Veiled Vesta

Another recap because I got in the zone and now we'll all be waiting for Tanith's Bad Blood recap. Time for my thoughts on Carter's favorite episode with tons of Cher goodness and Mulder/Scully slow dancing.

The Post-Modern Prometheus

**(Side Note: It's the black and white episode! Plus as a big Cher fan, I was giddy at all the songs used in this episode. Too bad they couldn't get the actual singer for a cameo but I was tickled pink to see Jerry Springer! And this is the episode with the oh so well known Mulder/Scully dance scene. Even in black and white you can see the love.)**

We open with a comic book on a desk. The title on it is 'The Great Mutato' - a collectors edition - with its bright colors and interesting design, we can see it's a pure 90s comic. The pages inside are in black and white and that's how the rest of the episode will play out. How innovating! The first page shows a neighborhood street with the panel reading: 'Somewhere in the land, a monster lurked...'. The comic drawn neighborhood street dissolves into an actual neighborhood street, and we will soon see how comic-like these town people can be. Three older teen boys are fiddling with an old car. One of them is named Izzy and the other is named Booger. I don't know the name of the third one but it's probably an equally odd name so I'll call him Sticky because he's the thin one of the group. Izzy and Sticky are looking in the hood of the car and Booger must've started the car or something because a bunch of smoke puffs into their faces. Izzy's apron clad mother steps out of her house and the three boys get into the clanker trap. Izzy's mother argues with her son for a bit with him saying he's 18 and can do whatever he wants, while his mother just responds that if he tries to disobey he's getting kicked out of the house. The boys drive off, leaving ozone-obliterating exhaust in their wake. What a homey little town in the country.

At night inside the house, Izzy's mom is watching the Jerry Springer Show (Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! I love Steve the guard. He was as memorable as Jerry.) Jerry's topic is werewolf babies. It's just a woman with an overly hairy baby. That condition has a name and some of the people who have it get their fifteen minutes of fame by going on Ripley's or Guinness World Records or a Discovery Channel special. Anyway, while Izzy's mom is watching one of the few non-****ty episodes of Springer, someone is skulking around in her house. Some fabric rolls over the windows outside, and on TV Jerry Springer asks the interesting questions to the mother of the wolf baby, like why doesn't she shave him and is she or her baby's father hairy in anyway? Someone in the house puts this round lump of something in a frying pan which immediately starts to smoke, filling the house. Soon the smoke reaches the bedroom of the mother. We hear the beginning of Cher's song "The Sun Ain‘t Gonna Shine Anymore" Izzy's mom hears it and turns down her TV. She calls out if anyone is out there then starts coughing. She gasps when she sees a deformed person open her bedroom door. It looks like the comic book creature from the front cover, the Great Mutato. Outside we see her house is completely covered in a huge tent. I'd say the circus is in town but that's been true for quite a while when you take a look at the townsfolk.

Opening Credits! Bust out your Best of Cher CD or just do some Youtube listening because the honorary song for the today's theme is any Cher song you can find. May I suggest 'Walking in Memphis', as it's the song Mulder and Scully dance to? The Elvis reference in the song is perfect for Mulder and the lyrical uncertainty fits Scully quite well.

Mulder and Scully are driving – in black and white! Scully is reading their latest X-File out loud. It's a hoot. Izzy's mother, Shaineh Berkowitz, wrote to Mulder for help because about 18 years ago she felt a presence in her room and woke up three days later to find herself pregnant with her son Izzy the comic enthusiast. It wouldn't be a true X-File if it didn't happen more than once and indeed, just recently in bed she heard Cher singing ("the one who was married to Sonny"), smelled some smoke, saw a monster that had "a really gross face with lumps all over his head". She then passed out for three days and you can guess what she found out after that. When she woke up she saw Mulder's name on the Springer show (he helped the lady with the wolf baby) and she knew he'd want to hear her story. Wow. Mulder is getting famous. He wonders if he should get his own 1-900 number and I can guarantee he'll be raking in the cash if he does. I'll probably be the only fangirl calling for non-sexual reasons (Okay, maybe I'll ask about the speedo but that's it, I swear! )

Mulder and Scully are in Mrs. Berkowitz's kitchen. She's playing hostess while asking Mulder about the wolf baby. He explains like I did that it's hereditary condition, and now I know the name: hypertrichosis lanuginosa. She just wants to know how hairy it was. Scully asks about her son, Izzy, and she shows them a photo of him with a pig. How can I say this without sounding insulting... they look kind of similar. But it's important to note for later. Scully asks if she reported her rape years ago to the police and she says she did but there wasn't much of an investigation in the small rural town. What's odd about this second pregnancy, besides the circumstances in which it came to be, is that Mrs. Berkowitz had her tubes tied two years ago. That is some potent mutant sperm she got. She also shows them her frying pan that the intruder used to make the smoke. She suspects it was more than one intruder and they not only messed up her frying pan, they ate all her peanut butter. Scully has to ask if the woman drinks. Perhaps she knocked down a few before they showed up. No Scully, she doesn't drink but she says that maybe her intruders did because they didn't use a coaster on her old cabinet. The fiends! Scully guesses that maybe her son didn't use the coaster but Mrs. Berkowitz says he wouldn't dare if he knows what's good for him, then she turns to Mulder and is one of the few X-Files victims that actually seems interested in hearing his crazy theory. Lay it on them, Mulder. He thinks it's not an alien abduction scenario and says he might not believe in that stuff anymore (gasp!) Scully, however reiterates the woman's description of her intruder and points out that it fits the description of her son's comic book character, the Great Mutato (she holds up the same comic book from the opening shot). At that moment, Izzy walks in and after being introduced to Mulder and Scully of the FBI, he admits that he's actually seen the Great Mutato, and so have many other people in town. Scully gets skeptical but Mrs. Berkowitz insists that it happened to her.

Time to go mutant hunting. Izzy, Booger, and Sticky accompany Mulder and Scully out to a clearing by the woods at night where they lay the bait to lure the Great Mutato: a peanut butter sandwich. The group leave the sandwich on a tree stump and walk away to hide near their parked cars. Scully wants to know why Mulder is humoring them and Mulder says they're investigating a serious crime. Serious? Just keep watching and see how "serious" it gets. Scully thinks they were called out there by attention starved townsfolk who are getting a thrill out of being visited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and want to do anything to achieve their fifteen minutes of fame. Mulder admonishes her for reducing them to a cultural stereotype that wants to be on Jerry Springer. Scully goes on a tirade about people fears and how they create monsters to embody said fears. All the while, Izzy is standing nearby. He's been recording their conversation and at least it's not for secret covert government purposes. Eventually they hear a low moan which Izzy identifies as the Great Mutato. They see a figure grab the sandwich but when they run towards it, the figure drops the sandwich and runs off into the nearby woods. Scully stops to see two different bites taken out of the sandwich that verifies Mrs. Berkowitz's account of the mutant having two mouths. Mulder loses sight of it but they find something else: an irate old farmer man who's walking his pet pig. Scully tries to explain that they were chasing a supposed monster but the old man exclaims there is no monster and he has something to show them regarding the so-called monster.

A newspaper with the headline: 'Professor Creates Own Monsters'. I guess that's what the old man wanted to show them. When Mulder lowers the newspaper they see the Professor in the flesh. the Professor is played by John O’Hurley the guy I know as Mr. Peterman from Seinfeld, plus he was on Dancing With The Stars. (So was Jerry Springer who I wish could've won!) Mulder and Scully are at the Professor's lab, having been sent by his father, the irate old farmer man. The Professor is a haughty man who's more of a mad scientist than a credible Professor. He grudingly tells them of his "achievements" when Scully informs him she's also a scientist. He mentions the Homeotic Hox gene which Scully describes as something to do with growth and development. Okay, then. Scully threatens him to Jerry Springer status if he doesn't start talking but he actually seems interested in being on that show. Heh. It must be said that the whole seen is punctuated by lightning like any good mad scientist's lair would be. It's all pretty funny. He teaches them about the fruit fly and how he experimented on it until he got a fruit fly with legs growing out of it's mouth *lightning flash* Mulder asks why he would do that *lightning flash!* and the Professor says "because [he] can" *more lightning flash* Mulder asks if it could be done in humans and the Professor responds that it could be, theoretically. *whole lot of lightning flash!* Mulder and Scully leave his lab muttering about Dr. Frankenstein's rural cousin. Scully assures him that no scientist on earth would do those kinds of experiments on humans. Hahahaha! Oh wait... she was serious. Let me laugh even harder. HAHAHAHA! How can a skeptic, who has seen what the Consortium does, be so damned naive? Scully says that they don't need science to recreate life because of a little thing called procreation. It's way more fun than messing with test tubes and Petri dishes.

The Professor is in his home. His loud, gaudy home. And you know it's bad when you can see the gaudiness even in black and white. His wife is packing his bag and asking when he's coming back home. She wanted to have their old familiar talk regarding children. The Professor doesn't want children but his wife does. He asks what she'd rather have: a baby or a Nobel Prize. Is it mandatory that Nobel Prize winners be geeks who never got any? (No offense, I love geeks!) He leaves her with a kiss on the forehead and promises to return on Thursday. When he's gone she lies down on her bed and cries. But what's this? Cloth rolling down her window? Looks like someone is getting a visit from the baby fairy. The deformed baby fairy with a taste for Cher music and peanut butter. You take your miracles how you can get 'em.

Mulder and Scully pull up in front of J.J's Diner. Scully gets the newspaper while Mulder enters the diner. All the goofy looking townspeople stare at him in awe and they're all smiles. The newspaper Scully reads tells us why he's getting the hero treatment: apparently the FBI seems to believe the story of the monster. How exciting for them! Not so much for Scully. At the counter, a wiry woman with old-fashioned glasses sits next to Mulder with a handy notepad. Mulder gets some more giddiness from the waitress who offers him a whole lot of southern food which I think he should've taken. How often does he get treated to free, artery clogging home cookin'? Mulder says he'd just like some coffee and she says it's on the house. When Mulder looks over at Ms Wiry Glasses she quickly hides her notes and leaves. Mulder turns to find the waitress right in his face, asking if Jerry Springer is coming to town. First of all, hah! Second of all, how do you like your personal space being violated, Mulder? And third of all, care to re-define your stance on cultural stereotypes? Scully walks into the diner and she shows him the newspaper article that has their whole conversation down, word for word. I hope it didn't include that cultural stereotype thing.

Mrs. Berkowitz yells for her son Izzy and he ants to know what he did wrong. Scully pops her head around the hallway opening to tell him she thinks he recorded their conversation the previous night and gave it to a newspaper reporter to promote his comic book character. Mulder then pops his head around the hallway, in front and over Scully, asking if Izzy owns a tape recorder. That looking around the hallway bit is really cute. He doesn't answer but his mom answers for him and he knows the jig is up so he hands over the tape recorder with the tape of their conversation. Mrs. Berkowitz smacks her son and when Mulder rewinds the tape a good deal back, he presses play and Cher's 'The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore' is heard. Mrs. Berkowitz recognizes the song and they all listen to a voice moaning, I think singing, along with the lyrics. Good news Scully, you found someone who sounds even worse than you! The voice is that of the Great Mutato, and we see the performance live in the Professor's house where the Great Mutato is singing and dancing to his signature Cher Sun song. A little pitchy, dawg, but he gets points for enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully leave with the tape in hand, Mulder wanting to get it examined so they can ID the voice. He also wants to visit their little mad scientist and Scully is surprised he thinks the Professor has something to do with it. Mulder quotes a little bit of Dr. Frankenstein, mentioning the Post-Modern Prometheus (title of the episode alert), and Scully admonishes him for reducing the Professor to the literary stereotype of a mad scientist. The two get in the car and as they drive, Scully looks over the info that confirms Mrs. Berkowitz's pregnancy and her claim that she got her tubes tied prior to the pregnancy. Mulder stops and sees something. He drives backward, mentioning the smoke, or white gas that knocked her out. They're in front of the "circus tent" which I suppose could also be seen as a fumigation tent. Mulder's theory forming brain is good. Time to play a different Cher song, 'Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves', as Mulder and Scully rush into the tent covered house (Mulder going through the front and Scully taking the back). Mulder heads upstairs as the Cher song fades out and Scully comes in shortly afterward. She makes it to the bedroom where she sees the Professor's wife unconscious in bed, and she hears some coughing. She gets over there to help the person up, coughing a bit herself. It turns out to be Mulder down there, and how does a near 6 foot man get taken down faster than a little 5 foot something woman? This is yet another reason as to why Scully is so awesome. Mulder and Scully try to leave the smoky gas filled room but only manage to take a few steps before collapsing next to each other. How cute. The old irate farmer man from before comes in wearing a gas mask and says that he told them there was no monster. What can a bored old man do with two good looking unconscious bodies? Steal their clothes, leave them in a field, and watch the fun unfold!

Presumably, a long time passes before Mulder and Scully wake up, coughing and dazed. If we're to take Mrs. Berkowitz's accounts, I'd guess they were down for three days. They see the Professor and a deputy in the room. The Professor demands to know what they're doing in his house. Nothing fun, that's for sure. The Professor's wife is giving her statement and we see our two agents sitting at the kitchen table, looking like hell. This is the closest thing we might see in terms of a hungover Mulder and Scully. A nice little detail is the newspaper in Scully's hands having a headline about their disappearance. After the Professor, the deputy, and now Ms. Wiry Glasses finish listening to the wife's description of the Great Mutato (with exact detail as Mrs. Berkowitz's account), Mulder accuses the Professor of hiding something. The Professor gets defensive and Mulder says his wife has been impregnated. The wife is thrilled but the Professor wants to know by whom Mulder gets us dramatically, saying he thinks the Professor knows, but the effect is hilariously ruined when he falls back a bit and loudly clatters into some pans. Perhaps he should wait until the smoky drug is completely out of his system. Scully gives her theory that she thinks the whole thing is part of some kind of hoax. Mulder shows her the violated frying. Scully looks it over and Mulder asks the Professor if he knows what it is while trying not to fall over a garbage can. When the Professor says he doesn't know, Mulder pulls out the smoking gun from the garbage can: an empty jar of peanut butter. Scully's look clearly shows that she's thinking everyone in town has officially gone insane. Well with Mulder it was only a matter of time, plus "he's been drugged!" (Oh wait, that's Tanith's recap. )

In a barn, someone's watching a Cher movie where she plays the mother of a deformed boy. I don't know the title but I'm more interested in her music than her movies. The old irate farmer man isn't so irate when he brings down a peanut butter sandwich to the Great Mutato, who's watching the movie with rapt attention. The old man refers to him as "son" which is a bit surprising. He leaves him to his movie where we learn a nice lesson about inner beauty. I don't think it needs to be said how much I adore Cher. The old man walks back to his house looking a bit sad for his "son" and in in his kitchen he sits down to look over some photos of him and a young Mutato. How nice. Then the Professor walks in to ask and accuse his father. He doesn't want it to be true and he demands an answer as to why he'd do it. The old farmer man echoes his son's words from earlier, "because [he] can" and the Professor gets angry enough to attack an old farmer man. Now that's a *mad* scientist!

Once again Mulder enters JJ's Diner but this time the diners are not so accommodating. One of them tries to obviously trip Mulder but he sees it and avoids the errant foot. Another person flings something at Mulder and hits him square in the neck. Mulder cries out in surprise and disgust, then tries to wipe it off. JJ the cook is spitting into some eggs that the waitress serves Mulder. He doesn't take them but accepts her offer of coffee which she promptly pours onto Mulder's lap. He gets up quickly saying that's not a place you want to burn a guy. Scully and the MSR shippers heartily agree. Reading the morning's paper Mulder sees why the diners are behaving so differently. It seems the FBI says the monster is a hoax. Way to go Scully. There's some yelling outside and the people leave the diner to see what's going on. Looks like we're gonna have us a good ole' fashioned lynching! Ma, Pa, get the young'uns! Mulder follows and ends up at a post office where a ton of people have gathered. A post man yells that he found their monster and he drags out Izzy who's wearing a monster mask similar to the Great Mutato. The crowd gets angry and Mrs. Berkowitz shoves her way through to protect her son. She argues and threatens the post man while the crowd eggs her on saying Izzy is a monster. Scully joins Mulder on the street, a little way behind the crowd, and says she found out what the residue in the violated frying was. It was some farmer anesthetics used for animals. Farmers have to register with the FDA to own it and it just so happens that she knows the farmer in town whose registered the stuff.

The Great Mutato enters the irate old farmer man's kitchen and discovers his dead body on the floor. He cries for his adoptive dead father and carries him to the barn for a somewhat proper burial. The barn animals are a witness to this emotional moment. Good thing they don't scare or confuse easily. Mulder and Scully drive up to the farm and enter the barn where Mulder finds the agricultural sedative used in the frying pans. Scully finds the dug up earth and guesses at what's buried under there. Mulder thinks they're too late then they hear a noise and pull out their guns, asking who's there. A chicken sort of flies/hops down. Mulder and birds seem to have a thing going where he's always trying to shoot them. They find out Ms. Wiry Glasses is in the barn and she tells them not to kill her because she's a newspaper reporter. She tells them that the old farmer man was murdered and Mulder and Scully see the photos of the Great Mutato inside the house. The newspaper reporter tells them she saw it burying the old farmer man and outside we see a good old fashioned mob gathering. The parallels to Frankenstein are scattered but present. They've got torches and everything. Awesome.

Mulder and Scully try to stop the mob but the Professor who's leading them says they're after the monster who is also a murderer. Liar. The Professor is the one who killed the old farmer man. He says he saw the monster himself and commands the mob to find it. Such power he has over the mob. One of my sillier dreams is to be part of an angry mob. If it's a shipper mob that would be even better. They all rush the barn looking for the Great Mutato and Scully is suspicious of the Professor. Then she sees the Great Mutato looking out of the storm cellar door and she and Mulder head over to the cellar. There's a spectacular Cher shrine in the cellar, pictures and memorabilia galore. They see the Great Mutato hiding over in a corner and Scully assures him they won't hurt him. Mulder says they should get him out of there or the mob will kill him. Meanwhile, outside, Mulder and Scully's hotness have finally permeated the barn enough to set it on fire. Yowza! The mob rush out of the burning barn, along with the animals and our two favorite agents get out of the cellar with the Great Mutato but little miss tattletale newspaper reporter spots them and points them out to the mob. Mulder, Scully and the Great Mutato go back into the cellar where they promptly get cornered. The Great Mutato is hiding behind Mulder and Scully but the mob demand to see him and he reluctantly shows his face, much to the disgust of the mob. Mulder asks who created the Great Mutato and the Professor claims his old farmer father did but the Great Mutato speaks up and says no. They're surprised to hear him talk and he apologizes but explains that he never meant to hurt anyone and the Professor was the one who created him through secret experiments. The old farmer man rescued him and loved him even though he was deformed but soon the Great Mutato got lonely and his father went off to create him a mate (Bride of Frankenstein reference!) He implies that his farmer father tried to make him a mate but had many unsatisfactory results in which some of the townspeople look and act like his barn animals. Wow. The Great Mutato would gladly take the blame for the murder if the Professor could just create him a mate like him. He refuses, saying he was a mistake. The Great Mutato gets whimsical about all he's seen when he drugged and impregnated those women and he's pretty well-spoken for a mutant. Izzy says that he's not a monster and the crowd seems to agree. The Great Mutato is ready to be cuffed and Mulder and Scully share sort of confused looks.

Justice is served as the real killer, the Professor, gets arrested. The Great Mutato is in the backseat of a car and inside the house, Mulder is looking at the photo album. Scully tells him they should get going since their prisoner is waiting in the car. Didn't think they'd let those rape charges go unanswered, did you? Mulder shakes his head and says it's all wrong. This isn't how the story is supposed to end: Dr. Frankenstein's monster was supposed to escape and search for his bride. Awww, he's such a spooky romantic. Scully says that there isn't going to be a bride in this story and just as Izzy enters the house, Mulder demands to speak to the writer. Oh how many times have I said those words, Mulder? Space, 3, Hell Money, The Freakin' Field Where Whatever Happened, Oh, don't even get me started!

Time to cheer myself up with Cher's 'Walking In Memphis'. Our two agents are driving while the song is playing. The Great Mutato tapping his hand and foot to the music while Mulder looks at Scully, then Scully looks at Mulder. They make it to a club where Cher is performing. Of course it's not really her, just an actress that looks like her, and we never see her face, just her back and some long shots of her front. The Great Mutato is all excited and he and Mulder share a high five. Mulder looks over and smiles at Scully who returns the smile. We also see Mrs. Berkowitz and the Professors wife having their moment on the Jerry Springer Show. They've got little baby Mutatos and they're proud to have had them. The Springer audience cheers. They're not as cynical as the 2000 audience I remember who would only be interested in women flashing their boobs. Ah, 90s nostalgia. At the club, Cher walks over and takes the Great Mutato's hand to dance. The mutant is shocked and giddy that his idol would notice him and Mulder helps push him forward. Atta’ boy! Then Mulder turns to take his own idol's hand. Scully is surprised but she gladly accepts and he pulls her into his arms to dance to Cher's wonderful song. They're smiling and happy and loving and oh so adorable. Slowly and dreamily dancing away as Cher sings 'But do I really feel the way I feel?' Yes, Scully does feel that way! Oh how I wish for more happy moments like these for our pair. They turn their heads to watch Cher, still smiling, and the dance dissolves into a comic book drawing of them mid-dance, forever preserving the moment. Someone (possibly the Great Mutato) closes the comic book and it's the end. Our Spooky Frankenstein has found his Analytical Bride!