119 SHAPES

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Better stay away from him
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
I'd like to meet his tailor
Werewolves of London
Written By LeRoy P. Marinell, Waddy Wachtel and Warren Zevon

SYNOPSIS

TWO MEDICINE RANCH BROWNING, MONTANA

A rancher shoots a Native American, who he thought was killing his cattle and was a beast who attacked his son. Turns out there be Manitou in Montana.

SCULLYVISION

Interesting that Mulder did all the medical findings in this episode. He looked at Lyle's scratches, he was the one who discovered Joe Goodensnake's fangs in the morgue... What was Scully's purpose in this episode? We do get treated to a load of Skeptical Scully and the Scully that has to pay her respects to the family members of murder victims. At least later, she was the one to look at Jim's ripped up body under a blanket, but didn't examine him very much. The sheriff later looks at the body and pulls out a claw! Why couldn't Scully have found that??

The hospital scene with Lyle was touching because she was the one to tell him that his father was dead, and mentioned that she could relate because she had recently lost her own father, but couldn't she have made some sort of connection that Lyle saw his father for the last time while he was drinking on the porch, and that's exactly where they found his body, on the porch next to that glass of whiskey or whatever he was drinking? Plus, Lyle started crying and asking if he had caused his father's death... HELLO! Earth to Scully! She's good hearted and looks for the good in people, but she should have been able to be an impartial detective in that situation.

Then the episode deteriorates into a cat and mouse game with Moose and Squirrel and Beast Man in a cabin. It would have been terrible because we like Scully and Mulder, but the only way this episode could have turned out interesting is that Lyle did bite Scully and when Mulder came in the rescue her, she would have surprised him by pouncing on him as one of those Beast Women.

OH COME ON!

Parker wants one of the agents to look at his son's scars, and Mulder goes to do it?

Doesn't reservations have their own tribal law officers?

For a sheriff who clearly stated that he keeps ancient beliefs outside and law enforcement inside his office, why did he refuse Scully's (or rather Mulder's) request to do an autopsy because of Indian beliefs?

Gwen Goodensnake would give a personal possession of her dead brother to the (in Gwen's mind) irritating agent in a suit, Scully? Or is it only a plot point?

There's cops all over the ranch when Mulder and Scully arrived, and Scully looks around, just behind the house, and finds Lyle laying in the field? No one else thought to check back there? Considering that his father was murdered in what they thought was retaliation for Joseph's death, no one thought that Lyle could also be a candidate?

Not even Mulder made the stretch that a slash from a werewolf could make that person a werewolf and keep an eye on Lyle??

If you ingest someone else's blood, it doesn't change your own blood type! It's just food.

Lyle makes a heck of a lot of growling noises as he's in the bathroom changing into the Manitou... and Scully is on the other side of the door trying to break in and can't hear it?? She wouldn't know to have her gun ready??

Why, when Mulder knows that Lyle's the werewolf, and that Scully is alone with him, does he slink into the cabin, linger at the scratches on the wall for almost a minute and whisper Scully's name?

Scully lost her gun, Mulder's got his. They investigate in the, of course, pitch black upstairs of the cabin for the beast... why didn't Scully at least carry the flashlight so Mulder could really concentrate on pointing and aiming his gun?

THINGS LEARNED
or All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From the X Files

If it's late at night and you're having a drink and there's a soft noise and a light breeze, best put your drink on the deck. You don't want to spill it when the werewolf throws you against the furniture and rips you to shreds.

If there's a chance to have law enforcement show up at her ranch, make sure you have a mountain lion in a cage. Scares them every time.

SFX

Cool wolf-man tracks and shape shifting of man to beast.

CASTING

The best part of this episode was Renae Morriseau, the actress who played Gwen Goodensnake. She went from the dour, bitter sister of Joseph to the grief-stricken but still angry protector of his memory to the stricken and scared witness of a Manitou attack.

WRITER
Marilyn Osborn

Ms. Osborn must have read a book on werewolf banalities and included every single one of the cliches to do with werewolves and Native Americans into the formation of this episode. It doesn't tell anyone interested anymore about werewolves and a lot of the dialogue is stilted or better read than spoken and heard.

DIRECTOR
David Nutter

Lots of close ups of stuffed wild life and full moons to get us into the mood? The visuals are almost overwhelming, only because we the audience would expect a little more from the director of 'Ice' and 'Beyond the Sea'.

The cremation ceremony for Joseph Goodensnake for instance. It should have been more mystically interesting than a guy in a head dress lighting the platform and a close up of yodeling tribes people to the sparks against the night sky to an ignited lighter by Joseph's killer. Excuse me, but... don't they have special effects at their disposal? Could have been interesting, maybe even exciting... but then why waste production cost for this much less than sub par script.

RUNNING TALLIES
Flashlights
Guns
Scully does an autopsy - she wants to, the sheriff just won't let her
Raining
Cell Phones
Dead Cows
Scully Drives!

Side note: This is the episode that mentions the first X File, started by J. Edgar Hoover himself.

Actor Michael Horse, another Twin Peaks alum, I kept expecting him to talk about the Back Wood Boys. Actor Donnelly Rhodes played a rancher in this episode and he'll play the Cigarette Smoking Man's superior in Musings of a CSM. More importantly, he played Dutch, the homicidal prison-roommate-escapee of Chester Tate's who fell in love with both of Chester's daughters.

ATHENAEUM

But instinctively she knew it would be lycanthropy.

Scully stood with her mouth agape as soon as she saw who was standing behind the Curator's desk in the Athenaeum, "Warren Zevon?"

"At your service, Dana," Warren, or rather, the Curator replied.

"Ah-WHOO," Scully said, then repeated to the music that flooded into her head. She prodded Warren to join her, "Sing a few lines?"

"Nah, I'm here just to tell you a few things about Werewolves," explained the ever modest Warren.

Scully was disappointed to say the least, but she didn't want dry facts, she wanted a discussion with the pop star, "I do have a question, what's your favorite werewolf film?

"An American Werewolf in London."

"Gross."

Warren feigned mock surprise, "Gross? What do you mean gross?"

"When they turned that David person into a werewolf, gross. I wonder if that's what it actually looks like. I wish I could have been in the bathroom when Lyle made his transformation. And speaking of that David person from that movie, American Werewolf in London, what happened to him? First he was a werewolf, then he was a Pepper and wanted everyone else to be a Pepper and then he sort of disappeared."

Warren cleared his throat, making Scully shut up. He drily told her, "Maybe that mystery is something you and your stoic partner would like to investigate. Not here. Not on my time. I don't have time for hack actors and their resumes."

"Okay," Scully said.

"So," Warren beamed, now that the nonsense was out of the way. "Ask me anything."

Scully figured she was just asking the wrong sort of questions, so she tried a different tactic, "Is there a difference between a werewolf and a wolf man?"

"There are four things basic to all werewolves. Transformation usually in the moonlight in to an animal, nocturnal excursions, attacks on animals or humans to devour their flesh, and retransformation into human form."

"So Lon Chaney, Jr. would qualify."

"Pretty much," Warren agreed. "There are various things that werewolves don't like, anything silver especially bullets, salt, a blow to the head with an iron rod. Of course Dana, most people aren't real fond of that iron rod business. If the werewolf was formerly a Christian, holy water and holy wafers are particularly bothersome."

Warren stopped talking because Scully was staring at him with a bemused smile on her face. "What?"

"Do you know how many slumber parties me and my friends spent dancing around singing 'Werewolves in London' and 'The Monster Mash'?"

"'The Monster Mash'?"

"It was a graveyard smash!"

Warren turned to walk away, thoroughly insulted. Scully hurried said, "In your wonderful song "Werewolves of London", you mention Lon Chaney. Besides that David fellow, who else has played werewolves?"

"This is the Athenaeum Dana, not Hollywood Squares. Besides, that list would be volumes long. I'll say one thing that you may not know. Bela Lugosi, a.k.a. Count Dracula, played a wolf man in HG Wells' "Island of the Lost Souls." Then there was Michael Landon who was in "Little Werewolf on the Prairie."

"Mr. Zevon," Scully laughed. "He was in I Was A Teenage Werewolf."

Warren softly nodded, liking Ms. Scully indeed, "Many people don't realize that vampires could be classified as werewolves because they can transform into not only bats but wolves as well. Perhaps even more obscure is the little matter of that most famous werewolf of all time, Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother."

"Warren, you are a gas."

"Thank you Dana, and I must say your hair is perfect."

QUOTES

LYLE PARKER: (to Scully) Don't you ever get the creeps?

MULDER: They told me that even though my deodorant's made for a woman, it's strong enough for a man.

ISH: I was at Wounded Knee in 1973. What I learned fighting the FBI is you don't believe in us and we don't believe in you.
MULDER: I want to believe.

MULDER: We're looking for anything that can create human tracks in one step and animal tracks in the next.

MULDER: This is the very first X-file, initiated by J. Edgar Hoover himself in 1946.

SCULLY: Mulder, even if you're right and Joe Goodensnake did somehow have the ability to transform physically into an animal, he's dead. Jim Parker shot him and in a couple of moments, his body will be burned. End of mystery.
MULDER: Let's hope so.