X FILES LYCEUM

317 PUSHER

"We're playing those mind games together
Pushing the barriers..."
Mind Games John Lennon

SYNOPSIS

MT. FOODMORE SUPERMARKET; LOUDOUN COUNTY, VIRGINIA
FBI HEADQUARTERS; WASHINGTON, D.C.
RESEARCH LIBRARY FBI
BELTWAY COMMUTER LOT; FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
TEE-TOTALLERS GOLF DRIVING RANGE AND PRO SHOP
HEARING ROOM A
COMPUTER RECORDS OFFICE
3083 ROSENEATH AVE., APT. 9; ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
FAIRFAX MERCY HOSPITAL

A killer who can bend people's minds plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with Mulder and Scully.

SCULLYVISION

Once again, Scully works with Mulder on a case where she doesn't even know what they're looking for. "I mean, I'm sure you have a theory," she tells him hopefully at one point. Also once again, Scully wishes Mulder wasn't so honest while he's on the stand in court. First he seemed "out there" when testifying about how dangerous Eugene Victor Tooms was, and now Robert Patrick Modell, A.K.A. Pusher.

Dr. Scully is seemingly the only one on the ball during the course of this case. She doesn't just stand around when there are people in danger of being harmed by Pusher: when the dude's going to light himself on fire, others are trying to talk him down as Scully runs for a fire extinguisher; when Detective Burst is going to have a coronary from talking with Pusher on the phone, Scully's looking for a way to unplug the call while other's just stand around yelling for him to hang up. Dr. Scully comes up with a reason to satisfy herself that Modell is in fact dangerous by finding out that Modell has temporal-lobe epilepsy by looking in his medicine cabinet and making the right calls.

She doesn't give Mulder an inch as she makes him make sense of this case and the motivation of Pusher has against his victims, "Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy." She's joking with Mulder at the beginning of this case, but when it turns ugly, she has to use all the force she called up in Grotesque to help Mulder find his way to reality. After Mulder seemingly loses his wits while chasing down the killer that was Agent Patterson, Scully wonders if there's a remnant of that when Mulder wants to go in alone to face Pusher in the hospital.

She's all business with her meeting with Modell and Mulder in the hospital, until she can see that Mulder is overwhelmed, he has a gun, and is going to play Russian roulette. Instead of Scully pointing her gun at Mulder as in Ice and Grotesque (or actually shooting him in Anasazi), she has Mulder's gun pointed at her. She doesn't smile when Mulder asks her to. Dr. Scully tries to tell him that there's oxygen in the room to stop him, but it would entail Mulder being in touch with reality to listen to her. Instead, she sheds a tear, then Scully saves her own ass by pulling the fire alarm breaking Pusher's mind hold on Mulder

There are shades of Grotesque here as Mulder plunges boldly into danger, and Scully is very worried about him. These shades, fortunately, are somewhat lighter than the darkness of Grotesque but no less dangerous. In Pusher, our heroes act as a team and remain a team throughout. Amazingly Mulder listens to (seriously considers and ultimately praises) Scully's theory that Pusher was just a little man who wanted to feel big.

As always Scully believes in her partner; she believes that he is even stronger than the powerful Pusher in their showdown. There's the start of a new angle to their partnership here as Scully naps on Mulder's shoulder, and in the end, they walk off into the sunset hand in hand.

MULDERVISION

Mulder is one who lives and learns. After the events of Nisei-731, Mulder's gotten himself a Japanese dictionary and is able to put it to good use here. Mulder is driven in this case: "Well, he's laughing at us, Scully." That drive makes him face Pusher in that grim and determined Mulder way. When Mulder tells everyone that he has to go in alone it almost seems as if he too is "pushing" his will on others as they don't put up much of an argument against it. Does Mulder have an unconscious wish to shoot Scully since she previously shot him? Pusher apparently thinks so since he brings it up while pushing Mulder to pull the trigger on Scully. On the lighter side, it was just like Mulder to pull the little "made you look" trick on Pusher.

NOT NAUGHTY MULDER

Mulder did not mean to ask if he could get the Playboy Chanel on that little video. He meant to say the History Channel - as was originally in the script until that Duchovny fellow changed it.

MONSTERVISION

The egotistical, egocentric, Robert Patrick Modell, who liked to keep his anonymity until the court announced to all what his real name was, is having a ball, even though he's dying. If one has to go, why not go out with a bang, as Mulder guesses correctly? As his hacking into the FBI files, he asks Holly to get him a cup of coffee. He sees Skinner (a supposed threat) enter, and just tells him to "Take a walk, Mel Cooley." He's a small man who wants to be big. The last people he toys with are FBI, an organization which he couldn't enter, even though it sounds like he tried hard to. Robert Wisden played Pusher perfectly, cool, confident, and smart enough to know that he was Mulder's Lex Luther and was on par with him. We give him a rating of four and a half out of five operable brain tumors. Have the surgery, dude, you deserve a sequel.

OH, COME ON!

Not only can Pusher push people to do what they want, but he must be clairvoyant as well. How did he spout about Cerulean blue before even seeing the truck that plows into them that was from the "Cerulean Hauling" company?

All it takes for a file clerk to flatten Skinner is a little pepper spray and a pump?

Skinner's been beaten up by the best (Krycek), but does he have to be beaten up by a girl?

Yell at a man who's having a coronary by listening to Pusher to just 'hang up the phone'? Yell for a guy who's got lighter fluid all over him with a lit match in his hand that he 'don't want to do that'? One would assume by this case that standing around yelling is the correct method of saving a human being from harm.

Dr. Scully seems to be awfully quick to stop CPR on poor Detective Burst.

THINGS LEARNED

A ronin is a samurai without a master.

Suggestion is a powerful force.

TV commercials are designed to plant thoughts in your head.

There's a way for authorities to know the last number dialed on a pay phone.

Ninja's have the ability to cloud their opponent's mind.

Pachyemia is a medical condition where blood thickens in your veins.

The budo warrior always wins.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Muldercam added a nice tension-filled effect when he goes in after Pusher. What a thrilling shot when Mulder turns around, and we see Scully seeing the camera seeing Pusher with the gun pointed right at Mulder's head.

WRITER
Vince Gilligan

In Vince's first foray into X Filedom, he leaves a pretty good impression. There are weak spots in the plot, and Skinner certainly deserves more dignity, but there were great lines, great images, and the start of shipperdom with Scully and Mulder. Sleeping on Mulder's shoulder and feel for the others' hand at Pusher's bedside? Gotta start somewhere. He's not as clever as Darin Morgan, but he sure can find an entertaining way to tell a story with a memorable villain.

DIRECTOR
Rob Bowman

In Rob's sixth foray into directing an X File, he again makes us see what the characters are thinking by lingering on their faces. The final climactic scene in the hospital is handled skillfully to keep the suspense along with making us really wonder how this thing is going to turn out. Mulder's so far gone, Scully's scared, the gun is more of a third character than Modell, though Pusher's voice is a perfect compliment to the struggle between the agents. Of course, whether you want Mulder and Scully to get together or not, one has to smile seeing them hold hands at Modell's bedside, then walk off together to start their next case more of a team after the case than they were before it.

RUNNING TALLIES

A character named Holly or Rice in a Gilligan episode
Guns
Slide Projector
Mulder breaks the law by shooting Modell?
Cell Phones
Mulder's porn fixation
Skinner gets the shit beat out of him
Mulder puts on rubber gloves
Mulder loses his gun, by his own choice because he doesn't want to hurt anyone, although he might have figured he'd just drop it anyway
Scully cries, she naps during a stake-out and she asks Mulder for his theory. Mulder calls someone other than Scully on his cell phone and he complements Scully on being right. Then they hold hands. Oh wait, these would be usual things only if the planets were aligned in another syzygy.

RECURRING CHARACTERS

The FBI guard, though maybe not for much longer since he let some guy in who was wearing a tag saying "pass" on it.
Skinner
Pusher (Robert Patrick Modell)

SCORE CARD FOR SAVING EACH OTHER'S ASS

Scully 7 - Mulder 5
Scully ultimately saves her own ass by pulling the fire alarm to get Mulder's mind focused on something other than Modell as the bullet was indeed in the chamber when Mulder pointed the gun at her

Notes

The front page of the tabloid newspaper reports on a sighting of the Flukeman, apparently he washed up on Martha's Vineyard (Mulder's hometown).

'Depravity rampant on hit TV show' was a headline in the tabloid. The picture is that of prop master Ken Hawryliw with a strip-o-gram on his birthday.

Dave Grohl (Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighter member) and his wife, Jennifer, make a cameo appearance in the FBI building.

Loudoun County Courthouse was named for writer Vince Gilligan's actual home town.

Holly and/or Rice are rampant in Gilligan scripts as Holly Rice is his significant other

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

SCULLY: I did not drool on you, Mulder.
MULDER: You did too.
SCULLY: Mulder, only in your dreams do women drool over you.
MULDER: Ah, how quickly you forget. Remember Phoebe? She certainly drooled.
SCULLY: That wasn't drool Mulder, it was venom.

ATHENAEUM

Mulder entered the Athenaeum with his mind set on discovering the secrets of Pusher's neurological feats. He decided that he would begin by studying the Samurai, Ninjas, and Ronin.

However, when he entered the old building, the Curator seemed to have other ideas. "Mr. Mulder, you won't be doing any research today."

"Will too."

"Will not."

"Listen, the power of the mind is something we don't know much about." Mulder pleaded his case. "After all, it is the brain - and not space - that really is the final frontier."

The Curator listened in silence as he stared at Mulder.

Uneasily, Mulder said, "Okay, well how about I look into some bios of people with strange abilities, like that guy who can bend forks with his mind."

"Uri Geller? Forget it."

Mulder had a little cloud of befuddlement appearing on his horizon. "How about I look up the lyrics to old songs by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. Would that be okay?"

The Curator stared. Harder.

Mulder seemed to forget why he came to the old library in the first place. "Do you have any books on golfers who kill? Or perhaps on killers who golf?"

"I wouldn't try to tackle that subject if I were you Mr. Mulder."

"Well that settles it then. I'll be on my way."

"Just so this wasn't a totally wasted trip, Mr. Mulder, how about I put you on the waiting list to receive a copy of "From Outer Space" as soon as it's published. It was written by an eccentric author, Jose Chung."

"Sure, fine, whatever."

QUOTES

PUSHER Think you can hold me?

FRANK It would really help me out if you gave us your name.
PUSHER Pusher's good enough.

PUSHER Hey, you know, Deputy, I just got to say that your uniform is really the most soothing shade of blue. I'm not kidding you. I notice those things. It's a sky blue. Very calming. Very tranquil. I think the word for that particular shade is cerulean, actually. Cerulean blue.
FRANK Okay, okay, we get it. It's a nice shade of blue.
PUSHER Cerulean blue. Cerulean makes me think of a breeze. A gentle breeze.
FRANK Hey! Mister Blackwell. Put a sock in it.
PUSHER Cerulean is like a gentle breeze. Cerulean... a gentle breeze.
FRANK Stop!

FRANK I was knocked unconscious. Deputy Scott Kerber was mortally injured. Before he succumbed, he managed to... pull himself out of the car, dig his keys out of his pocket... and his last breath was spent unlocking my prisoner, who, despite his own injuries, managed to escape on foot. Calls himself Pusher.

SCULLY What connection did this dead deputy have with him?
FRANK None, as far as I can tell. Kerber was a good cop.
SCULLY Then why did he free him?
FRANK Pusher kept rambling about cerulean blue. Kept saying how it reminded him of, uh, a breeze or something. Cerulean blue is like a gentle breeze... over and over and then... Kerber pulled into the truck and... blammo.
MULDER So you think that Pusher somehow talked him into doing this? He willed him into doing that?
SCULLY Willed him? How?
FRANK No kidding. How?

FRANK Ronin.
MULDER It's a samurai without a master. What? You never saw Yojimbo?
SCULLY Still, what does it mean?
MULDER It means I bet I know ten-to-one what this guy's got stacked on the back of his toilet.

MULDER Samurai without masters have to advertise.

MULDER Suggestion is a powerful force. The science of hypnosis is predicated on it, as are most TV commercials. I mean, they're designed to plant thoughts in your head.
SCULLY Inducing someone to buy hair color is a little different than inducing them to drive in front of a speeding truck.
MULDER But the mechanism of suggestion is the same. It's just a lot more powerful in this case. I mean, this guy calls himself Pusher. Can't we take that to mean that he pushes his will onto other people?
SCULLY Well, even if he could push his will, why would he, he cause an accident when he himself was in the car?
MULDER Maybe he really didn't want to go to jail.

MULDER Osu. It's a Japanese word. It means "to push."

SCULLY So he's a killer and a golfer.
MULDER Rings a bell, huh? Let's go, G-Woman.

PUSHER Hey, Collins. Listen. I need you to do something for me.

COLLINS Light up... light up, light up... light up... light up...

PUSHER Bet you five bucks I get off.

MULDER We have the defendant on audio tape confessing to the murders. On several separate occasions, he clearly identifies them as such. Furthermore, the defendant knows crime scene details that were only available to the police.
BRENT Your honor, one of these so-called "murder victims" threw herself in under a commuter train. This was a crowded platform. A hundred witnesses. Nobody pushed her. No one was within thirty feet of her.
MULDER But your client was present.
BRENT Which is how he knew your crime scene details.
JUDGE Make your point, Agent Mulder.
MULDER I believe that these people died because it was the defendant's express will that they do so.
JUDGE His will?
MULDER This man admitted to being a killer for hire. I believe he has a unique suggestive ability which makes for the perfect M.O. He is able to talk his victims into injuring themselves.
BRENT I can't believe this.
JUDGE You want to run that by me one more time, Agent Mulder?
MULDER Yesterday, a federal law enforcement officer was induced to self-immolation by the defendant. I witnessed it. All these other officers witnessed it. Your honor, we have Modell's confession. All we're asking...
PROSECUTOR Your honor, the evidence chain to this case has been rather difficult to establish. We're asking the court's indulgence while we complete our investigation and we'd like to have Mister Modell held for trial based on the strength of his taped confession.
JUDGE What about this audio tape, Mister Modell? Did you confess to... fourteen murders?
PUSHER Unfortunately, yes, your honor. Not that I remember any of it.
BRENT This was, uh, basically, a drunken phone prank on the part of my client, your honor.
MULDER A phone prank? He had the details of every case, your honor.
BRENT And Robert deeply regrets the distress and confusion this situation has caused.
JUDGE Do you deny these charges?
PUSHER Absolutely, your honor. I'm not guilty.

PUSHER I believe you owe me five dollars.
MULDER Hey, your shoe's untied.
MULDER Made you look.

FRANK Hey, Modell. I know your name now. I know where you live!

SCULLY They found him to be acutely ego-centered. He has no regard for the feelings of others, instead perceiving people as objects. He's extremely suspicious of government and authority.
MULDER Yet he wants to be in authority.
SCULLY The screener caught him in a dozen self aggrandizing lies... saying that he was a master of martial arts, that he had been trained by Gurkhas in Nepal and ninjas in Japan.
MULDER Well, ninjas are said to have the ability to cloud the minds of their opponents.
SCULLY Are we talking kung-fu movies, Mulder?
MULDER He certainly clouded the mind of that judge, Scully.
SCULLY Even if Modell could, he didn't need to. We barely had a case against him.
MULDER Oh, we had enough to get past a simple preliminary hearing. Modell psyched the guy out. He put the whammy on him.
SCULLY Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy.
MULDER I don't know, maybe, maybe it's some mental aspect of some eastern martial art. You know, the temporary suppression of the brain's chemistry, produced by a specific timbre or cadence in Modell's voice. His voice seems to be the key.
SCULLY Mulder, Modell's last known employment was as a convenience store clerk. He has never been trained by ninjas. He has never even been out of the U.S. He is just a little man who wishes that he were someone big... and, and, we're feeding that wish. That, that failed psyche screening... if Modell could actually control people's minds, right now he'd be an FBI agent, right? He'd be a Green Beret, a Navy Seal.
MULDER Maybe the ability came to him more recently, like in the last two years. Well, okay. What's your big theory? How do you explain what Agent Collins did? I mean, this was a sane man, a family man with no prior history of psychological problems, sets himself on fire. You witnessed that. How does that happen?
SCULLY What do you need me to say, Mulder? That I believe that Modell is guilty of murder? I do. I'm just looking for an explanation a little more mundane than the whammy.
MULDER Well, he's laughing at us, Scully.

SKINNER Who are you and what are you doing here?
PUSHER Take a walk, Mel Cooley.

PUSHER Holly. He's the one. He's the one who mugged you.
SKINNER Holly, call security now!
PUSHER Make him stop hurting me, Ho...
SKINNER Shut up! Holly, now!
PUSHER Holly?
SKINNER Holly!
Holly sprays Skinner with mace and kicks the hell out of him.

SCULLY Holly, can you tell us anything more that might help us understand why you attacked Assistant Director Skinner?
HOLLY It's like suddenly, I was watching myself from across the room... doing these things. It's like he was with me inside my head.

MULDER I reviewed the building's security tapes. Modell can clearly be seen entering and leaving unnoticed. He had the word pass on his lapel. Cars that waved him by don't even remember seeing him at all.
SKINNER And you're saying this same mysterious phenomenon is the reason I have a size-seven heel mark in my face?

MULDER Mango Kiwi Tropical Swirl. Now we know we're dealing with a madman.

SCULLY It's to relieve Modell's seizures. He has temporal-lobe epilepsy. I just talked to his doctor's office. They wouldn't give me much over the phone... just that the prescription dates back to April 1994.
MULDER What causes epilepsy this late in life?
SCULLY Head injury, neurological disease, a brain tumor or a lesion...
MULDER Brain tumor? The growth of brain tumors has been linked with the reported occurrence of psychic ability.
SCULLY Mulder, those reports are completely unsubstantiated.
MULDER Just, just bear with me for a second. What if Modell's suggestive ability is really a form of psychokinesis?
SCULLY Brought on by the brain tumor?
MULDER Well, it fits. All those protein drinks in his fridge? Maybe he's got to replenish the metabolic energy that he uses in the process of controlling somebody's will.
SCULLY Mulder, more to the point, if Modell did have a brain tumor, the effects on his health would be more debilitating. It's, it's likely that he simply wouldn't be well enough to play these cat and mouse games with us.
MULDER Maybe he isn't. Maybe that's the whole point.
SCULLY What do you mean?
MULDER His exhaustion at the driving range. He didn't let us capture him. He was too sick to escape, too tired, too wiped out. Why would a, a killer who is so proficient confess to murders that he'd already gotten away with? Maybe he's dying.
SCULLY And he wants to go out in a blaze of glory.
MULDER Not with a whimper but a bang.

PUSHER Perfect. Frank, how much do you weigh?
FRANK Excuse me?
PUSHER About how much do you weigh?
FRANK Anything to keep you on the line, you stupid piece of... I don't know, about a hundred-ninety, hundred and ninety-five.
PUSHER 215 if you're a day. You're totally the wrong weight for your height. I mean, no offense, Frank, but you're built like a fireplug.
FRANK Yeah, and I got stubby little legs that are gonna kick you right in the ass.

MULDER Frank, hang up the phone.
FRANK What are you talking about, Modell? What's your point?
PUSHER Frank, you know what that's doing to your arteries. Terrible things, Frank. Terrible.
MULDER Frank...
PUSHER Waxy yellow chunks of plaque are tumbling through your bloodstream... sticking like glue to your arterial walls...
MULDER Hang up the phone.
PUSHER Squeezing shut your aorta... can you feel it, Frank?
MULDER Come on, man, hang up the phone.
PUSHER Can you feel your aorta...
MULDER Frank, hang up the phone!
FRANK Back off!
PUSHER ...closing shut? All those miles of aorta.
MULDER Frank, hang up the phone!
FRANK I said back off!
MULDER Hang up!
PUSHER The pressure...
FRANK Finish the trace.
PUSHER Ever hear of pachyemia, Frank?
SCULLY Mulder?
MULDER Somebody hang up the phone!
PUSHER Ever hear of a medical condition called pachyemia? It's when the blood thickens up in your veins like strawberry jam.
FRANK Finish the trace!
MULDER Frank, hang it up!
PUSHER Your heart flatlines...
MULDER Frank!
PUSHER And you die, Frank. Frank? Yo, Frank?

SCULLY No pulse. Get an ambulance.

MULDER Modell?
PUSHER Hey, Mulder. How's Frankie-boy?
MULDER What is it, Modell? Really, what you want?
PUSHER A worthy adversary. It's obviously not that fat lout lying at your feet and I'm hoping it's you.
MULDER Why me?
PUSHER I've read all about you. You're a top criminal profiler. Oxford University grad, all around bright, young man. You know what makes guys like me tick, right? You think you see right through old Bob Modell.
MULDER Sick old Bob Modell, right? You're dying, aren't you, Bob? What, do you want to take a few innocent people with you before you go?
PUSHER Biology tells us we're all dying... and original sin tells me ain't nobody innocent.
MULDER Yeah, and some are more innocent than others. Now why don't you just tell me where you are?
PUSHER Oh... you want the phone number? Sure. Just, uh... it's 555-0197. You know it's just a payphone. In two minutes, I'll be gone.
MULDER You mean you killed this man for nothing, you sick bastard?
PUSHER Me? No, haven't you caught on, Mulder? They all kill themselves.

SCULLY The outpatient office says Modell is scheduled for a two-thirty MRI That's right now.
SWAT LIEUTENANT How do you want to play this?
MULDER I think I should go in alone.
SCULLY Why?
SWAT LIEUTENANT My team could flush him out.
MULDER What if Modell turns one of your men against the others... in a crowded hospital? I think we should give him what he wants.
SCULLY You.

MULDER Think I get the Playboy channel?

SCULLY Mulder, what happened?
MULDER Looks like the guard shot the technician, then he shot himself. His gun is missing.

SWAT LIEUTENANT Why do we keep giving this guy exactly what he wants?
SCULLY Just wait for a signal from me.

PUSHER Thanks for joining us.
SCULLY We've got a dozen law enforcement officers outside in the hall... another thirty in the parking lot.
PUSHER Regular convention.
SCULLY So whatever you've got planned, it's not going to work out the way you it want to.
PUSHER You don't know what I got planned. Two warriors of equal skill fight to the death. One is a student of Japanese budo... the way of war. Budo teaches the warrior to leave himself outside the battle. In other words... to disregard his own death. Because of that, the budo warrior always wins. I am that warrior. I don't fear my death. So I... I'm going to give you... one pull of the trigger against me. One in six chance. One pull.
SCULLY Wait. Mulder, look... there's pure oxygen in this room. There's no telling what could happen if you pull that trigger...
He pulls the trigger, but the bullet isn't in the chamber.
PUSHER Piece of cake. Your turn.
SCULLY Mulder, no.
PUSHER Mulder, yes. Go.
SCULLY Mulder, listen to me. Give me the gun. We can stop this thing right now. You and I can walk outside of this room...
Mulder shoots at his own head, but it's an empty barrel again.
SCULLY No! Damn you! You bastard! Mulder, hand me the g...
Mulder cocks it and points it at her.
SCULLY Mulder, you don't have to do this. You're stronger than this.
PUSHER Your turn, Scully. Got to play by the rules. Pull the trigger, Mulder.
SCULLY Mulder, fight him. You can fight this.
PUSHER Come on. Pull the trigger, Mulder. She shot you, I read it in her files. Payback time... shoot the little spy!
MULDER I'm going to kill you, Modell.
PUSHER Yeah, pull the trigger, you get another crack at me.
MULDER Scully, run! Scully...
She runs to the fire alarm, it's ring gets Mulder out of Pusher's control and Pusher is a little more than surprised when Mulder shoots him. He keeps shooting even then the gun is empty, there was only that one bullet in the barrel.

SCULLY There's no telling how long he'll hang on, but he'll never regain consciousness.
MULDER You know, we thought he was undergoing treatment. We were wrong.
SCULLY What do you mean?
MULDER Read his chart. The MRI's were a way to gauge how much life he had left, but he consistently refused treatment. The tumor remained operable right up until the end, but he refused to have it removed.
SCULLY Why?
MULDER I think it was like you said. He was always such a... little man. This was finally something that made him feel big.
SCULLY I say we don't let him take up another minute of our time.

THE END