123 ROLAND

"I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed."

Lennon/McCartney
A Day in the Life

SYNOPSIS

COLSON, WASHINGTON
A meek autistic man is being controlled by his dead twin brother, who was a brilliant scientist, to take his revenge.

SCULLYVISION

As the first year of X cases comes near an end it seems that our hero, Agent Dana Scully looks a little older and a little tougher at times. Fortunately she has not lost her sense of humor as evidenced by her comment about Arthur being hamburger based on the condition of his wrecked car. She continues to be funny when she asks Mulder if his pitch about siblings telekinesis is going to lower her long distance rates and then tells Mulder, "let's go, I have to go call my brother." Speaking of brothers, we learn in this episode that Scully has two, an older one and a younger one.

While Scully asks the right questions from the scientists and care workers, Mulder makes a leap and takes a sheet of paper that Roland had written on to have matched against the hand writing of the mathematical equation that was on the white board when the scientist was killed. Scully scoffs, in her polite manner, that it would be impossible for Roland to know or even comprehend the numbers in that equation. They find out that the hand-writing doesn't match. After Scully convinces Mrs. Stokie, Roland's care giver, that she could legally get Roland's file, (why be tied up in court?) Mulder and Scully piece together the fact that Roland and Arthur were twins.

In the end, however, it is Scully that figures out that Mulder is not going to convince Arthur to turn off the wind tunnel. She pushes him aside and appeals directly to Roland and reaches him. She succeeds in saving Dr. Nollette's ass. Though why she would want to, I'm not sure. Oh yeah, she is entrusted to do so because she is a good FBI agent.

OH COME ON!

PsychicMulder figured out that computer password in a high security lab pretty darn quick.

Making the computer ID of Roland from Arthur Grable's picture was pretty stupid. By what Mulder instructed the tech to put in, she obviously knew what Roland looked like to begin with.

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

Be nice to everyone. If you condescend to others, they may not shut off the wind tunnel that kills you.

If you build a room with an airplane engine in it, put a doorknob on the inside of the door so in case you're stuck in there, you can get out.

If you ever want to rob an ATM, just wrap foil over the code strip on a card. Seems to work for scientists breaking into cyrogenic chambers.

JOHN'S SAMANTHAVISION

This is never listed as a Samantha episode, but I believe that in Roland Mulder offers us a gem of an insight into his subconscious. He tells Roland of his dream of being in a pool and his father is underwater. Mulder tries to see him but can't and there is another man at the pool asking questions that upset him.

Allow me to play street corner shrink for a moment. Here is one possible interpretation: Everyone in the dream represents a different part of Mulder. A part of him is submerged or engulfed by something. When he tries to see what it is, he can't because it is too painful to even look. Another part of him is asking questions that are just too painful to hear. He wants to get away. Could it be that one part of him is drowning in guilt and grief which he cannot look at directly nor can he confront it verbally?

SFX

It's not a special effect, just a guy or gal who used a marker, but it was pretty funny to see the outline of the scientist who was killed by his head being stuck in liquid nitrogen. Where his body laid is outlined, but the parts of his head are marked by little stars. Reminding one of the visual of Roland knocking over the stars when he had the flash forward.

WRITER
Chris Ruppenthal

Rainman meets the Exorcist? This is an interesting premise for the first time writer of the show. The bond of twins, telekenesis, autism, and Mulder's psyche are all investigated here. Roland's conflict of just wanting to live his life and being told what to do by visions from his dead twin are handled quite well. Chris Carter may have told Ruppenthal about the 'bible' for the series. Mulder relates a dream that he's had. He's in a pool. His father is underwater. Mulder tries to save him, but the water stung his eyes. There was another man looking at him, upsetting Mulder. He asked him questions that Mulder didn't want to answer. Mulder lost track of his father and couldn't find him. Stay tuned folks, that metaphor becomes truth.

DIRECTOR
David Nutter

Nutter is one of the really talented men who's directed some of the most interesting X Files so far: Ice, Beyond the Sea and Tooms. He lets the characters show who they are and what they're thinking by framing them nicely against tell tale backdrops.

Eerie visual in the teaser where we see through a window of the scientist being sucked into the engine to the right and then we see Roland mop the floor going to the left. When Roland has flash-forwards of what he has to do for his dead brother, the doctor is frozen from liquid nitrogen. Roland shoves some star stickers off the table onto the floor. The effect almost looks like shattered tempered glass that falls into chunks. When the scientist is actually killed, Nutter gives us the visual, and audio, of Roland stepping on his cracked off ear.

RUNNING TALLIES

Slide Projector
Necklace
Bathroom

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

MULDER: Scully, when you die, would you--.

SCULLY: Get married again?

MULDER: No. And that's not even how the joke goes. I was going to ask, would you put yourself into deep freeze?

SCULLY: I'd certainly want my body.

MULDER: Who wouldn't?

Scully looked at him, a bit surprised.

MULDER: You know Scully, in the future we will surely evolve to the point of sloughing off the useless appendage of our body. We'll just be a bunch of brains in bowls.

ATHENAEUM

Scully entered the Athenaeum but no one was at the desk. "Yoo hoo, Curator. It's your favorite pupil here for some higher learning."

A small man emerged from the book stacks. "Oh, hi."

"Dustin Hoffman?"

"I'm just his body double. They asked me to talk to you about--."

"Let me guess, idiot savant."

"Dr. Scully. Shame on you. An Autistic savant is an individual who has Autism in combination with extraordinary skills not exhibited by most persons. These individuals were originally called 'idiot savants,' a French term meaning unlearned (idiot) skill (savant). In 1978 Dr. Bernard Rimland introduced a more appropriate term 'autistic savant,' which is the current label. A much more appropriate description, Doctor."

"Oh, sorry. I do know, however, that not all people with Autism have the savant features."

"That's correct. But people with Autism are ten times more likely to have the savant feature than the general population. Persons who are autistic savant may show extreme abilities in areas of math, memory, music and art. Math/memory feats can be as awesome as asking 'What day of the week was May 22, 1961? and they can determine the answer within seconds--Monday."

"There's been some famous cases, other than your part, or rather your double's part in the movie."

"Some remarkable example of Autistic savant are a child named Nadia who drew beautiful pictures that were compared to those of Rembrandt. She, however, lost her drawing abilities when she started to learn to speak. Another artist with autism, Richard Wawro is also legally blind and draws in crayons. His works sell for up to $10,000 each. Even the Pope owns one of his paintings."

And with that the little man shuffled off into the stacks with a gait not unlike Ratso Rizzo and disappeared. "One hell of a double," thought Scully.

QUOTES

MULDER: How was the wedding?
SCULLY: You mean the part where the groom passed out or the dog bit the drummer?
MULDER: Did you catch the bouquet?
SCULLY: Maybe.

SCULLY: OK, but how is this an X-file? Mulder, you don't think this has anything to do with UFO technology?
MULDER: There's something unexplainable here, Scully, but it's certainly not unidentifiable.

DR. KEATS: Let's just say Roland isn't exactly a rocket scientist.

SCULLY: An organic object exposed to liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees will become frozen, exhibiting great tensile strength, but is vulnerable to stress from compression or impact. Now, I've seen this demonstrated on a fish before ...
MULDER: I don't think they'll be performing this experiment on Beakman's World.

ROLAND: People die. They go away. They aren't supposed to come back.

BARRINGTON: This is Arthur Grable. Uh, because of the massive internal damage to his body caused by the car accident, we could only preserve the head.

MULDER: You've got a brother, don't you Scully?
SCULLY: Yeah. I've got an older one and a younger one.
MULDER: Well, have you ever thought about calling one of them all day long and then all of a sudden the phone rings and it's one of them calling you?
SCULLY: Does this pitch somehow end with a way for me to lower my long distance charges?

SCULLY: OK. Let's go. I have to call my brother.