The X-Files

All right, you bastard.

Evil...

...rotten...

...son of a...

There you go.

Your killing days are over!

No!

No!

No!

All right, sir. Put your hands in the air.

Keep 'em where I can see 'em.

We got a call. You wanna tell us what you're doin' out here?

Sir?

Aagh!

Turn over!

Damn amp-head!

Oh, Lord. Jimmy, check this out.

Sarah?

Sarah!

Our blind date's not off to a great start. I've been waiting here nearly two hours.

- I had to check you weren't followed. - It's just you, me and the drug dealers.

This area's always been known for its criminal element.

Especially when Congress is in session.

- What's this? - Something you'll wanna follow.

- Follow where? - That's all I have for you.

What do you mean, that's all you have?

I get an anonymous e-mail to meet you here.

I don't know who you are or what you want.

I don't have any obligation or desire to give you answers.

- I'm not one of your sources. - Then you're just a messenger boy?

It's late, Agent Mulder. Go home. Get some sleep.

Who told you to contact me?

How do I know I'm not being played?

I guess you don't.

Well, you can go ahead and recycle that, then.

I've been asked to tell you: you walk away from this, more people will die.

Sorry I wasn't here sooner, but the Beltway was a parking lot.

- What's going on? - Multiple homicide. That's Joseph Patnik.

He murdered five people, all of whom he insists was the same man.

- What do you mean? - He claims he kept killing the same man.

- Does he have a history of mental illness? - Not that I know, but I just got this case.

- What's the X-File? - In his neighbourhood, two weeks ago...

...a baby-sitter attacked the two children she was minding.

She told police she thought they were wolves.

- And police found no other motive? - None so far, no.

Agent Mulder? I'm Dr Stroman.

- This is my partner, Special Agent Scully. - You're the physician in charge?

They called me down from DC to develop a diagnosis for the court.

- Have you? - I wish I could say yes.

- Has he been sedated? - Heavy Thorazine...

...but it only knocked him back a little.

He seems pretty manageable to me.

It may be a form of organic delusional syndrome...

...possibly due to methamphetamine abuse. But he is prone to outbursts.

- Who called you down on this case? - Dr Kahn, from Social Health Services.

- Could we speak to him? - I don't think he's in today, but I can check.

- (screaming) - Orderly!

- (orderly) Yes, Dr Stroman. - (Patnik) Stay away from me!

.. personally ordered the rape and murder

of thousands of innocent civilians...

...in war-torn regions of the former Yugoslavia.

You got this case last night. Where from?

- An outside source. - Who?

This outside source, what's his interest in this case?

What does he want us to uncover?

- I don't know. - You're not suspicious we're being used?

We've got bodies and confessed murderers.

If we're being used, it's to find the connection.

That's what I'm interested in.

- (woman screams) - (gunshot)

Isn't this a school day?

- We didn't cut. - We got a pass.

You got a pass to come in here and eat these people's food and watch their TV?

- No. - Are we in trouble now?

- How'd you get in here? - The window. They leave it open for the cat.

Maybe you should head back to school.

No, no. Use the front door.

Mulder!

Look at this. There must be hundreds of videos here.

Anything good?

All I see are recordings of cable news shows.

They're all dated and in chronological order.

That's what Patnik was watching at the hospital when he went all wiggy.

What if there's some connection?

Between what he recorded and what he did?

You're the one who's interested.

I just watched 36 hours of Bernard Shaw and Bobby Batista.

I'm about ready to kill somebody, too.

I'm gonna show you something.

These tapes are dated April 19th, April 21st and April 23rd.

Each corresponds to a night that Patnik committed a murder.

- What's on the tapes? - Among other things...

...a one-hour special report on the atrocities in Bosnia.

A report that prominently features Lladoslav Miriskovic.

The same guy that started Patnik screaming in the psych ward?

My guess is that once I review the tapes for the night that Patnik killed his wife...

...I'll find that report there as well.

You think that because he saw a war criminal on TV

he was inspired to murder people?

Studies have linked violence on television to violent behaviour.

Those studies assume that Americans are just empty vessels...

...ready to be filled with any idea fed to them,

like Pavlov dogs, and go out and act on it.

They believe that the causal connections are there.

The studies have also linked cow flatulence and the depletion of the ozone layer.

You're talking pseudo-science used to make political book.

All I'm saying is that it's clear that the programmes that Patnik watched...

...somehow triggered his violent behaviour.

- How? - The doctor suggested amphetamine abuse.

Maybe that, coupled with the disturbing television images,

pushed him over the edge.

Television does not make a previously sane man go out and kill five people...

...thinking they're the same guy. Not even must-see TV could do that.

- OK. Then how do you explain it? - I can't. Not yet.

- Where are you going? - I'm gonna get some sleep.

Looks like you could use some, too.

No. I'm gonna watch the rest of these tapes.

- Just out of curiosity. - You have fun.

Yeah, OK.

All right. I've just been watching the tapes, yeah.

All right, OK.

No, she doesn't.

We'll find out on The Prize is Nice!

And here's your host, Mark Randolph!

- (knock at door) - (Mulder) Scully?

- Yeah. - I just got a call.

There's been another murder.

Yeah, I'll be right there.

It was less than an hour ago. It matches our pattern. A housewife gone berserk.

The car's been moved. Did you go out last night?

No.

I went out and I got a paper this morning. Why?

Nothing. Nothing. Let's go see the crime scene.

- That's all the information I have. - (Mulder) OK. Thanks, Detective.

I talked to the detective in charge. The shooter's name is Helene Riddock, age 42.

- They took her to county lockup. - What happened?

She claims she looked out the window and saw her husband in the hammock...

...with a blonde.

- That blonde? - He was only taking a nap with his dog.

Mrs Riddock swears she looked out...

...and saw her husband in the hammock with a blonde woman.

She killed him because she thought he was cheating on her?

This isn't her husband. Her husband's a long-haul trucker. He's out of town.

This is, uh... Mr John Gilnitz. It's her next-door neighbour.

She didn't even have the right back yard. Helene Riddock lives over here.

- Scully? - Yeah, let's check it out.

One of my favourites. He is so cute...

The Little Traveler is normally 129.99...

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. What do you think, Scully?

I think television plays a large part in both of these murderers' lives.

As it does in almost every American home, but television does not equal violence.

Unless you consider bad taste an act of violence.

More tapes.

Hang on a second.

I'll be right back.

Hey!

Hey! Hey!

Hey!

- Mulder, what are you doing? - I'm coming down.

- What is it? - Some kind of cable-trapper scrambler.

Maybe it's a job for Special Agent Pendrall.

- Yeah. - Want it analysed?

Yeah, I'll do it.

It makes more sense for you to interview Helene Riddock. Get her version of it.

Maybe she knows what this thing is.

- Is there a problem with that? - No, that's... that's fine.

Stay in touch.

It looks like a video trap for blocking premium cable channels.

- What does it block? - It doesn't seem to block anything.

- What does it do? - Glad you asked.

I bet all you guys were officers in the audiovisual club in high school, huh?

This is the straight feed off our bars-and-tone generator.

And here they are as attenuated through the device.

- Looks the same. - That's what you'd think.

We couldn't discern any difference,

not until we compared them on the oscilloscope.

- It still looks the same. - Hold onto your hat, dude.

- We have touchdown. - So they're different.

- So? They're different. - You know the way television works.

Yeah. You click it on, you have a picture.

It's a rapid series of still pictures fired against the tube.

There's something nonstandard here.

Information is being added into the spaces between the still pictures.

- What kind of information? - We don't know.

This is all we do with this equipment.

Can't you take it apart?

Not without destroying it. That's by design.

An amazingly sophisticated design. All we can say for sure is...

This device is emitting a signal.

- Mulder. - Where are you?

I was about to call you. I'm on my way back. You may have been right. At least partly.

I think a foreign signal is being introduced into these homes through the television set.

- Scully, are you there? - I'm here.

I think they may be running some kind of test.

- Scully, did you hear what I just said? - So you had it analysed?

Yeah.

I just talked to Agent Pendrall. He said that you never showed up.

- I didn't take it over to Pendrall. - Then where were you?

I'd rather talk about it when we get on a land line.

We've dealt with these kind of people before. We know what they can do.