X FILES LYCEUM

314 GROTESQUE

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
Friedrich Nietzche

"We all go a little mad sometimes."
Norman Bates Psycho

"He went a little crazy."
"Not a very long trip."
George and Jerry Seinfeld

SYNOPSIS

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY EXTENSION PROGRAM
DC CORRECTIONAL COMPLEX, LORTON, VIRGINIA
1222 SOUTH DAKOTA STREET, WASHINGTON, DC
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, WASHINGTON, DC
FBI SCI-CRIME LAB, LATENT FINGERPRINT SECTION
FBI HEADQUARTERS, EVIDENCE ROOM L-7
Mulder descends to near madness trying to catch a serial killer or demon, which is a case his former superior has. Scully is very afraid for her partner and is determined to help him keep his sanity, no matter how crazy Mulder seems.

SCULLYVISION

In recent cases we have truly enjoyed riding along with Mulder and Scully to places like Miller's Grove and the town of Comity. Places where things - including our heroes - weren't quite right. While investigating the case of a serial killer, we find the return of the Mulder and Scully that we know and love. We should be careful what we wish for. This is one scary case. Mulder is in deep trouble, and Scully is scared for him but isn't afraid to tell him so. We, along with Scully are very afraid about the demons in Mulder.

When Scully first appears, we already know that there is a killer on the loose who slashes people's faces. She walks to the front of slide projector, thereby making the blood from a slide reflect on her face. It is unsettling to say the least.

From the start, Mulder is seeking demons, but Scully remains focused on facts. Mostow, the serial slasher, tells her that he is innocent. "It" was responsible for the crimes, surely not him. Scully doesn't give an inch, replying, "Its fingerprints weren't on the murder weapon, yours were."

RespectfulScully meets Agent Patterson for the first time, but announces boldly that she disagrees with her partner's demon theory, and then seems embarrassed by how rude Mulder is to his former mentor. She makes a joke out of it by commenting that Mulder's love affair with Patterson is certainly over, but Mulder's response is grim. Scully finds no cause for levity from then on. In fact, later ProtectiveScully gets right up in Patterson's face and accuses him of intentionally trying to bring Mulder down because of his petty reasons of jealousy. Patterson cleverly misleads Scully into thinking that his intent was simply to get the case solved. He tells Scully to let Mulder do what he has to do and not interfere. This case has to have a logical, solvable explanation that Mulder may have missed. (He wasn't kidding)

Mulder plunges in to the abyss. He isn't brave, he does it as if it is his destiny. Scully is going in with him because she sees it as her duty and because she is concerned about Mulder's well being and sanity. Scully is clearly afraid. She can't reach Mulder for days (unheard of in their partnership). Sure, he had ditched her before, in the middle of a conversation even, but he had never eschewed all communication in the past. She knows something is terribly wrong. When she gets the chance to finally talk to him, she tries to find that part of Mulder that she knows and tells him point blank that he's acting funny. She's so on edge that when a cat jumps out at her in Mostow's apartment, she jumps, then admits that she thought one of the pictures had come to life. When Mulder follows the cat into a secret room, Scully suggests they wait for more light and doesn't follow him. She's scared to follow him into the place where his head is at, even though she wants so desperately to get his head back to reality.

During this case, Mulder is trying to keep Scully away from the path he needs to walk to solve the case, just as Scully is hesitant to go where Mulder leads, not knowing for sure whether or not her partner truly has been bitten by the demon bug. "Proof" that Mulder may have indeed lost his mind is shown to her vividly as she entered Mulder's apartment to see his "new wallpaper." The look on her face tells us all we need to know about where her head is at. "Spooky" Mulder may have become just that, even to Scully. Is she ready to be the true "Mrs. Spooky?" (Thank you, Autumn) There may not be a way to get them both back into the land of the sane if she did, but has a hard time accepting that Mulder had slipped down the abyss but can't deny all she's been seeing.

GentleScully confronts Mulder with "maybe you're just seeing what you want to see." She's still thinking that with a little bit of kindness and reality check that Mulder will snap out of it. It's only she finds out that his fingerprints were on the murder weapon that she starts to actually think that Mulder has gone too far. She had a perfect opportunity to get help for Mulder (Skinner), but then again Skinner is their superior. Even when their conversation is off the record, Scully won't admit to their boss who has covered their ass with his own life because she's scared of what Mulder's become. Skinner reads through her act.

After Scully is in the mind set that Mulder may truly have killed someone and the madness has overtaken him, she finds Mulder aiming his gun on Patterson. Reminiscent of their adventure on the polar ice cap with Scully holding a gun on Mulder, and Mulder not liking it one bit, he just tells her that she doesn't understand. Scully demands, "Then help me understand." Even when it looks like Mulder's flipped his lid, she still wants very much to believe in her partner no matter what.

Fortunately the case is solved and the killer put behind bars. We wonder, however, if this case - or rather Mulder's behavior in this case - has driven a small wedge between Scully and Mulder. Perhaps so, but one thing we know for sure, Scully will always be there for him.

MULDERVISION

In the past Mulder apparently found that there was too high a price to pay to maintain his status as Golden Boy in the FBI, he just has problems with authority-father-figures, or he had advanced beyond what the teacher could teach him. Nevertheless, in this case Mulder unwittingly enters in to a deadly competition with his former mentor.

Mulder is up to the challenge. He doesn't hesitate to plunge in to the abyss. He could be a hero, a macho man, claiming - and rightfully so - that even the guru of the Behavioral Sciences Unit sits around telling Mulder stories once in a while. Mulder plunges into this frightening case because he is afraid and knows that the only way to catch the killer is to think like him.

Sadly, he plunges in without Scully, who may be his final link to sanity. When he enters Mostow's horror gallery, he does so while disconnecting so completely from his partner that he hardly seems to hear her calling out to him. It is a scary thing to watch because we see that Mulder is going wherever this case - or his own demons - will take him. When he attacks Mostow in prison, we sense that Mulder is losing his grip. He continues to plunge anyway, getting his hands dirty with the clay and the murder weapon, placing the killer's art everywhere he turns, even in his own apartment. Mulder even sleeps where the killer slept.

We wonder just how far Mulder would have fallen had he not caught the killer. The answer may lie in a comment that Scully made about some killers dissociating - killing without the full conscious realization of what they are doing. This may have been the case with Mostow and certainly seemed to be the case with Patterson. We can only speculate that Mulder would not dissociate, not lose touch with reality and become a killer himself. If for no other reason than Mulder was so determined to see the reality of this "demon" no matter how horrific.

MONSTERVISION

There be monsters here. Gargoyles, serial killers, demons, and who knows what other possessive monsters lurk in Mulder's psyche. Mulder seems to slip away from not only Scully but reality as well here, but the truly terrifying monster is in the form of Agent Patterson. He's an ordinary man-a bit egotistical, prone to jealousy, but also a fine detective-surely crafty enough to have caught the real serial killer on his own. What was truly monstrous was that the thrill of the chase (which he had taught Mulder to do, and Mulder was doing it) and lack of yet having to capture the killer has made him feel small, empty, his appetite was no longer fed. So, he did the very human thing of making sure his appetite didn't need to be sated, he started copying the serial killer he had caught. To make the adventure even more satisfying, he was able to bring his prized pupil who left him down with him. Because of the simple, overwhelming traits that are in each and every one of us in such a situation, Patterson ranks five out of five straight jackets.

OH, COME ON!

All those FBI agents and none of them found Mostow's secret room?

Were Scully and Mostow neighbors? Scully tells Mulder to stay where he is because she is coming to help him. She arrives in about two minutes. But we know where she lives and we know where he lives and they weren't neighbors. Maybe she beamed herself over.

THINGS LEARNED

Flourescent light compodium is nicknamed "redwop," or powder spelled backwards.

WRITER
Howard Gordon

They say that great screen writers know the importance of silence. There are long silences in this script, all of which plunge the plot further in to the abyss. The dialogue is often tense, sometimes brooking, and always helping to weave terror throughout. Gordon has penned, or help pen, a number of episodes so far including another dark episode, Sleepless. Grotesque is dark, creepy, horror at its finest. Most importantly, it's a damn fine mystery. We don't even suspect that the killer is someone we know despite an excellent visual clue in the hospital room of the surviving victim. We're treated to a genuine "red herring" in suspecting that when Mostow bites Nemhauser it is an important clue. Can you say "McGuffin?" All the characters are obsessed, or possessed, by these killers/demons, but all the while, we're concerned about Mulder's sanity and his relationship with Scully.

DIRECTOR
Kim Manners

For Grotesque to be a successful episode, it needed to have dark atmosphere, tight and perfect placement of camera angles, and of course showcasing the actors' faces as they're thinking more than they're saying. Ms. Manners had proven his guile by keeping up with two of Darin Morgan's scripts thus far (Humbug and War of the Coprophrages), but here he really, truly shines. There are many cogs in the wheel of making an episode rock, but being at the helm of this one was a job, which Mr. Manners pulls off magnificently. Dialogue gives the words the characters say, the actors perform, the crew makes sure the sets are adequately laid out, but it's the director that shows us everything. We see Scully's fear for her partner as she's finding clues that Mulder's flipped; we see Mulder working alone on his confusing and terrifying case; we see Skinner's concern for not only Mulder but Scully as well; we see Mostow seeped in madness; we see the victim's fear and the other agents wanting to get this case solved; and we see Patterson slowly show us all his foibles from his cock-sure beginning to psychopathic end. Credit is due to Mr. Manners for keeping this episode firing on all burners.

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
John S. Bartley CSC

Whenever a camera travels 360 degrees around an actor, I usually wonder if there is any reason for it other than to make the viewer dizzy. In Grotesque when the camera circles Scully as she enters Mulder's apartment, it is silent storytelling at its absolute finest. We get to see Scully's reaction and what she is reacting to, all in the same scene. The fear dawning on her face with the backdrop of evidence of Mulder's growing insanity swirling around her is chilling.

That isn't the only cinematic gem in Grotesque. In the opening sequence, we are treated to a Gargoyles-eye view looking down on the killer. Later, we see Mulder's face in the window right next to the reflection of a Gargoyle, cinematically asking the question of who is getting inside of whose head.

ART DIRECTOR
Gramme Murray

We are treated to many dark grey and blue scenes with an occasional shock of red mostly associated with Scully: her red dress, the blood from the slides projected on her face, and the red flashing police light on her face as she is about to confront Patterson.

MUSIC DIRECTOR
Mark Snow

In Grotesque, the writing, acting, lighting and cinematography all set the stage for this descent into near madness. Snow's score is an equally significant contribution to the atmosphere. The magic of Snow's score is that you don't sit and listen to it. You are barely conscious that it is there, but it is setting the tone and moving you on, deeper and darker. Wonderful.

THE USUAL THINGS
Flashlights, how appropriate that Mulder does not have his mega-beam to shed a lot of light on this dark story
Mulder has trouble with authority figures
Mulder drops his gun twice
Patterson receives the wrath of the Scully look
Scully lies to her boss to protect Mulder
Scully's boss knows she's lying
Guns
Slide Projector
Mulder types out a report
Cell Phones
Scully's white clunky cordless phone
Scully drives! or kind of. She's just about to when she sees evidence under a nearby car
Mulder sleeps on the couch
"Mulder, its me."
Mulder is injured
Mulder's apartment

RECURRING CHARACTERS
Skinner! Where has he been?
Patterson. Well, recurring in Mulder's life if not in the series itself.

Note: Nemhauser is used in the episode as a homage to Post Production Supervisor Lori Jo Nemhauser.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

SKINNER: Sometimes Scully, you might be better off saving your own ass rather than trying to save Mulder's.
SCULLY: With all due respect Sir, I know you were worried about Mulder, too.
SKINNER: Well, I know how he can be. Kind of ....
SCULLY: Spooky? I can live with that. I can live with his obsessions, his fanaticism, even his demons. I just can't take it when he shuts himself off.
SKINNER: Maybe he was trying to protect you.
SCULLY: Help me to understand that crap.
SKINNER: He knew there was something very dangerous out there, and he wanted to keep you safe.
SCULLY: I didn't join the FBI to sell Girl Scout cookies, Sir.

ATHENAEUM

Mulder sat in the parking lot across the street from the seemingly abandoned building that housed the Athenaeum in its basement. Agent Patterson's words were still in Mulder's head. "I don't need a history lesson," is what he said when Mulder started to tell him about Gargoyles. Of course, he didn't. He had already done the research himself. As he sat in his car. Mulder stared up at the old building and saw them for the first time: gargoyles. He is not completely convinced that they were there before.

Mulder's research revealed that the word gargoyle is derived from the old French 'gargouille' meaning throat. A true gargoyle is a waterspout. An unusual carved creature on a building that does not serve as a waterspout is actually called a grotesque. The term gargoyle, however, has come to mean any grotesque carving.

Gargoyles first appeared in ancient Greece, had their heyday during the Middle Ages and have recently been enjoying a surge of popularity. Gargoyles generally had four purposes:

1. Contribute to religious education - in the Middle Ages most people were illiterate and the use of images was essential in education.
2. Scare away evil spirits.
3. Promote conversion to Christianity - Catholics and other Christians adopted the pagan images of Gargoyles, or Grotesques, because they were familiar to many non-Christians.
4. Spit rain water from buildings - which is why many Gargoyles stretch out - sometimes as much as three feet - away from buildings.

Mulder looked up at the creatures. He wondered if they were mere water spouts. One of them suddenly leaned over and peered down at him. He rubbed his eyes, and when he looked back, it was in place again. He was tired. This whole gargoyle case had taken its toll on him. He realized that he had looked into the abyss and that he would never really be able to look away again.

QUOTES

NEMHAUSER OH GOD! He bit me! The son of a bitch bit me like a dog!

MULDER He's an unemployed painter, divorced, no children. He came to the US from Uzbekistan during Perestroika. He failed to mention on his INS application that he spent the better part of his twenties in an insane asylum.
SCULLY He was arrested last week for the murders of at least seven men.
MULDER You thought all they produced were great hockey players.

MULDER What is this thing?
MOSTOW It killed those men.
MULDER Does it have a name? Does it have a name to go with that face?
MOSTOW No man knows its name.

SCULLY You killed all those young men yourself?
MOSTOW It killed them. How many times do I have to tell you?
SCULLY Well, its fingerprints weren't on the murder weapon, yours were, and it won't be tried for seven murders with the death penalty.

PATTERSON: So what is it, Mulder? Little green men, evil spirits, hounds of hell?

PATTERSON (to Scully, about Mulder) Funny company you keep then.
MULDER That's what always amazed my about you, Bill. You never fit your own profile. No one would ever guess how really mean spirited you are.

PATTERSON My profile led to his arrest. No, he acted alone, and that murder last night was done by a second killer, and he acted alone too.
MULDER What about these drawings of Mostow's? The gargoyles?
PATTERSON You know why he draws those? Did you ask him?
MULDER I didn't get a chance to.
PATTERSON He says he draws them to keep this demon of his away.
MULDER Well, that would make sense. Historically, that's what gargoyles have been used for. To ward off evil spirits. Like on the eaves of buildings.
PATTERSON Come on Mulder. I don't need a history lesson, and I don't need anyone indulging this guy's story.

SCULLY You're not going to tell me when your love affair with Patterson ended?
MULDER Patterson never liked me.
SCULLY I thought you were considered his fair haired boy when you joined the bureau.
MULDER Not by Patterson.
SCULLY Why not?
MULDER Didn't want to get my knees dirty.

MULDER Patterson had this thing about wanting to track a killer. To know an artist, you have to look at his art. It really meant, if you want to catch a monster, you have to become one yourself.

NEMHAUSER Between you and me, I think Patterson secretly went to Skinner and requested Mulder on this case.
SCULLY He requested him?
NEMHAUSER I've worked with Patterson for three years on this, and this just about killed him, until we finally got a break and arrested Mostow. Then this first copy cat murder... It threw him for a loss.
SCULLY Mulder's under the impression that Patterson never thought too highly of hm.
NEMHAUSER No. That's just Patterson. Late at night, with a few beers in him, he starts telling me Mulder stories. He's some kind of crack genius.

MULDER'S RESEARCH The name is from the French. The name of a medieval dragon that prowled the river Seine. Who's horrible image became the symbol of the soul of the condemned. Turned to stone. Or of the devils and demons of the underworld spared eternal damnation. The embodiment of the lesser forces of the universe who inspired dread, the threat of our own damnation. Ushers into hell or into the realm of our own dark fears and imagination. For over 1200 years, this grotesque image has found its expression in stone, clay, wood, oil and charcoal. Born again and again as if resurrecting itself by its own will through tortured human expression, almost as if it existed. Haunting men inwardly so that it may haunt mankind for eternity. As it must have haunted John Mostow. But what impulses moved it to kill? Could this be the same dark force at work? It's ultimate expression the destruction of the flesh? Of the very hand that creates it? Is this evil something born in each of us? Crouching in the shadow of every human soul waiting to emerge? A monster waiting to violate our bodies and twist our will to do its bidding? Is this the monster called madness?

PATTERSON I have to tell you, I'm really disappointed in you.
MULDER Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint you by not disappointing you.

SCULLY At 3:30 in the morning? Mulder, I haven't seen or spoken to you in almost two days. You haven't been returning my calls--
MULDER This thing exists, Scully. It's real.

SCULLY Did you actually see it? Mulder, maybe you're seeing what you want to see.
MULDER What makes you think I'd want to see that? I didn't imagine it, Scully.
SCULLY Listen to yourself, Mulder. Listen to what you're saying.

SCULLY I saw your new wallpaper. Don't you realize what is happening here, Mulder? He is testing you. He is the reason you were brought on this case in the first place.
MULDER Patterson?
SCULLY He requested your involvement through Skinner's office. I checked the 302 myself.

SCULLY I think you knew exactly how Agent Mulder would respond when you brought him on this case. You did request him, didn't you?
PATTERSON If you're concerned about Agent Mulder's conduct or behavior, maybe you should take that up with him. SCULLY You know I already have.
PATTERSON Then what do you expect me to do?
SCULLY I just want you to be honest with me about what you're trying to do. Is this some kind of a payback for what happened eight years ago? Because Mulder quit the ISU?
PATTERSON My motivations aren't that petty.
SCULLY Then why?
PATTERSON I asked for Mulder because... I want to close the book on this God forsaken case once and for all.
SCULLY And you knew that he could help you solve it.
PATTERSON My advice to you, Scully... Let Mulder do what he needs on this case. Don't get in his way and don't try to hold him back, because you won't be able to.

MULDER Just tell me how to find this thing.
MOSTOW You can't find it. Only... it can find you. Maybe... it already has.

TECHNICIAN I dusted it with redwop.
SCULLY I'm sorry?
TECHNICIAN Powder spelled backwards. It's what we call the flourescent light compodium.

SCULLY Your message said that you identified them.
TECHNICIAN We did. Turns out it's one of our own people.
SCULLY An FBI agent?
TECHNICIAN Your partner.
SCULLY These are Mulder's prints?
TECHNICIAN Yes.

SKINNER Do you have any insight into Agent Mulder's current disposition of his mental state?
SCULLY I know Agent Mulder is working very hard on this case at your request, Sir.
SKINNER Are you worried about him, Agent Scully?
SCULLY No... sir.
SKINNER Off the record.
Scully doesn't answer, but Skinner knows.
SKINNER So am I.

MULDER It's Nemhauser.
Patterson walks closer.
MULDER But you already knew that, didn't you? You killed him, Bill. When he suspected it was you, you killed him.
PATTERSON Are you out of your mind?
MULDER Not me. Not now.

MULDER You're here because John Mostow stole three years of your life. Every day and every night for three years you lived and breathed the horror show that was in his head and I'm sorry... imagining everything that he imagined. Sinking deeper and deeper into the ugliness that you taught us to do. When you finally caught him, it didn't just go away, and the violence... it stayed alive inside you ... 'til it had to come out. You didn't want to do what you were doing. You wanted to stop but you couldn't. Not by yourself. That's why you called on me in the first place, why you couldn't kill me when you had the chance.

SCULLY Help me understand why you have a gun on Agent Patterson!

PATTERSON Are you listening to me? For God's sakes! Is someone listening to me?! I didn't do it! It wasn't me! I didn't kill them! Please!!

MULDER'S REPORT We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, it's not a choice but a calling. Sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter. From the fragile fortress of our mind. Allowing the monster without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss. Into the laughing face of madness.

THE END