Grotesque
- Episode aired Feb 2, 1996
- TV-14
- 45m
After a serial killer, who claims to have killed people under the influence of a demon, is arrested, the murders continue. Meanwhile Mulder, who believes that the demon might have picked som... Read allAfter a serial killer, who claims to have killed people under the influence of a demon, is arrested, the murders continue. Meanwhile Mulder, who believes that the demon might have picked someone new, goes neck-deep in the investigation.After a serial killer, who claims to have killed people under the influence of a demon, is arrested, the murders continue. Meanwhile Mulder, who believes that the demon might have picked someone new, goes neck-deep in the investigation.
- Paramedic
- (uncredited)
- Brandon Aguirre
- (uncredited)
- Glass Blower
- (uncredited)
- Doctor
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIt won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series.
- GoofsToward the end of the episode Scully is in her apartment and hears a voice message left by Agent Nemhauser on her answering machine. She calls Nemhauser's cell # and Mulder, in Mostow's studio, answers it, having found the ringing phone where Nemhauser (now dead) left it. After a brief conversation Scully tells Mulder to stay there and that she will be there in a few minutes. She does indeed show up just several minutes later, in time to see Mulder pointing his gun at Agent Patterson. However the series had already established that Scully's home address is in Annapolis, Md., a good 30+ miles away from Washington DC where Mostow's studio is located. It would therefore be impossible for Scully to have arrived on the scene that quickly coming from her apartment.
- Quotes
[last lines]
Mulder: 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, this fight is not a choice but a calling. Yet sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter, breaching the frazzled fortress of our mind, allowing the monsters without to turn within. We are left alone staring into the abyss; into the laughing face of madness.
"If you want to know an artist, you have to look at his art...
If you want to catch a monster, you have to become one yourself"
This episode succeeds, rather than fails, to portray what Mulder does best: Profiling. But the person he is profiling here is not a human being, or at least not one individual. In that sense what we have here was originally explored in the feature film "The Hidden" and by that token, this story is very similar to the one in that film.
Mulder begins to understand how this - Entity? Thinks - And by doing so, is able to locate it, and capture it. But in doing so he alienates Skully, Skinner, and everyone around him. This is a Mulder that is in no way pleasant or humorous to see, and even after watching the episode four times, there were places where I just hit the ceiling - Chris Carter knows how to show true Horror- And that Horror can be Mundane, Or Fantastic. In this episode, there are places of both.
This shows David Duchovney as Mulder, BEING Mulder, doing exactly what Mulder does. If any episode of this show defined the character of Mulder, this one is it.
This Episode is exactly what the X-Files is about, the true roots of the series. Although most fans of the show think that Mulder's quest is to find his Alien-Abducted Sister Samantha, they are missing the point of The X- Files.
There IS a lot going on in the Ep, but it is the focusing on Mulder going deeper and deeper into that dark place, that grounds the viewer.
This is also why I say, that this Episode is a lot like the 2nd X-Files feature "I want to Believe"- And most of the fans who call themselves fans of the show, who hated that film, are not true fans, because from the top they DON'T get it.
They ask "Where are the Aliens" - And the answer is, The X-Files was NEVER About Aliens, it was about Mulder - Even the seasons where John Dogget was looking for him.
Fox Mulder was Affected by an incident when he was a child, which he was shown under hypnosis that his sister Samantha was taken away into a Bright Light. This is not the point of the show - The Point of the show always was, how this affected him, even when he did not KNOW it was affecting him.
And this was why he was so good at Profiling, because he was driven by a Dark Design even before he knew about it.
This episode, which is right in the middle of the series, or rather, at the end of the first third of the series, I'm sure was put in by Carter to show us, THIS is what Mulder is all about, and THIS is how he works.
- XweAponX
- Feb 13, 2012
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