his hard head. He yells out Scully's name over and over but that ain't gonna transport her out of the car. Looks like we're in for some desperate-to-find-Scully moments. Excellent.

First thing Mulder does is examine Scully's photo. Mulder, we all know she's pretty... oh, he thinks he can get the answer by deciphering what's in the photo. An officer tells him they found Scully's car abandoned 20 miles up but another car was stolen from a nearby lot. Gerry is switching cars but that will not deter Mulder who notices what appear to be six "fingers" by Scully's head. It wasn't in the other photo so maybe it'll help him find Scully. Oh, who am I kidding, with all the attention he's giving that image, it will *definitely* help him find her. He's not at his apartment or a friend or relative's house. Mulder finds an old newspaper clipping from Gerry's wallet; his dad's obituary. Gerry's dad was a war veteran and a retired dentist. Possible clue! Mulder kicks in an old dentist office door in his awesome door-kicking way and finds that the dentist chair is gone. Looks like Gerry was there and he stole the chair. Add that to his long list of crimes, boys! We're in the familiar semi-dark room but this time Scully is tied up on the chair that we assume is the stolen dentist chair from Gerry's father's old practice. Seriously, Carter is possibly the only man I know who hates dentists even more than I do. Did he break a tooth or something while surfing one day and get a two-for-one deal on fixing it up via root canal while removing his wisdom teeth sans anasthetics? Scully finally wakes up and sees Gerry. She doesn't have duct tape on her mouth so she takes the opportunity to ask him to let her go. He speaks some German and tries to duct tape her but she finally uses her college German to plead with him and lucky for us non-German speaking viewers, we get subtitles. She says she has no unrest and doesn't need to be saved (Aww, she was listening to Mulder even when she was pissed off.) Gerry replies in English, that everyone needs to be saved, especially her but Scully wants to know if he feels that way because she reminds him of his sister. Then she asks what his father did to his sister. Gerry insists it was the howlers that did it and explains they live in people's heads, controlling people and making them do things they don't mean. He says Scully has howlers but when she says she does not, he says the howlers are making her say that. Scully reasons herself more time, saying Gerry probably made up these "howlers" to excuse his father for what he did to his sister and he brings up the photo that Mulder showed him as physical proof of the howlers. Scully says that if howlers exist, they likely only live inside Gerry's head (aka: he's crazy). Gerry pauses and brings a camera over to take Scully's picture. Scully is the hottest victim ever. Then after a moment, Gerry turns the camera on himself and snaps the picture. Is that considered photo-suicide?

Mulder is still thinking about the six fingers in the photo, and it's a good thing Scully is so awesome at reasoning and staving off lobotomy death or she'd be zombie-walking the roads in a pretty pink nightie while Mulder still counts the fingers in his head, maybe resorting to Freudian thinking to get some answers. You don't want to know what Freud would think about six fingers. Mulder knows he's running out of time and his frustration shows it. His leaps of logic finally kick in when he looks at the obituary newspaper clipping, counting five headstones in the photo, adding a sixth one to represent his father. To the cemetery!

So since it's nearing the end of the episode it's safe to say Scully is somewhere in the cemetery where Gerry's father was buried. He looks at the photos (he took more than one? What an idiot!) and he's confused as to what it means. Scully will tell him what it means: it's means he's crazy. Well, it worked for Clyde Bruckman. Gerry realizes he doesn't have much time left so he must get on with the lobotomy. He duct tapes Scully's mouth but stops a bit short of the lobotomy poke when he hears a noise. He checks a peephole in the dark room and sees Mulder! Hooray for crazy leaps of logic! He's outside an RV (so Scully's been held in an RV this whole time? I don't think I'll be renting one of those anytime soon). Mulder looks around the RV, I like to think he was drawn to it via his Scully senses tingling. When he sees a silly little fake tooth keychain in the ignition, he realizes the RV belongs to a dentist therefore Scully must be inside. He yells her name and Scully manages to get one of her arms free and rip off the duct tape. I also like to think his voice gave her the extra strength to get free. She shouts that she's inside and Mulder tries to slam the door in. I thought he'd give it a good kick since he seems to like kicking doors down alot. Gerry once again heads for Scully with the evil lobotomy ice pick tool but she fends him off with her free hand Mulder finally grabs a pipe that's conveniently in a cemetery, using it to break the door down and save her from the worst earthly dentist/lobotomy visit ever. Mulder doesn't hesitate to shoot Gerry just in the nick of time. He makes sure Scully is okay, asking if she's hurt but she's cool. He takes her hand and helps her up. Scully wants to get away but she gives Gerry's fallen body a brief look before getting out of the surprisingly roomy RV. Mulder sees the photos Gerry took of himself. Unsurprisingly they show him slumped down on the ground dead, just like in real life. At the end of the episode Scully does some professional monologuing with some undertones of reserved angst. She says they found Gerry's diary after his death with a letter intended for his father and a list of his victims, hers included. She can't explain the photos but she gets another Mulder epiphany as she realized she had to get inside the mind of a killer to survive. All I hear is that this is one more thing she and Mulder have in common. Sehr nett.