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PLOT: An unusual photograph is taken shortly before a woman is abducted and later found to be lobotomized.
If you have been keeping up with the fourth season episodes, "Unruhe," written by Vince Gilligan, shows a type of forboding for Dana Scully. At this point early in the season, it seemed as though it was another typical stand-alone episode meant to give us insights on a little known paranormal phenomenon referred to as "thoughtography," which is basically concentrating images from one's mind and transferring them on film. Sounds like an X-File to me. Yet this episode shows the determination of Scully in defending the helpless against the evil in the world. Unknowingly, she will be learning to use that determination for herself in the near future. But that's for other episode reviews. :-)
The teaser seemed typically mundane. A couple pulls up in front of a drug store. At first, it looks as though they are planning to rob the store. The guy acts nervous, and the woman is trying to make herself look less suspicious. So their motives are not exactly benign by any means. However, she does not do anything out of the ordinary and poses for a passport photo but forgets her money and has to go back to the car.
While she tries to find the car in the parking lot, someone comes up behind her and pricks her in the shoulder. That immediately brings up your attention but finding her boyfriend with blood coming out of his ear has all the sirens blazing. The woman realizes that she's been drugged and collapses. The last thing she sees is a car stopping right next to her. Meanwhile, back in the drug store, the old man who took her picture decides to have a look at the finished product. Instead of a normal passport photo, he sees her screaming with skulls and shadows present all around her.
Mulder and Scully are brought into the case because of the photograph. Scully surmises that it must be some type of problem with the film being outdated or stored near a portable heating unit. Mulder thinks otherwise. They go to the couple's house and find out that the postal service has been investigating them for mail fraud. She wanted a passport photo so that they could leave the country. Mulder finds their Polaroid instamatic, takes Scully's picture and again sees the young woman's screaming face in the developed photo.
The woman is found by the police in a total daze near a busy road. While getting a brain scan, she repeats a word over and over: "unruhe". Mulder later finds out from Scully's background in German that it means "unrest." From this scenario, we realize just how much Scully is getting very emotionally involved with their latest case. The abduction of women is obviously a sore point with her, but to find out that the perpetrator is doing a trans-orbital lobotomy or "ice-pick" lobotomy on the women is against all her medical training and ethics.
Mulder realizes that the photos are their only evidence to crack this case and heads back to Washington to have it analyzed. Meanwhile, Scully continues the field work with the local police. She speculates that a construction company, which was at two different sites of the abductions, might be where the perpetrator is working. Mulder figures out that the photo is what was in the person's mind at the time of the abductions and tells Scully this over the phone while she is talking to the construction foreman, Gerald Schnauz. Mulder says that the man seems out of proportion, like his legs are too long. She turns around to realize that Schnauz is standing on a pair of stilts and looking very nervous. He tries to run away, but Scully gets him. She finds a long sharp metal awl in his pocket, which could be the weapon used against the women.
During their interrogation of Schnauz, Scully takes the lead and accuses Schnauz of the kidnappings. Mulder uses his tragic family history, beating up on his father and having a sister commit suicide, to break Schnauz down. Then he uses his ace in the hole: the photograph. It's obvious Schnauz has never seen it before. His father's image is in the photo, and the skulls, or "the howlers" as he calls it, is what he sees troubling the women. He admits to the kidnappings and tells them where his latest victim is located. Unfortunately, they find her dead.
Schnauz later escapes and takes Scully. Throughout this episode, Mulder is just deeply focused on the case at hand. He doesn't seem the least bit concerned that Scully is uncharacteristically much more emotional than usual. They go back to the drug store where Schnauz assaulted the old man and stole the camera and film. Mulder sees a photo booth and has some pictures taken while Scully tells him that they should check out the other abduction setting. The photos get developed, and Mulder's face turned ashen white. Scully is the next victim.
We see Schnauz deeply disturbed as his wavering eyes become more out of control. They describe the emotions and rage that he feels for not being able to save his sister all that time ago. The women are his way of trying to amend that. Scully is troubled, and Schnauz sees that. He sees more than we thought, because she will later find out that the very spot on her face that he told her stored "the howlers" is also the same spot in which Scully will find the disease that is killing her.
Of course, Mulder is desperately trying to figure out where Schnauz took Scully. He is famous within the F.B.I. for profiling serial killers. His focus on Scully's face in the photo is just incredible. The angst pouring out of him made up for his rather callous behavior towards his partner throughout most of the episode. Finding Schnauz's dad's obituary in a wallet, he quickly speculates that Schnauz is near his father's grave. Mulder does find Scully in time to save her and all is well. But we find out in Scully's report that all is not well. She saw a monster and had to overcome her own fears to stop it.
Again, this episode forbodes the plight of Scully's cancer to an unsuspecting audience. She suspects that not everything Schnauz told her is completely untrue. Her sense of urgency to save herself from a killer is representative of her latest battle within herself. She felt empathy towards the victims just as she did with Penny Northern and the MUFON women. The frustrating fact for fans that she didn't open up to Mulder at the end when he saved her is something that she remedies when she later finds out her affliction. Mulder is the first person she tells. It's all in here, and not until the latest cancer arc was it known to any of us.
Gilligan did a great job in giving us a workable X-File and a character study of our favorite heroine. Anderson portrayed Scully with a quiet strength of conviction and grace under pressure. Duchovny realistically conveys Mulder's obsessiveness that almost made him lose Scully again. The music, the action, the settings. Everything just made this episode very watchable and enjoyable.
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